It Is What It Is, Said the Moon

[00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Fall asleep with Henrik. I'm Henrik Ståhl, and you're sleepy, and it is what it is, what happens, happens, and right now, there's nothing we can do. So, let's just go.

[00:00:30] Hi, sleepy. Hi, and welcome back to my humble abode. It's good to be here. It's good to be here talking to you. I'm Henrik, for those of you who don't know me, and I'm not here to hypnotize you into falling asleep.

[00:01:07] I'm not here to wave my magic wand around, and I'm not here to lecture you in anything in particular. I might happen to accidentally lecture you, but that's not on purpose, and if I happen to do so, please remember that I don't know anything, and I'm just a Swedish random guy talking into a microphone in Stockholm, Sweden.

[00:01:31] And I really don't matter. Of course, I matter, but I really don't matter in the sense that I'm here to do something profound, you know. I'm just here to talk, and you can listen if you want.

[00:01:49] I'm just here to talk, and I'm just here to talk, and I'm just here to talk, and I'm just here to talk about it.

[00:02:20] I think, but since I haven't prepared in advance, then this will inevitably, that's an English word, actually. Yeah, it is. It's true. You actually just don't know it yet.

[00:02:46] So, as you might already be experiencing, my English is kind of up and down, and it happens in every episode. If you've listened for a while, you know that once in a while, I just reach the end of the line, language-wise. I will just... There will be no new words coming up in my mouth, in my brain. And then, yeah, I guess we'll see what happens.

[00:03:18] It was a long time ago that I just decided that it is what it is, you know. I'm not here to impress you with my intellect, with my vocabulary in a foreign language. I'm not here to do anything, really. I'm just here to speak, and you're here to listen. You don't have to listen actively. You can just drift in and out in what I say.

[00:03:51] And it is what it is. I've said that like a hundred, 110 times now, I think, or something. In two languages, mind you. I do this in Swedish two times a week, and I've been doing it since 2018. And I also do it in English since about two years. I'm not sure if these words...

[00:04:18] It is what it is, what happens, happens is a comfort, or like a small surrender, or both. It's one of the most honest sentences I know. And it can also be one of the laziest sentences, I guess. Because, of course, there are things that we can do. I get that question a lot.

[00:04:49] It's your point, Henrik, to tell people that you can't really do anything about anything. It's just... You might as well just lay down and let things happen, you know. And that's not what I'm all for. Obviously, there are things that we need to do. And there are also a lot of things that we can do.

[00:05:13] I think maybe in my own life, this podcast, for instance, this English version of my podcast, is kind of, you know, a great example of that there are things that we can do. I mean, by the time I decided to start this English podcast, I didn't really need to. I have, like, a good life doing my podcast in Swedish.

[00:05:43] That's my sole provider. I have, like, a good life doing my podcast. And it went well. I didn't really need it. But I wanted to reach out. I want to spread my wings, you know. And I feel like this concept, just talking without any predetermination, is a good thing. And it could benefit from being spread. So I did. And now this is a part of my life.

[00:06:13] And it's such a good part of my life. I really do enjoy you reaching out sleepy. So please do, in any form, like, on any platform. It's always a genuine blessing to read what you write. Or record, for that matter.

[00:06:43] I actually get a few recordings each month. People who record their own messages to me, speaking from their own worlds. And it's such a delight to listen to. Some people send me, like, their own fall asleep with their name podcasts. Like episodes, hour-long episodes. And, I mean, of course, I listen. I do. But it's, I can't fall asleep.

[00:07:13] I know people think that I... I think that people think that I would benefit from having this done to me, as I do to others. But I really can't, because the concept is, like, a waking thing for me now. The concept of speaking until someone falls asleep is a job to me now. I've destroyed it. I ruined it for myself. I'm afraid.

[00:07:41] But it is what it is, you know. And there are so many things in life that we can't do anything about. And that's what I aim for with this phrase. Like, right now, for instance, this exact second, the one happening while I talk and while you listen, that's gone. I mean, I can spend my whole life trying to be in it, in the now, you know.

[00:08:11] And somehow, I will always, without any exception, arrive, like, half a second late to it. Weather. Weather. I guess weather was probably the first thing that taught people that it is what it is. What happens, happens.

[00:08:40] You can build a roof and you can light a fire, but you can't, say, stop it to weather. For, like, a majority of human history, the sky simply did what it did. And people just lived underneath it. We forget how new it is to feel like we are in charge of anything at all, really.

[00:09:10] The tide goes out and comes back twice a day. Whether or not anyone is watching, it's pulled by the moon. I mean, think of the gravity of that thing. The moon is not a creature, not an entity.

[00:09:37] It's a dead gray rock, 150,000 kilometers away, that we did not put there. It's the cause of a collision, a larger-than-life collision. Like, the larger-than-life collision that occurred when you met the love of your life, maybe. I'm assuming. I don't know.

[00:10:06] Maybe you haven't met them yet. But it's a collision between Earth and another Earth-sized planet. They named it Teja. And that collision... Sometimes I wish that I would... That I had been around, you know, at the time, so that I could witness... I mean, I wouldn't be alive at all,

[00:10:34] because, yeah, the collision. But it would have been cool to see it from a distance. I mean, to see two planets collide. And now I need to put a pin in this for a while, and just say, if you're new to this podcast, then don't be afraid if I sometimes drift into stuff that are, you know, traditionally not a member of the podcast sleeping content family. I speak about what I speak about.

[00:11:05] As in life, we can't control what comes next. And neither can you with my content in this episode. I'm not doing it out of spite. Or out of any lecturing kind of attitude. This is just what it is. And my philosophy is, the difficult things in life doesn't go away just because it's time to go to sleep.

[00:11:35] And we might as well just accept that. That's what helped me throughout my life. Fighting anxiety and a worrying mind. I'm the worrying kind. Tells the tide to start and stop. Like no one signs off on it.

[00:12:06] It's one of the largest things that happens on this planet, and it happens every single day. And we don't think about it really. Not in the huge terms that it actually is, you know. It happens entirely without us. So we can't do anything about it. The tide comes and goes. We can't do anything about gravity either.

[00:12:35] It's just there, you know. It's holding you. It's dragging you down in whatever surface you're in or at right now. It's the reason that you can sit or lie down at all. The reason that the blanket has a weight. The reason that you are not drifting off into the ceiling. You did nothing to earn it. And you didn't start it, and you can't switch it off.

[00:13:08] Sometimes I think being held down by gravity is the closest thing we can get to being held in a certain way. I mean, a hug is a hug, but it's nothing without gravity. I wonder how it feels to hug someone in weightlessness. Does the hug mean more? Like, does it imply you need

[00:13:37] the force of another body to press you against it? It's like a physical thing, not just emotional. If you're an astronaut listening to this, so far, Fall Asleep with Henrik hasn't been played, as far as I know, on the International Space Station, but it would be really cool. So please, if you're currently at the International Space Station,

[00:14:07] Sleepy, please contact me. You can shine a flashlight down at me as you pass over Sweden. The Earth is turning, but you don't feel it. Right now you're being carried sideways through space on this rock that you're at, and you can't sense that.

[00:14:38] The whole planet is just moving toward morning, and there's no lever, no brake. There's no way to ask for five more minutes. Everything is moving, and we can't do anything about that, because we're passengers, you know, and we're passengers on something enormous,

[00:15:07] and also silent. There's no engines roaring, so we can't do anything about that. And the rocks were here before us, and will be here after. I'm very fascinated and attracted to random rocks at random gravel roads in the woods.

[00:15:37] They're so unbothered by everything. A stone that you might pick up on a path. It has been, it has been a stone for longer than you have been. You. It has been a stone for longer than there have been people to pick up stones. Imagine that. I mean,

[00:16:07] the stone's current shape might be new, maybe even just a few days, but the stone itself, depending on what stone it is, the stone that you pick up on this random wooden path, wooden, not a wooden path, a path in the woods. It's not made of wood. I'm sorry.

[00:16:37] So, this random rock that you pick up and weigh in your hand, it can be, it can be even billions of years old. I'm not sure how often, like, billions of year old granite is found on a random road in the, in the forest. I guess it's rock that old, or I guess it's part of, like,

[00:17:08] the ground in a way. I'm not sure, I'm not a geologist. I'm not anything, really. I'm an actor and I speak. That's what I do. And I fantasize. Nevertheless, it's an old thing that you keep in your hand and it's not waiting for anything. It has no plan and no worry and it will outlast every single thing that you're anxious

[00:17:37] about tonight or today or whatever the time is. I find that comforting. And I also, and this will sound weird, brace yourself because this would, will be potentially a bit shaken, shaken up. The sun will burn out eventually. I mean, not soon, billions of years

[00:18:07] for now. But it's, I mean, it's on a process. It's on the road to burnout as everything, you know, and I feel comfort in that. I don't really know why. I guess it makes me feel like I'm part of something and that is, that's my road to comfort and feeling of, the feeling of belonging.

[00:18:37] Everything we do, every podcast episode, every love letter, every argument about the dishwasher is like happening inside this slow burning that we cannot tend or stop. And I find that relaxing. And depending on your beliefs, this all has a purpose, you know.

[00:19:08] It's strange how you can feel like pressure some days and other days you can take this as a permission to relax. You know, relax. You can't really make it happen anyway. You're in this process that is bigger than you. Some of the stars you can see at night are already gone. The light left them so long ago that the star itself may be

[00:19:37] dead while the light was still traveling toward your eye. a photon. A photon, not a photon. A photon, I think that's the English word for a particle of light that has no mass. It's been traveling for maybe billions of years to reach your very eye. and you are looking at the past but you are also looking at

[00:20:07] something that maybe took millions of years just to reach the surface of its star billions of years ago and then has spent maybe millions or billions of years traveling through empty space just to reach your eye. I mean that's just mind-boggling don't you think but you can do anything about it. You can't do anything about the fact that the star might be gone

[00:20:38] already that the light is just this ancient letter sent from this anonymous entity that you will never know never see for real. The universe is expanding and getting colder

[00:21:09] and there is nothing on any to-do list that addresses this galaxies are drifting apart from each other faster than light at a certain distance from where you are and also faster than light and faster than light can I mean oh god okay so now the English stopped let me regroup sorry sorry

[00:21:38] okay maybe what I meant was that I'm not sure really how to talk about this because I'm not first of all there's a language barrier and second I don't really know the physics of it but the universe expanding is like this dough that when you're baking you put

[00:22:08] like the bread that you're baking under like a cloth or something and the yeast thing will do its thing yeah as you can hear I'm a I'm a very skilled baker and the universe is the same thing the universe is a dough that is growing in all directions at the same time the dough is expanding the same with the universe and

[00:22:38] everything is expanding away from everything else at the same speed like objectively the same speed but from where you are some other distant place in the dough that expansion might in relation to you be faster than light and that also means that light can't ever reach that point from your point of view

[00:23:08] you can't do anything about that it's just you know you're a part of something that is so much bigger than you regardless if you believe in God or if you are an atheist or have some other life view regardless of your beliefs you're a little speck in this huge scenario and it is

[00:23:38] what it is and what happens happens and it's a good thing I think and you can put all sorts of things in there you know the comfort of a God being omnipresent in this expanding universe or the lack of said God I mean both ways of looking at it for me it's a comfort because I'm a part of something it would be

[00:24:08] worse I think if I were a part of something that was smaller you know if it was really up to me then I would feel less comforted a cup of tea always goes cold you can rewarm it but it will go cold again and

[00:24:38] again and is very slowly cooling down and spreading out and there is no fighting it you can't because you're a part of it the whole of existence is a hot

[00:25:08] drink left on the counter and we're all inside it listening to podcasts loving dancing hating fighting swimming in a river that you can't step into twice that old saying you

[00:25:38] can't step into the same river twice the water that you put your foot in is already downstream by the time you feel it yeah that's true so even the water that you put your foot in is not the same water that you feel because your feelings take time little time your senses take time I your feelings as well but your senses it takes some time for

[00:26:07] the nerve endings in your leg to gather the information that you submerged and then deliver that to your brain and by then the water that you felt is gone is the river you know the you who started

[00:26:36] this train of thought that you're in right now is not the you that will finish it if there even is such a thing as to finish a train of thought you are not the same person that you were one second ago and there is nothing you can do about that yesterday is finished not one

[00:27:06] second of what happened yesterday can be reached or fixed or even I'm sorry but not even properly remembered I mean not really we're not computers everything that I said and failed to do is now

[00:27:36] permanently the case sealed untouched no not untouched but untouchable it is what it is what happens happens and I think that provides me at least with a strange piece like the thing being completely beyond my reach

[00:28:06] it's of course it's a sad thought my past is like a closed up shop at night but it almost always also brings a sense of peace and you can fix on that I mean you can

[00:28:36] think of that you can dwell on your memories but they themselves are not like photographs either that's why we take photographs because memories are not memory rewrites itself every time you take it out and handle it the version of your childhood that you carry around that's partly

[00:29:05] made up I mean not made up out of any not made up by in spite you know that's just how memory works you take it out and you repair it with today's tools over and over and over because your mind hates gaps

[00:29:35] so you can't change the past and you can you can't change the fact that the past according to your memory changes as well and that I mean makes regret the strangest thing to feel

[00:30:05] because the door is already shut you know I wish I hadn't shut that door but it's shut you stand there in the dark replaying the moment that you chose wrong as if replaying it enough times might open the door again it will not the choice was made by someone

[00:30:35] that you were back then and that someone had only the information they had and that person that person of you that made the choice that you today regret is gone now you might feel them in you but they're gone it is what it is what happens happens and the

[00:31:05] future hasn't happened the future is not a place that exists somewhere up ahead waiting for you fully built for you to walk into or maybe it is I mean that's the other thing we don't even know what time is maybe the future is maybe everything is and you are the one moving like you're moving

[00:31:35] into furnished rooms already the point is that we can't control it and still we spend so many hours of the only real moment that we have rehearsing scenes from a film that hasn't even been shot yet I do this all the time it's

[00:32:07] an anxious thing anxiety is a kind of time travel like you sit perfectly safe in a warm room and your body just decides it's in danger because of something that might happen on Thursday sorry the animal in you can't tell the difference between a real

[00:32:37] lion and an imagined one so it runs and runs on the spot going nowhere and you can't do anything about that either you can't take away your anxiety your worries you can't live a worry free life you can't live a life untouched by harm fear it

[00:33:08] is what

[00:33:55] discussion each and every year before going there was what would the weather be like when we are there the two weeks that we're there there what will the weather be like because that for some reason determines the quality of the vacation and I get why we all want sunshine but I always felt like some sort of an absurd dream experience

[00:34:24] going through me why are we even talking about this we can't control it and every year we get like but they said it was going to be sun you know okay so today it's raining they said it was going to be sun like we would be able anyway to to see this to plan this we can't control it the days

[00:34:54] show up and they don't care about you I mean the day itself maybe there is something outside of all this something that looks upon in a sense of like universal never ending real true love and

[00:35:23] that's a nice thought I love it but that doesn't keep the system from being what it is you know so if you believe in a god for instance then the is really just proof of love don't you think

[00:35:55] so the one thing doesn't exclude the other you can believe in a creator and you can still accept that the universe doesn't really care a lot of

[00:36:33] yourself the job you have the city you live in the habits the way you hold a fork some some kid some kid made those calls back in the day and then just handed the whole thing over to you without even a

[00:37:09] there is this person that you will be in 10 years from now and you have no say in who they become they will look back at tonight at this exact moment and feel something about it that you can't control you can't guess you are making them right now though slowly with every small thing

[00:37:39] but you will never meet them not in any real sense the only thing that you have is this alluding alluring now that you're somehow always too late this

[00:38:09] summer just two months away I will turn 51 that number does not feel like it belongs to me feeling it somehow it never does in my good moments I think that my body keeps a more honest calendar than the mind and

[00:38:39] no no the opposite I mean the mind keeps a more honest calendar than my body because the body is just you know it has simply gone ahead and aged and the

[00:39:09] I think because I don't feel 51 I am not 51 I am maybe 31 I think maybe and I think it's a tragic thing that my body doesn't listen to that but there's nothing to be done about it it is what it is your

[00:39:40] body ages while you sleep every night something quietly winds down a little further and you are not awake for any of it you hand yourself over to the dark completely unguarded trusting a process that you do not understand to give you back in the morning you know and every morning

[00:40:12] you get handed back to yourself this is a very large amount of trust to place in a thing that you can't control and still we do it doesn't that mean really that we're a in itself when

[00:40:43] you're a kid time doesn't work the way it will later in life a summer is endless a car journey is a geological age and you have no idea yet that the days are numbered and that they speed up and that

[00:41:13] one day you will wish a single afternoon back take me back and you can't buy that at any price and the child doesn't know that and that's not not knowing it's well it's not it is not knowing but

[00:41:44] it's also wealth I guess because as a grown up you tend to place yourself involuntarily in a waiting room of sorts like consider the classical waiting room it's the lighting old magazines maybe the chair that's almost comfortable

[00:42:13] so you're in a waiting room and you sit there and you just wait you know and you try to pass time and the horrible thing about waiting rooms is that you can't make your name be called any sooner the whole purpose of the room is to hold you in a place where there is genuinely nothing you can do I've

[00:42:46] always well okay now maybe I'm contradicting myself because I keep telling you about the weight of there's nothing we can do so maybe I misspoke when I said that we place ourselves in a waiting room because we really are in a waiting room I guess the difference that I'm aiming for here is that a child stuck in a waiting room will you know create all sorts of

[00:43:17] nifty things and us grownups we tend to just sit there and wait and complain about the time it takes for our name to be called by some random entity at the end a kid in a waiting room maybe

[00:43:50] boredom is a thing here we can't avoid being bored boredom is just the present moment as close to it as we can get without layering anything over it it's like the raw material of things as close as we

[00:44:25] and we find it us humans for some reason almost unbearable me too which is interesting because it means that we're in a way built to shy away from the moment you know from the now unless it's wrapped in something a strong emotion a reward something scary that's

[00:45:01] is in a way accepting now imagine the universe you know 14.5 billion years old or something it's a boring thing most of the time imagine the time gaps you know when absolutely nothing well not nothing but very little interest in happening like eons upon

[00:45:31] eons of just nothing happening that's life no no that's not life sorry that's existence that that's that's reality of the nature of everything we have for some reason built our own species upon running away from the now

[00:46:01] and I guess that benefited us back in the day back in the 60s no earlier than the 60s the 40s maybe or even earlier like in pre-human time what would happen sleepy if you just let

[00:46:30] a boring minute be a boring minute standing in a queue the bank the post office the line for the toilet what do you normally do you shuffle forward you check your phone you sigh you look at the other people in the line and none of it moves

[00:47:00] the line one centimeter faster a kid would do something well maybe not I mean if you give the kid an iPad and the kid will be on the iPad but take away the iPad and I'm not going to say that taking away iPads is the solution to everything but in this experiment take away the iPad and a whole hidden life

[00:47:29] is revealed in queues a universe that just explodes it is what it is what happens happens a red light street light an empty

[00:48:00] crossroads in the middle of the night no cars there's no one coming and still it's there glowing in charge over no one there's no one there and then suddenly some machine decide that you may go

[00:48:29] it turns green no one goes because there's no one there and you can't do anything about that there's something tender about that fact I think that there's a place on a planet that you don't know exist and that place exists whether you like it

[00:48:58] or know of it or not the kettle boils when it boils you can stand over it and you can lift the lid and you can will it and it doesn't make the slightest difference to the water watched or unwatched it takes exactly as long as it takes and I find that

[00:49:28] genuinely calming to think about it is what it is happens happens like the thing with the bread you mix the thing you cover it you walk away and in the warm dark the yeast does this slow invisible

[00:49:58] work without any help from you you can't hurry it and you can't watch it happen well you can watch it like on a time lapse you can film it and speed up so you can see the effect of the expansion but you just come back later and the dough has changed quietly without

[00:50:29] your interference it is what it is what happens happens a plant grows in the dark of the soil before it even shows itself I saw this time lapse a while ago of a seed and it's cool to see a seed doing its thing

[00:50:59] because it cracks somehow I always thought about seeds taking root you know as more of a soft kind of what do you call it like a metamorphosis I don't know if that's a word a slow fading kind of thing but of course not the seed cracks like it

[00:51:28] breaks and the root goes down and for some weird reason I guess it has to do with gravity the plant itself decides which way it's up all of it underground in total darkness unseen unmanaged by the time you notice oh look there's this green tip

[00:51:58] the real work is just done a long while ago and some of that is true within you sleepy as we speak some things in you are growing right now that you will not see for years it's cool to think about

[00:52:28] that a seed contains this whole tree folded up it doesn't think about whether it will become a tree or not it either lands somewhere where it can grow or it does not and then it doesn't become a it does not lie awake

[00:52:58] at night about it I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that we are the only things on earth that seem to suffer in advance I guess this is applicable applicable applicable applicable I guess this is applicable to all living animals I don't know about plants maybe they can

[00:53:28] worry too animals can worry to a certain degree but I mean not years in advance it is what it is what happens happens an animal doesn't carry tomorrow around with it I don't think so anyway

[00:53:57] a deer does not lay awake about the winter it's hungry now or it's not it's cold now or it's not and the future doesn't they don't dwell with the future the way we do because we are the species sleepy that invented next week that was a

[00:54:27] mistake wasn't it we never really recovered from that like a dog you know it lives almost entirely in the present which is probably why we love them so much the dog is not still angry about this morning you know why did you talk to me that way it's not okay now my whole day is ruined you know and the dog is not yet worried about

[00:54:56] that it's going to the veterinary on Friday like because there's a ball here now and there's a smell here now and you are here you are here now dog is a great example sometimes I think that the whole job of a dog is to remind us that we're actually

[00:55:27] here live about boredom I don't have a dog but in the house back in the house there's a cat we bought it for our daughter when she was a little child and now she's big and she doesn't care about the cat and I guess not even the cat cares about us

[00:55:57] that much we just coexist and I visit him every other week because I take turns with my ex partner at the house and when I look care that I'm there he will care if I open cupboards and doors into something that he knows will provide food but that's about the only thing

[00:56:26] and I think about if I were him how bored would I be like I would just sit there and stare because that's what he then he walks up he stretches and he goes to another spot and he lays down and then he watches the grass move for

[00:56:56] hours and we're not like that and I don't think that we can be either because we're not wild animals meant to be hunters in the jungle as the cat we're dancing scared pieces of monkey and so we might just accept that but

[00:57:28] we can pretend to be whatever animal tonight sleepy you're allowed to be my cat far down in the deep ocean sleepy there are fish living their entire lives in total dark under

[00:57:57] enormous pressure pressure that would just crush us you and me and they have never seen light and they will never see light and they're not waiting to be rescued this is simply where they live this is their world and they're not unhappy about it some

[00:58:32] insects live their whole life in a single day they hatch they fly they find another of their kind if they're lucky and by evening it's over a whole existence beginning to end in the time it takes you to be mildly annoyed about some parking ticket to them it was everything

[00:59:03] to us it's an afternoon scale is a very strange thing to think about as you fall asleep imagine a lighthouse keeper alone he's on a rock in the sea and his whole job is to keep one light turning through the night for ships ships that

[00:59:32] he himself will never see maybe know about through some radar device but he won't see them and he can't stop the around him he can only keep the light going and let the sea do what the sea does

[01:00:00] and I think that's us right now sleepy you and I it is what it is what happens happens and right now there is nothing we can do good night sweet sleepy you