SNEAKO - August 13, 2025


LEVELS


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

159.97505

Word Count

684

Sentence Count

57


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Don't you pity those who live without pain?
00:00:07.080 To be a superhero in a movie with no plot?
00:00:11.900 Do you envy the main character?
00:00:15.600 Who can turn their pain into superpower?
00:00:19.940 Life is not that different.
00:00:22.900 The ending is not when the hero rides off into the sunset because there's always a sequel.
00:00:27.420 You only see the real end credits when it stops selling.
00:00:57.420 This is the top level of the vessel.
00:01:07.820 It was finally reopened after they shut it down for being the jumping point of too many suicides.
00:01:13.400 Its winding 8 levels now wrapped in net serve as a tourist attraction and a deathly reminder to New Yorkers.
00:01:19.440 If level 3 was just some broken bones and a headache, then level 8 showed some real commitment.
00:01:25.380 I love this building.
00:01:27.340 The brain is a problem solving machine and all pain is relative.
00:01:32.040 If you have nothing going on to occupy your mind, your mind will immediately create some.
00:01:36.700 I changed my perspective on what I complained about when I spoke to Yousef and Abed, two kids from Gaza.
00:01:43.500 Older brother is 16, the younger brother is 14.
00:01:46.500 I was scheduled to talk to these two kids from Gaza at 10 p.m., but I was out with my friends.
00:01:51.320 I texted Yousef, hey, let's postpone it tomorrow.
00:01:54.060 I don't feel like it.
00:01:55.440 I don't feel like it.
00:01:57.040 He texted back.
00:01:57.820 He says, I just woke up at 5 a.m. to do this stream.
00:01:59.980 And I realized, yeah, he's connecting his phone into his neighbor's generator.
00:02:06.400 He woke up at 5 a.m. and he's also literally in a genocide right now.
00:02:10.860 Let me go make it home.
00:02:12.380 But me and my entitled American privilege, I complained about everything else.
00:02:16.540 I got there about 15 minutes late, but he was still excited.
00:02:19.520 He didn't complain about it.
00:02:20.380 He showed up to the interview with a smile on his face.
00:02:22.720 We speak for an hour.
00:02:24.080 I ask him every question I have.
00:02:25.600 I'm realizing things about Gaza that I had never known before.
00:02:28.200 We talk about Palestine every day, but do we think about what they do?
00:02:31.720 What lives do they lead right now?
00:02:33.440 Do they go to school?
00:02:34.460 I ask them and they say no.
00:02:35.900 They shower maybe once a week.
00:02:37.160 They don't have much food.
00:02:38.040 They don't have much water.
00:02:39.020 They can't go to the gym because there's no food to replenish their broken muscles from working out.
00:02:45.020 I never thought about this stuff before.
00:02:46.980 During this conversation, I'm realizing just how minuscule my problems are.
00:02:52.560 Oh, I don't feel like going home right now to talk to a kid in a genocide.
00:02:58.200 And an hour goes by in the interview.
00:03:00.440 I ask him everything.
00:03:01.560 I don't want to get too dark because I'm reminded constantly that these are children that I'm speaking to.
00:03:05.960 Even though they have big beards and they speak maturely, more maturely than most people in their 30s in the West.
00:03:12.440 I'm realizing after an hour that this is the highlight of their year.
00:03:15.740 Getting to do this conversation and stop thinking about the chaos around them is probably the highlight of not only their day, but their year.
00:03:24.280 So I keep talking to them.
00:03:25.600 I don't want to ask him any more dark questions and get him to remind himself about the war and the destruction around.
00:03:31.080 So I'm asking him stupid questions about TikTok and brain rot.
00:03:34.580 Just something to occupy him because the hour that he's spending talking on Discord with me is better than being reminded of the rubble and destruction or having to evacuate his home.
00:03:44.700 In a way, I almost feel pity for people who have lived without pain because they will never be able to appreciate what they have.
00:03:55.680 Even at the upper echelon of life, on paper, so many of those people are miserable because they've never experienced the other side.
00:04:04.980 They've never seen the levels at the bottom to fully appreciate what they have at the top level.
00:04:11.400 If everything is relative, then we should appreciate the pain too.
00:04:15.980 Cut.