Episodes
EP12 → Ethan Lipsitz on Embracing Mortality, Artistic Exploration, and Parenthood
TRANSCRIPT
This is So, Life Wants You Dead, a show that explores the intersection of illness, disability, healing, and creativity. I had an emergency organ transplant in 2015, and despite the drama of the situation, it turned out that near death was fertile ground for my creative life. Now, all these years later, I can say that was what saved me. That and a brand new liver. I'm Nora Logan, and this is a podcast on how looking at death Today my guest is Ethan Lipsitz. Ethan is a social practice artist exploring how we define and actualize love. By examining his own experiences with mortality, dis ease, conflict, identity, and interconnection, Ethan seeks to understand and demonstrate love in practice. His mediums include large scale paintings on buildings, textiles, and cars. collective musical experiences, salon style conversations, and immersive environmental design. He is a husband and father and has been living with brain cancer since 2017. On today's episode, we talk about his experience being diagnosed with brain cancer and how it shifted his perspective on life and identity, the importance of curiosity and acceptance in navigating his diagnosis, and the evolving nature of his artistic practice. Here's the conversation.
Welcome to So Life Wants You Dead. Ethan, thank you for being here today. Thanks for having me. How are you doing? I'm doing, when people say, how are you? I like to say, I am, it's a very Buddhist response, but just happy to be here. And yeah, I guess it's the end of the week, you know, so trying to exhale on that. I feel you on that. So I want to get straight into it. You were diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 33, and you've written about your experience. In June of 2017, I experienced a grand mal seizure in my sleep, went to urgent care and found a tumor in my brain, the size of an egg. Obviously for you, this wasn't part of the plan and the way that you write about it has kind of felt to me like it brought your life to a screeching halt for some time. What was it like for you to move with your diagnosis? There's a lot of ways to answer that question. Yeah, I think. It was curious. And in some ways I got into this moment of just, I think curiosity ultimately was the dominant feeling of what's going on here. What is this teaching me? What are these new terms and experiences mean? I had had very little experiences in hospitals for the most part, and it was just kind of a new way of looking at the world and also realizing, like, I had been really burned out professionally and personally, and it was kind of like, oh, wow, okay. Like, this is the answer that I was looking for, even though I didn't expect it. To come in this way, I couldn't have, it's like, I was kind of trying to figure out how I was going to extract myself from a business that I had started and was running, and it was like, okay, this is kind of some divine intervention and a lot of acceptance, a lot of curiosity, and I tried not to have too much fear around it, even though, pretty much from the beginning, they were thrown around the C word, so dealing with cancer was not like an awesome thing. And also I, I called it the C word or avoided talking about it for a long time. So it took me a little while to get comfortable with that too. How soon after they discovered the brain tumor that they diagnosed you with cancer? Well, it was funny was I went to urgent care in Pasadena, which is a suburb outside LA and the main hospital is in more central LA. So they put me in an ambulance and I get in the ambulance just knowing I have a tumor and the ambulance guy, like not the driver, but the person who's sitting next to me is like, so you got cancer, huh? And I'm like, I do? Oh, I didn't know that. So it seemed that wasn't an official diagnosis, but it was kind of a poor form. But You know, sometimes the way these news comes out, the doctor who I saw at urgent care was more funny about it. Just like, Oh, you have a tumor. So cool. Like, they're just going to cut open your brain. You'll probably be awake when they do it. And they'll scoop it out like a little piece of flan. And that also was like, So interesting and to be honest, I kind of liked that approach that some people would say that's totally inappropriate, but for me, I kind of was like, Oh, curious. Yes. And it allowed me to continue to be curious and kind of be a little humorous around it and not take it too heavily. But the cancer thing was a little scary when that came up in the ambulance. And then two weeks later I was in surgery and two weeks after that, the doctors officially said I had an enoplastic astrocytoma, which is the type of brain cancer. What a mouthful. There's more to it. And a grade three IDH mutant. I mean, there's so many different pieces to the, to the, to the diagnosis. Yeah. I read that, that experience that you had in the ambulance. In one of one of the articles that you've written, and I identified so much because I had at one point I didn't have they didn't diagnose me in that way. I actually was never diagnosed with anything apart from liver failure, but at one point an ultrasound technician was about to do an ultrasound on me and said, Oh, Oh, gallbladder not present. And because my situation was such an emergency, they didn't tell me that when you get a liver transplant, they also take out your gallbladder. And it just was like, everything happened so quickly. And he was so sweet. I was like, what? My gallbladder is not present. What do you mean? And he got so nervous and left the room. He's like, Oh, I just have to, I have to check. Like he was sweating and he came back and he was like, Yeah, you're, you don't have a gallbladder. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's good to know. really good information to have for me moving forward. And then when I asked the doctors, they were like, Oh no, you just don't remember. I was like, no, I think, I think I would remember if, if my gallbladder was being taken out. Yeah. But it's just, it's like, I think sometimes we have this idea before becoming patients or being medicalized in some way that things happen in some sort of linear way. But actually, there's so much kind of chaos that happens and also a lot of humor. It's all human, right? So it's easy for us. I mean, our experience is the patient to feel all the human things, but What's interesting is that the doctors and all the staff and the technicians and the nurses and everyone, the ambulance drivers, everyone's being human. And so some deal with these things with humor. Some get nervous, some are totally inappropriate, some are super warm and wonderful. And we also all have different expectations or desires for how we want to be treated and cared for. So it's kind of always going to be a crapshoot and in my view and I think there's a part of me that likes it that way, but there's another part of me where sometimes as the patient, we have to carry a little more, maybe than we should. I remember the doctor that was giving me the official diagnosis after surgery seemed like they were on the verge of tears and that felt like not, not, not helpful. I recognize it's not easy to deliver this news, but it just was like, Hmm. I wish there was a little more composure there, but also who knows what was going on, you know, and I, maybe I was reading into it and they just were sniffly or had allergies, right? You never know, but sometimes it felt like I was comforting the doctors or making them more comfortable, but that was also on my own for my own needs. Right. Yeah, and then you're kind of left holding someone else's emotions and it doesn't necessarily make space for the potential enormity of what you're feeling. Yeah, I think that's also just my nature though. I have historically prioritized the holding of others emotions before my own. So that's, that's another step. You and me both. You and me both. That's, that's another podcast. Right, exactly. So you've written, sharing my diagnosis with my extended community was crucial to getting the best care and the best support. Especially through the initial phases of treatment, and I felt the same way, like I said, my situation was an emergency. So I sort of had no choice but to let everyone know. And everyone just knew because it was suddenly like one day to the next. I was in the hospital, and I know that that's just not the case for a lot of people. They really want to keep their medical records and I know people who have had cancer and they've kept it completely private. Can you speak to why you felt it was important to be public about your diagnosis? Gosh, for me, I didn't see, I didn't have the like brain to, make it logical to do anything otherwise. Partially, I wasn't necessarily seeking help, to be honest. I wasn't looking for people to bring resources. But in some cases, a lot of people did come with resources. And sometimes there were immediate needs that were fulfilled. And, and I had some incredible care come through because of relationships I had in my family and friends. And so, Part of it was, was that, but I think that wasn't the reasoning. I mean, I think ultimately it was just, I was already kind of publicly sharing my life. I was releasing a song every Monday called Monday musics to my newsletter of friends and family and people who were interested in my work and really trying to build up conversations about love and compassion and connection. I built this movement called the love extremist project that was really focused on what does love look like in practice. And so through all of that, I was already kind of public in my life. And so it would have been strange to just go dark. I think I was committed to releasing a song every week. And so I released a song on that Monday after I figured out what was going on, and maybe I took a week off or two, but then I did, and the song was kind of sharing what was happening, and I wrote about it, and yeah, it just felt natural. It was part of my flow as a person to do that at that time. What was it like to write music and write in general through that time? It's been really interesting. I've kind of making art of all types related to disease process and optimism and faith and and love has been empowering at times and also sometimes it's been in service to others more so than to myself. So I've tried to recognize when it's lighting me up and when it's kind of more so like a projection or a opportunity to soothe. Other folks concerns or something like that. But I find that art for me is a really important medicine and our practice. And so whether it's writing music or I'm working on a musical with a friend, that's very much related to this experience and others. And then I started painting cars and textiles shortly after my diagnosis. And so that was like a very important process for me to come back to my own self expression, my own joy and energy and my spirit coming through in painting. And so that was, that was my own medicine and that was really important. But the music stuff actually stopped. I went and saw a healer who was like, yeah, you should probably stop doing that because you're not really doing it for yourself anymore. I just committed to doing it every week. And I was on that every week I'm going to release a video of a new song that people can sing along to. And I was kind of trying to force this musician identity into the world. And I am a musician. It's fine. I don't need to necessarily be publicly known as such. And I practice in other ways now. So I took a pause on that. That's interesting that through your illness, you changed your artistic identity in a way you said, actually, in September 2022, you said, I'm now stepping into a period where I'm working to let go a little bit of this identity of brain cancer boy and step deeper into the identity of father artist and person who is kind of working more generally around mortality and still finding gratitude. Where are you at now with your shifting in identity? I think it's a really interesting and appropriate question to bring up right now. I'm still grappling with it and feeling entrenched in artist as a practice that empowers and heals for myself, for the most part, and then thinking about kind of other labels, identities that serve in terms of professional development, but I'd say in terms of my diagnosis and my disease process, I'm reticent to be public about it as much as I used to be, I rarely do conversations like this anymore, only once in a while, and I want to be helpful and supportive to people and a lot of folks reach out to me directly who know that I've been through this and have a friend or someone else they know that's been going through it as well, but over the last two years, I've really wanted to stay focused on kind of more internal love amongst my family and, and it's drawn me a little bit out of the kind of public facing brain cancer boy is what I called him. And I love that. Yeah, I think like, also, I feel a little icky making This thing that I didn't choose until like an identity or an identifier, right? Like, it, it, it happened. I've learned so much through it. I continue to metabolize the, the lessons and, and I'm continuing to evolve and grow. And I just don't necessarily want my byline to be like, Ethan Lips, it's brain cancer survivor. You know? It's like, that feels Mm-hmm. Not like an accolade, even though some would say it is, it's for me. It's like, that's just a part of the story. And it's a deepening of my mortality, uh, experience and, and, and the delicacy of life and the wisdom maybe that I've gotten to glean from it, but. At this point, I don't know. I didn't want to use it as something that was like driving value. I would also say, like, I'm noticing more culturally that attaching ourselves to our traumas is a kind of cultural currency in certain circles, and that's something that I've wanted to distance myself from. It just doesn't, it doesn't feel an integrity for me. Yeah, it's, it's such an interesting conversation to have, because I really resonate with your shifting. And for me, at the beginning, it felt like it was always very kind of, I'm searching for the right word. It like split for me in a way, because I also at times called myself liver transplant girl or like transplant girl and really didn't want it to be my whole identity. And then in some ways was sort of, it was thrust upon me and then. Wanting it to be one part of me and maybe even like the least interesting part about me Even though it provided me with so much wisdom and again, like you being really in touch with my own mortality and having experience of being very close to death multiple times and it I'm still in this process. I'm really not. I haven't figured it out. And obviously I have a podcast called So Life Wants You Dead, where I speak to people who have lived with illness, and I'm more interested about the illness The intersection of, of creativity and illness than anything, but I'm trying to figure out like, how, how do we take the jewels and the nectar from, That experience, and then bring it into our lives in a way, like you say, feels in integrity. And it's changing. The more space we get away from the initial trauma or event, right, the more it evolves, and now I'm married, I have a child, right, like the priorities of my purview are very different, my daily experience, and so it's shifting how I relate to these things, and yeah, I don't know if we need to be such fixed. agents in any regard. I think there's this idea that like once you're a thing, you're a thing, but I don't, I refuse to accept that, you know? And so as we evolve and our relationships to our diagnoses evolve and our art practices evolve, the reflections change and the mirrors change. And also, I see the cultural kind of stickiness of trauma, right? And kind of marrying ourselves to that. And also, I've noticed, and I'm curious if this was true for you too, that my writing practice was such a balm and a way for me to process and process what happened to me and my trauma, and it was so helpful in that way, and now I feel so much. I feel like I don't need to do that anymore. Was that something that you also grappled with? I went through a period where I was painting and making artworks quite a bit that were very focused on having a hole in my head and spewing fluids from every orifice and being very vulgar. And like naked throwing up next to the toilet kind of stuff and I had never really done literal like work like that and it's not work that I've really shared very much. It's kind of tucked away, but it was very much for me and that process was a bit of a exorcism or really a releasing of a lot of like the darkness. I think getting back to that place is very difficult for me. To go back into that dark space, not to say I can't get there, but to get back to that place. And then to create from there is not readily available unless I really do some heavy work and have some time to get there. And so in that regard, yeah, I think it has. Kind of like allowed itself to go. And now there's new, there's new pieces coming up, being a father and recognizing the delicacy of life in that and being in a committed marriage, right? There's, there's a lot to that and the reflections, the mirrors, right? That are coming up. The ideas and concepts that I'm showing up around this are just changing the way that I think about creativity and practice. And so I would say my art practice was very much at one point, yes, about releasing that energy first, like pure joy, just like pink cars get colorful, let it all out, be love. Then it was like, go to the darkness, allow that to express itself. Don't have to share it. It's just for you. And now I'm actually kind of like, A little bit foraging in the darkness, trying to scramble to figure out what the next thing is. I have like a, just an improvisational practice with music and with visual art, that's fun and meditative. And maybe the thing that I just need to do, but I am kind of asking myself, like, what is the next depth that I can plumb from to make work? Because it feels like the experience of this brain cancer stuff doesn't feel as rich right now, or the angles that I've taken don't feel as rich as they once did. Did you feel like art had to come from it? Was there a moment where you were like fixed, like, art needs to come from this? I don't know if I had that kind of like clarity, it was more so just like I need to get a car and paint it and drive it to Cabo and this is the car. It wasn't even that. It was more like I want to do this and then I was like, Oh wait, if I want to do something and I can do it, it's within reason and I have the time and the resources, like why am I not doing that? And then it became very clear, like, Oh, that's part of healing is like recognizing like what your intuition is asking you to do, especially if it's a little scary and like doing that. Figuring out the next thing, right? So, it's been a series, you know, I've painted nine cars, I've done a lot of other big, large scale projects, but also, getting married is a huge project, and, a big leap, and scary, having a child, getting a new house, all of these things are, leaps, and some are more long term, and some are more kind of spurts, and actions, but I'd say, no, it wasn't. It wasn't thought out. It was more so like, okay, like where is in any given moment, where is the challenge, where is the opportunity to like grow and to, to be a little nervous and scared and also just to like, be really expressive. And outside your comfort zone a bit, actually, I'm really curious and we'll put them, we'll put a link to them, the cars that you paint. In the show notes so people can see them, but I'm curious about the process of that, how do you find the cars and then what's the process of, of from finding the car to painting to the car to then wherever it then goes, in one case, you drove it to Cabo, what's the life cycle of the car, I guess. Yeah. So initially the first project was this Honda Del Sol. I was obsessed with the car. I wanted to get one ever since. An old friend had one and I saw that you could raise the roof on it and it's like a targetop and it comes off and put it in the trunk. And they're tiny little go karts cars, and they were only made for a little short period of time. They were pretty cheap. And so, at first I was like, telling a friend, Hey, let's both, let's both buy one and drive, you know, rally style down to Cabo. And then, it's like, oh, it's a little more expensive than that. So, we, I got one. And yeah, there's just always been this dream to put color, big, bold color on things and things that are not traditional things to be painted like people paint cars. There's been plenty of art cars. But for me, it was like that was also a risk, right? Like taking something that's supposed to be precious or valuable and putting ink on it and marking it and trusting that it would look interesting enough to be in and to drive and to feel comfortable with. And it ended up being more than that. It ended up being really empowering and exciting and bringing so much joy to myself and to others who saw it. So that was that first one. Then I realized I could do this through other trips. So I got, the next one was that car I ended up actually holding onto for a little while, and then friends would borrow it. Eventually I sold it to a friend. But I got another one, a station wagon, when I moved, I went to Boston where my family is, and I was planning to drive back to LA from Boston and do a full cross country road trip. And so I went to Boston, procured a car there, painted it at my family's house, my mom helped me, then set on the road, and part of that trip involved meeting up with my now wife, who was coming on our basically second first date for a weekend across the Upstate New York, and did a number of other little adventures on that trip, um, dropping into different places and bringing some collective music work I was doing, and taking photos and just experiencing the country, which I'd never done till then. And so that was a really powerful, again, this idea of like painting a vehicle, transforming it into something that was like spreading joy and love and healing, and then driving it all over in places unknown for me and discovery of that process. And then the others that I've done have been donated, or people have hired me to paint their cars, or I had an old Porsche that I loved and had been holding on to for years. So I've like always been a car person. And at times I've had embarrassingly like four cars and as a single guy with four cars, it's kind of ridiculous. Fortunately, they usually go places or get into accidents and disappear. But, I've had some amazing ones over the years and I've been able to usually sell them if they don't get hit. And now I just have a little station wagon that is painted. And that's that same one that Michelle and I met, you know, in my, so I was driving cross country. Did you find that, or, and I mean, you still drive it now. Do you find that it's a conversation piece? Does it create conversations between you and the outside world in a different way? Yeah, it's funny. It comes in spurts to this morning. A guy was like, Hey, cool Volvo. And he took a picture and was like, I love it. So yeah, it does happen. Or people reach out or say something or talk about my car. I park it usually outside my studio where I am right now. And so people recognize they come in the studio, like, Oh, that's your car, right? I think the Porsche was a little more of a conversation starter. And so was the Del Sol, the Honda, but. You know, I, I had a Mercedes for a little while. That was super fun. And now it's being driven by a young collector. And so, yeah, I think it's these, these things are kind of ways of bridging the gap. And I've talked a bit about this between like the isolation of being in a car in LA and being able to have some sort of connection with people on the street or kids who are pointing and looking at it or just fellow drivers, things like that. Yeah. I love that. You've mentioned love extremists. This project that you started and on your website, it's described as a cultural confrontation that supports new definitions of love and practice that embrace collective art, mutual aid, abolition, healthy conflict, death, dis ease, rebirth, healing, and planetary stewardship. Just some little things. Just a few things. Just, just a couple. Um, I'm curious about how you define love. Whether the way you practice love has changed through your experience with cancer, and also what love extremism means to you. All right, we're gonna have to break it down. Yeah, so the definition of love, historically, I've looked at it through three lenses. There's kind of the self, the interrelational love, and then the universal love, collective. And, As far as definitions go, it's run the gamut. I think there's a lot of like singular words I can apply that I think are like attributes of being in loving relationship with yourself, with others, and with the planet. Truth and honesty, like integrity, being real about what is. Curious curiosity, I think is a core component of that as well. This kind of like having the energy to be curious, which I think flows nicely into the potential for what could be or hope, but it's less so hope and more intention, I think, and potential where this idea of curiosity leads us to inquiry and interest and introspection or extrospection. And to me, that's really important in love. Honesty, as I said, truth, curiosity, understanding comes through curiosity. I think understanding is something that's way deeper than just knowing what the words are saying, but actually being, having understanding with another being or with the planet brings us back around to truth, to honesty, to like, what is our actual, what's below the surface that we're trying to be or say. And there's so many other pieces to it. It's, it's interesting because I haven't been asked this question a long time and I used to have so many quick answers, but I think love, love is ultimately our driving force and our motivator for pretty much everything we do. And even when it's the most destructive, hateful act, largely that is in response to our relationship to love and maybe our lack of, or our lack of experience with, or our desire for love, but there's still that craving that force that drives us and our behaviors. And so. Love what was the there was a middle question what that whether the way that you love has changed through your experience of having cancer. Yeah yeah I mean I think there was this idea that I was all about radiating love and I came from this loving environment and I needed to spread love as much as possible because I have all this privilege being in this body As I got sick, I realized I had to learn how to love myself and how to go inwards a little bit and do things like making art and taking care of myself and prioritizing my health. And more recently, as I've had a family, it's actually, I've noticed I've been kind of working on how I engage with love in my family and continue to practice within myself. And also out in the collective. And I think for me, my priorities often lead as I kind of alluded to earlier towards others and the collective and I forget about myself. And so I'm working right now in earnest to continue to prioritize art making and health practices that feel like self love for me because I've strayed a little bit from them over the last few months and so that's really changed and it's just I'm reminding myself to do that and the ways that I do that may be different than the ways I did it when I was first diagnosed I don't necessarily have the same schedule or time or there's different parameters extremism and to be a love extremist has really changed. I'm not really using that framing as much as I used to. I think there was a time when I felt like we needed to be on the other end of the seesaw from extremist hate because that was such a buzzword. And so it still is, you know, this idea of violent and hateful extremism. And I thought, well, we need to, we need extremist love. It was born out of meeting a former neo nazi, and they were talking about kind of what the government was doing to support folks who were coming out of extremist hate groups. And I was thinking, well, how is the government and other entities supporting extremist love? Like, what are we doing to give people an alternative? And I think a lot of that work is done through other networks of support, like abolition, like mental health, like kind of masculinity, healthy masculinity work where a lot of violence is, is bred. I've met so many people who are at the forefront of this work without it necessarily using the word love. And I think sometimes love can feel a little bit too fuzzy, a little bit too soft, or a little bit too romantic and interrelational to actually get across the depth and capacity and like intensity that it actually holds. And so I've started to distance myself a bit from extremist as well, also just because it doesn't feel like a seesaw anymore. It feels like if you're in the extremist camp, you're a little bit unbending. And I don't like identifying with that. I like much more of a fluid orientation of what love can be for others, and also for myself. And so the extremist component is starting to feel less relevant, and I'm trying to come up with the right language to, to rephrase what love means in practice for me right now, and I'm noticing a lot of it is still in relation to art and art making and co creativity and empowering others to find their creativity or feel inspired. That's kind of love and practice for me. But yeah, extremism is fading from purview or from view as I realize extremists on any side of a spectrum feel very similar, regardless of whether they're saying they're loving or not. Yeah, and the language that you mentioned of love, sometimes I feel like if you talk about love, I talk about love a lot and, and I feel like I'm very committed to the experience of love and in many different ways, in many different forms, and for some reason it has this kind of the language of it has a trite reputation and sometimes it's taken like you use the word fuzzy. It's taken as something that's less, less important or serious or intellectual than it then. It actually is like, it's so, it's so vast what we can experience in this lifetime. I think a lot of that comes from kind of our patriarchal nature and worldview, where like this idea of love being a more feminine or flowery or, you know, like not weak, but like vulnerable, right. And, and opening heart, opening emotional, whereas being in a patriarchal world. Society, we're all about the intellect, the brain, the accomplishments, the, you know, respect and, and you can certainly reframe love in some of those terms, but I do think having kind of an emotionally centered or EQ oriented society is what a love extremist is really about and recognizing that sometimes having strong EQ is as important, if not more important than having a strong IQ in the times we're living in. And some, yeah, I think it's a, there's a languaging challenge here because love is associated so much with romance and with this kind of softness, even though that's all great and that's important and I'm not negging that at all. And I, I yearn for a more matriarchal society, balanced, but Yeah, it's a, it's a tough one. Yeah, I'm excited about the language that you come up with that isn't extremism. The value of the word extremist, and I have these heart pins that I made, right, that say extremist in the heart. And the value is like, it gets people to look up and sit up straight and be like, what, what are you talking about? Right? Like, that's a very intense word. And so finding another word that has that. Weight to, to, to kind of balance out love, which feels so soft is, is an interesting challenge. Um, I'm not sure. Well, maybe it'll be a whole nother approach. We'll see. Mm hmm. You mentioned masculinity work and believe it or not, you're one of the first men to ever come on the show and you know, not because of any, anything against men, but just it worked out like that. And I'm curious if you've been aware of being a man and recovery and having to recover. I think there's sometimes this toxic idea we have for men in our culture that they're not allowed to need or to be taken care of necessarily in a way that allows them to be in a position of weakness or illness. You know there's like this trope or myth that men don't go to the doctor. I feel like perpetuated by boomer dads in some way. And I'm curious if you ever felt like you had to hide your recovery process in an effort to stay strong for your family, friends, or colleagues. And I know you were public about your diagnosis, but in the actual process, your lived experience of it, what was it like to have to take care of yourself? Yeah, I think I hide it every day. I think especially with anyone who's asking me how I'm doing, how I'm feeling, like, I'm not going to bring them into the nitty gritty of that, like, we don't need to get, go there. Not to say it's like that terrible all the time, but I'm, I just don't, again, it's kind of associated with not being brain cancer boy, but there also is like a training and a stoicism that has been embedded in me. And also I would say an avoidance, I was talking to my wife about this this week. Like, I definitely have a coping mechanism that leans towards avoidance because it's not always pleasant to be, like, thinking about, you know, the alien in your brain all the time, even though it's present on everyone's mind or on a lot of people's minds who are close to me, I want to be able to enjoy life without it always being here. And yes, there is a sense of like, we're not your therapist. We don't need to hear all this, or you don't have to just say you're okay, or give us the two sentence update, you know, we don't need the whole spiel. Certainly people who prod, or ask, or go deeper, I can kind of get into it, but I think I also often defer to humor, so as not to burden them with any type of concern. And, Gosh, I mean, like I've had a lot of friends who have similar diagnoses, some of whom are no longer here, right? So there's a, there's a certain level of like self preservation and self protection and not always getting into it that I'm doing. And so, yeah, I think there's the stoic masculine situation is very much present for me. And one that I wouldn't say I necessarily grapple with consciously, but definitely subconsciously. And I'm, and I'm working through how to be in conversation with that internally and also with you know, my loved ones. Yeah. The stoicism is really, uh, pervasive and it's everywhere and it's, you know, it's not just necessarily a male quality. It's like you said before, we, it's. as being in a patriarchal culture, we're encouraged to stay quiet and to be stoic and to grin and bear it. Yeah, and I, I don't, I don't necessarily feel proud of that. It's interesting because people have certainly, you know, family members have said like, wow, you're so strong, you're so brave, right? Like you're, you've been through so much, you know, and like, here you are. And I haven't, most people compare when they've gone through something, there's nothing like what you've been through or you, you know, and it's like, that's bullshit. Like we all have. It's all valid, you know, and there's not, it's not a competition. And also, yeah, there aren't a lot of spaces that feel always safe or easeful to get into all of the realities of this with. Because people have their own stuff and, you know, I, I don't want to spew my stuff out without it being kind of consensual and, and even desired. Yeah. And it could be a lot for people to handle. I have, I have this, a similar thing that where people tell me how strong I am and what an inspiration and this, I think it's very common for, for people to have that experience when you've had a serious illness. And I, I always push back on it because it, it's like our experiences, our experience, like what you're going through is no less important or valid because you're going through it. And. It's your experience of life. Yeah. Um, maybe mine was a little bit more dramatic and I, you know live with fluctuating health and but so do you, you know, that's my feeling. Yeah. Well, and I've done a lot of work around death and talking to folks about how life isn't promised for any of us. Right. So it's like, you know, every breath is a gift and recognizing that and being in touch with that is so important because. Yeah, I think this idea that our dramas or our health challenges are these things that have happened to us. It's like, we don't really have a choice, you know, if we're going to continue to be here in these bodies and these meat suits, like we got to take the cards that were dealt and sometimes they suck. And like that's pretty true across the board. Yeah. So you've mentioned being a dad a couple of times. Your son, before we started recording, you mentioned that he's turning 15 months tomorrow today. Yeah. Today, today, and I'm, and also being a husband and these changes having happened for you. After your diagnosis and after your surgery, obviously, it's your experience of life, so it's it's hard to compare, but I was curious about whether you think having had cancer and having being in remission and being so in touch with your mortality changed your approach to fatherhood and also being a husband. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think I met my wife, we kind of bonded over both having seizures. She has epilepsy. And so, and I think there was clearly some, you know, I wasn't looking for anything in the realm of marriage. You know, it wasn't, I kind of felt like maybe that, that opportunity had passed and you know, the life that I was going to live was one that Would be full of love, but wouldn't necessarily be in the traditional familial sense. And so it was in some ways a surprise, and in some ways just like an incredible gift to meet Michelle and find the connection that we had and revel in it, and continue to revel in it, and be so grateful that I have her as my partner. And then, in that process, I think the spirit of co creation arose, or the desire to have a child became clear. Actually, on our honeymoon, we kind of had this visit from our son, or our child, who was just like, hey, you know. Um, I'm here, you know, bring me in when you're ready. And so we feel very much like he chose us and there could be more. There could not be, we're still kind of in conversation and curiosity around that. But I, I think I was very much moving in a space of like. Not disbelief, but wonderment, the wonder, I should say, of like finding this love and then allowing this love to turn into the co creative act of having a family and the beauty and expression of love that that is, and it is ultimately like, the most beautiful thing, and Michelle and I, Have so much that we jam on and get excited about and share and I would say having a project where like the bottom line, like we're both entrepreneurs. So like having these kind of things we do that we come up with ideas and we activate them and we love doing it. We have very different ways of doing it. How we practice our stuff, but, but having this project that we share where it's just about love and like, it's not about making money, it's not about, I mean, there's, of course we need to do that, but like, this is just raising this boy and, and taking care of him and making sure he's safe and he's fed and he's educated and he's happy and he's creating and he's learning. Growing feels like that is the best possible thing I could do with her and the way that life has worked is this really feels like a gift and it is also in many ways like bringing meaning towards living as long as I possibly can and being present for this wonderful child and my wife and wanting to stick around and be in it. And so it's like giving so much meaning to our life. And I also recognize like Michelle took a risk. People were saying like, why are you dating this guy? He's got brain cancer, like what's going on? And, and she knows that too. And, and made the choice despite the realities of, you know, what doctors say. And I think there's something really empowering also to that point to kind of like reduce. The weight of a prognosis and allow, allow life to take its form and, and trust that you can live beyond what a doctor tells you because so often that's true. Yeah, it's a story for so many people and also something that I've I noticed in your work and from speaking to you is this philosophy of, of death is promised, but life is right in front of me and I, I'll keep living it and I'll, I'll live it and commit to love in such an expansive way. Mm-Hmm, Yeah. I have this sign above me that I painted. This is nothing lasts forever. All we got is now. right? And it's got like a hourglass with a heart at the top and this kind of time running through it. And yeah, I think that that's it. It's just kind of like connecting to this truth of the delicacy of life is the best, the best thing we can do in any moment. I think something that I'm constantly in conversation with myself internally is trying to kind of move between undoing beliefs and leaning into positivity and not being toxic about it, acknowledging my grief and also continuing to commit to love. And you've said"I paint spirals as a visual metaphor to talk about confirmation bias and how we can direct our own attention towards generative or disruptive beliefs." And one of the mantras that you use to accompany your spirals is our nature spirals towards love. Choose to believe. And also in, we'll, we'll also put it in the show notes, but another way that you could read that is choose to believe our nature spirals towards love in the way that you've painted it. And it's such a fine balance for me, at least of like, I could get stuck in the muck and mire of my day to day experience, because sometimes it can be difficult, but I also really want to live. I want to be alive and I see the joy available in my existence, but there's also the enormity of the world's grief, especially at the time that we're living in, can you, can you talk a bit about this idea of shifting attention around beliefs and, and also how it relates to your own illness and your own recovery? It's really been difficult lately, I'll tell you that much. And I do truly believe that in any moment, not only is it possible in our beliefs, but it's also possible in our field of vision, or our sensual experience, to focus on things that are stimulating. And enlivening. And maybe that's the baseline, right? Like, when I was really out and recovering, and going through chemo and radiation, and just really feeling it. Focusing on my breath, lying on in the sun, like, listening to waves crash, the basic sensual experiences would ground me and allow me to come back to the reality that life was happening, the birds were chirping, the sun was out, and I could appreciate it. And to recognize where we can appreciate, find gratitude, whatever you want to call it. is always available. And so, not only in the context of love or positive thinking or belief that we're going to be healthy, but also in the context of just the more basic mundane mindfulness of being in our bodies every day. And so, sure, when you're strapped to a gurney, IVs in you, got a catheter in, whatever the hell, there's so much that you can bemoan, and there's reason for it. And then there's like the funny, sometimes it's humorous, like the funny, like, I don't know, outfit that the nurse is wearing, or like the durag that the guy who's injecting you with medicine has on, and it's just like, oh, I like your flames, you know, and just allowing that to come, and I think it's also in my nature to kind of look for the good, sometimes, like you said, there's like a toxicity in that, because you're avoiding what's underneath it. But for me, it's been really serving and staying in health and staying in optimism and belief in a better future. And I feel that way, like I said, for myself, for our relationships and for the world and the collective. I just got off a conversation on the phone with someone who's focused on developing a community out in the jungle in Costa Rica and building something from scratch. And we were talking about the idea of regenerative communities and how, for me, a regenerative community needs to be built from an existing community can't be built from scratch. I, I didn't say it in those words, but we were jamming on this concept and I do feel like, we need to work with the tools we have the circumstances we're given and whatever that is in our lives and in our surroundings and find the light, find the opportunities to come to love, to come to believing that there's a better future, there's a better tomorrow, there's a better next minute, and being, like, present. Because if our baseline is just all we have is right now, then in this moment, it is our choice to look for the light, or look for the darkness, or when we're in darkness, to find the things to be grateful for, and to touch, and, and grasp onto. And it's not always available, and I'm not suggesting that we should deny the darkness. I think there's a lot of love in our shadow and in our experiences of death and depth and grief. And so it's not to say that those things aren't valid. I think they are, and they're important. And they always, always have, the yin to the yang. They always have a reflective nature. And so, we can focus on the despair, and if we do so, I believe we must also focus on the positive, the optimism, the joy, the Yeah. And I hear so much in your answer reaching out for connection is a big part of it, in creating community, you have to find the people who are already doing it in balancing between the dark and the light you need to be ushered by someone who can help you, none of this can be done alone. We're all interconnected in that. Yeah, and so it's knowing also who to reach out to at what point and if you're needing support from maybe it's a therapist, maybe it's a healer, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's a friend. It's a stranger. Mm-Hmm. That's so important. Yeah. In my case, maybe it's a slight addiction to psychics. Totally valid. Exactly. Yeah. So you've said that love and death are intrinsically related and you just mentioned death and mortality And I think talking about and becoming more intimate with one's own death can click you into deeper purpose and gratitude for being alive. On a personal note, how did being forced to become more intimate with your mortality help you to decide how to live your life and also, how are you helping others become more intimate with their own mortality? Yeah, well, I think, ultimately, I was drawn to step away from the work I was doing that was burning me out. I had the good fortune of having some resources so that I didn't need to go right back into work and I could focus on making art. And that was very much. A intuitive thing that brought me into a practice that helped me process the proximity to mortality or the delicacy of life. And then over time I realized I could share this in a lot of different ways through group work and various types of support and courses and just discussions, conversations around death and dying and mortality as it relates to the delicacy of the body. The tomorrow's not guaranteed for any of us reality. And I think going back to love and death as I said truth and love are intrinsically related. And if we're being honest, death is truth, right? Like death is inevitable. Death is promised. And so if we're able to be honest and truthful with ourselves, we're able to recognize that our bodies aren't permanent. And we will leave them while, our souls maybe have a different story. And this physical experience is limited. And in being honest about that, we then get to love it. We then get to choose how we relate to it and accept it and appreciate it and learn to work with it instead of be in avoidance of it. And so having a secure relationship with death is really about becoming comfortable with the reality that all things pass. And that our death is promised, and that in that we can start to tap into the incredible gratitude and beauty and fear that is in our breath. So with every inhale, one of my favorite practices is just recognizing how grateful we are to have that oxygen and that, full lungs and that life that we can breathe and receive. And then with every exhale, we have that release and could be our last exhale. And it can be very scary when you hold that exhale out too long and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to gasp for this next breath. You can get close to feeling that fear of death and that's available to us in any moment. And to me, it's like the love is just getting in touch with that proximity, that death is always very close, if not here, always, and allowing it to sit and be there. And sitting in the exhale, sitting in the loss, sitting in our grief, whether it's about the state of affairs in the world, or about a family member, or about ourselves, or about a lost self, we all have lost selves lives that we've lived, times in our life, the best summer, that summer's not coming back, but we can enjoy it, we can memorialize it, we can honor it. And in all these frames, I think love and death are really in conversation and the more that we can allow them to coexist and harmonize, I think the more, I don't know if healthy is the right word, but the more comfortable we can be with just impermanence as it shows up all across the board. Yeah. And this idea of looking around at life and the experience of being alive and the continual death that's just in our day to day. And in a larger sense, yes, the lives that we've lived that are no longer, but I find that being intimate with one's death really brings into focus the death rebirth cycle of just living day to day. Definitely. And the seasons are another great one, right? Every year, rebirth and death are happening all the time. Yeah. The rotting food in your fridge. Great one. Yeah. We have three questions that we always ask our guests the first one is, if you lived in a world that completely catered to your illness, what would that look like? Gosh, free healthcare and good quality. Such a good one. Good quality free healthcare. I mean my illness is expensive. And I have healthcare, I'm lucky to have it, but it's not free. And it's quality is sometimes good and sometimes not. Such a good one, it's such a practical one. What's one phrase or saying that you always come back to? The nothing lasts forever, all we got is now. Like, it's like a mantra, a song, it's all sorts of things. That's one I come back to a lot. Day, bidet. I think it comes from the movie Wet Hot American Summer, where one of the actors, Michael Showalter is like saying this joke and he's like, day, but day kind of playing off the, but you know, maybe the better one is at the end of the day, it's the end of the day, right? Like what is here is here. This is it. You know, like now is now time is now maybe an illusion or whatever it is, but it's just like what we have to work with is what's in front of us. And so how do we honor that, respect that? Take it Yeah, like what you were saying about day by day and the, the breath within the breath and the, all of that. Yeah. And finally, what's one thing you do to keep yourself creative each day? Hmm. It's the question that my therapist was asking me this morning because I need to, I need to do more of it. Gosh. I mean, I go outside and I listen to the birds and fortunately they're pretty vocal around the house and I look at the trees and the clouds and the sky and usually lately my son sits on my lap and does it with me. And I just observe. I think that receiving and feeling into the day and the world in a moment can be incredibly inspiring and creative and grounding. It just allows me to operate from a place of confidence that we're here, the day is happening, and life continues. Thanks, Ethan. Thank you. Such a pleasure to have you. Yeah. Grateful to be one of your first dudes. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Good, good, good first choice. Oh, thank you. That was our show. So, Life Wants You Dead. This episode was made with support from Awakening Healthcare, encouraging and supporting providers and patients to reconnect with their souls. Many thanks to Stephanie MoDavis and Ruby Shah. Our illustrations are by Ronaé Fagan. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, leave us a review, rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. You can find us on Instagram@solifewantsyoudead where you can follow along for updates about the show. Thanks so much and see you next time.