J.R.: ​[00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, JR. Yona Cruz. Today's guest is Wei Lu Wei. Lu Wei is a creative born and raised in the Bay Area with experience in dance, DJing and other music related facets.

So this was another catch up with an old friend Wayne, and I go back to 2008 in high school, I believe, when he was a freshman and I was a senior.

He was once a hip hop dance mentee of mine. And interestingly, he followed a similar dance journey as me joining two dance teams I was on after I had left. He's also a freestyle dancer with the background in popping, and he also moved down to SoCal to pursue dance just like I did. We're both Fremont Bay area natives, and I haven't actually caught up with him in maybe eight or nine years, but he's almost the exact same dude I remember from high school, just slightly older and wiser.

Of course, we talk about his dance journey, the struggles of being a director on Cabo Modern, his drug addiction, and now sobriety for four years struggles with his decades long [00:01:00] chronic back pain and how he got into so many different creative pursuits. It was a very wide ranging, vulnerable and humbling conversation, and a great reminder that sometimes the kindest people, you know, are also the people who have gone through some of the hardest challenges.

So I deeply appreciate him for sharing his story, and hopefully you guys do too. So without further ado, hope you enjoy this episode with way Lou.

Hello and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Please welcome my guest, Way inserts applause. Woo. Cool. I'll applause for myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put it in post. So thank you Way, for being here. I really appreciate it. How are you feeling? Not bad today. How about you? I am fantastic. It's been a long day. I was kind of, this is the thing I was looking forward to, just catching up with a friend and not being on the clock.

So 

Way: I feel it, man. I was doing a bunch of wedding gig stuff before this, and it was just pretty stressful. [00:02:00] 

J.R.: Yeah. Yeah, work has been busy. And also I had a Wayrd, do you ever have those days where you just have a headache and you're not really sure why? And it's just this is sucks and I don't really wanna take.

Like medicine. I'm like, lemme just see if I can get through the day. Especially working out with a headache sucks. I hate that. Yeah. I think I usually just skip working out if I have a headache. Yeah. Yeah. I think I wish I could do that, but my, what's it called, my habits won't allow me to skip a day at this point just to get And bad thing.

You have like a very, 

Way: You have a very set plan and you can't break it. 

J.R.: Yeah, exactly. So it's a good and a bad thing. It's like, ah, I'm gonna be here anyways. Whatever. Just suffer. But anyways, we'll go back to the intro. So thank you again for being here. I'll go into how I know you. So you and I go way back high school.

We're both from Fremont. You're in Fremont still, right? Yep. I'm in Fremont right now. Nice Bay area. Let's go. So yeah, then we started hanging out when you were [00:03:00] a first year and I was a fourth year, if I'm not mistaken in Yes, Irvington. So yeah, we're part of the small high school dance community back in the day.

Later on you moved to SoCal and we were reconnected. You ended up joining Camma Modern. You were also an A OV for a little bit, and then you eventually moved back to the Bay and I've been following your social media DJ journey. Sometimes you post like cooking food stuff, which I'm like, Ooh, that looks good.

Yeah. So, I think that's it. What any clarifications. What else you up to?

Way: I think most people know me for DJing, but I'm always kind of dipping my fingers into random stuff. I think DJing is just what people know me for, because that's most of the content I post online. But. Usually it's whatever shiny object is drawing my attention at the moment.

J.R.: I feel like you've always been that kind of guy.

You're just like, oh, this seems interesting, and you go for it and try it out, which I think is pretty cool. Okay. Any other clarifications? Otherwise we'll go into the main three topics, which I'll [00:04:00] outline right now, so mm-hmm. As listeners of the show know, we always go to go through origin story and life aspirations.

Just to humanize my guests, I would've already read your bio before this recording. Second topic health, we have some topics there. And then third topic is your, all of your creative pursuits. And of course this is always freestyle as well and organic. So we'll kind of, we might do some side tangents and whatnot, but yeah, otherwise we can just jump into it.

So we, where did you grow up? What were some of your main influences that were pivotal in shaping who you are today? It might be a broad question, but however you wanna tackle it. 

Way: Well, Fremont, California I moved here when I was four, I think. And my biggest influence is, I guess there's a lot, but as it relates to my personality, probably SpongeBob the most.

'cause I feel like I'm Wayrd and crazy, just like the characters in that show. And then creatively definitely you and Kenta in my early [00:05:00] years when I was like just getting into hip hop dance, I remember you guys were like my early mentors YouTube being the, being a late millennial, I guess I experienced like the birth of the internet or.

Not the birth of the internet, but like when the internet started becoming super popular or web two internet, when you could like, subscribe to creators and kind of the social aspect of the internet became big. I think that really influenced me a lot. 'cause not just YouTube, but you know, like AIM and early Facebook and stuff like that.

J.R.: Yeah. I mean same. It was like that kind of generation. I was gonna ask, did you see that one movie that was like, about the Asian American experience growing up in our generation with YouTube and it was shot in Warm Springs? Oh, Dee, do you know what I'm talking about, Didi? Yeah. Did you watch it? Yeah, 

Way: yeah, yeah.

That movie. How'd you feel? That movie is [00:06:00] based on a lot of my experiences actually. 

J.R.: Yeah. No, for real. I'm like that. This is, this was like our era generation. And not only that, but it's in our hometown, so it was like pretty, like it was a trip to watch it. I thought it was pretty good. 

Way: I was recommending, you know, you remember the squirrel scene?

J.R.: Which one was that? 

Way: Where he like puts a squirrel in his backpack. Dead squirrel was backpack. Yeah. Dead squirrel. And then shows it to his friends and then they play with it. That was me. Was that you? Yeah, 

J.R.: that was me. And you're like, I literally did that. They just, that was a documentary actually.

Way: And then you remember Goggin Deep Gupta when he was making the joke? I'm not really proud of this one. Uhhuh. There was a, what was it? When he was like making a joke about the Gagan, deep Gupta, like basically I like, or the character posted a video to YouTube of a hedge, the character's a hedge pissing in the river.

And then the parents got angry and told me to take, or the character to take it down. [00:07:00] And then they, he, instead of taking it down, he just changed the name to GaN, deep Gupta. That was me.

That's crazy. Not proud of that. Not proud of that either. 

J.R.: Damn. 

Way: That was, 

J.R.: that's so, yeah. That's crazy. I was in mad. I was in mad. We like it. Yeah. I thought that was such a fun movie. I was like, dang, this is such a trip.

So what were your life aspirations growing up like during childhood high school and maybe college, like young way?

What were you aiming to do or what type of person did you wanna become? I don't know if that makes sense, that question. 

Way: Yeah. Young way, like you mean? Junior high all the way up till senior year of high school or 

J.R.: just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So bef, pre adult way, what were you trying to do?

What were your aspirations? 

Way: I think when I was really young, like elementary school, I wanted to be an artist. I was really into drawing and I said, I wanna be an artist. And then when I discovered dancing [00:08:00] in junior high, I decided I wanna be a dancer. Or maybe I didn't say dancer specifically, but I was definitely really obsessed with dancing.

And I think that's all I really thought about until I graduated high school. 

J.R.: I remember back when you were a first year, you were talking about how you really liked dancing, but you also really enjoyed theater or something like that. Do you remember that? 

Way: I wasn't necessarily into theater in the sense of wanting to be a drama kid, but I was, I think I was involved heavily in theater 'cause I did stage craft as a extracurricular after school.

I went to summer drama camp, which was basically a summer camp for art, for drama kids, but with other arts attached to like dance and arts and crafts and stuff, which is why I went. 

J.R.: Okay. So it was just like an outlet where you wanted to pursue this creative field. Yeah.

So then I guess if you, so it seems like you wanted to pursue the arts and you kind of [00:09:00] just whatever piques your curiosity, you go towards that. My next question is how has like your dance journey shaped you overall and maybe some key turning points that affected who you are or how you see the world or life, et cetera?

Way: I think the great thing is that dance has stuck with me through all these years. Ever since I found it as I evolved as a person, my dance also evolved. So in a way, like my dancing is like a snap. The way I danced at a certain period of time was like a snapshot of who I was, which is really cool.

A lot of artists say that about their work, whether you're a painter or a photographer, and it's like that for dancing too. And it's a little embarrassing 'cause I'll watch old dance videos and I'll cringe and I'll be like I hope no one ever sees this. But it's also beautiful that it's cringe because it's oh, that's like you cringing at just how you were as a person back then.

Right? It reflects all into dancing. That's on the surface level, how dance has I guess reflected my journey as a person, but there's also deeper ways that it has affected [00:10:00] me too. Which I can go into if you want me to or I don't have to. 

J.R.: Yeah, we can do that. I'm curious just your dance journey that, that as well.

But I think for the audience too, if you want to describe your I wanna say dance journey, but I also wanna ask like dance influences, how your style has evolved over time. Freestyle background, going into choreography, et cetera. Because I think I, yeah, why don't I talk 

Way: about that first? Yeah.

Go for it. I think that would give a better overall picture first. So I got into, Hmm, that's a really good, I think I got into freestyle first through finding out about like popping and crump on YouTube. 'cause in the late two thousands that was like super popular. It was like popping versus crump, right?

So I was into popping and crump and then I even got into like seawalk and like I found out about turf dancing, but I couldn't really learn 'cause I didn't really have many sources. I got into free and then you guys, you and Kenta helped teach me freestyle. I [00:11:00] think I got into choreo too 'cause you guys were also had one foot in choreo.

And I was like, why not? Let's do that too. Right? And I learned, took some choreo classes and then I think I started branching. I started trying freestyle and choreo at the same time. I had joined a freestyle crew, which I'm still in. Blockheads. We just changed our crew name to NBA. But I was doing that and then I was, but I was also trying to do choreo and I ended up joining a OV, which, funny story, my crew didn't like that at all really.

But I just really wanted to do choreo and a OV was like the big, team in the bay, right? And I was hungry. Like I wanted to be on the best team in the Bay. So I did it even though my crew didn't like it. And, it wasn't the best experience, but I learned a lot. And yeah. Why didn't your crew like it and what did 

J.R.: you learn from it?

Way: Well, back then, especially with freestyle crews crew, loyalty was a huge thing. [00:12:00] Like you weren't meant to be on like multiple, multiple crews. Now I think it's different. A lot of people, even big name dancer, they'll have like five crews on their profile and I'll be like, bro, like even that's too much for me.

You know what I mean? And then also there was just a lot of animosity between freestyle and choreo. Like I remember back then a huge, there was just like this huge debate where like freestyles would hate on choreo heads and they would call them derogatory names and then choreo heads would like, I don't know, maybe try to taunt back like, oh, you guys can't do choreo, or something like that.

But there was definitely a lot of ani animosity compared to now. So. It was hard trying to be someone 

J.R.: who was interested in both, you're just like, man, I'm interested. Why can't I just like things? Why does that have to be so segregated? Yeah. What did you learn in that experience of being on a LB?

Because I know it's a tough, like my I was on it for a little bit. You were on it for a little bit. My sister was on it for several years. What, and going into a, like a [00:13:00] high level choreo team, what was your experience like and what did you learn from it? 

Way: Oh, well, I learned that I'm capable of a lot more than I thought.

I think before then, I was just this happy go lucky kid that just wanted to dance and have fun. And then when I walked into a OV everyone was like, mad dog face. Do 10 pushups if you fucking sneeze. Right. If you 

J.R.: breathe wrong. 

Way: Yeah. And then it was crazy 'cause walking into that was a huge shock to me.

I was like 16 or 17 and I probably struggled with wondering if I was fit to be in part of that environment. But actually I pushed through all for, six months total. And I pushed through to the point where I was able to enter a competition with them. But yeah, I think it, I think one, it taught me grit, which I didn't know much about.

'cause I grew up in a very non grit environment, you know, no shame. It taught me grit, but it also taught me my boundaries of what I want [00:14:00] in terms of my work ethic as it relates to dance. Because there's a reason I left, I think when I left it was when I decided actually this isn't for me.

It's really, I, the work ethic was great. I feel like I advanced as a person. I pushed my limits, but I also realized like, yeah, maybe this is not my way of how I wanna, 

J.R.: Excel, 

Yeah, that makes sense. So then how did you transition into Kaba Modern play out?

And I wanna get into being a director but yeah, how did you transition from there? What was the journey like? 

Way: So, the funny thing is, I think after a OVI took a break from choreo or I still did choreo with hip hop club. But I think I kind of went back to freestyle only and I was like, 'cause I think I was starting to like really come into my own as a freestyler and find my identity.

And I was entering a lot of battles. I just turned 18. I feel [00:15:00] like I had that young fiery energy, right? I wanted to enter battles, I wanted to battle everyone. I wanted to win. So I entered like freestyle mode, like when I moved down to SoCal. And I was doing that for, and I think I was even kind of like hate starting to hate on choreo again.

I was like, oh yeah I don't know. I would walk around with my head high kind of like with my nose down at choreo heads. And it wasn't like a serious thing, right? Like I wouldn't go like actually talk shit, but I would kind of just have this air about me that I'm like, cool, cooler or whatever.

But the funny thing is I moved into a house with some people from UCI, 'cause I. Even though I went to Cal State Fullerton, I was constantly driving down to UCI to go to the Bboys anonymous sessions. So I was like, why don't I just fucking move to Irvine and commute to Fullerton? So I did that. Moved in with Braley and Francis, who are also KM alumni, and I moved in with them 'cause [00:16:00] they were my BBA buddies, but they were also on Kama Modern.

So I think we were just like hanging out at one point and they just brought up as a joke oh, you should just, it was like nearing Kama modern auditions. And then they were like, oh, you should just enter Cabo MA auditions for fun. And I think at that point in time, that was like spring or yeah, spring 2014.

I was in a space mentally where I think my. Air headedness about freestyling had kind of faded and I was more in a d gaf mentality, and I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Why not? Let me, I'll do choreo, right? So I did the auditions and then I I made it and then I fucking, I was on the choreo team again.

Obviously it wasn't like all rainbows and ponies like right when I joined, but once I got on, I was known as the the really stubborn freestyle guy. But eventually I opened up 

J.R.: to choreo again. What do you mean by like [00:17:00] stubborn freestyle guy? 

Way: Like I was that one newbie that was super rebellious.

I just didn't want to follow any of the traditions. I didn't take everything a hundred percent seriously. I kind of felt like this cool guy, like I was better than everyone because of my freestyle background and, so I wasn't fully my cup wasn't empty. It, my cup was still like 90% full when I walked into cold water.

And it took a while for it to go down to zero. 

J.R.: So then how did that change over time? Was it just you started to be more open minded, your walls breaking down, or what was that like? I think it was 

Way: probably the KM Collective classes. So basically you remember back then, I don't know if it was during your era, but we had weekly CAM collective classes at Focus Dance Studio and every team member had to take it.

And I fucking hated it because it was always a new teacher with a new style that didn't work with my body. [00:18:00] 'cause even though I was on a LV. And I had that six months of like super hard experience and I probably did improve my choreo skills at that time. Like I wasn't really being exposed to other styles of choreography as regularly as on KA modern.

And I was on Kaba for four years, right? So four years or even one year of consistent KM collective classes of me being like, fuck, I have to take this class. And then eventually just being like, 'cause you know, you do groups right at the end of class and then you have people encourage you.

And then I'm always going into groups like, man, I don't wanna do this shit. And then, but then, maybe there's one class where people are like, Hey, you killed that shit. And then I'll be like, oh, I did, oh, maybe I can do that. And then, finding my kind of a way to have fun with it and, I guess it really opened my body up. 'cause before that I was super [00:19:00] rigid. Like I only wanted to do clean angles popping cool guy looking stuff. Right. But I think it opened up my body to different ways of expressing itself. 

J.R.: Okay. So it was exposing it to more styles and movements and it maybe humbled you a little bit and then you were kind of more into it at that point.

Yeah. How did it, how did your, how did you, how, what was your journey like to being a director on modern? Like how did that happen? 

Way: Yeah, so I think my newbie year, end of my newbie year, I got paired up with Mike's song 'cause they were doing this mentor thing and they wanted to pair me with Mike's song 'cause I, 'cause I was the token popper in my class.

And then Mike's song was, the ISO Guide and we collabed on a piece for Vibe and I got in, I got a piece in for Vibe, which is like the big end of the season set. That was super cool. And I think for me it was my first time stepping into a leadership role as a choreographer. And also it was my, the team's [00:20:00] first time as well as the alumni watching over their first time seeing me kind of take on this leadership role as well as like artist influencer role.

Like basically, adding my artistry to the face of common marick. And I think people started seeing like, Hey, we like this guy, we wanna see more from you. Do you wanna do this? So that led to my returner year, my second year they wanted me to apply for board and I think I did assistant artistic director that year.

And so I had more of a hand in like selecting pieces. Choreographing pieces and from then it was just building up and up. Right? The second year was the first year I felt like, oh, I have a responsibility to choreograph for the team to be like someone to and I was just like, yeah, fuck it.

I'm all in on choreo now. You know what I mean? Not like completely in, but I definitely stepped a little bit away from freestyle to focus on choreo. And then it just kind of kept [00:21:00] going up from there. So from second year, arts assistant, artistic director, and then my third year I was the executive director because I think they had seen from my work in the second year that they were like, Hey, yeah, this is cool.

We want you to be executive director because we want, we like your we like your. Choreography and we want you to kind of lead Kaba modern into this new era of artistry. Although now looking back at it, I feel like artistic director would've been better because my executive directing capabilities were terrible.

Like it, yeah, it was not good. 

What, 

J.R.: what artist, or sorry, what executive director responsibilities are you referring to? 

Way: Just like being the leader of the team, as a symbol of

J.R.: oh, like the head of the team? Sort of, yeah, like the CEO and then 

Way: also handling logistics, [00:22:00] delegating, working with other people.

I had not, I did not. Well, the funny thing is I was on a SB four years in high school and I was great at that. So I do have the experience, but also at the time I was heavily struggling with drug addiction and that extremely dampened my ability to lead. 

J.R.: I see. I was gonna ask, so what was your directorship like?

I know you just mentioned that the, maybe the non-artistic parts of it might have been a challenge, but was there anything else? And then the next question of that is what did you learn from that experience?

Way: Sorry, can you repeat the first part? 

J.R.: Yeah. So what were some of the challenges that you faced as a director?

Way: I think first challenge was just pressure, right? I was feeling a lot of pressure from current modern, but actually mostly alumni and, which I don't put anything against him. This is not like I it's just, I, it was more like pressure I put on myself because he saw so much in me and some of the older alumni and I felt like this whole kind [00:23:00] of Wayght of I have to carry the torch of Kawa modern, which felt fucking awesome because I fucking grew up watching them on tv.

Right. But at the same time it was like, holy shit. Like I feel this responsibility to carry this whole team's image with my artistry, that was the hardest thing for sure. I think other challenges was just like ma managing my mental health which kind of relates to that, but my mental health was terrible at the time.

I didn't know how to manage my mental health. Not even remotely. And I was. Dealing with it in really toxic ways. And then also this might not be directly related, but my chronic back pain, because that was always in the background even ever since I was young. But it had reached a very high peak at the same time that I was leading modern.

So I was dealing with chronic back pain, like just extreme, constant pain in my low back, which [00:24:00] also led to tightness all in my neck and shoulders and hips. And it was just like, it felt like me being attacked from all angles. 

J.R.: Yeah. I definitely wanna get into that because I also have low back pain and neck pain.

So I wanna dig into that. What about lessons learned? Anything? I know you said there's a lot of pressure, but what did you learn from that experience of leading Kama Modern on your shoulders? Number one, I don't wanna be a leader. Good. Learn self-awareness. 

Way: Yeah. Well, not in that sense. I don't wanna lead a team, but I think what, almost 10 years later now, I see I'm starting to like, see leadership qualities arise within me again, but I'm choosing how they, how I utilize them on my own terms.

I'm not gonna manage a team, but I might be a symbol of inspiration for people, or I might help out one friend here and there if I have the [00:25:00] energy. But I, yeah, I definitely realize that I am not, I don't wanna lead. So that's the first lesson. Two is I think I just. I just saw like the worst side of myself.

Like I hit rock bottom when I was on Kaba Modern, and I hate to say that 'cause I don't wanna taint the name of the team. This is purely just like how I reacted to a high stress situation. But I saw the worst side of myself. I was just like totally, not taking care of myself. Acting in really irresponsible, in toxic ways.

And I think it taught me

what kind of person I wanna be going forward because I saw hey, this is how I fold under pressure, right? And I wanted to change how, like, how I respond to that. I don't know if I worded that in the best way, but. 

J.R.: No, I think that makes a lot of sense. It's that high pressure environment reveals who we are and then afterwards we can see the mistakes we made and [00:26:00] how we can improve from that.

So I appreciate that. It's, you're like, I know, or I messed up and I also revealed a lot to yourself. Anything else on lessons learned? Otherwise I wanna switch over to health and all these other topics. I think that's all that comes to mind. Yeah. I mean, you said four years, right? I mean that's a such a long time on the, like I barely did two and a half years and it was pretty intense.

Yeah. 

Way: Can't believe I did four years. 

J.R.: I know. Wait, why did you move down to SoCal anyways? I'm curious. I moved down for 

Way: dance, so, I remember. During college apps, everyone was like picking their dream college. I didn't even know what college I wanted to go to. I just knew I wanted to go to SoCal 'cause I wanted to meet all my all my heroes in dance.

And so I just picked a random, or not a random, but like I went, I did go to tour a couple colleges. I toured C-S-U-L-A and CSU Fullerton and I picked Fullerton. I forgot why, but I'm glad I did. 'cause I met all the cool dancers in the OC area and that's where I kind of planted my feed. You, sorry.

You asked me why I moved to SoCal. Yeah. I mean why, that sounds like you answered it's why that's

J.R.: yeah. It's funny because that's also why I moved to SoCal was just to dance and be a part of the community. And then obviously Kaba modern in high school was big. So I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go down there and join.

[00:27:00] So I think we have similar reasons. So let's move over to shift gears to health. So you mentioned this in the forms, you mentioned four years of sobriety. If you don't mind, could you walk us through that journey and maybe some big things you learned along the way to get where you are or things that helped?

Way: Yeah. So I just recently celebrated four years of sobriety. Congrats. Thank you. But my sobriety journey is actually longer than four years. I would say my sobriety journey started in 2018. And I was just kind of working towards full sobriety. Actually. I can't say full sobriety or else I'd be a phony.

Technically right now I'm Cali sober, which means everything but weed and shrooms. But as a caveat, I don't even do weed and shrooms because I have fear of panic attacks now. And, I can't really do those substances without fear of panic attack. So if I do it, it's like once in a blue moon. But yeah.

The reason I went [00:28:00] sober four years ago was 'cause I had a near death scare with, that was associated with drugs and alcohol where I got a panic attack while driving in the car. This was actually the day after I had taken substances, so I did wait, it was kind, it was like after this party, I drank some water, drank a lot of water actually, to try to flush outta my system.

And I had thought I was good to go. Good to go home the day after. But once I hopped in my car, I got and got onto the bridge. I just started seized up and I got this crazy panic attack and it felt like I was going to die. I literally got scared straight. Cause yeah, that was probably the most terrifying experience I've ever had in my life.

So in a way it's the best thing that ever happened to me because now it's easy for me to be sober. A lot of people say sobriety is hard, and I understand why, because pre 2021, which is when I went like [00:29:00] mostly full sober I did struggle with sobriety because I didn't, I it's hard to deal with the temptations.

You know, when you go to a party, someone pulls a substance out. But after 2021, it was easy because if someone ever offered me a substance, I would just think about that panic attack. And I'd be like, nah, I'm good. So the cool thing about that is I can go out and party now without having to worry. 'cause I can look at people do substances and it doesn't phase me.

Whereas other people struggle with that. And I I feel for them I was kind of like that before 2021. 

J.R.: Okay. I'm curious, and if you don't wanna go into it, we don't have to, but I'm curious what led down this path until you hit that panic attack? Was it just trying things out recreationally and then it kind of just spiraled into let's say a harder addiction and then you had that panic attack and then you wanted to get sober off of that?

Or was there something else, or, was it just a way to cope with [00:30:00] something or any number of reasons? 

Way: I think it started right after high school. 'cause in high school and before I was mostly, I was like the goody two shoes, mascot of the school. Hated people that did drugs. But yeah. Something switched in me right after high school.

I don't know why or how, but basically after high school, I became super depressed and super cynical. Maybe it was 'cause like, I felt like the world was my oyster in high school. And after high school I felt like it was all gone. And I started smoking cigarettes. I started smoking weed and then, it kind of, you start trying other things.

But it's not as simple as that. I think my relationship with drugs was a little more complex. For example a lot of people tried Adderall and. A lot of people choose Adderall as like the college drug 'cause it's a great study drug. It's also recreational. I participated in that as [00:31:00] well, but I got particularly addicted to it because it relieved my back pain more than just taking like ibuprofen.

'cause I couldn't get a good prescription for back pain or maybe I just didn't wanna figure out how to, and I just had access to Adderall and it was the only time my, my whole body felt good. 'cause it was not just back pain, but it was like my tightness. Whenever I took Adderall, my back pain and my tightness would go away and I would feel like a regular person.

And so it I developed a really toxic relationship with it because I started taking it like once a week or maybe even twice a week. And this was like for basically four years. And I would take like a really high dose too. And so yeah, it was kind of, it was like recreational, but it was also like this dependence on it due to my back pain.

And it was like to escape my pain and probably also to escape like mental pain, right? Like things I didn't wanna deal [00:32:00] with. And then graduate or trying other drugs like ecstasy, cocaine, and then kind of just like going up and up until, you crash. But for me it wasn't like that to 2021, right?

It was more like 2013 up to like 2017 when it was like at its worst. And I was like a fucking wreck. And then. I kind of like crashed and burned and I just hit like a new low. And then I realized the error of my ways and then I started going, okay, I'm gonna chill. Right? So that's 2018. So that's why I said my sobriety journey started in 2018 because I had a episode that was like I think a lot of addicts will know, like you get these like moments of clarity, these very rare moments of clarity.

And I had one in 2018 after an episode where I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I need to stop this shit. And then, so 2018, I didn't go completely [00:33:00] sober, but like something changed in my brain where I was like, nah, I need to change my ways, so I started living more intentionally or at least being more mindful.

Of how I carry myself. And I started doing way less drugs and partying way less so 2018, I was going like down and then maybe I would like party here and there. I don't know, rave festival friends party. Right? But by the time 2021 hit, I was already like 90% sober. And so when I had that panic attack, that scared me straight.

It was super easy. It was like, it was super easy to go sober 'cause it was like taking the next step, right? 

J.R.: So it was like a gradual progression. Yeah. I wanted to ask, and I think you touched upon some of this, where it was, you had that panic attack and you were on this journey of getting.

Getting to that sober point, but was there anything else that comes to mind that helped with that? And I think in the spirit of, let's say other people might be [00:34:00] having their own addictions and struggles with that and trying to get off of substances is there anything that you feel like, any insights that you feel like it help with people on that journey?

Way: Probably being at home, 'cause I moved home in 2020, so when I decided to go sober, I was already living at home. I was already healing my relationship with my family. Not like it was terrible at any, actually, it was probably terrible at some point when I was in the depths of my addiction. But by the time 2021 came, I was already like improving my relationship with my family enjoying quality time with them and then having them as a support system.

So, and then also just living at home it's kind of hard to get addicted to stuff when I'm living back at my childhood home. I don't wanna show that side to my my family, so there's that pressure of oh, I don't wanna embarrass myself. Whereas if I was living in SoCal still, it might've been easier for me to fall back into certain habits [00:35:00] because I didn't have any, like anyone watching me.

Well, it's not like they were watching me, but like anyone I was living with that would get upset with me. Right. 

J.R.: Okay. So it's just that accountability of being around your family probably helped put you in a better, more safe environment or a better conducive environment to be sober. 

Way: Yeah, I think so. And I would hope that if I was living on my own, it would've been the same because I don't wanna live here forever, 

J.R.: right. Makes sense. Okay. I think that makes a lot of sense and it's been very insightful. I wanna ask about the back pain now, and I put this as asking for a friend, meaning myself, but you said it's been chronic for a long time. Do you know what caused it? And then the larger question is, what helped you progress and heal from it?

Way: That's the big question I can never answer. All the doctors ask me, my friends, and I [00:36:00] ask it, and I don't know what the cause is. I think it, it happened so long ago that we can't like pinpoint the cause. Was this like 

J.R.: before high school? 

Way: Yeah. So, my back pain started in elementary school. I remember as early as fifth grade, I would get these back spasms where I was like, throw out my back randomly.

If I like, if I moved wrong, I might throw out my back, get the super sharp pain and then I couldn't move my back sometimes for up to two days. It's Wayrd. But back then I didn't know what the fuck back pain was or like that I needed to go get an X-ray or ask a doctor. I just thought it was like, oh, my back hurts.

Right? So I didn't really get it addressed until all the way in college. What were you asking? 

J.R.: Yeah, so then, okay, so you didn't get addressed. So you, what was that process of getting it addressed and then did anything help? What did they tell you? 

Way: I did go to the chiropractor in high school.

I remember that. 'cause my mom was. Very crazy about the chiropractor. She had a family chiropractor. We could get free chiropractic appointments. So I, [00:37:00] joined in. And I think they helped to a degree, but it wasn't until college that like my back pain started really kind of coming to the forefront.

I remember multiple nights where I would just lie awake, agonizing, because my back hurt extraordinarily more than I expected it to. And I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I would try to stretch and it would just hurt like hell. And sometimes I would cry. And it got to the point where I was like, okay, this is a thing.

I need to research. This. Started researching stretches back pain resources online, but I was still very unknowledgeable. I still didn't know shit about how to deal with injuries, how to prevent injuries, what the hell back pain is or whatever. But I did start I think I saw my first physical therapist in 2015 and then I started my PT journey all the way [00:38:00] from then until now and I'm still going to physical therapy 

J.R.: to this day.

Okay. So did you discover anything at that point when you started going to the PT about your back pain or what helps it? 

Way: Well I did get I did get a MRI that showed that there was some something not regular in my spinal discs. Like one of them was a lot flatter than normal. And just other stuff that was wrong with the alignment or whatever.

But nothing that was like. Concrete, like, yeah, this is what's wrong with your back and this is how we're gonna fix it. Because I realize that it's a lot more complex than that. It's not like when you break your shin bone and you get a cast with chronic back pain. It's like a way longer and way more complex treatment plan.

J.R.: Okay. Okay. So it's complex. Has anything helped? And was there anything else that you learned during that [00:39:00] process? 

Way: Yeah, well, has anything helped? Has anything helped? That's, that is a good question. I think a lot. So you saying you're sorry, go ahead. No, you go. 'cause I was still thinking. Yeah, yeah.

J.R.: Go ahead. Go ahead. Think. So I guess I'm coming from it as, so you've started going to the PT and uhum, you're still going and maybe treatment's helping. Not sure if you've learned anything from your physical therapist and things that might help or things that I don't know that have helped along the journey or that you learned about yourself.

Way: I think the most important thing I learned was consistency is the most important thing. No matter what exercise you're doing, just be consistent with it. Because I bounced between so many physical therapists because something wasn't working. And I realized maybe my error was just not sticking with a physical therapist long enough.

Because I would get frustrated. I would quit and then I would just stop doing exercises completely. So I would lose all that progress and then I would return to back pain.

J.R.: So then those exercises. When you stuck to it, you found that it did help a little bit. 

Way: Yes. I think it was near, it was like way later, like maybe 20, 23, that I [00:40:00] decided to like really stick with therapists.

So I stuck with a therapist for like one year, I think maybe a little over a year, and I saw the most progress with him. And then I switched to another therapist, which is my current physical therapist, and I've been with them for a year and a half now, and I've seen absolutely the most progress with this current 

J.R.: physical therapist.

So what's that regimen like? What do they make you do? What have they addressed?

Way: It's a really complicated, like it's these really strange exercises, but it's like basically exercise is meant to reeducate your body to like align better. And it was really frustrating to learn them. It's not just do 10 pushups and do 10 situps and do 10 glute bridges. It's a super complex like exercise with a bunch of cues.

But it eventually made sense and it kind of helped to like reeducate my body and it's cool 'cause [00:41:00] after 10 whole years of being in physical therapy and maybe 20 whole years of being in in pain, I finally reached a point that I feel somewhat like a regular human. 

J.R.: Okay. So. Your current PT and being consistent helped out and they give you these exercises or things that help with your alignment and that's been helping you out?

Yes. Oh, okay. I guess maybe as a personal, aside from like one to 10, how was your pain, how severe was your pain before and then what is it like now? Just curious. 

Way: At my worst it was definitely reaching levels of 10. Not in the sense like I couldn't walk 'cause there's different types of pain, right?

My pain was like also psychological, so it was like physical, psychological. I could walk and move around and do stuff, but the pain was like constant. It was like all day from the point I woke [00:42:00] up until I went to sleep. Every single day for years and combined together, that felt like a 10, even though my like physical pain was probably closer to an eight.

But yeah, that's probably where it was at its worst, which is probably around 2017 through 2019, I think that's when my pain was at its worst. Now it's down to ranging between zero and three. 

J.R.: Wow. Dang. That must have been like, your PT must be really working then. 

Way: Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. I'm glad to hear that man.

Chronic pain is no joke and I'm still trying to figure out mine, but I'm sure we'll get there. Anything else on health or back pain or anything else? Otherwise I wanna move to it. Creative pursuits. I know we have maybe around 15 minutes left, but anything else before we move over?

Way: I think I did wanna just mention how back pain has influenced my journey as a dancer because dancing, and maybe this will segue into the next conversation actually, because dancing was my ultimate passion. Like from the moment I discovered it up until, I had to [00:43:00] quit, I had this just like this burning desire in my heart and soul to pursue dancing.

And I had this calling and my chronic back pain directly just ended it like it was. And it destroyed me mentally, like it was probably the my greatest struggle. And I still struggle with it, but yeah, like unfortunately I had to quit my dance career because of my back pain back in 2018.

And I'm still in physical therapy, still trying to fix my back because I still have even a tiny sliver of hope that I can return to a dance career even though I'm already 31 and I'm getting to that age where, you know, where beco, where everything becomes crackly. But anyways, I had to kind of come to terms with that and eventually kind of try to reframe it as a blessing, which is [00:44:00] really hard.

I hate trying to reframe it as a blessing, but I did try to reframe it as maybe it was meant to happen because I was meant to try other things. And after I. My dance career in 2018, I decided to pursue music production and I decided to pursue, get back into DJing, and I decided to try like creating funny music videos and then I decided to learn guitar and those are all things I do now.

I still do now that I could not live without. And I love almost just as much as dancing. So in a way I'm thankful towards my back pain for showing me that, but I still fucking hate my back pain. Of course you back pain because it made me quit dancing. 

J.R.: Of course. I'm curious, so what if you are at a zero to two, could you just start dancing and or what level of dancing are you aspiring to do if you do get back into it?

Way: So that's a really good question because yes, I can dance right now [00:45:00] and yes, I do dance right now. But do I dance professionally? No. Do I wanna dance professionally right now? Definitely. No. So as my, the the way my back pain relates to it is even if my back pain is at a zero, which is great my dance ability might not be very great because my recovery situation is twofold.

It's pain and mobility. Both of those are equally as important to my ability to return to dancing, because even if my pain is zero, my mobility might be severely limited. And that's not just oh, I can't touch my toes. It's also how tight my muscles feel. So I suffer from this. Condition. I don't know what it's called, but it feels like my muscles are choking me.

Oh, damn. And it's, yeah, it's a terrible feeling. It feels like someone took a, like injected hot glue into your muscles in my neck and my hips and my [00:46:00] back. And so even if my pain is at zero, I might feel like just really constricted. And that not only makes it really uncomfortable to dance, but it also makes me unable to express myself.

So I'm working on that at the same time as I'm working on reducing my pain. Thankfully I've reduced most of the pain, which makes working on the other stuff easier. 'cause nothing is easy to do when you're in pain. Right. But yeah, so returning to dance might still be a long journey, even though my pain is a 

lot lower now.

J.R.: Right.

So getting that mobility. Kind of dancing, do you aspire to do so you want to do it professionally, and what does that look like? 

I wanna do illusion based styles. I still am in love with popping, which was my first style. But I branched out to learning other styles, which are related to, loosely related to popping, which is turf dancing from Oakland, Memphis Stricken flex Dance from New York.

And wait, yeah, [00:47:00] just those, mostly just those. I do like other styles here and there, like shuffling. I really like shuffling. And yeah, but those are mostly the styles I wanna do, which thankfully doesn't require as much athleticism or mobility as say, like break dancing. But it still does require like a base level of mobility, which I'm trying to 

get to.

So what does that look like, dancing at that level? So I don't know, do you want to, what do you aspire to do with that? I dunno if my question makes sense. Be in music videos or be a professional choreographer or do show what does that look like? 

Way: I don't have a solid vision but I do have like, you just want to dance 

J.R.: mostly.

Way: Yeah. I have ideas though. And right now I think it's kind of informed by my current creative pursuits. So one thing I've really enjoyed doing from time to time is being a creative director for my own music videos. So I'll like. I might pick a song that like, is really inspiring me at the moment, and then I'll make a music [00:48:00] video starring myself like in front of the green screen.

And then I'll be super creative with it and I realize oh, I really like dancing, but I also like dancing in my own world, right? I don't wanna dance as a backup dancer for a artist, or I don't wanna like dance in a commercial, but I wanna dance like in my own world that I dream of. But it also sounds really farfetched, right?

It sounds like. Yeah. I only wanna do things like, I don't wanna go the traditional route of auditioning and whatever. That's like kind of a vision I have for myself as a dancer. I've also thought about returning to the battle scene and like really trying to make a name for myself in the scene and earning my respect, that's pretty much about it. 

J.R.: Okay. That makes sense. Okay, so I wanna go into your other pursuits. So DJing you mentioned music production, video editing, graphic design, et cetera. Like how did you get into these fields? What do you get from it? And [00:49:00] maybe advice for others who want to do what you do?

Way: How did I get into these fields? I think in 2018 after I quit dancing, I also simultaneously experienced this surge of creative inspiration. I think, I don't know what was the cause, but like I, I was. Like really inspired to get into music production. And I think I was like, well, if I'm getting to music production, I might as well try to learn an instrument.

So I like picked up a guitar. That's two things. And then I started rebranding myself. That was when I changed my name, my artist name, to just Shui. 'cause before that it was funk shui, which I thought was cool for a time, but eventually it became like cringey to me and I thought it would be cool to change it down to just shui and which shui means water in Chinese.

And I was really obsessed with the color blue, as you can see in my room. And [00:50:00] so I started like dreaming up of oh, I wanna brand myself this way. I wanna add blue to my profile. And then I started taking Skillshare courses and music production and graph in Photoshop and Illustrator.

And then I was just like kind of playing with all these different toys and I wasn't really doing it on a schedule, like on a strict schedule. I was really just doing it based off of inspiration. So like certain things dropped off at certain points. Like I was really interested in music production for four months and then I just dropped it completely.

And then I got into de I got like super into DJing the next year. And then after that I got really into making music videos on After Effects. So.

J.R.: Nice. So just getting into a lot of different things because you were curious about it and you had all this creative inspiration.

I want to ask, so. We touched upon what ledge those things, but do you have any insights or reflections that you learned along the way as you pursue these endeavors? I think the spirit of the question is coming from someone who, I think a lot of us have creative curiosities that we want to pursue and maybe something stops us like, oh, maybe I'm not good enough, or maybe I have to focus on other things or X, Y, and Z reasons.

Right. But you seem like you're just a person who you wanna do something, you do it. If it doesn't work out totally fine, but you dive into it. Is there anything, or are there some things that you learned along the way that helped you pursue those things and or advice you can give to other people? 

Way: That's a good question. 'cause I actually don't even know what really drove me to keep trying things. Like it's not like. I had this vision of I wanna be this multifaceted creator. I think I was just like, that's a really good que okay. So [00:51:00] I think after I quit dancing, I had just lost my identity, right?

Because dancing was my entire identity. But I had all this like leftover creative energy that couldn't go anywhere. And it, I was really frustrated 'cause, I, it was going into dance and now it had no outlet. And so I wasn't really thinking, alright, I'm gonna become this multifaceted like creator.

I think I was just more really struggling to find an outlet for my creative energy. And I was also struggling to find. Witch outlet, right? Mm-hmm. I was like, okay, I know I love music 'cause I love dancing, so I should do something music related. And so I guess that's how it led to, I'm gonna try music production.

'cause if I can't dance to music, maybe I'll make music. And then I got tired of music production. So I was like, okay, if I can't do, if I can't make music, why don't I mix music? And I got back into DJing, which ca I wanna make a note, which I started DJing in 2010, but I, it was always like a side gig, like on and off thing.

But I started taking it more seriously after 2018. So yeah, I was like, oh, can't dance to music. Try making music, tired of making music, try mixing music, tired of mixing music. Let's make a music video. Tired of making music [00:52:00] videos. Why don't I make a, like a graphic artwork for a mix I wanna put out, or that's kind of what led I think my love for music was the driving force all the way.

Right. Even though I had to quit dancing, it was like, oh, all right. Music production, DJing. I dunno, I dunno what this, this animation is 

J.R.: it's like I'm fucking eel. It's like, yeah, it's one of those like snake things. You're like just kind of pivoting. 

Way: That's probably what drove it. So now I'm a multifaceted creator and I wanna give a disclaimer that I'm not anywhere near a master at any of these things, right?

Like, I'm truly more close to a hobbyist than a actual disciplined, multifaceted creator. But it's just a bonus that now I have these new skills that was guided by my 

J.R.: love for music. Do you, I guess as an aside, do you feel like you would do any, or any combination of those creative things professionally or at a higher level in the future?

Or do you feel like where you're at right now is kind of your zone, you wanna just do that and maybe the whole life career aspirations will be something else? 

Way: Mm-hmm. Well, I'm in a really I feel like I'm in a really good spot right now because I have a great work life balance, even though I. Could be earning a lot more compared to my peers.

But if I don't compare to my peers, I have enough to support myself. I don't have to spend too much on my day job, too much time on my day job. I have enough time outside of my day job to work on my [00:53:00] pursuits, but I do want to work towards something in the future where my career, my main career, can involve my creative pursuits.

Hopefully, ideally in a way that won't drain my love for them, which is really hard. But I'm trying to find a way, and right now I don't have a solid like vision. Oh, I wanna do this and this. I wanna do DJing and video production, or I wanna do music production and dancing. I'm kind of just going with the flow and seeing what clicks, sorry.

I had a burp coming up and it was like. I'm just, I'm kind of just going with the flow and seeing what clicks, and then hopefully if I just follow my gut, and just keep creating off what my gut tells me, then I'll find the recipe or the, I'll open that door that'll be like, oh, this is what I'm meant to do.

Because obviously I don't think I can do all the things that I like. At the same time, it's just too much. Like I can't practice guitar and my other instruments and I can't DJ and mu produce music and create videos and dance. It's just too much. 

J.R.: Nice. I like it. I think that's a good, or I like your. I guess pathway of doing that, it's you're really just pursuing these creative endeavors because you're curious about it.

You enjoy it inherently, and you feel like as you pursue those things, some doors might open, some path, might open up in front of you and then you could try that. But for now, it's not like a, oh, I need to be set on this thing and I'm, I have this strong, clear vision. You're just like, okay, let's just see where it goes.

But I enjoy the journey while I'm getting there. Right. 

Way: Like, for example right now for me it's DJing like I'm just getting a lot of awesome DJ opportunities. So I'm just kind of riding that wave and maybe next year it'll be dancing. Who knows? Maybe I'll like really hit a new plateau in recovery and I'll start, like my body will start moving amazing.

And I'll be like, yeah, I wanna start training dancing. Then maybe next year I'm dancing. I don't really know. I'm lucky that I have the choice, right? That I'm not in a financial situation where I feel cornered and I have to lock in on something. I have the freedom to try the things I wanna try.

J.R.: Yeah, I like that a lot. I think people shouldn't discount the ability to have. Time freedom or at least more flexibility in their time to try those [00:54:00] things. I always come across people who are very set or hard charging on their career and they don't give time to their creative pursuits and they don't have this work life balance or they just neglect that side of themselves, but then they get burnt out easily and then they kind of sacrifice what they want to do, or at least what they wanna try out for their career.

But I think I wouldn't discount trying to do those things that give you energy, that give you joy or fulfillments even while you're working on career. And then maybe that could turn into something, or maybe you wanna keep it as a hobby. I think that's, I'm a big proponent of that too. Sometimes people don't want to it, like you said, it could choke the joy out of your artistic pursuits if you try to make it into a career.

Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it works out. But I think that's still a good approach for some people. Right. Cool. Did you have anything else on this topic? Otherwise

I want to move on to rapid fire questions. Let's go rapid fire. Let's do it. Alright. First question, billboard question. If you could put up a sign for millions of people to see metaphorical and non-commercial, what would it say?

Free Palestine. Sorry, I don't wanna get political on here. I don't even know. That's the 

Way: first thing that popped in my head. 

J.R.: If it's genuine, then it's all good. Yeah. And I don't even think that's [00:55:00] political. That's just what, that's moral humanity. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So anyways what is, have knife face on it?

Free Palestine from way, yeah. 

Way: That way it would be like, it would be unique to me, right? 

J.R.: Okay. Next question. What is one of the hardest challenges you faced in your life and what did you learn from it? Maybe we touched upon it, but. 

Way: Yeah. Probably, yeah, probably I touched upon it already, but it would be a tie between the back pain or the drug addiction.

And what I learned from it is, I think one thing I didn't mention is that I learned how to be humble from my back pain, my back pain, humbled the fuck outta me. And it told me, it taught me how to be patient and how to deal with things when you're expecting like to be dealt a certain hand of cards.

So that was a very hard lesson but it was a worthy lesson because I think it really developed my character. 

J.R.: I like it. Self-inflicted wound. Do you have a story about [00:56:00] something that's gone wrong in your life and it's your own fault and you can't blame anyone else? 

Way: Probably like a single story.

Sure, yeah. Anything that comes to mind. Dang. I guess I can't really think of a single story in the pressure of the moment, but self-inflicted wounds are definitely just any of my my recreational drug escapades. I remember one. Okay, here's one I went to. Life is beautiful with some friends and me being irresponsible, I mixed a bunch of drugs thinking I was invincible.

And it was funny 'cause I remember I was looking down my nose at other ravers because they were like making their ecstasy faces and I thought I was better than them, but I was, I was worse. Because that night I I had a. Like, it was similar to the panic attack I had in 2021, but it was different.

But I felt like I was dying and it was like fucking terrifying. And the thing that sucks is like my friends were just telling me to get over it because I had cried wolf way too many times. Right. They were like so they didn't know whether I was like really in trouble or if I was just like having another, scare.

But that was definitely a self-inflicted wound. 

J.R.: Nice. Okay. This is an either or, if you could redo one thing, what would you do? What would you do differently? Or if you could give your younger self advice, what would it be now? 

Way: Okay. Second question for sure. And I would tell my younger self to fucking [00:57:00] stretch.

Not just stretch, but if I had to just put it in one word, but I would tell him to stretch and take care of his body. Because even if I had been struggling with a condition that was irreversible at the time, at least if I had started taking care of my body and doing preventative work, then I would've saved myself so much fucking suffering.

And so if I ever have kids, I'm gonna be so like, strict about like body care. Like we're gonna stretch every morning, we're gonna do know, we're not gonna do heavy, like crazy heavy lifts. But I'm definitely gonna be a health conscious parent if I do become a parent. 

J.R.: Nice. We love it. How do you define success?

Success 

Way: is happiness. Which means. To me, when you're on your deathbed, are you going to look back on your life with a smile or with regrets? And that's what success is to me. Because that's like the cliche thing, right? In movies and in also in real life. So many old people, [00:58:00] they're either like, yeah, I lived a good life, or they're like, I wish I did this.

Right. 

J.R.: So would you say it's like minimizing regrets? 

Way: Yeah. I guess like in a practical like way of saying like, how exactly to achieve that, I would say yes if it was to be like a simple, and that's probably why I am pursuing my life the way I'm doing it now for, because of that mantra. 

J.R.: Yeah, I like it.

That's always a good exercise for people to do, especially if you are feeling lost or not really sure where to go. You do that visualization of, okay, you're on your deathbed or you're looking at your own grave. What do you wish you would've done or tried? And that's usually a good compass to try those things.

Not reckless things obviously, but things that you know, that you'll be happy you did by the end.

What's something you've been pondering recently or something you think about? Often, deeply

Way: just the state of the world and how complex everything is and consumerism and capitalism and the rise of fascism and how it all ties together and how it's all. Kind of like [00:59:00] too much to comprehend because the information era is like just bombarding us constantly. And it's kind of overwhelming.

J.R.: Okay. Then follow up to that, what do you think, I don't wanna say what's the biggest problem, but if you could get rid of one of the big problems, what would that be? 

Way: In relation to my answer? Yeah. Probably a really specific one would be like reversing citizens United to get money out of politics.

But a overarching one would be to to remove capitalism and ins, install socialism as a sus as a societal reform. 

J.R.: I like it. Could you give an overview for our audience, citizens United? How does that affect us? 

Way: I'm not I'm not a super pro at politics and history of politics. This is based on, the light amount of research I did, but from, based on my knowledge, and people can correct me if I'm wrong citizen United was a Supreme Court decision made like over a decade ago that basically ruled in favor of allowing corporations to basically put unlimited money into politics as long as it wasn't like directly contributing to their lobby, which like had a certain limit.

Whoa. How did that happen? What 

J.R.: is that? 

Way: I got rewarded for my, you answer, did you got balloons? I was like, what? What is this? They were like, they were like, yep, that was right, right? That was correct. That was correct. Yeah. You got that correct. Riverside is like, that was the right answer. Let's crack checked.

Yeah, I, so basically it was a ruling that allowed money in politics but in a really indirect way. But basically that's when individual voters like us lost almost all of our power and then corporations started to have way more influence in US politics. 

J.R.: Yeah. I like it. And I think that's a good point too.

Alright, next question. Do you have a favorite hot take or something you think most people wouldn't agree with? 

Way: Oh, oh my God.

I've. Why did I start laughing all crazy Umprobably Do, did something spicy come to mind? No, no, no. I was just thinking, 'cause like I do have a lot of hot takes. Yeah. But I'm trying to think of one right now that Uh hmm. What's a hot take? I have that. What do you say that not a lot of people would agree with.

That would be controversial. Yeah. 

J.R.: Yeah. Well, so the way I approach it when I ask people is, hot take is self-explanatory, but it could just be like, I believe this is true, but I don't think a lot of people would agree. So it's not necessarily controversial like kill all men or something like Wayrd like that.

Right. But it's, it could just be like, oh, I believe this. But maybe not a lot of people do. 

Way: Mm. But it 

J.R.: could be a hot take. It could just be something really spicy.

Way: This is not necessarily something that I fully believe. But it's a [01:00:00] thought that keeps recurring in my mind 'cause it's interesting. But it's basically we are all me. 

J.R.: We are all me. Do you wanna elaborate on that? 

Way: Yeah. So basically it's like a way of I guess like deleting your ego through logic, which is like thinking that everyone calls themselves me.

So if we're all me, then we're all the same person and we're all just a bunch of mes thinking that that me is you that should be able to.

Kill all ego in the world and kill all disagreements. But I say that with a caveat 'cause there's still people I hate. And I am, I don't care. I'm like, I'll, I'm gonna be my ego and hate that person. 'cause Nice. I like it. I'm fucking human. 

J.R.: Yeah, yeah. It's okay. We get 8% of the way, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. I like it. Do you have a favorite recent purchase, relatively cheap, that has impacted your life the most recently?

Way: What's relatively cheap? 

J.R.: I usually give a range, like 50 to a hundred dollars and I usually say within the last six months. But we can change the parameters.

Way: This guy. Is that a lamp? Yep. Just because I can't really think of like another thing in that range. That's great. But I, well, I don't know. This is this lamp is less than $50. 

J.R.: What do you like about it? Just the aesthetics. 

Way: Yeah, I had a lamp before that, that was also cool. It was a mushroom lamp, but it also felt not original 'cause everyone else had mushroom lamps, but I got this one from Ikea 'cause it just looked cool and it looked like it would fit in my room well.

And it's kind of like on top of this iPod rug and it's right in the middle of the dial. And I just thought it was a cool design. 

J.R.: Nice. I like it. We like aesthetic looking pieces. Last question, rapid fire question. Any favorite books, movies, videos, articles, media or anything like that that you share or recommend the most 

Way: Man of all time?

That's gonna be hard because I have terrible memory and it's gonna be hard for me to pull up. But recent stuff that I have consumed, consumed severance, the TV show, I really liked it. It was a really mind bending show that was really thought provoking. That's pretty much, it

also made me realize I probably need to get myself into some books 'cause my brain might be rotting.[01:01:00] 

J.R.: What kind of books do you wanna get into?

Way: Well, I have a ton of books on politics and history of geopolitics just sitting, collecting dust that I was supposed to read. But I just couldn't build up the habit of reading, so that's what I was interested in.

And then I was really interested, I had a huge history kick before that too. 

J.R.: I usually scratch that itch by just watching YouTube videos about history or politics and stuff like that. So it's, almost as good as reading actual books. 

Way: Someone I really liked though is Alan Watts discovered him in like early 2010s recently been kind of getting back into him, but he's he's like a what philosopher that's really into Eastern philosophy and the way he articulates his kind of a.

Combination of all those philosophies is like really interesting, really entertaining. And yeah, that's one guy. Is he an, is he an author? Like what is he, what is he? Yeah, he's an author, but I think he's more of a speaker than an author. Like he has hours and hours of a speeches that you could find on YouTube. But he also has books that you [01:02:00] can read. 

Okay, cool. Yeah. I'll link his website or whatever.

J.R.: Alright. Wait, we have come to the end. Congratulations. You made it. Now we'll go into ending questions. Woo-hoo. Yeah. Inserted podcasts. Last part too. Balloon. Gimme my balloons again. You have to talk about politics again.

Citizens United. Citizens United. Come on, let's go. That's you have to say, you have to 

say, you have to say Anti Citizens United. Maybe they're like waiting for you. 

Way: No. Yeah. Reverse Citizens United. Ah, fuck. 

J.R.: Ah, dang it. I'm waiting for it. All right, cool. Ending questions. Gratitude. Shout out to my mom way.

What are you grateful for? 

Way: My mom, too. Yeah. Fuck it. Shout out to my mom. There you go. My number one supporter. I'm also thankful for my healthy body. Despite my back pain, and complications, I still experience. I also am realizing like there's a lot of things that I am, can be thankful for, that I rarely get sick.

I still look like I'm in my early twenties. I still have lots of energy if I sleep, if I get enough sleep. So I'm thankful for my health. Thankful for all my friends too. People surround me that have inspired me, helped me get here and, provide a dope environment for me to thrive in.

I'm thankful for having my basic needs met. It sounds kind of cliche to say, but I have to give thanks for that [01:03:00] because a lot of people are struggling in this world and I think we can't take what we have for granted. You know what I mean? So every day I try to say thank you for the clothes on my back.

Thank you for the food on my table. Thank you for the roof over my head. And that really helps put things into perspective. 

J.R.: I love it. All right. Do you have a final ask from the audience or any final takeaways you'd like them to have from this conversation? 

Way: Final ask from the audience. Huh? That's a tough question.

I would say, just, I hope you have a good life 'cause I don't know who you are, but, if you're listening to this, thanks for listening. I really appreciate you giving your time to both me and jr. And I might never meet you, but I hope you have a fucking good life. And well is that's a ask and also a 

J.R.: takeaway.

Way: Takeaway. 

J.R.: Yeah. I like it. All right. Final, final way. Where can people find you if they wanna check out what you're up to, what you're doing, and or connect if you're open to that? 

Way: Sway on Instagram, SH dot WY I'm really trying to get just S-H-W-A-Y, but someone's fucking holding onto that account [01:04:00] with only 20 followers and no posts.

But yeah. Damn. It's ssh wy. If you wanna find me on TikTok it's not my main, but I still post Cool stuff there. That is SWE Boy Advance. It's like Game Boy Advance, but instead it's Shu Boy Advance. I thought it was cool. Clever. And then YouTube's not really active, so I won't share that. SoundCloud is kind of, under construction, but that's also shu I just forgot what the URL is, but I think if you just search Shu you'll find me.

J.R.: Perfect. Yeah. I'll link all of that in the show notes description, so, all right. We've come to the end. Thank you again, Way, so much for sharing your insights, your experiences, your time. I appreciate the vulnerability and also, just everything that you've been sharing you're a very humble and kind soul, so I really appreciate you for that.

Way: Thank you, ma'am. I really appreciate that. 

J.R.: Cool. All right. I'll do my final sign off. Thank you guys for being here. Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, leeway, love in the comments below. Reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and remember that you can [01:05:00] always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen.

So thank you for being here.