Is it ok to just work all the time?

For our first episode in the new year, a reflection on how we spend our time. What we devote our life to, and the roads we choose not to take. A conversation with Ira Glass. Tickets for the Search Engine live show https://concerts.livenation.com/search-engine-live-with-special-guest-brooklyn-new-york-02-20-2025/event/30006222D74547A0 Support the show https://www.searchengine.show/join

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00PJ Vogt?

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• 0:44PJ Vogt?

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• 3:51PJ Vogt?

  There's this joke from the movie Annie Hall. Goes like this. Two elderly women are at a Catskill Mountain Resort, and one of them says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know, and such small portions." The joke in the movie is a metaphor for life, about the feeling that it both sucks and also you don't get enough of it. But lately, it's been in my head, because frankly, I feel the opposite way. Not about life, about work. I'm immensely grateful for it. I love my job. But sometimes I think, this is all wonderful, but such large portions. It's so much.

• 4:31PJ Vogt?

  A friend of mine who I talk about this stuff with, a friend who, like me, makes stuff for a living, told me a story related to this, about this conversation she'd overheard recently. She was at an event and found herself sandwiched between two people who professionally make things for the internet. Both men, one middle-aged, the other younger. The young man was saying proudly that he just liked his work more than anything else in his life, more than dating, more than going out, more than making money. He just wanted to make stuff, because making stuff is what made him feel alive. He wasn't interested in much else, and he was planning for a life without any distractions. The middle-aged man, he listened, he nodded,

• 5:14PJ Vogt?

  and then he asked the younger man, "How old are you?" "Early twenties." "Okay." The middle-aged man, who clearly saw himself in this kid, said, "The way you feel right now, it'll change. You're gonna get older. You're gonna start to care about making a family." He said this like it was obvious, a benchmark of maturity. The gentle implication here was that to care mainly about work was probably a narrow way to live. But my friend, who is both a mom, but also a person who loves to work, found herself not agreeing with this wise, middle-aged man. She found herself thinking, "Wait a minute. People say this kind of thing all the time, but what if it's not always true?

• 5:59PJ Vogt?

  Maybe for some people, it's okay to focus on work their whole life. Maybe for some people, that is where they're gonna find the most fulfillment, rather than through raising kids. There are, after all, many ways to find meaning in life." This was kind of a provocative observation to me, given this moment we're in, where very few of us are throwing pride parades for capitalism. But my friend told me this story, I think because it harmonized with a question that's been digging at me for a few years. Is it okay to just work all the time? The only word we have for someone who prioritizes work in their life is workaholic. But what is it like to like your job a lot and not have it be a pathology?

• 6:42PJ Vogt?

  Not have it be something you're apologizing for? If you're lucky enough to get to do what you love, how do you know the right amount to do it? The portions, they're so large. This year, I'll turn 40. My partner has kids, I don't. I find myself wondering, if I keep working like this, with these portions, choosing not to have biological children, what, if anything, am I going to regret? When I close my eyes and try to imagine opening them 20 years from now, what do I need to see to be happy? So I thought I'd take this question I've been living with and bring it to someone who seems set up to help answer it. Can you say your name and what you do?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Sure. My name's Ira Glass, and I host the podcast This American Life and radio show This American Life.

• 7:29PJ Vogt?

  Ira Glass is a very unusual person in many ways. But the unusual part to focus on today is that he's devoted more of his life to work than most people do. And it seems to have turned out more than fine. He's made a radio show that is beautiful and influential, and he seems less full of regret than most people I know. That 20-something-year-old who my friend overheard talking? Ira Glass might be the person who that kid imagines he'll be in 40 years, whether or not he's ever heard of Ira or of This American Life. Someone who will tinker away at a strange machine that will bring them meaning and fulfillment, the things we all hope to find in life. This American Life, in case you've never listened to it, it is a weekly show where

• 8:12PJ Vogt?

  Ira and his team apply the tools of journalism to tell stories, often about ordinary people's lives. The show invented the conventions and mission of most of the narrative audio you hear today, the kind of podcasting I practice. I asked Ira how that kind of work, radio, had first entered his life.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  I mean, I really stumbled into working on the radio. I had no interest in radio at all. And when I was 19, I was just looking for some summer job in the media and the local TV stations in Baltimore didn't have anything and the local ad agencies didn't have anything and the local radio stations didn't have anything. And somebody referred me to this place called NPR in Washington. So I drove an hour to get to DC. And I was able to talk my way into, and like, an internship would even be an exaggeration. It was 1978. They didn't have an internship program. I just talked my way into this place. And, um, and they let me work there for free for the summer. And I had never heard of them on the radio, nor had most people, because it was 1978, NPR was only created in the early 70s. Like, they had one afternoon news show that was not very well listened to, all things considered.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  No, they weren't even on, on a satellite. Like, the way the show was distributed was on phone lines around the country. And then I just started working there and I just found I really liked it and liked the people. And it was interesting making stuff for the radio. And I had a couple of turning point moments, but one of them was that, um, not that first summer, but I got hired back for a real job the second summer by this guy whose job it was to invent new ways to do radio documentaries.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  His name was Keith Talbot. And one of the things he was doing, one of the many things he was doing, was working with this guy who would tell stories on the radio named Joe Frank.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Oh, midnight special. I ride the rods a hobo, not homeless. For this is my home. A great moving freight train, carrying within it the goods and products that nourish the life stream of this nation.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  And Joe was doing monologues on the radio at the time that were unlike anything I had ever heard. And Joe is an incredible performer and would put kind of a, like, melodic, dreamy music underneath it.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  I sit here with an Eberhard Faber pencil, writing on the back of a greasy envelope, aphorisms and instructions to subsequent generations.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  A railroad Bodhisattva, a public transport Buddha, forever anticipating the next stop. My liturgy accompanied by the music of Doppler bells as railroad crossings are passed in the deep night.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Always a station, never a terminal.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Like, I had never heard anybody tell a story on the radio, actually. And so I had never had the experience of listening to somebody tell some story where you just get caught up in the story and you're just like, what is going to happen? What is going to happen? And I remember sitting in NPR's old Studio Two on the first floor of their original headquarters on M Street in Washington, watching Joe record his narration. And I just remember thinking, like, I don't know what this is, but I want to do that, like, whatever that is. Like, I just, I had never had the experience of, like, getting caught up in some story and realizing, like, oh, radio can do this. Like, I had no idea of that. And so for me, that was that, that was that moment.

• 11:45PJ Vogt?

  And so it was the feeling of, the feeling, this is provoking in me. I want to learn how to provoke that feeling? Or I just want to spend more time with this feeling or near this feeling?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  I was just like, this thing that he's doing, I want to do. Like, I didn't come into being in, being on the radio by, by, by being a journalist. Like, the thing that I liked when I was a kid was, like, I liked Broadway shows and I liked movies and I liked comedians. And so I, like, I really didn't know anything about journalism. What I was interested in was, like, oh, it's a story. And it just, like, it just gave me this feeling and I wanted to find out what was going to happen. And literally, just, I just felt swept up in it. And then, and then, if anything, like, the next decade of my life and more, it was me trying to figure out how to make something that was that, that they were true stories about real people, you know what I mean?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Who I could interview and making interviews into a thing that had that kind of feeling and just that kind of just pulled you in and pulled you forward and you just had to keep listening. Like, like, just, I just wanted to do that. I had that in my head.

• 12:51PJ Vogt?

  I know that you've told the story of sort of that part of your life a bit and also how frustrating, challenging it was to, like, have the feeling you wanted to have and still be figuring out how to evoke it. The part I'm curious about is, like, I think there's a way that radio grabbed you that is almost more like...

• 13:17PJ Vogt?

  Like, I don't know that everyone has the experience of falling in love with work. And I think in some ways, because This American Life has been so successful, your relationship to it seems less unusual than it is. Like, there's something unusual about every week for decades, a huge part of your mind is focused on, how do I make one hour of audio as compelling as possible? Like, most people, given the same problem to solve, it will feel like a boring problem to them.

• 13:57PJ Vogt?

  Or it'll feel like they like doing it for a while, but then they get more interested in something else. And you have found that, like, the various permutations of this problem are the place that you've wanted to spend your time. And I'm curious, at what point was that obvious to you? Like, at what point had you fallen in love with the thing enough that you were like, I want to put this at the center of my life and keep it there?

• 14:21Speaker 01

  I think the real answer is like, right at the very beginning. Like, from the first time I was making, making anything. Like, it just, it just was interesting to me when parts of it would work, and then the stuff that didn't work, I wanted to solve. And then enough things, like, like, really early on, in the first year or two, even with like rudimentary skills, I was good enough that I could get decent interview tape. And then I was good enough as an editor that I could shape it in a way that it would have a feeling to it and, and, and a forward motion to it. And, and really early on, I was doing interviews and putting music underneath it. I did that as, that was the style that my mentor Keith worked in. And I learned from him, actually.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  I mean, that part of This American Life sound really comes from me working with somebody else who taught me. And then...

• 15:15Speaker 01

  There's this novelist, Michael Cunningham, who wrote The Hours and he's written a bunch of other books. He said this thing in an interview that I saw where I felt like, oh, he really like, put a thing in a way where I've never thought that. But as soon as I read it, I was like, oh, that's definitely what I think. Where he said that, um, he said he doesn't believe in talent. He said, he thinks what, what happens is that a certain kind of person gets a sort of obsessive interest in how do I make this better? And that's definitely just was, when I saw, when I saw that quote, I was like, oh, that is exactly what happened to me. I wasn't that good. Like, I was a terrible writer and was a terrible performer in the air. But like, I was just very interested in the like, I can feel that this could get better. Like, how do you make this better?

• 15:57Speaker 01

  And just, that was just very interesting to me. And, um, and then I was lucky in that, like, NPR in the seventies and eighties was just like a place where it was encouraged to a small degree, not to a large degree, but there was like enough room in the system that you could just experiment with stuff and get it on the air in front of lots of people. And so I was sort of lucky to be in a place where I could keep, keep trying different things and, and, and it was rewarded.

• 16:34PJ Vogt?

  And were you like, in those years, when you're enjoying obsessing over trying to make the thing a little bit better, were you in a room with people who had the same obsession? Or were you the unusual person who's like, they're going home, you're staying to try to tweak it a little bit more?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  I was, there were other people, but there weren't many of them, who were sticking around and staying. Like, I was generally the one who was staying the longest.

• 17:05PJ Vogt?

  And did you think about, like, did you feel like good, bad, unusual about that? Or was it just what it was?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  I didn't feel bad about it, and I didn't think anything of it. I just knew that that's what I wanted to do, and I was gonna do it. I was willful.

• 17:21PJ Vogt?

  And what were you picturing, a future, where you're like, in 10 years, I'm going to be doing this? Or was it just like, this is what I want to do, and I'm going to do it?

• 17:30Speaker 01

  It was just, this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna do it. And I could feel that it was getting better. Like, I could feel that I was getting better at it. And I had a vague sense in my head that maybe someday I would do a show. Like, I did have that. But then, if I could have articulated to you what the show was, it would have been to kind of like, I don't know, stories about everyday people. Like, I was very vague.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  What I did know is, like, I just, it felt like there was something vast there that radio could do that it wasn't doing.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  And so it felt like a process of discovery. And I remember, like, one of the very first people, if not the very first person to write about This American Life, was this writer named Bill McKibben. And he wrote like a little one-page review that was in, like, The Nation, right? Which is a publication, which I don't even know if it exists anymore. Maybe it does. Anyway, and he said this thing where he said about the show, he said, "The thing that was interesting about it was radio." He says, "But what's interesting is it feels so new." And that always stuck with me, that it just, because it seemed new to me, too. It felt like, it felt like, um, it felt like, oh, this is just like a new way to do things.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Joe Franklin?

• 18:43Speaker 04

  I'm ready.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  It's Ira Glass here.

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Oh, you're the emcee on the show, Ira?

• 18:47Speaker 03

  I am the emcee on the show, yes.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Oh, great. Ira, I R A, Ira?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  Ira, I R A.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  Oh, great. Now, hold on one second, Ira, don't go there.

• 18:54PJ Vogt?

  This is the very first episode of This American Life, which aired in Chicago in 1995. It starts with Ira calling Joe Franklin. Not Joe Frank, the guy who inspired Ira to want to make weirder radio, but Joe Franklin, a different radio host credited with inventing the talk radio format. Ira is calling this Joe for advice. This Joe has no idea who Ira Glass is, a fact which the Ira of 30 years ago tells the listeners, he's getting a kick out of.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Well, you know what? Great thing about starting a new show is utter anonymity. Nobody really knows what to expect from you. This interviewee did not know us from Adam. OK, well, what? About a minute. We're 1 minute 5 into the new show. Right now, it is stretching in front of us. A perfect future yet to be fulfilled. And I feel like at this point, like, the sound of This American Life has been around for decades, and lots of people have made their own variations on it. That, I think, people take it for granted and don't realize that it was like, it was new in its time. For somebody to narrate the way that I'm narrating in the show, nobody was doing that.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Like, we had to convince, you know, program directors to run the show. They were like, you know, because it was like a weird way to talk on the radio at the time.

• 20:15PJ Vogt?

  Back then, the show was so new that they hadn't even settled on what would be their final name.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  From WBEZ, in the glorious city of Chicago, Illinois, naming this show is Your Radio Playhouse. I'm, uh, I'm your emcee. I'm your emcee, Ira Glass.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  OK, the idea of this show, this new little show, is stories. Some by journalists and documentary producers like myself, some just regular people telling their own little stories, some by artists and writers and performers of all different kinds. And the idea is we're going to bring you stuff you're not going to find anywhere else. And there's also going to be music. And tonight's show, we thought we would have kind of a theme. Tonight's show's going to be new beginnings. And to kick things off, I call the man who's got his head in a duffel bag.

• 21:13PJ Vogt?

  A lot of you know how this is going to go. The new little show with people telling their own little stories. It's all going to grow into something very big. Really, the most successful radio show of its kind. Ira Glass would become, in certain households, a household name. We're going to take a short break. When we come back, does it take working too much to build something that is that special?

• 21:46PJ Vogt?

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• 24:03PJ Vogt?

  Welcome back to the show. And back to 1995. Ira Glass was beginning a new radio show. He had a sense of the kind of stories he wanted to hear on air, a sense that audio might be able to do things it was not currently doing. But Ira says he did not have a very detailed vision beyond that for how things were going to work.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  All I'm picturing is like, I think we could make this thing and that would be interesting to do. Like, it's not, I didn't picture like, here's where it'll be in five years or 10 years or something. Like, I just thought like, this seems like something a person could make, and I think I could make this. And honestly, like, I was scared that somebody else would get to the idea before I would. It seemed so obvious to me that you could do, like, a show with sort of emotional narrative stories.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Which, when I look back on it, I guess that's kind of crazy because it was so hard to do. Do you know what I mean?

• 24:59PJ Vogt?

  What was hard about it in the beginning?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I mean, what was hard about it in the beginning is every single part of it was new. Like, even to produce that many stories so quickly every week was something I hadn't been in charge of or done.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Like, it was a show whose format had not existed before. And so every single person who was hired had to be taught the format of this thing, which had never existed, and then taught how to make it. And I remember, like, everybody who came to work for the show at the beginning said, like, it took a year before they felt like they knew what they were doing. And so during that first year, there was a lot of, like, teaching people, and here's how you do this, and doing it over and over and over until people got the hang of it. And, um...

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I remember it was like 10 or 15 years into doing that, that there were enough shows imitating us or the style of This American Life that we could just hire somebody and they would know how to structure a story in our style.

• 26:03PJ Vogt?

  And in the beginning, like, what did a work week look like? Like, the first, because you guys were doing year one.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  It's either 48 or 43 episodes. I think it was 48 new episodes.

• 26:13PJ Vogt?

  I think it's 48 because I've, I've looked at it.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, that's what I remember is 48. Yeah, because we had nothing to rerun, because we had never been on the air. And the way that we structured it is, we knew at the beginning, this might be kind of rocky, so we weren't a national show for the first six months. We were a local show in Chicago, and we were just making them to, like, learn how to make the show. And, um, and so we'd make a show every week and, you know, send it out in Chicago with the thought of, like, we're going to get good enough about this that in May or June or something, we'll be good enough that we can send them out to the whole public radio system. Um, this is pre-podcasting. And basically, the way I remember it, it was four of us making the show, and we were either working or asleep.

• 26:59PJ Vogt?

  All the time.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:02PJ Vogt?

  And did that feel, what did that feel like?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I remember it

• 27:10Speaker 01

  being okay with me, you know what I mean? I remember there was a point, at some point in the first year or two, I remember lying in bed at my old apartment on Ashland in Chicago and staring up at the ceiling and thinking, wait, I signed up for this for how long? Like, wait, this was just going to go on forever? Like, this, we're going to do this? And I remember I asked, um, one of the old NPR hosts, Scott Simon, who I had seen go from being like a reporter on NPR to a program host doing Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, who was doing a weekly show, and we were doing a weekly show. And I remember running into him in year two or three and asking, how long will it be like this?

• 27:53Speaker 01

  And he really thought about it. He's like, he paused and thought, and then he said, five years. It's gonna be like this for five years. And he was right.

• 28:04PJ Vogt?

  For five years, it was you're working or you're asleep.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  I mean, I know that it wasn't just that, but

• 28:12PJ Vogt?

  But kind of.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  But kind of, yeah.

• 28:15PJ Vogt?

  And to what degree, like, I feel like I know the answer is both. But to what degree did that feel like

• 28:23PJ Vogt?

  you were a character punished in like a Greek myth? Or you were filled with like holy fire and it was enjoyable?

• 28:30Speaker 01

  I think there's a weird thing that that people say when people say like, I love my work. Do you know what I mean? Like, like you said it earlier, and I always think it's like a little weird when people say like, I love my work. Because I think that when you're working that much, like, you don't love your work. There are parts of it that you really enjoy. But then making that much stuff, working for that many hours, you don't love it. It's oppressive. Like, like, it's both something that like you're into. And that like really

• 29:05Speaker 01

  fucked you up. You know what I mean? Like, like, like, I've compared it to like, like, oh, like, like, everything in my world, I created, right? Like, I hired all the people, I invented the format of the show. Like, every single part of it is, is, you know, like, I helped choose the color of the couch in the meeting room when we moved there, you know, just like every part of it. You know, like, I created, and so I can't complain about my life. And, and, and what it feels like is, I mean, I've said this before, but it's true. It's sort of like, I get to go to this restaurant. And they always serve me my very favorite meal. But I'm never ever allowed to leave the table. You know, like, it has that feeling. And, and it's funny, like, it didn't occur to me, but like, then somebody pointed out, like, oh, this feeling that you're having

• 29:50Speaker 01

  of being like, I'm really into this, this is very interesting, and I also hate it, is exactly what people raising children feel.

• 29:57PJ Vogt?

  Yes.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that didn't occur to me till years later. Because I had no interest in raising children. Like, I really, I just really didn't think about it. And I think part of that really was a kind of immaturity. Like, I was like a kid who was like 14, who really loved making stuff. And then I just kept making stuff. Like, I was 18 or 19 when I started working at NPR. You know what I mean? Like, I was a kid. I had, I had been doing magic shows four years before that. Like, kids' parties. Like, I was a kid. And, but then this seemed really interesting in the way that doing magic shows seemed really interesting. And then that part of my personality just really took over.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  And, and I really think that socially, like, I was really arrested for a long time. And, and it was only like, really, like, I think in my 40s that it came out of that. And like, started to, like, grow again. Partly because I finally had, like, free time to be around other people. You know, we started the radio show when I was 36, so five years in, I was 41. And it was really like, in my 40s, where finally, like, I sort of experienced what a lot of people experienced in their 20s and 30s, where I would like, have free time occasionally and, you know, spend time with other people. And at that point, like, had somebody who I really loved and eventually got married to.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  And like, you know, just had, and we had a dog and like, had a bunch of like, the normal experiences that like, a lot of other people have. But before then, I was totally content to be this separate person. And, and to be somebody who very much, I was a lot weirder socially then. I was the sort of person who would sort of make my way through conversations with people, asking them questions and taking information, but very much in a kind of, like... Like, I wasn't letting myself get close to that many people. Like, I didn't know how. Like, I had to, I really had to consciously change the way I was.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  I mean, this is so personal, but it's true. Like, I was much more of a weirdo. I mean, I'd be interested if you'd just talk to some of the people I worked with at the beginning of This American Life and see if they would, if they would see it this way. But, but like, in retrospect, I definitely see it this way. Like, I know what I consciously willed to happen in my personality, and, and it happened.

• 32:29PJ Vogt?

  So for you, I think one of the things that I puzzle through, as you talk about this stuff, is that there's a lot of cultural warning signs around work, and like, not working too much, and not becoming a workaholic, and not making your work your identity. And I think for someone like you, part of what is confusing is that you're describing a period in your life, a chapter where you devoted yourself more to work than people are supposed to. And it was rewarding and interesting, and you built something that matters a lot to a lot of people.

• 33:09PJ Vogt?

  And also where you suffered, you know, in some ways.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  I don't think I suffered at all.

• 33:16PJ Vogt?

  Okay, I knew you were gonna say I suffered.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  But I didn't suffer. Like, it's, like, it's hard working 70 or 80 hours a week, but it's still just making a radio show. Like, it's, there's not, that's not actual suffering.

• 33:26PJ Vogt?

  I'm not saying you were like a...

• 33:28Speaker 01

  No, but, but can I say, like, like, for me, yeah, there was no question. I never questioned it while it was going on. I don't question it in retrospect.

• 33:35PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  I feel like that's what I wanted to do, that's what I had to do. And I feel like there are narratives of other kinds of people who make stuff, where like, that's sort of romanticized. You know, people go off and they paint, or they write, and they do whatever it is. They write music, you know, like, like, and that's seen as a kind of positive thing. Like, I don't have a feeling about whether that's positive or negative. Like, I understand, in retrospect, it's not the path that most people chose or choose. But like, I don't have a problem with the fact that I chose it. I felt like I, I liked it, I wanted it. I was gonna do what I wanted to do, and that was what I was gonna do. Like, I don't know, it's stubborn.

• 34:11PJ Vogt?

  Yeah, and it's not that, I don't think it's like...

• 34:17PJ Vogt?

  WBZ should like, offer you like, emotional compensation or anything like that? Or that I'm like, don't you secretly regret it? It's more just interesting.

• 34:28PJ Vogt?

  I understand all the feelings that led you to make the choice that you made, I think. And I also understand the feeling of

• 34:36PJ Vogt?

  stepping back at some point and saying, oh, there were, there were parts of this. When you, when you put all your focus on one thing, you can have moments where you step back and you think, oh, there's like more I want to learn or other places I want to grow. And I won't entirely be able to do that through, like, just feeding more of myself into the machine that I'm building.

• 34:59PJ Vogt?

  Does that make sense?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that doesn't look, that's about the beginning of starting the video show. That feels like more like what it's like now. Like, do I want to keep throwing myself into this machine that I built?

• 35:10PJ Vogt?

  How do you think about that?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  I find that very confusing. Like, honestly, like, like, like, you know, we're about to come up on our 850th episode. And there's a part of me where I feel like I really adore the people I work with. I feel like this last year, we've made shows that are as good as anything we've ever made.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  And shows that have been very excited to get on the air. Like, you know, you have that feeling of like, oh, that was a really good one. Oh, I can't wait to hear people hear that. I feel like I've felt that over and over this year. But, um, but I had this, I did this exercise, uh, like a couple of months ago, where I had to pick out greatest hits episodes.

• 35:47PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  To create a greatest hits archive. And, um, and actually, like, I had never really gone through the archive of all 800 episodes to think about which ones of these are really so good. I think that somebody today could like, enjoyably listen to this show from 20 years ago, or 15 years ago, or 25 years ago, you know? And then when I see like, the number of episodes in a year, some years where I was like, like, over the years, like, as, as it went on, we would make 26 or 28 or 30 or 34 shows a year. So out of the 30 shows we did that year, there are.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Eight or 10 really wonderful ones. So let's say eight out of 30 shows. And then you think, I spent three fourths of my year. I spent nine months that year on stuff that was just meh in retrospect. And then it makes you look at like this last year, you know? And like, and I feel like actually this last year, our batting average was way better than that, actually. We like, we made a ton of great shows, but still, it's like, what's the point of, of making like 900 of these or 950 or 1,000? Like, how many years left do I have in my life? And like, haven't I kind of made the point of like, you know, this would be a nice way

• 37:09Speaker 01

  to do a radio show? You know what I mean? Like, and like, do I need to be in there? And then also, like, there's all the ones that aren't as good, which kind of just some weeks, stuff doesn't come together. Like, the story you were hoping would work doesn't work, or it's not as good as you hoped. And so then you feel like, all right, I'm gonna make this as good as I can. But like, I know there's one great story on this show, but then the other is doing, they're kind of, they're okay. And like, you know, just sort of like, it's just, you don't feel like, oh, this is why I'm doing this with my life, you know? Like, yeah, like, and I don't know what to do with that. And, and, uh, and then also, if we're gonna be really honest, like, something that's so personal is that like, my partner now is just like so incredibly productive and

• 37:52Speaker 01

  it's like, she's like, she has a new TV show that she's off filming right now, but then after that, she has like, a bunch of different movies that like, she's written and other things she's being asked to direct. And I just feel like, well, watching her, I just say, well, wait, I, I could be doing more. I certainly could be, you know, doing more.

• 38:10PJ Vogt?

  Like more stuff or more?

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I don't know, just more stuff that I feel like super thrilled about, you know?

• 38:17PJ Vogt?

  Is this the first time you've had a partner who had the same like?

• 38:24PJ Vogt?

  Much higher than average relationship to work as you?

• 38:27Speaker 01

  I mean, I've had a few partners who really, work was a huge part of their life and a main thing in their life in the way it is for me. But this is the first time I've been involved with somebody whose work habits are so close to mine.

• 38:42PJ Vogt?

  That's what I mean.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Where she'll just work all the time if it's something that seems worth doing.

• 38:47PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Like, and in fact, like, one of the things we do together is that, like, we'll have study hall together, where like, we'll be like, well, let's get together, but like, we'll just kind of sit across from each other.

• 38:57PJ Vogt?

  Did you have a moment, like, before, you'd mentioned there was this sort of, like, five years for the thing to become more sane moment. After five years, were you at a place where it was clear, like, did you have a moment where it wasn't clear the show was going to work, where you had to contend with the idea that you might be pouring so much of your time and thought into something that could just, like, disappear?

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. That was the entire first five years, pretty much. Like, it seemed like I could be putting all this work into this thing and it could vanish. But honestly, that seemed fine to me. I didn't care.

• 39:30PJ Vogt?

  Really?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Like, who cares?

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Like, I would just, I would find something else to do. Like, I don't know. I just knew, like, not that many people knew how to edit tape and knew how to make a nice story for NPR. I knew if, like, if this blew up, I could just go back to All Things Considered or Morning Edition. I'd be fine. I'd be fine. I'd find something else to do. In fact, like, in the early contracts for This American Life, we had never had to, like, clear rights for something. Like, I didn't know how to do it, and I didn't know, I wasn't smart enough to ask, like, a proper intellectual property lawyer, how do you do this? And so, basically, we'd just write up contracts based on sort of common sense. And I remember if, like, David Sedaris would read a story on the show, we would get the rights to broadcast it and rebroadcast it for three years. And I remember thinking, like, if this show lasts three years, and we have to go back and renegotiate that contract, that would be a problem I

• 40:18Speaker 01

  would love to have. It seems so unlikely.

• 40:21PJ Vogt?

  It's funny you have to understand that, like, you work this much and this obsessively, but it's not from a place of terror?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Like, that it's just- It was from a place of terror.

• 40:32PJ Vogt?

  Okay.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I didn't want the thing to be bad.

• 40:35PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Like, and that was terrifying. But I also felt like, if this doesn't work out, if people don't like this show, if this isn't something- Good, then that's fine. I had worked on a bunch of different shows and some had blown up. I mean, I never started my own show besides The Wild Room, but like go to local show that I did with my friends.

• 40:56PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  You know, but like I had worked on a bunch of shows and some had blown up. And I don't know, like everybody, everybody moved on. It was, it would be fine.

• 41:04PJ Vogt?

  And so then it becomes stable. You enter a period where.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  After five years, like basically like it took that long for the finances of it to be solid enough and the audience to be solid enough that it was clear like, okay, we're going, we're going to be fine. We're not running, running, running. We're just to get this thing going. Like, like we had, we were on hundreds of radio stations and we had a solid audience and we had advertising money and we had carriage fees that stations would pay to run the show. And like, it was a financially solid. And from that point forward, the show has always been profitable every year.

• 41:34PJ Vogt?

  But even as a profitable show that's not confronting an existential question all the time, even your relationship to that show, as I understand it, you're not working a 40 hour work week much of the time.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  No, no, it would still be like 60 or 70 hours. And you know, and some weeks more.

• 41:51PJ Vogt?

  And the drive is just for it to be very good.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, why make something if it's not going to be special? Like, what, like, why even, why bother if you're not going to try to make it like, this is going to be amazing. If it's not going to be amazing, the world has enough stuff that's meh, that you don't need to bother. Which is why in retrospect, it's so disappointing to look back at like the percentage that are just kind of like, that was fine. That was fine. There's one good story in there.

• 42:14PJ Vogt?

  So is that the first moment that you've had where you feel in a deep way or in an unsettled way, like a why about all this stuff? Like a why am I doing this?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Recently?

• 42:28PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yes. And it's, and it's more just like, do I continue doing it? Like, I don't retrospectively regret any of it, but it's more just like, should I keep doing this? Or should I find something else to do? And, and the math of that, of the, of that particular question is like, um, like I'm better at doing this than I am at probably anything else I would come up with, at least right away, you know? Like, I've been practicing this one, like, so I can do this one well. And honestly, like you, you kind of like, I went to the trouble with a bunch of people to like, get this show to the point where like millions of people hear it each week. And so that's a hard thing.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  To turn your back on, like it's funded, it's stable. Millions of people hear it every week. And so to turn your back on that, like, nobody gets that. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just an incredibly rare thing. And if I leave it and give it to other people to run, like, you know, I'm not going to find something that will have that big of an audience. And then I have to do what other people do. It's just like, I'll have to pitch things and get people to fund it and be in that world again.

• 43:36PJ Vogt?

  Right. You don't get to pick the color of the couch.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's hard to move from a situation where, like, I work with a bunch of people and we have complete freedom to do whatever we want. There's no adult supervision above us. Like, we really do whatever we think is best. And like, lots of people hear it and it's funded. Like, it's so, so rare. So like, it's a hard thing to walk away from.

• 44:00PJ Vogt?

  When you picture walking away from it, like, in the world where you imagine doing it, what do you imagine? Like, what's the feeling of imagining that?

• 44:07Speaker 01

  I literally don't even know what would be on the other side of it. It's like imagining what happens after your own death or something. Or like, I remember before I traveled to a foreign country. I remember I was just, I had no picture of what it would be like. Like, I'd seen pictures of other countries, but I really just hadn't, I couldn't form it in my head.

• 44:26PJ Vogt?

  Right. Because you're a person who's had the same job, like, the exact same job for 30 years?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Since 1995. But then the job was basically just a variation of every job I had since I was 19.

• 44:38PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  You know, like, I just got to do more interesting stuff. But it was still just basically, you go into the beginning of the week, you think like, what could we possibly do that people would find fun to listen to?

• 44:49PJ Vogt?

  And it's part of the reason why, like, the thrust of my questions for you are like, would you, how do you feel about the choices you've made? But hearing you describe it, it's more, you're just like, you have a personality and your personality has found what it likes to do and it does that thing. Like, it's not as if you sat down when you were 19 and thought, would I be most happy if I became obsessed with radio?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 45:16PJ Vogt?

  No.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  No, it could have been something else. But I happened to end up at a place at NPR in the 70s where like, the things I could get obsessive about were in front of me. But it could have been something else. If I had ended up in a TV station, I would be on TV. Or making TV. I don't think I'd probably be on TV, but I'd be making TV.

• 45:51PJ Vogt?

  We're going to take a short break. When we come back, families.

• 45:56PJ Vogt?

  How do you think about not having kids of your own and choosing to spend some of that energy on just working more? What is it like to just be okay with that?

• 46:21PJ Vogt?

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• 47:27PJ Vogt?

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• 48:12PJ Vogt?

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• 48:30PJ Vogt?

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• 49:43PJ Vogt?

  Welcome back to the show. This whole conversation had begun because of that conversation my friend had overheard, where a young person was saying they wanted to work all the time, and an older person was responding essentially by saying that that was an immature desire. The subtext here, I'm pretty sure, was family. Many people, even the ones who love to work, choose to have children. Some people choose not to. But the idea is that if the focus of your life remains your work, you may at some point regret that choice. We're told, over and over, that nobody on their deathbed ever wished they'd worked more. I actually tried to fact-check this by barging into several local hospices with my microphone in hand, screaming questions at the infirm and the dying. Regrettably, I was asked to leave.

• 50:28PJ Vogt?

  So instead, I resumed my conversation with Ira. When you describe, like, years where you're pulling 60, 70, 80-hour work weeks, like, that is not something you can easily do with a family?

• 50:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:44PJ Vogt?

  But you work with people who are also radio obsessives. And then, as the show has progressed, many of them have had families. But so for you, and again, it's not as if you were spending decades making the show thinking, "I want to have a family." You always thought you didn't. But had you thought that, you would have thought, "That's incompatible with the job I'm doing, because the job, as I'm doing it, requires a level of presence and attention, where you'd either have to be kind of not a great father, or have a very different relationship to your work."

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yes, and I really thought about that. In fact, with my wife, when we talked about, "Should we have kids?", one of the things that I felt at the time was like, "I'm barely holding it together now, without having kids." Like, I don't know how I would be able to manage if we had kids. I mean, at that point, the staff of the radio show, when you and I were considering this, was still pretty small, just still seven people, which is a lot of people for a weekly radio show, but for a, like, a super-highly-produced one, it was still, like...

• 51:48Speaker 01

  You know, it was hard to get the show on the air. And so I didn't know how we would do it. Like, I didn't, I just didn't know how to do it. There came a point in my life, after I was married and divorced, that I lived with somebody who had a little boy. And when we got together, he was five, he'd just turned six, like, when we, when we got together. And, um, and at some point, we moved in. I had the experience of, like, living with somebody and her kid and really was very totally involved in the kid's life. And, you know, just in the most everyday way that you can be if it's three people living in a small apartment. And one of you is under 10.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  And so, like, doing his homework with them and inventing games with them and just sitting around and doing stuff and watching TV and leaning on each other. And just like, and I, and I feel like I really, I had the experience then, where I sort of realized, like, oh, I really did not picture what this would be like. Like, when I pictured having kids, I pictured the kind of baby phase that I'd seen friends go through. And I hadn't pictured this. And I feel like, for the first time, I felt like, oh, I, I totally get it in an emotional way. Like, I, I understood in the abstract why people have children before this, you know? Like, it's not that complicated of a thing to understand. But I didn't get, like, why it could feel good to me to do it. Like, I really liked it.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  I really liked having a kid in the house. I really liked being one of the adults, caring for that kid and looking out for that kid and thinking about that kid. And having, like, a daily relationship. And his mom was like, should we have a kid, you know? And, um, it's funny, like, I mean, the real honest answer is, I wasn't sure how I would manage that with my job. And I didn't want to be, I didn't want to have a kid if I was gonna be absent.

• 53:40PJ Vogt?

  Yeah.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  You know? What can I say? Like, if I had wanted it enough, I would have figured it out. And, and if part of what you're trying to figure out is, like, would you have regrets if you had a kid? Um, you should talk to somebody.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Who's had to make that trade off about how they feel about that. Because I think that people do have really strong feelings about that. I mean, it's funny, because Mike Birbiglia has a joke in his show, The New One. And I only know this because I helped him on that show. He's my friend. And the whole show is about him trying to figure out, should he have a kid? In the first half of the show, he's basically giving all the reasons not to have a kid. And then they have the kid. But one of the things he talks about is sort of like, your work will be worse. And like he says, that's a thing, that's a problem. It's like, your work will be worse. And he's like, and you can say it's not gonna be, but it's gonna be.

• 54:43PJ Vogt?

  That feels true to me. And I've talked to people, like podcast hosts, writers who are like, no, no, no. It deepens your work. You know, it gives you all these other thoughts and concerns and deeper questions. And it makes you think differently and it changes how you are as a person. And when they say it, I believe them. And then later, I think, but you have fewer hours. And you have a person that you're responsible for. Like, right now, I feel responsible to a bunch of people I don't know. And I like that responsibility. Like, I don't, like is maybe the wrong word. Something draws me to that responsibility. But if there was like a human being that needed to be fed and clothed and like protected from the cold.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Well, and loved.

• 55:27PJ Vogt?

  And loved.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  And given your attention. Like, this, like, human being will want your attention, specifically attention from you.

• 55:34PJ Vogt?

  Yes. I think that reduces the amount of hours you can be like.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Well, that's true. I don't know. Like, I think I'm not somebody to ask about this part of it. You should ask somebody who knows better.

• 55:46PJ Vogt?

  What did you make of what Mike said? Like, joking lets you say things that are true and then everybody laughs. And then nobody has to deal with like, how true they may or may not be. But if his joke-

• 55:58Speaker 01

  You and I both know people who have kids whose work is amazing.

• 56:04PJ Vogt?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  So clearly, some people figure it out.

• 56:10PJ Vogt?

  I think it's also confusing because it's like-

• 56:15PJ Vogt?

  The reason I wanted to talk to you about this is because I think that you are evidence that a person can have a fulfilling and meaningful life that does not involve biological progeny. Like, I don't think, I don't think it's like, I don't think you're like a cautionary tale.

• 56:30PJ Vogt?

  And I think people very rarely make the case, like, are all the cultural, or not all, but mostly cultural messaging is like suspicious of the idea that you wouldn't do this. And, I don't know, yeah, I think, I think, like, the idea that it's a way that people grow and change and that it's one of the core human experiences, like, it's really hard for me to, I don't believe that there's anything after this, and so I want to experience as much of it as possible. There's also a lot of people that had kids who shouldn't have, or shouldn't have is a very strong way to put it, but there's people, I get emails from people who are like, here's my question, is parenting as hard for other people as it is for me?

• 57:15PJ Vogt?

  And like, I love my kids, but I don't love parenthood, and I feel like I've given my life away, and like, what's the answer to that?

• 57:23PJ Vogt?

  When you had, like, a non-biological kid, kid show up in your life and you found yourself in a father-like role, was there any part of you that thought, oh, what if I'd had a kid 10 years ago and been there through all the not fun parts of it?

• 57:43Speaker 01

  No.

• 57:44PJ Vogt?

  Zero?

• 57:44Speaker 01

  None.

• 57:46PJ Vogt?

  I always wondered, I always wondered if you felt that way. Not at all?

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Hold on, let me think if that's the honest answer.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  No, I wondered about it, but not, I wondered about it, I wondered about it, but not in, like, a deep yearning way.

• 58:03PJ Vogt?

  Just in a curious way?

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, what would this have been like? And I guess that would have been kind of interesting, but I didn't, I don't know, like, yeah, it wasn't.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  It didn't then lead me to a sense of regret and, oh, let's make a baby.

• 58:19PJ Vogt?

  Right. And when you say, like you said before, that one thing it made you understand is that the way you had thought of parenthood or fatherhood was somewhat immature. Like, what do you mean by that?

• 58:31Speaker 01

  I just really hadn't thought about what the day to day experience is of living with a kid and just how nice it is. And like, what is fulfilling about it and what you get back from it? I hadn't thought about what you get back from it. All I thought about is like, what you throw into it.

• 58:48PJ Vogt?

  And what do you get back from it? Like you, not one.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I mean, in part, I just really like, love this kid.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  And, um, I mean, everything I'm gonna say is so corny, just like seeing him grow, seeing him learn new things, teaching him little stuff that then he can do.

• 59:14Speaker 01

  Just being, just, I mean, it's funny, like, I just remember the first time we were sitting on the couch and he just leaned himself against me to watch something.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  And it just was really meaningful that there's like this person who like trusted me and was leaning on me and, um, and wanted to be close to me in that way.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, like it, I mean, like, this is like a really terrible, not analogous thing, but it reminds me of when, when I first had a dog. Like, I had never had dogs. My ex-wife really loved dogs and I had a dog and so we got a dog. And, um, and really for the first few years, I really just saw the dog as a job. And like, I would spend an hour a day easily, like walking the dog, dealing with the dog, whatever, walking the dog for sure. And, um, Playing with the dog. And it really took me years before I understood the concept of like, oh, you're supposed to get something back from this.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Like, it really didn't occur to me. I just really thought like, and, um, like, oh, because, because the dog would be affectionate with me, but I just thought like, well, of course you're affectionate with me. Like, you don't know anybody in New York except me and her. Like, you know what I mean?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Like, you don't know anybody. Like, I'm one of two people you know. Yeah, you have to be nice to me. But with this little boy, like, you know, just very early on, like, it, it just got to me. Like, I could see what I was getting back from it. And, and it felt like something big to get back from somebody.

• 1:01:02PJ Vogt?

  Did you feel like it changed you at all?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I always really loved kids. I just hadn't had the experience of like, living with a kid. Did it change me at all?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  It did change me, yeah. It did change me. Like, it made me a lot more awake to what all the people in my life are going through who have kids. I think I was really insensitive about it. Like, I understood the idea of it, but I think I wasn't sensitive to the feeling of it. And, um, it's just like such a weird combination of like, labor and affection. And, you know, like, it made me, um, in, in the way that going through something makes you just more awake to what everybody else is experiencing who goes through it. Like, I'm glad, I'm glad I know that. I'm glad I know what, what parents are going through in a way that's more lived on my part. I think that that makes me way more awake and sensitive to the people around me who

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  are raising kids.

• 1:02:11PJ Vogt?

  So what have we learned this week? My question had been, is it okay to work all the time? And clearly, for some people, for Ira, the answer's yes.

• 1:02:22PJ Vogt?

  But what do you actually do with that yes? There's another question, one that may be in the best interests of the show to avoid, which would be, is it possible the entire concept of advice is a little hopeless? How likely is it that someone can distill a lesson from their life and hand it to you and have you just apply it like it came from your own mind? We always believe in advice when we're asking for it, but when we hand it out, we see its limits.

• 1:02:48PJ Vogt?

  I'm thinking about this this week because Ira's mind seems to have this quality I really admire.

• 1:02:54PJ Vogt?

  He's an artist, but somehow he does not seem particularly tortured. He wants the work to be good, he obsesses over it, but he doesn't seem to beat himself up much. If that was something you could learn, wouldn't you want to?

• 1:03:08PJ Vogt?

  Anyway, I had one more question about legacy.

• 1:03:13PJ Vogt?

  Okay, people obviously have children for all sorts of reasons. Like, maybe they think that putting someone else's needs above their own is something that's gonna help them evolve, or maybe they just want to give someone who doesn't exist yet the gift of life that they've been able to experience. But I think, when I've thought about it, a feeling I've had, and I think a feeling a lot of people have, it's just that we get scared about dying and we want to leave something behind. I'm curious whether that is a feeling that you have at all. Like, just the feeling of thinking about what you want to leave behind when you're gone.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I really don't hold much value in the idea of what you leave behind. I don't think it matters because you don't exist anymore. Like, I have the most primitive view of it that I can't defend, but I just feel like it really doesn't matter once I don't exist. I mean, maybe if I had kids, I would see that differently. Like, I want the world to keep spinning and I want things to be okay for people. And I want, you know, the world not to head towards catastrophe. Because in just an abstract way, like, I care about the people of the future in the way I care about anybody who I don't know, you know? But like- But really, like, who cares? Like, honestly, who cares? Like, nobody needs to hear these radio shows that I made after I'm dead. Like, they're not designed for that.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  They're designed for the people who are around when they're made. And that's what they're made for. And there was something really, like, nice back before the internet. We'd make the radio show, and it would go out on the radio. And you could, like, buy a cassette, I guess, but people didn't really do that. You know what I mean? Like, you could buy a tape, and we would mail you a tape. But basically, like, for most people, overwhelmingly, you would hear something on the radio, and then you would never hear it again. And then it would get better in your mind. Like, the show would improve with age. And that was kind of cool, to make something that was like, it existed for a moment, for you to share with somebody,

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  like, an intimate moment with another person. And it's OK for that to be all it is. Like, it doesn't have to last for centuries. And I just think, like, death is a real thing, and it's absolutely finite. And I don't believe in an afterlife. And so that doesn't motivate me.

• 1:05:36PJ Vogt?

  I hope this isn't like a disrespectful thing to say, but that's not just like, because it's a very interesting and unusual thought, but that's really how you feel, like, in your bones. It's not just like an interesting thought.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, like, the radio show is so much more successful than I ever anticipated it could be. Like, it just, it's amazing it's lasted this long, and it's nice that people like it. And I feel lucky that I get a chance to work on it, because it's fun to make, and also a pain in the ass, and horrible sometimes, but fun also. And...

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, it doesn't need to be more than this. It's just a fucking radio show. You know what I mean? It's just a show. We're just making a show. Like, there's so much stuff that people are making.

• 1:06:25PJ Vogt?

  But it's funny, I mean, and it's like, I admire the way you see it. It sounds very sane, but it's funny that you're both like, it's just a show. And it's, it's almost like better that it's ephemeral. And, you know, you, you spend hours and hours and hours of your life just trying to make the minutes of this thing better.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  I know, but like, millions of people hear it. More people than I'll ever meet hear it. Like, it's already reached as many people as it ever needs to reach. Like, and if it reached a lot more, that would be okay, too. But like, it reaches so many people. Like, I'm ambitious, and I embrace that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm ambitious. But my ambition is, I want to make something that's exactly the way I want it to be. And I want it to be something that'll reach a lot of people. But it doesn't have to reach everybody. Like, it doesn't have to be for everybody. It doesn't have to be everybody's taste. It doesn't have to be for people of the future. Fuck people of the future. They'll find some fucking way to entertain themselves. They don't need me. They're making more people who are younger than me, who can do that.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Like, plenty of smart, funny, capable people can make things for the people of the future. They don't need to listen to radio shows from the 1990s.

• 1:07:40PJ Vogt?

  So to the degree that you think about legacy, it's like you want to leave space for other people. Like, you hope that you don't take up space.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  That would even show more concern for the people of the future than I feel. But sure, that has so much dignity. Yes, my legacy is that I want to create space for the young people. Like, whatever, they don't need my fucking help. They're gonna be fine. Somebody who wants to make something will, will stand up. And somebody wants to be on stage, and it's totally fine. They don't need my help.

• 1:08:22PJ Vogt?

  Ira Glass. He hosts the podcast and radio show This American Life. And if you are someone far off one day in the future, listening to this recording, he hopes you'll stop.

• 1:09:33PJ Vogt?

  Search Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw Productions. It was created by me, PJ Vogt, and Shruti Pinnamaneni, and is produced by Garrett Graham and Noah John. Fact checking by Claire Hyman. Theme, original composition and mixing by Armin Bezarian. Additional production support by Sean Merchant. If you would like to help support our show, keep it alive, and get ad-free episodes, zero reruns, and the occasional bonus audio, please consider signing up for incognito mode. You can learn more at searchengine.show. This week, we gave incognito mode listeners early access to tickets for our live show at the Bell House. Our executive producers are Jenna White-Sperman and Leah Reese-Dennis. Thanks to the team

• 1:10:14PJ Vogt?

  at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney, Rich Perrello, and John Schmidt, and to the team at Odyssey, J.D. Crowley, Rob Morandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Matt Casey, Laura Curran, Josefina Francis, Kirk Courtney, and Hillary Shuff. Our agent is Orin Rosenbaum at UTA. Follow and listen to Search Engine with PJ Vote now for free on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.

• 1:10:58Speaker 05

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