Remembering I'm an Animal

What's next for this Remembering I'm an Animal journey? Well, if Billy's latest whim pans out, it will POV storytelling to the table. There's a long explanation to start the show, and then we find out Doc solved parenting with crime-scene evidence markers, the British slang term more-ish, logic gates, Doc's first golfing adventure, and why every male Homo sapiens becomes fascinated by the allure of small boats.

In ancient Greece, the terms "happy" and "blessed" were synonyms, and were used to mean "doing well." And when are you doing well? It's when you're flourishing. And according to Aristotle, people who lead flourishing lives are "exercising immortality." Got it?

Billy and Doc discuss this and so much more, including the reaction of our ancient central nervous system to a new assessment category. We were designed to determine if another human was a threat and an ally. So how do we cope with all the people that are simply annoyances? We'll try to return a throw pillow to Home Goods to find out.

We don't just evolve biologically. Culture also contributes to our evolution, but somewhere along the way we became stuck in Uncanny Valley, where our weird feels familiar and foreign at the same time, and with that comes unease. But don't worry, the boys have a solution. And it goes back to old Aristotle. Or something like that.

If you place the entire history of the cosmos, from the Big Bang until now, onto a single calendar year, the first humans don't arrive until 10:30 on Dec. 31. Everything we know about, everything in our history books, happens in the final 10 seconds, of the final minute, on the last day of the calendar. This show is about those 90 minutes.

Ol' Arty believed that every living thing has a specific potential, one dictated by its internal structure and fulfilled through vital activities. That's what this show is about.

Also:

We've swapped wonder for warning.

Is anything invented or is it all discovered?

And why the hell do horses let us ride them?

The answer is embarrassingly simple, which is to clean out your mind and body. Easy enough, right? Actually, yes, and Billy discusses how three weeks without a phone, and without putting crap into his body, has had such profound effects that he's just mad at the moron who took this long to do it. Also, Jody buys "barefoot" shoes that aren't hideous (finally); the boys present a drunk history version of the discovery of Bermuda; and how a trip to a homestead that functions off the grids of electricity, money, and motor vehicles made Billy very uncomfortable when they started singing.

What happens to your brain, like immediately, when you just get rid of your phone? Billy reports back from his first week since dumping his iPhone for a cellular watch. Plus, Doc and Billy discuss whether we've abandoned survival of the fittest, plus Doc explains his recent off-air comment that he wasn't listening to Billy during the first 14 episodes.

The show took a hiatus, but Billy and Doc did not. We're back to catch you up on the evolution of our RIA project, which is deeper and more dynamic than ever. We have much to talk about!

In this very strange crossover episode of The Crowded Hour and Remembering I'm an Animal, Billy and Jody are back together. It will make sense if you listen. Probably.

It's been a little over a year since Jody and Billy decided to start documenting this journey they call "Remembering I'm an Animal." Thirty-seven episodes later, the boys take a look back, list their highs and lows, and look ahead to more species-appropriate behaviors.

If you've been listening, thank you. If you haven't, it would be kinda weird if you were reading this.