Minnie Questions with Minnie DriverMinnie welcomes back the guest who perhaps knows her best, her son, Henry Driver! Henry returns to answer Minnie’s questions for the second time, to see how his answers have changed after almost four years. He shares why history gives him hope for the future, what he’s learned from dealing with mental health, and which ice cream flavor is OBJECTIVELY the best.
I remember your because it's forever maybe my favorite. So what would be your last meal? And you were like, what beyond the rations that the prison provides?
Oh?
I thought I was so cool. I thought I was so funny. Who beyond what the rations the prison provides?
Just be quicken? It was really that was really good?
Yeah it was. Yeah, I was trying to be funny. I think I was trying to be funny the first time.
Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature.
In asking different people the same set of questions.
You can make observations about which truths appear to be universal. And it made me wonder, what if these questions were just the jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters. So I adapted Pru's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
They are when and where were you happiest? What is the quality you like least about yourself. What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines.
Love for you?
What question would you most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? What would be your last meal? And can you tell me something in your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
My guest today on many questions is once again my son, Henry Driver. It has it's been amazing to have recorded with Henry over the four years that I've done this podcast, and to hear him grow up, to hear how his answers have changed. And I know he's my son and that all mothers feel this way about their children, but I think it's really interesting, particularly given what children are going through and have gone through since COVID, to actually keep checking in with their development and where they're at. And as you can hear in this interview, my son is extremely candid and explicit about his own journey with mental health and how it has been for him and how he faced those challenges. And it was quite shocking. Actually, I didn't know he was going to talk about that. I really tried to listen and let him talk and not get emotional. But I think this generation of kids has this extraordinary emotional articulation or an emotional EQ, and they're facing their challenges. They're not hiding them away, they're not burying them with tools of distraction, even though those are all available, and they do do all of that stuff, but they're really showing up for who they are. And I found it both encouraging and enlightening as a human and I felt deeply proud as a mother. I hope you really enjoy this third interview with my boy. It was recorded with lots of love. Where and when were you happiest?
Okay? I feel like I have two answers. I have, like the real answer that I know is true, and then the answer that you, as my mom, probably want to hear.
And well played, well played, my son, I have taught you.
Which I'll say both. I'll start with the one that I guess that you know is true. I'd say I was happiest sitting on the beach in Cornwall with our family. I think it was before COVID. I think it was the first time we ever went to Cornwall and just sitting grilling sausages on the beach, watching the tide, just sitting with everyone talking. I must have been like, I don't know how old was I on the first time we went to Cornwall.
I mean you were probably sex.
Yeah, I still remember. I still remember it. And I remember walking along the beach and finding a crystal or something something like, like a really beautiful rock.
Yeah, we were turning over rocks and we were splitting them in half, and inside were gears.
I got a really nice one that I really I still have it in my room, So I think that definitely was what I hope you think is what my happiest moment is now. Truly for me, my happiest moment is sat on my back on my bed watching TV by myself, after maybe taking a warm shower, some popcorn in my hands. That's truly where I am happiest.
I'm not surprised you're so nice to have offered up to different answers the pastoral what my mum wants to hear version, which is embarrassingly accurate.
I mean, of course, is anyone like I don't know if anyone's objectively happiest anywhere. I think it's sort of it depends on what you're feeling in that moment. So I know that my truth is I'm happiest when I'm sat by myself watching house my truth.
My truth is when I'm on my bed, I'm eating my popcorn, I'm watching my.
TV exactly, and I know my dad from work truth exactly.
I will live by it, and I will die.
That's very true, a man, Thank you very much.
You know. It's funny, though the more I've asked this question, the more I've queried. More people as we've gotten further away from COVID and deeper into kind of wherever we are now, have queried the notion of happiness being the objective. Perhaps we're setting ourselves up for real hardship by going what's your happiest moment, you know, the pinnacle of your happiness, as opposed to that being something that is really transitional. It is never an arrival. It's a sort of a state of being exactly might have things attached to it.
There's no objective happiest because it's so you know, it's so interpretable. You're always feeling different feelings about where you are. Like, even those two answers, neither of them are when I was happiest. It's just two times that I remember and I think, wow, I absolutely loved that, and I would go back to I would do either of those right now. I think when people say, oh, yeah, I'm objectively happiest here, that's just a time you're remembering that you were in love with just that moment. But I think like we're always experiencing happiness the moment that you're remembering as you're answering. So I think, I don't know, my answer could be different tomorrow, We'll have to see. I think that's just kind of I think that's what life is.
I agree. My friend's parents were married for like sixty years, and I remember asking my friend's mother. I was like, do you think that it was like meant and it was all preordained and this moment of love and incandescent love, this lasted all this time And she was like she was like, no, I think if I met him the week before, I probably wouldn't have got out with him, And if I met him the week after, I wouldn't have gone out with him either. I would just happen to get me at the right moment.
I think that's such a great answer, though, because I feel like so many people would be like, yeah, you know, it was just Yestiny brought us together, and I could have met him sixty years ago, I could have met him yesterday. No, you wouldn't have. Let's be honest. It happened when it happened, and that's just how it went, and that's life.
But this is also like how our household runs, which is you and Addison have the pragmatic, practical approach to life, and I'm always looking for signs, you know, and your corn flax.
Mercury's in retro grade, guys.
I know, by the way, it is still in retrograde, but it's out of retrograde tomorrow. Thank you for listening.
Thanks mom. Great.
Yeah, what was the thing the other day? I was looking at the state of Henry's room, which is messy like most kids' rooms, but not a double virgo. A double virgo, you would think that things would be lined up like you were in the army. And I said to him, I was like, god, I can't believe that you're a double virgo. And he very slowly looked back over his shoulder at me, and he was like, it's almost like astrological signs don't mean anything at all.
It's completely true.
I mean, it's almost like it's all total bull.
It's fun, you know. Ooh, I was born in September. I'm going to be clean.
I won't hear a word against it. You know.
I'm glad you like it, Mom, But personally, I don't think it matters when you're born. It's just who you are. So yes, I'm going to be messy. No, I'm not going to clean my room.
Wow, all right, Yes, you're going to do your own laundry.
I believe in facts. It's science.
I believe in science and popcorn exactly, many, my love. What quality do you like least about yourself? Now here at sixteen?
Ooh, what quality do I like least about myself? I don't know.
You better come up with something because that's question too.
Thanks, Mom. Yeah, put pressure on me. That always makes things easier.
You're good at self examination.
But I'm going to give multiple answers again, I'm going to be pretentious. Yes, yes, I am. On a surface level. I think I talk a lot and I think a lot of the time. I don't make up statistics necessarily. I don't like make facts up. But sometimes I'll kind of more than over exaggerate something, you know, I'm talking about, like how many people in the grocery store. I would be like, oh my god, there was fifty people in the grocery store, and there's there was one hundred of them and they all had knives and it was going to be terrible, when realistically it was like it was like four people and one guy was just budging up against me. So I think I have a tendency to not lie, but maybe just sort of, you know, to dramatize exactly.
I don't know where you get that from.
I neither do I.
I mean, you could be anywhere.
I think that when I'm talking to people. I noticed that. I wish I did that less. I feel like it's sort of just to make things more interesting. I don't know why I do it.
I wonder what that is that to do with feeling like you need to beef up your argument, like as if people are automatically not going to believe you, so you have to kind of augment what you're saying with stuff that is perhaps exaggerated.
I think it sort of depends on what I'm talking about. I think if I'm trying to make like a story more interesting, I'll exaggerate certain sort of specifics, like.
I'm afraid that's called being an act on mine.
Being an actor, my darling, my god.
By the way, it is literally that I do that.
I also think being my generation, we talk at each other and try to convince each other, and a very stubborn I think I get sucked into that sometimes when I'm sort of having a debate with someone, and when I get sucked in, I get very passionate about what I'm arguing for, and so sometimes I'll just like slip out maybe a little maybe something that's not really that true, just slip out a little bit, not a lie, just maybe a little a fact that isn't exactly correct, just to try to make myself more right.
Oh, that's interesting.
And I noticed myself doing it, and in the moment, I don't like it, but yeah, I know that it means I'm going to win the debate. So I don't correct myself. Oh my god, it's so I wish I didn't do that. But I mean, I think that's also just kind of being a teenager and wanting to be right.
It's so weird because you can like pull back and have a hawk's eye view of like your behavior and go, this is definitely teen behavior. I think this is in this compartment and then this is where I would like to be again.
I don't really want to sound pretentious, but it's like, no, thank you, mom, thank you for your permission. Right, I think, like, yeah, I can definitely see traits that I didn't see when I was like ten or eleven that I have now that I know have definitely developed as I've gone through being a teenager. I can see what being a teenager, what traits have come up from that? And so I think having that standpoint, it's interesting. You know.
What's interesting is and I feel like I talk to you about this sometimes that there are still behavioral patterns that I have that I can see them almost like a hole in the road up ahead. I can see there's the hole that I've fallen into before, and all I know I'm going to fall in again. The difference between having an awareness about something and then actually changing it, and sometimes you can stay in that place for a really long time. And I guess I wish I had had that ability to observe like you have now much earlier, because I think it would have saved a huge amount of time. Like this thing that you're identifying now about you of like I will sometimes exaggerate because I want to be right, Like that's a really honest thing to say, going.
To change it, I'm not going to we all like.
That, but like there's going to come a point like the fact that you're already identifying as a character that you're not crazy about in yourself is interesting, Like I wonder if that will evolve, Like it's already in your awareness, so it's more likely that it will.
Yeah, I think that's definitely conversationally and sort of on a surface level. But then more as a person, I overthink a lot, and you know that's kind of general. Everyone kind of overthinks, but I find myself just sort of coming back to the same thoughts of things that what if this happens, why is this? What is going on there? And I don't necessarily want it to go because I think that mindset is a curiosity, it's wanting to know why what's going on. But I think at the same time, having that curiosity leads to me, you know, being awake at night thinking about what is this? What is that? Which I definitely I wish I didn't do that, but I wouldn't get rid of it because I think that's just part of who I am.
Do you think a lot of your friends that you're mate do you think they have this as well? And do you think that maybe part of this might stem from you a little kids during COVID and this kind of cataclysmic thing came in and reshaped I mean, God knows that reshaped your life. We moved to another country, you left everything that you'd known behind. Do you think that that over examination is indicative of kids that sort of live through that. Have you noticed that with your friends?
Yeah, I think on a certain level I see in my friends a lot of my friends overthink. But also I think a lot of my friends are quite like me. I mean, you've seen from my friends that come over We're not exactly completely different people.
You're not, You're very similar.
So I think with it being because of COVID, I think just generally, every generation has kind of has their thing. That's sort of the world. We had COVID before. You know, people were terrified of the two thousand and eight housing crisis. There was the Cold War, Spanish flu It goes back.
You think generationally, there's always something that's going to keep you up on line.
I think there's always something that is going to create overthinkers. I just think now it's possibly on a bigger level than it has been before because now we have such greater access to other people's lives through the Internet. We're all overthinking together.
It's like what it's collective, like a collective energetic overthinking. Yeah, what do you think that creates, Like what does that breed?
I think with overthinking, especially when there are topics and there are events going on in the world that are pretty rough, that are very difficult to discuss and very difficult to think about. You know, the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East that are pretty frightening. I think that can lead to people being afraid, and fear is ever a good thing for a lot of people to be experiencing, because that leads to rash decisions, It leads to anarchy of people just not listening to anyone. And so I think now that it's such a mass of people that are scared and we're all kind of fueling each other. Yeah, it's this collective fear of what's going on in the world.
I was just wondering in your feeling of overthinking and of feeing. I agree. I think it's collective. Have you figured out any tools that help me unwind that just.
Sort of help me unwind? I mean everyone has different techniques of how they sort of cope with anything, really, you know, physical stress, mental stress. But for me, it was really just sort of like knowing that being you know, I'm kind of a bit of a nerd and you know, I like asking Addison about history and whatnot. It's kind of knowing that these sort of things they've been present throughout history, these events that each time we've said this is the end of it all, this is the world over, everyone's gonna hate each other, and this is going to be it and every time people have come through it and we've made it to hear. So I think anytime I do sort of get that existential overthinking about what's happening, Why is this happening. Everyone's saying this. I just sort of think, like, this isn't some sort of completely unique, crazy thing anomally, this is humanity. That we have large scale events that are shocking, and this has been hundreds of hundreds of years, if not thousands of you know, war, violence, atrocities. And I'm not saying that that thought is comforting that that did happen, that you know, people had to experience that, But the fact that those things did happen and then we were able to as a society continue forward and keep on going, it's a little comforting in a way that we were able to make it.
Oh, you're very wise, I know, very wise. I just have this sort of like bumper sticker philosophy. It's like, keep calm.
And carry that's what.
Yeah, exactly, we observably in the observable history of mankind we have.
Yeah, I don't know about whys. I think it's just sort of.
I like that though. Hen that's opening the aperture right on your perception of something. I'm going, Okay, this this microcosm of this fear and this overthinking. Right now, if I open the aperture and I look and see that people have been going through this for thousands and thousands of years, and our current situation will also evolve. I get caught up in the fear of what the collateral damage will be of the terrible things happening. But you know, ever were it?
Thus, I guess, I mean everyone's different. We all have different ways of dealing with with everything. So for me that might work, but then for you may you might be thinking, but what if this, and so you're going to have to find another way of realizing that we're going to be okay? And I mean, I don't know real there's no really objective way to talk about it, because it is just it's who people are, So there's no way to say this is right, this is wrong on how to deal with sort of like a general anxiety for what's going on. But yeah, that's just what works for me, not convincing myself, but just sort of looking at the past and being like, it's gonna be, it's gonna be all right.
It's gonna be okay.
Yeah, all right, my love.
Now, what relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Okay? I do remember my answer on this one from the first one.
The last time we did this. What was your answer?
I was talking about adventure Time.
Oh, you are talking That's right, you are talking about adventure Time, talking.
About Simon and his wife. And I remember that.
Adventure Time is an amazing cartoon, cartoon animation, a cartoon, don't call it a cartoon, is a legendary animated.
Avunch times legendary. I'm not going to say the same thing. I'm going to be different. I'm gonna think of another one. I'm going to go for another animation, do it. There's a show called Cyberpunk Edge Runners, which is an anime that's based off video game called Cyberpunk, and there are two characters. One of them is the protagonist, and they basically live inside this cyberpunk world of massive towers and huge mega corporations and robots and ai and like flying cars and everything like that. And so these two characters meet and their relationship is really complicated, but they're in a relationship together. And I'm not going to spoil the ending, but one of them has to sacrifice themselves to not only save the other but sort of complete the overarching theme of the show. And I think just sort of the love that was shown between them because it's not a sort of spoken love. It's not like said oh I love you, or to together were like this. They're just together regardless of what else is happening in the show. They never need to say anything to each other about their relationship. You know, it's known, and especially in this show, it's pretty hard to picture without having watched it, but changes very sort of it's common for them because of everything that's going on with the robots and the corporations and the gangsters and everything in this city. And the main character gets these like prosthetics. He sort of starts replacing his body with machinery, and he starts like bulking up with all this machinery. And even through all of this, you as the viewer, as you're seeing he's making this immense change in himself. She's still loving him in the same way that she did when they had first met. And I just think that's like, that's so beautiful.
That's so interesting. What I would distill from that is complicity and consistency, two of the cornerstones of love. For you.
Yeah, I think, first of all, a show is absolutely beautiful itself, it's amazing, But I think, yeah, just having sort of yeah, somebody love you through every change that we exactly inevitably go through. I think, just exactly like the inevitability of change that if someone's not gonna going to be with you, regardless of whether you need the confirmation, if someone's not going to be with you, that's not love, Like, that's not someone that you're gonna you're gonna keep with you. So I feel like, yeah, love to me is something that it doesn't need to necessarily even be expressed. It's just something. It's knowing that that person is there for you.
Well, I'm going to stop you there. Tell please mother, when you are in a relationship, Yes, you will have to tell them that much as it would be wonderful if everything were unspoken, Unfortunately so much is spoken. Just want to manage your expectations. You more about the real world love.
Yes, Okay, oh god, no, now you're making me seem like a real weirdo. Shit.
I really like that though. I think consistency and complicity are I think those are really beautiful tenants to have as part of one's love. Arsenal if you.
Will, Yeah, real relationships are obviously it's not TV.
It's never going to be like but you've got it. I'm going to sound hugely patronizing, which I will just stand by it because I'm going to sound that way that being your beginning place of complicity and accommodating someone else's change and your own is a really beautiful way to begin thinking about relationships. I will stand by that. So I think I think it's cool.
The way I said it. I don't mean like, never tell them you love them, never say anything, just make them read your mind. Just sort of like obviously having all of the relationship love things going on is beautiful, but just sort of also having that like at the back of your mind, just sort of knowing that they're there for you, just like knowing that you know. I guess that kind of goes back to my sort of like overthinking, sort of just like knowing that you don't need to worry that they're gonna change their opinion of you just because of what you're going through or who you are. It's just gonna you know, it's gonna stay, it's gonna stay constant.
So I wish I could remember what your answer was before, But what question would you most like answer?
I feel like like my immediate answer is, like is everything going to be, Okay, when am I going to die? How much money am I gonna have? What's my job going to be? But then I feel like I have a certain level of just sort of again like my overthinkingness. I think I'd just be like constantly thinking about that one thing and how I'm going to get there. Absolutely so, I think I don't know if I could have that. I think that would mess with me more than it would help me in a certain way.
I think, Oh, there's a great I think i've quoted it before. I know I have. It's a realka quote. The point is to live everything, live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Wow, that's pretty good.
That's really.
You're slagging off the great German poet. I guess, hmm, I think that is actually right. It's not about knowing, it's about living.
That's beautiful.
I mean, Darling. I like that answer, which is essentially I don't want to know. I don't want to think about. Just get on a liver.
I guess probably, like what would World War Z two have looked like if it had come out? I know something about like a movie. I would really like to know.
That what person, place, or experience most altered your life.
How personal should I go here? I don't really know. I don't do many podcasts.
You do not have to get super super personal. You can if you want to, but you can create the boundaries.
All right. You know, I'm gonna keep it vague, but I'm gonna say what first came into my mind. I think it was about probably about a year ago now. I went to my friend's house, who lives in the middle of nowhere in England, in a place called the Cotswalds. It's not in the middle of nowhere, but it's pretty out of the way of anything. And I went.
There and.
At night it was just it was a really freaky place. To be honest, No offense to him, he's a great guy, love him, but the Cotswolds as sort of a place I don't like how sort of out of the way it is. I don't really like how far away I am from life or like a bigger city. That's just me as a person, And so I began to get a little you know, my overthinking it all. It kind of just comes back to that again, that sort of anxiety being in a weird place that I really like. It was just like an anxiety. It overcame me, basically, and it was really strange because it had never happened to me before. It was just like this crippling anxiety of thinking. It sort of transformed into thinking about more existential questions and things.
I think anxiety does that it attaches to other events or thoughts exactly, so it becomes a giant snowball.
Yeah, it was really sort of overcoming. And that lasted the whole weekend. It was an exy at for my school, so we had like four days. It was a longer break, and it was that whole weekend, and it sort of lasted for I want to say, like a month and a bit after that of sort of being in that really anxious, rough kind of place. And I think I'm not entirely sure how I coped with it. I think I definitely had some help from the people around me, but I think sort of beyond the physical of what was actually surrounding me, of what was going on that helped me sort of come out of this place. I think I had to just like think more. I had to think about myself. I had to think why am I thinking this? And I had to come to terms with this sort of anxiety and realizing that it is going to be okay. And I think that technique that I set of thinking back to like back to history, sort of thinking back in my own life when times have sort of been a little I was sadder, I was down, and seen that I came out of those I think that really helped me sort of come out of it and almost changed just how I looked at how I looked at myself and how I looked at my mental health. It's like such a vlogger down.
You don't you do not? I know these have become words. We talk a lot about mental health now, but because we never too at it, for example, when I was your age. Yeah but tell me because it's been from one of the most sort of traumatic moment, like to watch you go through that was one of the hardest things I've ever ever been through. But the way that you have come out of that, the bounce has been so extraordinary. It's not that you are so much better, but you have this kind of ebulliance and this embracing of life and this lack of fear around these things that can show up, these scary things that can show up in our lives. It feels like you greet all of it with an enthusiasm, good, bad, and indifferent because you've been through this very, very difficult thing. And in a way, I've always believed that you can only really see it when you're feeling better, but that those hard moments have huge gifts in them.
Yeah, I think it was difficult sort of realizing that it was a gift in the moment. That first week, right after I had gone to the Cotswolds, I had an acting class with one of my teachers, whose name is Paul, and he just gave me some really amazing advice of I went through the same thing, and it's a journey and it sucks some really hard ass and I'm not gonna lie, Henry. I can't tell you how long it's gonna last. I can't tell you where it's gonna go, but it is a part of life, and you're gonna be okay, and you're gonna grow from this. And I think, just like hearing those words, it was like someone telling me it's gonna be okay without telling me it's gonna be okay. It sort of just kicked start of my mind into thinking like, I'm not in a good place right now, but I'm gonna be in a better place than i was before because of this, and just thinking of it in that way, even though it was still fucking a really sorry, I shouldn't be swearing, honey.
I think if ever there were a time to swear, it's when you talking about what you went through it.
Yeah, it was a real pain, and I think just having someone having someone tell you that it's not for nothing, having someone tell you that there's going.
To be well, that's good, it's not for nothing.
Yeah, that reassurance, because yeah, I think the biggest thing at the time, especially since it was sort of an anxiety driven moment for me. God, I really do sound like a blogger sort of.
You know a blogger, is it that you're all encompassing for whatever it is you think you're doing. It's a great collective, such a blogger.
But yeah, I just think having that sort of that reassurance that it's not all for nothing, that this is all it's going to happen, and then it's going to go back to life and it could happen again. Thinking that this is sort of part of me becoming a person, just sort of building who you are.
Absolutely there's no getting out of it, Like everybody has got there something everybody.
Yeah, even though I knew that he didn't know exactly what I was going through, He didn't know exactly what I was talking about. He might not even even gone through a similar thing himself. But just sort of hearing that you know, it is just part of life, and that it's not for nothing, it's creating who you are. That was so instrumental in me of just getting out of that place. Everyone has those moments in their lives when they're really just sort of like, God, this isn't going good right now. And obviously that varies from person to person how difficult the situation is, their response and everything, but everyone goes through these trials and so just learning how to respond, I think, yeah, that was a big part of kind of growing up for me. Obviously I'm acting like I'm forty, I'm not. I'm sixteen.
But you know, listen, the fact that you're using words like respond rather than react you do constantly amaze me and I will forever be. In Paul's debt, he is an amazing teacher Paul. Yeah, and those of us lucky enough to have great teachers. No, like it's that kind of impact, like you'll remember that for absolutely. Yeah, such a painful time, Hen, and you're so articulate about it. It's really cool.
I mean, if we can't talk about things, then nothing's ever going to change. No one's ever going to be able to learn how to cope with these things.
I agree. What would be your last meal?
Last meal? I don't want to just say my favorite food, which is I don't know, why are.
You not eating your favorite food for your last monk.
I've eaten my favorite food every weekend for the last like two years, which is I say it a different way every time. Hero Giro Giro. I don't know how to say it, but yero. I think it's spelled the Oh my goodness.
We call it a gyro in England.
The Greeks they went crazy with a hero. That is my favorite food. It's not what I'm choosing, but it's not okay. But it's definitely that you're not.
Choosing your favorite food that you eat every weekend, because you do.
Eat I do love a good hero. If I got to choose my last meal and you know. I've tried to think about this a lot, but I don't really know what I what I choose? I guess maybe is there like a price range? I'm on here? Am I in a place?
Oh? You're not. You're not restricted by budget at all. I love that you said that, though, Henry, that is very considerate.
What can I say?
There's no price tag?
Okay, so truffle alfredo tagle itally right there. I want baked bell peppers, stuffed with couscouse and cheese. I want a whole turkey. I want the legs to be real big. What else do I want? I want deal pickle Lais chips. I want to have a sprite a mountain dew. I want to have a foot long from subway. I want the old foot long as well. Whatever this new, this new stuff they're doing, I don't want a new one.
It's more like seven and a half inches.
Ain't the Italian bmt. All the toppings, don't skimp out. I don't want six olives, I want twelve. I want three pints of strawberry ice cream. I want it to be Hoggin dolls as well, and I want it all on one of those checkered picnic blankets, and that's my last one.
Yeah.
If I'm dying, I'm going all out. I'm just gonna eat my little I'm gonna have a little steak. I'ma have a little wine.
I want now, you're having a lot of sandwiches and a lot of pasta.
I want everything in there.
I'm loving it. I'm loving it. May I ask you follow up question? Very important? Why would you have three pints of the same ice cream flavor? Oh?
No, that's a fantastic question right there.
I'm not gonna lie. That came from my producer Karen.
First of all, tell me if I'm going out, ice cream is made from milk? Am I correct? To your mother? Correct exactly. I want to maximize my carbon footprint, so I'm having as much milk because cows they produce methane, which is bad for the environment. I'm not thinking about any of.
That now, not as you're dying.
No, I want as much of that. It can be more than three pints. It could be one hundred pints.
Why all strawberry? Why wouldn't you get one fish food? Oh god, strawberry? No, one no, because coffee.
It's no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's all strawberry, because strawberry is objectively the best flavor of ice cream.
I would say that's subjectively objectively to you, Strawberry is the best flavor.
And I think just having three points is it's perfect. It's perfect for me. I just want to have it with me in my in my final moments, it.
Will be comforting, exactly fair enough strawberry ice cream.
That is exactly strawberry ice cream, very clear.
Last question, Yes, I know you sort of touched on this in what experience most altoed your life, But in your life, can you tell me about something that has grown out of a personal disaster?
I think, yeah, I think I covered. I won't do the same one because I feel like I did sort of.
Say yeah definitely. Is there anything else that you can think of? It doesn't even have to be I think like big book. But I mean, I say personal disaster, but like you know a moment of schism in your life, a moment where things really changed, where there was you fell into an abyss, whether it was a big abyss or a small abyss, and then something good came out of this thing that looked like it was bad.
Hmmm. I guess growing up from what I've seen in all of the movies that I've watched, you know, having sort of people come in and out of your life. I think that's a big part of life. But I had a friend that I was very close with for a very long time, and just sort of when I was going through that thing that I mentioned at the moment of anxiety, a little moment of anxiety, he wasn't very kind.
Tell me what grew out of the realization of that, or the pain of realizing that your friend couldn't be there for you. What came out of that that was positive for you?
I guess it wasn't inherently like sort of knowing of these are qualities I like in people, these are qualities I don't like, these are the type of people I want to be friends with. I think it was more just sort of knowing that people come in and out of your life. They can be amazing at times for you, and then later on not be exactly what you need. And I think this sort of goes into a whole nother thing about relationships and just like people that I'm not really smart enough to know a bunch about, but just sort of like people will come into your life and they'll be great for a moment and then maybe they're not great after a while, and realizing that that's okay, and that yeah, you're not like a terrible person because you guys aren't getting along anymore or whatever.
Yeah, you just sometimes you grow out of each other.
And just knowing that, like you can have had great times with someone that doesn't need to be in your life anymore, Like knowing that you can remember that stuff and not be like, oh, but am I allowed to think that because now we're not really speaking anymore. No, that was those were good times. You can still think about that that you can you can still go back on those and be like, yes, that was fucking great, but know that you know now it's not like that exactly, and know that that's fine, Know that that's not that doesn't reflect you as a person, That doesn't reflect them as a person. It's just how it's gone. And I think, yeah, definitely, learning that, like relationships are fluid in the same way that life is, and that you know you don't need to be attached, you don't need to feel as though you have to feel one way about something or another just because of what's gone on between you two. If I'm saying that sort of in a clear way, and yeah, I think that was That was another thing that sort of grew out of that moment for me about a year ago.
Yeah, you're a wise one. Hannah's thank you, I like to think, so thank you for giving me an hour of time. I love talking to you, of course, Mom. I love talking to you. Thank you so interested. I love checking in with where you're at. And it's really interesting and you know, I know you think that there have always been historically tough moments. They have, but this has been a particularly weird time to be a kid. And I'm constantly in or of how you navigate it all. And I love your friends. They're really cool.
Thanks Mom, But most of all, I love you, love you, love thank you Darling, of course mom.
Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry. The theme music is also by Me and additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day Henry Driver Lisa Castella, a Nick Oppenheim, A, Nick Muller, and Annette Wolf at w kPr, Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh had Tigadore
