O bar mais triste da cidade

Some parents really struggle with “all the other kids have the terrible thing, so my kid has to.” – Let your kid go and be a better example to these shitty kids. Just ’cause the other stupid kids have phones, doesn’t mean that my kid has to be stupid otherwise will feel weird.

I think these things are toxic, especially for kids… they don’t look at people when they talk to them and they don’t build empathy. You know, kids are mean, and it’s ’cause they’re trying it out. They look at a kid and they go, “you’re fat”, and then they see the kid’s face scrunch up and they go, “uh, that doesn’t feel good to make a person do that”. But they gotta start with doing the mean thing. But when they write “you’re fat”, then they just go, “humm, that was fun, I like that”.

You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away, is the ability to just sit there. That’s being a person, right? Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty – forever empty. You know what I’m talking about? That knowledge that it’s all for nothing and that you’re alone. It’s down there.

And sometimes when things clear away, you’re not watching anything, you’re in your car, and you start going, “oh no, here it comes. That I’m alone”. It’s starts to visit on you. Just this sadness. Life is tremendously sad, just by being in it.

That’s why we text and drive. I look around, pretty much 100 percent of the people driving are texting. And they’re killing, everybody’s murdering each other with their cars. But people are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don’t want to be alone for a second, because it’s so hard.

I was in my car one time and Bruce Springsteen song comes on (…) and I heard it and it gave me kinda like a fall back to school depression feeling, it made me really sad. And I go, “oh, I’m getting sad, I gotta get the phone and write ‘hi’ to like 50 people”.

So, anyway  I started to get that sad feeling I was reaching for the phone and then I said, “you know what, don’t. Just be sad. Just let the sadness, stand in the way of it, and let it hit you like a truck”.

And I let it come, and I just started to feel “oh my God”, and I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch. I cried so much. And it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic. You’re lucky to live sad moments.

And then I had happy feelings. Because when you let yourself feel sad, your body has antibodies, it has happiness that comes rushing in to meet the sadness. So I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness. It was such a trip.

And the thing is, because we don’t want that first bit of sad, we push it away with a little phone or jerking off or the food. You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel kinda satisfied with your product, and then you die. So that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.

On CONAN with Conan O’Brien by TBS