Continuing our conversation from the most recent episode of our podcast, Out of Session with Kindman & Co., featuring therapist, Jesse Romo, AMFT, and his friend, Anthony Bishop, here’s part two!

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Anthony (00:46):

The first thing that comes to mind is this degree of some kind of personal responsibility, regardless of disservices done in places we may want to blame or criticize or complain. At the end of the day, it kind of feels like I'm an agent in this body and I have so much ability to choose what I'm going to do with it, and fingers crossed, I do what's useful for myself and others.

Jesse (01:24):

And thinking of personal responsibility as an important component of recovery and change?

Anthony (01:31):

For sure.

Jesse (01:34):

That's something I've thought about and I wonder... because I also resonate with that to some degree, to a large degree actually. I feel like that was such a big part of me actually getting sober because so much of being my old self was not taking any responsibility whatsoever. And it's important not to be dualistic either, but back when I was still using, I wouldn't take responsibility for anything. I was always looking for a way out or some way to offload any fault, or somebody to blame. And when I first got sober, I remember hearing a lot, that's such a big part of changing who you are. You have to own your shit. But what I wonder about is how does identity and privilege play into that? I am a man, I'm a multiracial person of color, but I'm also fairly light-skinned. I also have socioeconomic privilege. All those times I was in and out of rehab when I was young, I had parents with insurance who were able to help me out. How does that play into this idea of I can take personal responsibility? Where is it easier to say that as a white man?

Anthony (03:01):

For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I would say that it is easier to say that. Yeah, and so thanks for bringing this up. Like yeah, I could say that, right? And it's like, as a white man, it's easy for me to say.

Jesse (03:23):

But also, sorry, I just wanted to also add the qualifier that I don't think that means that we ignore personal responsibility. I think there's still something there that when... just you hear this from many people who struggled with addiction, such a big part of what we used to be like was that we had a very small concept of personal responsibility. We had a lot of self pity. We had a lot of resentment and blame toward other people, and part of changing is recognizing what you do have some agency over. So not to say that it's either you have to take responsibility for everything, or if you're saying that, that that's a mark of just privilege. I think there is some importance of personal responsibility, but then just, yeah, it made me think of that question of how does identity, how does intersectionality fit in with that?

Anthony (04:20):

Yeah. Yeah. Victor Frankl's coming to mind and Man's Search for Meaning and some of the things he described there. I feel like while it's definitely not the same or equal for everyone, there's something there.
There's some kind of... I heard someone put it in terms of responsibility saying that we are "response-able" to at least some extent. We have an ability to respond to circumstances, to something, maybe not from an equal playing field as someone else, but it's like that... I feel like there's so much there. There's so much that can blossom out of that. Tapping into that is kind of a whole new can of worms. I mean, we see it all the time with people trying to get sober saying they want to get sober, but their actions seem to be the opposite of that. But you can also tell that it's like, Hey, I don't think this person really wants this life for themselves. Why do they keep doing what they're doing? And if you're not comfortable in the body that you're in, that's huge.

Jesse (05:53):

Yeah, and I know from personal experience, it's such an existential and spiritual thing. This idea of responsibility, which I think is, for me and for many people that you hear, is such an indispensable part of actualizing some kind of change in your life, especially when you're trapped in this addictive pattern. Doing something about it, really stepping into your agency. But then the thought that's also coming up is also this community, which we were talking about earlier. Is there a communal responsibility we have?

Anthony (06:36):

Yeah, good point. That's where the bystander effect kicks in and people don't do anything.

Jesse (06:44):

Yeah, and it's easy. The more... I have a lot of privilege, and thinking of the power and privilege we have, the more you have, the easier it is to step back and feel like you don't have responsibility for somebody else. And the extreme example of that is people who say that folks who are living on the street, folks who are unhoused, are... they brought that upon themselves. That's a choice. Which, I mean, there's no kind of recognition from that point of view that... yeah, that person has some agency in their life, but so much of what has gotten them there, if you look at a pie chart, I think it's overwhelmingly being disenfranchised and disadvantaged in society.

Anthony (07:35):

And all the things that were out of their control that contributed to that. Didn't get to choose our parents or what country we were born in, or what state we were born in, or the wealth of our caregivers, or how many caregivers, if any. No say in any of that, and to say that, oh, none of that matters. You made this choice is ridiculous.

Jesse (08:04):

And it makes me think of... if it's a dialectic or it's a tension between personal responsibility and communal responsibility... not necessarily a tension. It's both-and, it's not either-or, but what's the relation with communal responsibility and personal responsibility?

Anthony (08:25):

Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. Even just hearing... what I'm noticing right now is, oh, community, like that there's some sort of separation from that. And maybe a good metaphor with this is, if you're stuck in traffic, complaining about the traffic, forgetting that you're part of the traffic, and it's kind of like we are as an individual part of the community.

Jesse (08:52):

Inseparable.

Anthony (08:54):

Yeah, inseparable, exactly, from the community, and so it's every little bit counts. Every little bit counts.

Jesse (09:06):

It's that, "I'm not free until we all are."

Anthony (09:10):

Yeah.

Jesse (09:11):

And really that kind of radical empathy of... if I am part of this community and part of this society that is so hostile toward so many people and is leaving so many people hungry, hurt, locked up, all of the above, and is causing so much harm, immeasurable harm, I am part of that. I'm complicit in that.

Anthony (09:37):

Right.

Jesse (09:37):

And I'm not free until we all are. But then again, not that "it's all my fault," like me, Jesse, you're personally responsible, but it's that the individual is inseparable from the community. But I think in our individualistic culture, it's so easy to forget that, or we're kind of conditioned not to think of it in that way. We're conditioned to think of our separateness, or conditioned to think of personal responsibility. And it becomes more of an effort to empathize on a deeper level. What do you think? I see it seems like you got some gears turning.

Anthony (10:22):

Yeah, it's so... it's so dense. Then it's also too... it's like opportunity cost. We take action in this area. Let's say even as a community, we... let's just say all of Los Angeles had a day that they somehow came together and went out into the streets and offered people help and donated what they could, and it was all this one day thing. That's also coming at the cost of, well, what could have been done with those resources going elsewhere, say to another country or another community that's less privileged than even this community say, speaking very broadly here, but this community in the United States now, we're not taking responsibility for that other community, and so it's kind of like we can only do what we can, and there has to be, I think, some compassion and an ease in that. If I go and get a bag of chips, I could have gave that money to someone who maybe could have benefited from it more.

Jesse (12:01):

Yeah, yeah. No, I hear that.

Anthony (12:04):

So it's kind of like, yeah, I dunno. This is, maybe I'm getting too... splitting hairs...

Jesse (12:10):

No, I think that's important. I know I have a very strong self-critical tendency, and when I have conversations or I start thinking about these sorts of things, it's very easy to internalize and then feel like a sense of guilt or shame, which is not helpful. That's not actually changing anything. But then it's important remembering, yes, we're connected with this community. We have a part to play. We have agency, but also to have some grace and self-compassion... gentleness, and kind of balancing that.

Anthony (12:52):

Just the separation of people and communities. It just seems so tough sometimes to bring it all together. That's one thing I do like about a lot of recovery communities is so definitely not always, but there can be a good amount of diversity in them, people coming together that most likely would never have, and being able to see through... maybe things that get given a lot more importance or weight as separating factors.

Jesse (13:39):

That's an interesting one too, I think. I feel like there is something powerful about that, of a sense of unity, and not just conceptually like, ah, we all are one, but when you actually are part of these communities, you see it in action... cooperation, mutuality. You also see some of the other shit like power struggles.

Anthony (14:03):

Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Jesse (14:04):

It's not a utopia, but you do see such a variety of life experiences coming together around this common cause of... we've all struggled with addiction and we want to be sober. And that was something--I sent you some of my notes and points that we might discuss--that was something that I think is so powerful, but then also on the flip side of... that tendency to say we are all the same. I don't know. There's good and bad. There's helpfulness and harm, potential harm, depending on where that goes, which I know we already talked about that, but it's tricky. There's no simple way to make sense of that...

Anthony (15:00):

Yeah.

Jesse (15:01):

That tension.

Anthony (15:04):

Yeah. It just gets me thinking of how does all this exist in harmony? Can we make that work? I mean, I go out into the... driving around and I'm like, we're not making it work. At least to this society here, people living in environments that I don't think they should be living in. Their basic needs aren't being adequately met. And then you move over a matter of feet and you have the polar opposite of that. And our ability to identify with something or as something... and even say as an addict...

Jesse (16:00):

I don't know if this is what you're thinking, but it sounds like... our tendency to identify with parts of our experience, parts of our embodied experience, who we are, is that a barrier to unity? Is that what you're getting at?

Anthony (16:18):

Yeah, I think, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. It's like that. Yeah, there are these clear differences between people and can that fully exist in favor of, or moving towards connection... or will some of that, maybe it gets, I don't know, limited or it can only go so far or something. We know that whole thing of like, oh, we're all part of one race, the human race (laughter) is, it's ridiculous. Something like that.

Jesse (17:06):

Yeah, no, it is. It's a simplification, but then there's also, there is the truth. We are all human. But then it's like to not lean entirely toward that, because that erases the realities of the differences in experiences based on... like, is race a social construct? Yes. Do social constructs have a lot of material weight in our lives? Hell fucking yes. So it's kind of holding both of those that on one level, yeah, can we all come together in these ways that, in spite of our differences... and I think that's kind of a lot of what, when you think of justice, equity, inclusion, diversity... It's like moving toward, not saying we're all the same, but recognizing that regardless of someone's experience, identity, culture, like all the different factors that make us who we are, we want to create the conditions that are uplifting and empowering for people...

Anthony (18:11):

Yeah.

Jesse (18:12):

Because in so many ways, society is disempowering and inequitable for people on the basis of certain identities, or it gives disproportionate power and privilege to others, and then... it's a lot, because we also have so many identities. We're sitting here, and in many ways you and I have shared privileges of being cisgender men.

(18:42)
We also have different... racial differences. I'm multiracial, you're white, but then there are other ways where, I don't know... I don't know the whole you, Anthony. There are probably other ways where I have privileges that you didn't have, but I think this is actually, I think a really cool conversation and important consideration when we think about addiction, recovery, community, connection. It is so inseparable from what I think is a larger movement toward equity and justice and diversity and inclusion, that... in many ways our differences are used as a means of divisiveness and separating us and pitting people against each other and having an enemy. And I think when we go into these recovery communities where we don't run into that as much and you feel like a sense of unity, that's such a powerful experience. And then that leaves me with a question of how do we create those conditions... How do we make it so that those conditions appear more throughout our lives, more throughout our communities?

(20:03)
And this is maybe even bringing up as we think about our "so what," our call to action for everyone listening, whether you're a therapist or you're a person who's just interested in addiction recovery, or you are in recovery, or you know someone, love someone in recovery or struggling with addiction... we've covered a lot of ground. We've talked about things like the complexity of what addiction even is. We've talked about by the same token, the complexity of recovery as a process, but some of these themes have come up of the importance of community and connection as a central part of... one of the things we started with... the opposite of addiction is connection. And what are some ways that we can work to create more connection in our lives, in our communities? And that's making me think almost, as a therapist, what are our barriers to connection on a personal level, maybe it's like the defenses we've built up. Maybe it's like the areas where we struggle to be vulnerable, we struggle to empathize, and again, not that we take personal responsibility for the suffering of the whole, but how do we take personal responsibility to the degree that we can be agents for change in a collective movement, and where do we fit into that? And that's a very personal question. It is different for everyone. How we fit into that.

Anthony (21:53):

Something that comes to mind is flexibility and how does what's happening in a community or in a person make sense in a particular context, even if I don't agree with it or if I notice my mind making judgments about it. If I get too fixed in one kind of perspective, I've closed myself off for growth and opportunity and flexibility and opportunities to be useful and helpful. Just the fact that there's so much in life we haven't got to... we didn't get to choose where we were born, our parents, all of our genetics, socioeconomic status, at least early on in life. I am not... I don't think anyone is fully... wrote everything for their story since day one, choosing all their behaviors and actions freely. Just like you were saying earlier about how some people might want to say, oh, this person's living by the river in a tent. They chose that. They brought that on themselves. So if we have that view, think about how limiting something like that is versus like, oh, well, you know what? Actually, if you factor in that, that person experienced a whole bunch of trauma, didn't have caregivers, was born with some kind of physical challenge that makes it hard to even just navigate the world physically.

(23:59)
Like no, they didn't bring that upon themselves, and it's kind of like... I think almost removing that element of taking things personally out of it, which I feel is the part of the spirituality of recovery, to not take things personally, to not cast personal judgments and kind of fuse with them and say, this is how it is, and things like that, and just being very open and flexible. For example, someone saying like, oh, I'm California sober. (Laughter) You've heard that before, and it's even just hearing that, I can notice in my mind all kinds of judgments, but at the same time though, it's like maybe my experiences have brought me to this place right now where my mind generates these judgments, and maybe that is working for that person. Maybe California sober needs to be a thing because that's going to work for a lot of people, and yeah, sure. Maybe some people, whether it's some psychedelic experience or their journey with recovery looks different than a lot of other people's. I think being open to that is really important.

Jesse (25:24):

Yeah, totally. That's a great point. And the idea of too, of even harm reduction... in any abstinence-focused recovery community or approach, that's seen as part of the disease.

Anthony (25:41):

Yeah.

Jesse (25:42):

It's like it's full abstinence or bust, which it is not... There's a rigidity about it. It's not recognizing the fact that maybe some people are different. Maybe some people do really need to work toward full abstinence. Maybe there's no harm reduction for some folks, I mean, I don't want to say no harm reduction, but maybe that is the ideal for many people. Maybe for other folks, just limiting the amount of harm, reducing it as much as we can. Maybe that's better than trying to force everyone into the same funnel.

Anthony (26:23):

A couple of weeks ago, I was just out and about wondering... I wonder if over time there's going to be more sharps disposal boxes just kind of located throughout various places and in various cities and neighborhoods. Will that keep the community safer? Will it keep people using IV drugs safer? These kinds of things, and then where does that put, say, people who live in that community, and if they say, I don't want to live in a community where there's sharps boxes around, and now are we creating more separation from a community? Addicts or this degree of addict needs to be here and live there and do that, and I'm going to be over here and do this, and is that workable? I don't know. I mean, we see it even just in all these other ways. You go from one neighborhood to another or one city to another, and you can see differences not even in the people but in the actual structures there and the roads and that kind of thing, and I don't know, can there be one... totally just kind of level playing field? And pessimistically, it doesn't really seem like it because of... all it takes is a handful of... say, a powerful individual with an agenda to say, I want this to be different, and if that person has more privilege and power than someone else, then it might win out.

Jesse (28:27):

Yeah, it is. This is capitalism, baby. (Laughter) Yeah. It's built into the very fabric of our existence.

Anthony (28:38):

And it's like you almost have to play.

Jesse (28:42):

Oh, yeah. You don't get a choice.

Anthony (28:44):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's wild. It's wild. I think, I don't know, just coming back to recovery and just trying to be useful to another, whether it's a human being, an animal or an insect, like you were saying, sort of help to contribute to supports getting put into place that are going to foster overall wellbeing, both physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, all of it. Just being able to try to have a part in that.

Jesse (29:44):

Absolutely. Yeah. Finding what ways can I be useful given how I'm situated, what is within my reach. And that's something that I'm... working as a therapist and working here at Kindman & Co., thinking about the ways that the work that I do with people... I wonder if you feel this way as a therapist too, but just the quality of connection and work that you do with people and the change that comes about in their life, how that translates as ripples in the pond, so to speak, but just how that translates into larger social change. I think that's... even when I was in school and just starting to think about, I'm still figuring out "who am I as a therapist," but when that was just in its very infancy, that was a part of it for me is thinking, what do I want this to be? And a part of that's always been recognizing that this can be one of the ways that I try and help bring about social change, and actually even before doing this... being in different recovery communities and connecting with people there and being of service to other people in recovery, seeing how that's a way that you can create social change. It could be potentially boundless when you think about the help or the service that you offer to another person and how that translates into changing their life, which they go on to pass along.

Anthony (31:29):

Oh, yeah.

Jesse (31:30):

That idea and how powerful that is, and recognizing... we're all situated differently. How can I know where I'm situated and bring the change? It is cheesy as hell, being the change you want to see in the world, but to bring that change into those interactions and then that does manifest. That does have a lot of power. As a relational therapist, you show up with a client and you create that space in therapy for authenticity, vulnerability, connection, which who knows how that person will go out into the world. The goal is that's going to affect a lot of folks. That could affect generations, and in that sense, there's a lot of weight... and not like in a "pressure's on kid," but there's a lot of weight in what we do just day to day in these interactions and the quality of attention we bring. And that's why I think conversations like this are important and talking about, what is addiction? What is recovery? How do we show up? that can help us, I think kind of approach what we do, whether it's being in recovery and being part of a recovery community or being a therapist or just being a person out in the world. That can really change how we show up because we can't build rat park by ourselves, but if we all show up in our own ways, I can carry this little monkey bars. You can carry the water fountain.

Anthony (33:12):

Yeah, I can pick up this piece of trash or whatever...

Jesse (33:15):

Yeah.

Anthony (33:16):

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I know we definitely can't underestimate the power that we have. It's like, I move my steering wheel 10 degrees to the left, I die. I keep it straight and I make it to the beach and have a lovely day. Where it gets really wild is with the whole epigenetics and gene expression and how that changes through our behavior, and we behave differently and we behave towards someone else differently in a useful way, and that influences how they behave, and then they go on to have children and the way that their genes get expressed get passed down to their children, and I mean, it's really grand scale, super powerful, almost like science fiction stuff, except it's not.

Jesse (34:14):

Yeah, it's real.

Anthony (34:15):

Yeah, it's real. Our behavior and the power that lies within it, and by behavior I mean more than just how we move our body and what we do with it, but even in the way we talk to ourselves or use our language or relate to our feelings.

Jesse (34:40):

Yeah, absolutely.

Anthony (34:44):

Yeah, you meet, who knows? You end up meeting a kid who is on a path to learn that feelings are bad and dangerous and shouldn't be experienced, and we... in a sentence or in even a small experience, can maybe kind of plant a seed where some radical shift can happen over time and totally change the trajectory of our own or someone else's life for the better.

Jesse (35:21):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Anthony (35:22):

Saying hi to someone like... there's opportunities left and right, smiling at someone, acknowledging someone, like all this stuff. There's so much of our... I'm starting to notice a little sort of a passion get kicked up in me because I go outside and I see a lot of disconnection. And I'm part of it at times too.

Jesse (35:47):

Yeah, me too.

Anthony (35:50):

And I see a lot of it in through media and electronics. I think it's becoming hard for people to sometimes interact with another face-to-face and look into someone's eyes and be seen, and to see. It's so much easier to do and comfortable to do at a distance. And maybe evolution will catch up, where all of that can become totally sort of in service of wellbeing, and we could live completely digital lives and be physically separate from people, but that's probably a very long ways away, if ever.

Jesse (36:49):

That scares me. The idea of being...

Anthony (36:51):

Oh, yeah, me too. Yeah, I know. I mean, it's definitely part of the stuff. It's just grown and gotten larger over time. Not that long ago you could go to a treatment center virtually... that kind of started.

Jesse (37:15):

Oh, really?

Anthony (37:17):

Yeah. Like an IOP. Yeah.

Jesse (37:20):

Yeah, that's true. You do that on Zoom groups.

Anthony (37:23):

Yeah. Phone. I mean, it's... everything's sort of a tool, just like the dose is what makes the medicine a poison, so to speak. Should we no longer have alcohol or opiates or drugs at all? They're useful for a lot of things and for a lot of people.

Jesse (37:53):

Yeah. Good luck when you break your leg, right?

Anthony (37:55):

Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Jesse (37:57):

No, yeah. How are we using it? It's important.

Anthony (38:01):

Yeah, and how we're using it... It's kind of like, that's where I think that responsibility piece comes in. How am I going to use this day and my time? Where am I going to guide or direct my focus and my attention, and what do I want to put my efforts into... my behavior aiming towards discord and chaos so that I can minimize some uncomfortable feelings or maybe towards something different?

Jesse (38:46):

It sounds like that's just a big part of how you approach living life... in terms of thinking, what am I bringing to the table in any interaction, which I know we'd all go through our moments of mindlessness and not being connected with some kind of mission or higher purpose or what have you. But that very much resonates with me and something that I definitely... I go on autopilot and forget this kind of idea, but just the magnitude of how we show up and... Yeah. It's refreshing for me to hear you talk about that. Do you feel like when you do therapy with folks, is that a big part of how you approach being a therapist?

Anthony (39:45):

I try to make it to be, yeah. I mean, definitely don't do it perfectly and have not mastered it and don't know if I ever can and still struggle with it, but just to totally be with another person. It's really something, and so many ideas and things my mind will do that'll get in the way of that. "What time's lunch?" Like "I'm a little thirsty, got to go to the bathroom." All these things can take me from that. Self consciousness.

Jesse (40:41):

Yeah.

Anthony (40:41):

Am I doing the right thing? Yeah.

Jesse (40:47):

Yeah. It's definitely, I mean... no one does that perfectly. It's hard to... I think it's an effort and it's like an intention, living with intention and showing up with intention that it's not, I think, reasonable to expect that we show up like that all the time. We're also human. We also navigate the messiness of life. We get hungry, we get angry, we all, shit, all of the above. We're human. But just to have that value of living with intention and mindfulness in how we show up, which I think is very connected for me with recovery and being a sober person, whatever that means, being sober, being in recovery, being... spirituality, all that. I think just a lot of that is just having more, we think about agency, I think about living with intention, living with more mindfulness, being more aware of myself and how I show up in interactions, and in many ways, that's also the opposite of addiction, that kind of mindlessness and being totally driven by something, this insatiable thirst...

Anthony (42:24):

Yeah. And we know very little, and there's still a long way to go and probably never a fixed destination, but that... recovery, addiction, the way we think about it, community, independence, identity... the way we think about all those things, there's space there. There's space. It can be forever evolving, and to some extent, we can choose what we make of all this and what we do with all this, and we can influence how others choose based off what we put out into the world and how we interact with other people.

Jesse (43:21):

I like that. I like that, and what stood out to me was what you said about flexibility and what we don't know, and being more open to changing our mind about things, seeing new perspectives, and especially how needed that is when it comes to how we talk about addiction, sobriety, community connection, and just, it's so complex. There's so many dimensions to this, and being able to show up with some openness and curiosity about the possibilities of what could be, and this has been a really cool conversation. My mind is flooded with all these possibilities right now and what it could be, and another piece that resonated was just this, the quality of showing up with intention and care and being present with another person and just how, thinking about the idea of responsibility, how that connects, and that is a big part of how we're responsible and living with more intention, living more mindfully. And in that spirit, I have some different projects and organizations that I'm going to link to folks who are listening to the podcast, but I think I'll record that separately, but these are things just for people to kind of check out and thinking about... different ways of thinking about addiction and recovery. It was really fun having this conversation with you, man. It was a very fun, spontaneous conversation that I think unsurprisingly took many turns. We covered many different topics in a good way or in a way that I appreciate. I enjoy being able to have these kinds of conversations where you can, for me, it opens up a lot of that curiosity.

Anthony (45:31):

Yeah. I feel like we can, it seems to, in terms of when you and I interact, it seems like this kind of thing tends to unfold sort of naturally, and I appreciate that. I enjoy our conversations.

Jesse (45:46):

Yeah. Yeah. Me too, man. I know sometimes we get lost in the weeds a little bit.

Anthony (45:50):

For sure.

Jesse (45:50):

We go way... sometimes. When we've talked on the phone, we'll get all philosophical. We may have done a little bit of that today, but I think that's fine too.

Anthony (46:00):

Yeah. I know one thing someone told me once is, if I had an issue with something, I didn't like the way that someone was doing something or what they were saying... someone told me that, they said, "you know what? Maybe that's helping someone else," and that was really hard for me to argue with. (Laughter) And I liked that. And who am I to say?

Jesse (46:33):

True, true that man. Yeah. Getting out of the narrowness of our own frame of view.

Anthony (46:40):

Yeah.

Jesse (46:41):

It's hard.

Anthony (46:42):

Yeah,

Jesse (46:42):

It's hard work. Well, Anthony, this was awesome. Thank you, dude.

Anthony (46:48):

Yeah, absolutely.

Jesse Romo, AMFT, is a multi-racial associate marriage and family therapist who aims to break intergenerational cycles of addictions, abuse, and trauma while also revising narratives of distress and well-being. Creating music, taking rides on his motorcycle, and spending time with his partner and their trio of cats (Sakura, Amma-chi, and Simba) is how Jesse likes to connect with life.

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