110: Asger Leth | Beyond the 9 to 5 – Finding Freedom & Creating a Space for Deep Conversations & Real Connections

Jesper Conrad: 0:10

A little coffee is a good place to start.

Asger Leth: 0:12

Without coffee. I'm no good man.

Jesper Conrad: 0:15

Today we are together with Asker Lett. First of all, asker, a very warm welcome. It's good to meet you.

Asger Leth: 0:22

Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. I mean, I'm in my apartment, but I'm with you somewhere. I have no idea where you are and eventually you'll tell me, but I'm happy to be wherever you are.

Jesper Conrad: 0:33

Yeah, but I'm happy to be wherever you are. Yeah, yes, so right now we are in south of France because we, as I think I mentioned in one of after.

Jesper Conrad: 0:43

Because, because why we are in south of France? Oh yeah, that's we wanted a place to chill for a month where we saw the sun, had sunlight in the right angle. And also because we wanted a place to go deeper, be more focused for a month. Because, as we are nomads and have been now traveling since 2018, sometimes it's a lot of people, a lot of meetings and the joy of going deep and working on projects is often put to the side because there's new wonderful people to talk to. And then you can say well then in the podcast, we combine it, we make a project which is fun to make and we talk with new wonderful people like you.

Asger Leth: 1:28

Great. Did you say you pulled the plug in 2018? Yes, wow, you guys are ahead of the curve man. That's crazy, yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:38

Actually, we bought a big red bus, a veteran bus, and converted it into a living space and drove off, and that was just our seventh anniversary. We bought it on Valentine's Day. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

Asger Leth: 1:54

Oh, amazing.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:55

We realized two years later oh, we bought it on Valentine's Day. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. Oh, amazing. We realized two years later oh, we bought it on Valentine's Day. So now it's kind of our Valentine's thing that we bought a big red bus. We sold it again. We don't own it any longer.

Jesper Conrad: 2:05

As we say when people are like oh, you bought a big red bus, converted it like a school bus. Wasn't it amazing? And I'm just like imagine trying to drive down to the local supermarket in it or to the beach. It's beautiful, but stupid, no, no. But I wanted to put the focus on you. So the reason I wanted to talk with you is that you I saw in my feed on the wonderful social media, uh, one day that you were in the process of creating a place, and the way you described that place I was like, Ooh, that could be interesting to go and be a part of, give a talk or something. But yeah, it just dawned on me. I want to talk, to ask about why he's creating this place. What is it about? Making room for people and for talks and dialogue? What happened that made you make Lakehouse?

Asger Leth: 3:06

Yeah, what happened? I keep asking myself every day what the hell happened. Well, you know, it's actually very related to the overall just what we just started to talk about, the unplugging and in plugging and replugging and all this stuff, because I, you know, I spent many years living abroad, so my journey has sort of been reverse in a way, like I lived for many years in New York, many years in Los Angeles, I lived a little bit in Mexico City and in Berlin. Basically, I've been around. I'm a restless person. I guess a lot of the people that you talk to are people who are needing to unplug for some reason, to reroute, to find themselves, to let go of chains of normal life. I don't know what. There's a million reasons that. I guess you will have to hear all of your podcast episodes to understand why people do what you guys do.

Asger Leth: 4:05

In my personal experience, I'm usually a very restless person. I need to experience the world. I need to meet people from foreign places, from faraway places. I need to be out there. I don't like to go on holidays, but I like to be away in foreign countries and work, for instance. I prefer that. I like to be ingrained in other societies and ingrained in other cultures. I like to be stimulated like that, so where I can take something and give something, I guess that's the core of who I am.

Asger Leth: 4:47

So when I decided to move back to Denmark, I actually decided a reverse trip. Right, I decided to move back to Denmark because I have a son who turned 13. And I was like God damn, you know, I've been away for so many years and before you scold me for this, I have to tell you that he's born in New York and it's a different kind of scenario than normal. It's not like I ran away from my wife and kids or anything. He was born like the child of nomads, so he was born in New York.

Asger Leth: 5:18

Now he happens to live in Denmark, and so while I was living in the States, him and his mom moved to Denmark at some point and I would travel back and forth and at a certain time, when he became a teenager, I thought, hmm, a teenage boy needs really, you know, this is dangerous, these are dangerous days. I should move to Denmark. So I did and, as per usual, I got very, very quickly, very restless. I felt the constant desire that I've always felt, like I've never been able to stay in Denmark for more than like three weeks before. This immense desire to leave would overwhelm me.

Cecilie Conrad: 5:59

I can so relate. Yeah, we were just in Denmark. I think we were planning oh my God, we were planning to stay I don't know how, for how long, and we drove up through Germany, through Jutland, over the bridges, and before we even crossed the Great Bridge, to Zeeland. I was like we have to put this in reverse again.

Asger Leth: 6:20

Yeah, totally, I understand. Look, I really I have to say this I really really love Denmark. I used to tell people I consider Copenhagen one of the most beautiful cities on Earth, but for a short period of time and in the summer, and I think it's become a more and more livable city. It's become like a microscopic, a micro-metropolis in a way. So there's many things good to say about the place, but it's still.

Asger Leth: 6:50

I know you have listeners from all over the world For you guys who don't know Denmark. I know you have listeners from all over the world For you guys who don't know Denmark. You also have to explain that we live in the most rule-based society on earth, apart from Sweden, perhaps and so everything is very strict and within a confined box. So it's very easy, if you have this kind of desire, nomadic experience, like this gene, to experience different stuff, that you feel very boxed in, you feel very contained, you feel like this is a similar experience. Everybody understands this. Who've tried this? Like you move back, you go back to denmark and slowly the ceiling moves down, down, down, starts crunching in your head and the walls start moving in from the sides and you have to run away. Yes, so that's the curse right. We are just some people who have a blessing and a curse right.

Asger Leth: 7:42

So, anyway, I decided I had to be here. So I came back, I got into this restless stuff and, instead of doing what I usually do, which would be to immediately find a project to do somewhere in the world, I knew I had to stick it out. This time. I had to find something to root me, basically. So I didn't plan. I was searching for it in my mind but couldn't find it. Basically, it's outside of my. It was outside of my realm of, or my, my list of possibilities. That was just beyond my imagination. To do something as fixed as finding I. I didn't know how to hack it. Let me put it this way I did not know how to hack staying here and feel rooted in a good way while still having a perspective on the world, if you know what I mean.

Jesper Conrad: 8:38

Oh yes.

Asger Leth: 8:39

Yeah. So I was going to I mean, I had a mini depression and psychotherapy and this, that and the other thing. You can just imagine all this stuff. And one day I was going for a cup of coffee just down the street and there was this weird door that was always I always pass this door. It didn't have any windows in it, so it was like a big gate in a building and I was wondering what the hell is in there. And then one day I was just going for a cup of coffee and the door was open and I looked in and I was like, so I'm so curious. You know, like that is part of my, my way of being so I had to open the door and stick my little nose in and like I saw these people packing and I was like, well, hey guys, so what's, what's going on? What's in here? They're like well, well, you know, we've had this in school or something and and we have to move.

Asger Leth: 9:32

We moving in another place not so far away, and I could just see this room was fantastic. It was like an old church and I mean it was just the most amazing room really and I fell in love with it immediately. I was like, oh, oh, but then what's going to happen here? And then they were like, well, we don't know, do you want to take over? And so were like, well, we don't know, do you want to take over? And so, you know, boom.

Asger Leth: 9:59

So it sort of found me like that, basically, you know, and immediately I knew that this space, this place, physical place, had somehow a key to finding my way to live here. You know, and immediately I saw that I wanted to do an international place in copenhagen, a place of people, to create a sort of community. Um, at first, to be honest, I wanted, I thought, what can I? I'm a filmmaker, I'm a film director and writer by trade, by that's my work, and I thought what I should do is make an art house, cinema and talk venue and then make a community around that. And then, slowly but surely, because of all kinds of things, when things start in reverse, where you know, when people ask me these questions, I tell them the only way to describe the process of I wanted to do this. Then it became that and I have to pivot a few times and make the whole thing adjusted and I tell them it's because I might look like I'm changing my mind all the time and in a way, I am but it's still with the same journey.

Asger Leth: 11:10

I want to make a community of sorts and I want to make a community of sorts and I want to make a place that is for people from all over the world. I know from because of how I feel and how I am and living so many years abroad, that you get a little bit disconnected from Dames. It's difficult to have the normal regular suburban conversation, to have the normal regular suburban conversation. So the more you are abroad, the more you're used to expanding your horizon by meeting people from all over the world, from all walks of life, the more you need that kind of input in your life. So I thought well, the good thing about Denmark, copenhagen, at this point in time, is that it has become this mini micro metropolis. Point in time is that it has become this mini micro metropolis.

Asger Leth: 11:58

35 percent of people living in the city now are actually foreigners, expats working in copenhagen. That's a shocking number, especially because danes are very you know, when we have dinner parties or cultural events, we speak in danish. We keep all everybody else out. Yeah, you know what I mean. I guess you run into that a lot. I do certainly because I have a lot. I do, certainly because I have a lot of foreign friends.

Asger Leth: 12:17

So when we sit down and I invite people to dinner, you know, then I might have one or two people from other countries joining a dinner and the usual thing for me would be everybody speaks in English all the time, but for most Danes, you know, they just slip into Danish, and so it becomes like a place that pushes the foreigners away and it becomes two groups like the Danes are for themselves and the expats are a community. What I felt I needed to do and I wanted to do was create a space where the expats were welcome, first and foremost, and then we you know, the Danes will always find the way in. But I knew from the beginning I wanted to create a space where we spoke english and that the program online and everything we do is in english. And whether I make an art house, cinema or talk venue, or whether I make a yoga, whatever, or make a culture house like absolute church which I explain what it is in a short time for those of you who don't know what it is then everything should be in English, first and foremost, and then us Danes, because we all speak, read and write English fluently, so we can easily fit in. It's the other people. They can't fit into Danish. I mean, are you kidding? It's the most crazy language on earth. So I feel that that was a necessary. That was immediately clear to me wow, I can. This is a physical space. Instead of flying out to the rest of the world to find my community out there as a nomad, I have to bring all the nomads to me in a physical space. That's my logic. Yeah, you see what I mean. So I was trying to find a way or format for that to work, and so I wanted first to do an art house, cinema and a talk venue. I still want to do that in a way, but now we will have to fit into a grander idea that I then pivoted to slowly and surely, and that is to turn this space into a place that has many things. And I wanted to tell you to your listeners who don't know what Absalon is.

Asger Leth: 14:23

Absalon is another similar venue in Copenhagen. It's also another old church. An acquaintance of mine has that, and he turned it into a community space. So there you have yoga and painting, with jazz music and community dinners and all kinds of stuff. And I thought, well, I had a talk with him and he was like, why don't you just do that? I mean, why don't you just start with those things and do the more complicated stuff later, as it can fit in, but start with all those things that you can do already, and so that's what I'm starting.

Asger Leth: 14:59

I said, okay, great, that's actually a good idea. So I'm now creating this sort of community space that has many things in it, from yoga and breathwork and pilates and tai chi like body and soul, to talks, to cultural things, to have art stuff and all kinds of stuff. So we're slowly building that. We opened it two months ago and my idea is to have a program that moves from the morning into the night, that goes sort of from body to soul to mind to head, and we started filling up the program of all the daytime stuff. That's basically body and soul, which is a lot of the yoga stuff and breath work and all that stuff, and slowly and surely we'll put on talks and writers and community dinners and once in a while and stuff like that you know. So so that's the.

Jesper Conrad: 15:52

So that's the room I'm trying to create and that's the reason I'm trying to create and that's the reason I'm trying to go over to exploring it and seeing it this, uh, this summer, in the search for the world, for going out there. What? What drove you back then when you left denmark? And also, maybe the other question I have in mind is, what we are fascinated by is and why we call the podcast self-directed is people who choose their own direction in life, who dare to go outside the box of going to the standard nine to five job. You know you go to school and it's like everything is lined out in front of you. What happened in your life, or were you just not fitting in since you took another direction and became a film director and writer? Um?

Asger Leth: 16:44

yeah, I guess I just didn't fit in and I'm also um tainted or infected by by, from birth, my whole family it works in the creative space. I mean my father's a film director and writer, my mother was a film editor and my sister I have two sisters. One of them was a really really good actress and the other one is a producer, and my brother is a writer and musician and my other brother's a painter. You know, like we're all working in the creative space. And when you work in the creative space it's I mean like that, I mean really, uh, I mean that's not inside the box, right. So already, from the idea of it, it it's difficult. So when you grow up in a family like that, actually the reverse thing happens. We all have this, or maybe that's just a cliche, I don't know, but for the better, why not just use the cliche? We always say that people rebel against where they come from, right, and you rebel against your parents. I don't know that that's necessarily true, but I guess there's periods of rebellion at least, and I think it's very natural in a young age that that's where you rebel against what you come from. And in my case I actually did the same thing. I went to law school. Can you imagine? It's the most crazy thing on earth today? I can't imagine, but I did. I went to law school for four years. But when you come from this creative world you're used to seeing like in my entire childhood we were traveling all over the world. I was traveling with my, with my parents, and I was watching them. I mean, we were not traveling as tourists, they were working all over the world. So it was like a natural thing that, yeah, the whole world is your oyster. The world is there to experience, to witness, to describe. You can meet people. You can work in different places. You can meet people. You can work in different places. You don't have to follow a normal idea of 9 to 5 and staying put or doing what everybody else is doing. No, you can actually make a living, you can actually work and live like that. So once you understand that that's possible, and then you feel the freedom of that and I never knew anything else than that freedom.

Asger Leth: 19:18

So my rebellion was to try and run away from that and go into law school, because I wanted some stricter stuff. But of course, while I was in law school, I was starting to work as my way of so everything is reversed for me. So my way of making money while at law school, like everybody, has to have a job. While they're students, they either work in a pizzeria or delivery or whatever they do. In my case, I worked on movies and commercials and all kinds of different movies, documentaries, short films and all kinds of stuff. That was actually my student job and that was what I was trying to run away from.

Asger Leth: 19:56

But it actually became more and more fun and already pretty quickly I could make a good, decent living while I was a student working on movies and so I worked more and more on movies and film work and read less and less of those books and eventually, when I was, I was missing one exam from the bachelor and I decided, oh my God. I decided like, oh shit, if I take this bachelor, I was one year delayed. That's why I studied four years. But I was because I'd been sick. That's another story. But I was like, oh shit, if I take this bachelor, I was one year delayed. That's why I studied four years. But I was because I'd been sick. That's another story.

Asger Leth: 20:38

But I was like, if I finish this bachelor, then I'm also going to finish the law school, and if I finish law school, I'm going to be making too much money, I'm going to be too satisfied, I'm going to be too set.

Asger Leth: 20:52

I will never, ever, I will never, ever be able to get away from that again, because I knew myself also. So I have this runaway thing or nomadic thing, but I also like a good life. So I was just, I just knew, oh my God, this is going to be such a trap for me, I'm not going to do that. So I was like I had to decide then, and there, do I pursue a creative life with everything that entails? Who knows if you're going to make it, if you can make a living doing that? That's crazy. Or do I just finish law school and then I have a nice set life, you know? And I decided to do the crazy stuff, which was, of course, to drop out of law school. I had good grades, I have to tell you. So it's not like, but it was a clear and important decision.

Cecilie Conrad: 22:30

I remember when we were pulling the plug Well, it's another long story, we don't have to do it all right here but uh, we were talking about pulling it for a long time before we actually did it and we were what. There were two main reasons for not going immediately. One was that I had just had cancer and I needed to show up for checkups all the time, so it was too risky to leave in the beginning and the other was that our oldest daughter was admitted into a school for writers, which is very hard to get into, and she got in as the youngest person ever.

Cecilie Conrad: 23:05

She was only 16 and we wouldn't give a 16 year old and we couldn't take that option away from her. So we started studying there. That gave us some years. But I remember that feeling this life is too comfortable and I share that story very often that we had a beautiful life in Copenhagen, a really beautiful life. We had four children, we had good money, we lived in a beautiful place. The city is amazing, especially in summer. We had good friends. It's not a bad life, it's just too comfortable. And I felt okay, now I've been living in this city, beautiful city, for 40 years and the planet is just so big and I get to get away on vacations. But what about all the other options? What about all the other places? What about all the other options? What about all the other places? And I felt it was like a door closing that if we didn't leave soon, we would be trapped at some point. The habits would be too strong and we would be.

Cecilie Conrad: 24:03

I don't know it was difficult even then and we were only what 40 yeah it was uh, yeah sure I can see that absolutely the question is, how much?

Cecilie Conrad: 24:16

how much risk can you endure, how much uncertainty can you carry? Because if you want that explorative, adventurous life, then there has to be a lot of unknown, which is not comfortable. I picked up the book in the house we rented here in Southern France because it fell to the floor. It's actually a private home Airbnb, which is a rarity these days. I picked it up because it was on the floor and the title was something like happiness is not necessarily the same as being comfortable.

Asger Leth: 24:54

No, I agree with that. I think this is a very important threat that you are hitting upon here, because when are you truly happy? And, when I look back over time, when I'm the most happy, it's definitely not. I don't remember myself being happy when I'm living the most normal life at all at any time. I only remember moments of happiness when I'm out there challenging myself and living an uncertain life, and it's also also uncertain now I'm trying to build something that could break my neck completely. I'm risking everything I don't have. You know I spent everything I have and who knows, I mean it could all collapse, but I also know from my heart and from my experience that that I will look back on this time as a time when I was truly alive. You know what I mean and also that when, when, hopefully, it succeeds, that the pride and the joy of having really risked it is immense and that's a whole level of happiness's unreal. I mean it's it's like not. I mean that's an amazing feeling.

Asger Leth: 26:23

It's the same when you do films. You know whether, especially documentaries where you, you're in it, you're in the dirt. You know like you're this tough. It's really goddamn hard to make documentaries for, for instance, you know it's like holy shit, but wow, those are the happiest moments, for sure, of my life. And it's not like you're not going to get rich off documentaries, for instance. Now I never as a film director. When I'm working on that, when I'm abroad, you know I make good money and so on, it's like I could be. But I don't think that that's the recipe for happiness either. I prefer to risk it. It's really weird moments of just the smell of a foreign place, the way that the sun hits or the memory of rain on a window. It's like the weirdest stuff. That's where you have those moments of happiness. They are rarely in a nine to five, for me at least. I can't find happiness in that at all.

Cecilie Conrad: 27:33

Well, I hope a lot of people can, because a lot of people live that life. So and I don't know if we get stronger from being judgmental, but I'm totally with you I mean, I have to stay alive in the change of things and in the uncertainty and the unknown and to make up my life, I have to create the life we. We move a lot. We're staying for a month here now and we're actually staying an entire month again in barcelona, right after southern france, which for us is radically long time because we move even faster than that. We have to recreate what life is all the time. But that makes us, I mean, I'm awake. When I'm asleep, I experience all of my moments, whereas days in our life in cobenhagen a lot of them were the same and they were nice, but they were the same and and you sort of fall asleep there's a zombie element to it which is interesting. When you talk about happiness, the Danes are.

Jesper Conrad: 28:46

They have been voted the most happiest people for several years.

Asger Leth: 28:52

It's amazing, I don't understand it.

Cecilie Conrad: 28:54

No, but I think it's because we confused the Danish word for happiness with the English one.

Asger Leth: 29:00

Yeah, I think so too, but on the other hand, I don't want to be sounding judgmental and I also know 100% that probably most people would be totally unhappy living the life that I live and most people need a sense of steady and they need to create the normal family structure and the normal house and the normal car and dog and two kids and kindergarten and all that stuff. I think this is probably the most normal way to live, and I'm not just talking about as a Dane, but as any human being, going all the way back to before we had you mean social structure like we have. I mean like it's like the swans. I'm sitting here looking out over the lakes in Copenhagen. We have the swans. They're so beautiful and they also mate couples. Swans live in couples, right, they find a mate. They live together with this mate for the rest of their lives.

Asger Leth: 30:05

Nature is so strong. And what is the nature of humanity? I guess the nature of human beings? That allowed us to grow is also because we are good at being in a tribe. We are good at creating the small nucleus family male I'm not going to use the boring husband and wife, but just male, female offspring right and protecting them and making sure that they get an education somehow, protecting them and making sure that they get an education somehow. I mean now we have schools, but even before that, that they would learn the trade or hunt or whatever from their parents and we could nurture the family until the kids, the offspring, were big enough and mature enough and had learned enough to create their own family. That's how we were created from way back when. That's how we're created from way back when. So, in a way, that's it's me and you guys who have some freakiness to us. You know, like we might be the freaks, or maybe there was just also something from going way back to when we're almost apes, where we, yes, we could create those families.

Asger Leth: 31:14

Yes, we could live in tribes, but the whole tribes back then were moving around I think so so maybe that's the thing, that that's also a part of us, and it's just so difficult to unite those two.

Cecilie Conrad: 31:25

Yeah I once read it and I'm sorry I can't remember where. I once read I think it was an anthropological study stating that in all human cultures there has been about 15% of adventurers and rule breakers and people who come up with new ideas, try things out, do something different. And then you have the 85% of doing more conservative and this can come out so negative. And I don't mean that because I can only live a radical life because there is a norm that I can be radical against, a norm that I can be radical against. I do like that there are motorways where I can drive my car, that I don't have to build them before I can go somewhere.

Cecilie Conrad: 32:22

I mean, I live within a structure, I just push the borders of it and I appreciate that the structure is there. And so was this study very appreciative of both elements of the human spirit, saying we have the 85% core base of those who will maintain the buildings, maintain the social structure. They will plant a new apple tree so that there will be apples for the grandchildren. And then you have the 15% going on adventures, trying to create a new kind of windmill, who will try to make bread out of a new sort of grass, who will do all kinds of crazy stuff, and some of them will succeed and some of them will fail, and some of them will go off and never come back and you don't know what happened.

Jesper Conrad: 33:10

Some of them will die because they eat weird stuff. Yes, yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 33:14

But they will drive the change because they eat weird stuff, yes, yes, but they will drive the change. And we can only be a moving, evolving culture because we have both elements. We need the stability of the 85% and we need the adventurous mind of the 15%.

Asger Leth: 33:28

Fascinating. I think that's so true. I would love to read that book if you can find it.

Cecilie Conrad: 33:33

Yeah, I'll actually find it now.

Asger Leth: 33:35

I think this is really, really fascinating, also because it's interesting how we go back to this original humanity or back to pre-human you know, almost ape-like, where. I guess this makes a lot of sense. What you're saying is that it's hardwired into our tribe as part of our success mode, like this is. The success of the tribe is that we all take care of parts of the tribal responsibilities, of parts of the tribal responsibilities, and that you could even say and I will say this especially because maybe you could say that the core reasoning for the tribe is to have progress, prosperous, plenty of food, good, safe places to sleep, et cetera, et cetera. And it's up to some people in the tribe to keep searching for the next valley, to keep searching for the next tool. That makes it a little bit easier to accomplish all that stuff right, and that's fascinating. I mean, and I think probably that's what we carry with us that it is still just like, uh, like a, like a like wired into us somehow. That's x percentage. It's just. Like.

Asger Leth: 35:01

You know, there's a fascinating book about sleep. I don't know if you read this big book that was the number one bestseller of new york town for many years in a row. Here just recently. It's called why we sleep. It's the biggest uh, scientist, scientist dude on sleep science who pulled together all of the science, all of the many experiments and research from all over the world and put it together in one book and said why do we sleep? And he said that, based on his putting all this stuff together, that you know we keep saying we're A people and B people, but actually there's at least three A, b and C. And the people underestimate first of all, that there are three different types of people, but it's also underestimating completely how hardwired it is. So our society thinks that B people can just adjust and be A people. No, he says very clearly that the science, without a doubt, states clearly that if you are a B person and you rise late and you go to sleep late, then that's what you are Some people. But don't mistake this for this little abadabai some people live their entire lives thinking they're B people but are really A people, that or the other way around. So that actually happens.

Asger Leth: 36:24

So when some people sit there and listen to this and say no, no, because I changed this, because yeah, because then you live the wrong life, but if you're a real B person, then nothing can force you to become an A person. You're genetically disposed to be a B person, then nothing can force you to become an A person. You're genetically disposed to be a B person. They know this because they've done so much research, putting people deep, deep, deep in caves underneath where there's no sound, no light, and they can stay there for months on end. You can still measure on people when they think they're supposed to rise and when they're not.

Asger Leth: 36:58

It's hardwired and I guess, in a similar way, without us knowing how and why, we got that gene. I got it, you got it where. We just need to be the ones that that risk it and we might risk, uh, falling off cliff somewhere. But we're definitely going into the next valley and we don't know if we're going to find bread there or water, but we're doing it anyway. And just like back in the tribal monkey stage, if we did find bread and water, we would come back to the tribe and then we'd stay there for a little while and then we'd get out again.

Jesper Conrad: 37:35

That's exactly what we're doing right, there is a graffiti artist in Denmark. It's kind of ugly Ugly graffiti is just like white big letters on a wall. But the small sentences the artist use affects me so much and I will name one of them here's called in danish angstminderwertesroutine and translated it's anxiety marinated everyday routines. I just when I saw that with big white letters on the wall, I was just laughing my ass off. I'm like, oh, that's so rough, it's incredible.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:17

But actually it points to a thing I've been thinking while we've been discussing this. You know, is it hardwired? Was I just born with a nomadic gene? And and as I often say, I have the anarchist gene? I think I really think I do. I think I got it from my mom, like don't tell me what to do, just don't.

Cecilie Conrad: 38:40

I don't like rules maybe um but I was thinking, yes, I think we are hardwired in many ways and I think I I believe this study of the 85% stability, 15% explorative human spirit divided into humans, individuals who have tendencies to live different kinds of lives. It makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, we just spoke to Dennis Nermak about the price of unfreedom and pseudo-work and the whole structure of our society as it is today in what we call the Western world and very much in Denmark. As you said in the beginning, denmark, for those who are not Danish, it's a country that's very structured, very guided by rules and norms and a lot of social norms. We keep each other in place.

Cecilie Conrad: 39:42

This structure can push people back from being explorative. It can push, it, can. It installs fear, because the whole argument for keeping each other in place, keeping things under control, doing things the right way, keeping each other, each other in check, having rules for how to do things, it's. It might be wrapped in the idea of the welfare state, so the taking care of each other, but it it's based on fear.

Asger Leth: 40:09

Really, what it is is if you don't do this, it will all fall apart oh, absolutely, yeah, yeah and I think we sorry you run into that all the time, like people will go oh, you're like I. I know that you run into that for sure, but whether you hear it or not, but you feel it that some of the people that you know or run into, or even family and so on, probably thinks you're a little bit crazy, you know, and uh, and thank God you are.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:35

Our kids have never been to school. The three youngest, the oldest one, but the three youngest have never been to school. The oldest one is 19. He's not spent even one day in school. Fantastic. And we don't homeschool them either.

Asger Leth: 40:51

Wow.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:52

So a lot of people think we are very crazy, that one, we do.

Jesper Conrad: 40:57

A lot of people think we are very crazy that one.

Cecilie Conrad: 40:58

We do a lot of magical stuff, and this one especially, makes people believe that we are completely insane.

Asger Leth: 41:08

For sure, for sure, amazing.

Jesper Conrad: 41:09

Yeah, but what happens is that then they meet them and then they relax, because one the really fascinating thing about children who haven't grown up in this weird society that a school is where you're together with these 24 to 28 people of the same age uh forced to do things you don't want to, yeah they, they, they are so grounded in themselves that that you can just see a different kind of person.

Jesper Conrad: 41:38

It's a very fascinating, um, it's very fascinated to fascinating to see them and I can yeah, I actually look them out the window. Uh, it's very fascinating to see them and I I sometimes get jealous myself of the, the, of the deep rudeness they have in who they are, where I'm still insecure on different levels. Um, absolutely, there's one, one fun thing I wanted to mention about the whole homeschooling, unschooling. If, if you look at it from the side, what, what we do. Sometimes I need to explain it to people.

Jesper Conrad: 42:16

Then I use this story where I say to them if someone invited me to a party where everyone was born in the same geographical distance and everyone was the same age as me, born in the same year, I would be terrified if I was there. It would be a weird party. I'm not sure I wanted to attend it. It's a very strange construct, the school, where I mean you're older than I am and we are having a dialogue that wouldn't happen in a school, and I just find it fascinating to look at these things from the side. Sure, from the side, sure.

Asger Leth: 42:55

I think the idea of schooling is. I mean, I'm fascinated by this whole stuff about education and also about how we grew, or at least I mean. That's, of course, a topic for discussion, but you could say that we grew as a species or we developed a civilization and so on, and humanity became prosperous and so on and so on. Right, I mean longer life expectancy and so on. So what's it really about? I mean, it's a healthy life with your family and life expectancy and healthy, not too many diseases, and so on and so on. That's basically what it's all about, and peace. But when did that all start and how did it happen? I think that's fascinating. It's not like school, like how many hundreds of years did that really exist, I mean. So when people think you're crazy, there's the counter arguments. Well hello, humanity survived for a really really long time without any organized schools.

Asger Leth: 44:08

And then finally we decided to have schools. It's not like we just jumped straight down from the trees. It was a gradual thing. We just jumped straight down from the trees. It was a gradual thing. But of course, when people go to school and longer school and education and medium, long-term education, universities and become scientists, we grow explosively as species. It's also fascinating what knowledge can do right. It's fascinating that we can learn to combat all these diseases and so on and so on, but at the same time, at the same speed, we're also learning how to destroy the earth and eventually there's a whole other argument about curiosity killing the cat.

Asger Leth: 44:46

Now, I'm still in favor of education and knowledge and so on. I'm very much in favor of that. But I think it's all about possibilities. So I don't really care how you school your kids and what kind of education they got. As long as you have not and you're still welcome to do it I will not judge you. But for me, I would say that if the kids get a sense of life and can operate in the world together with other human beings, and that they know that, if they feel like they want an education, that it's possible for them to get it and that they know which way to point. You know what I mean. Like, if they all of a sudden want to become a lawyer one of them who the fuck knows, like I did then you know, okay, there's still ways to do that, you know. Yeah, you don't have to follow the given system.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:21

I just want to clarify. They have never been to school. That doesn't mean they haven't had an education.

Asger Leth: 46:27

Exactly.

Cecilie Conrad: 46:29

We haven't forced them. We have not had a homeschooling situation where the curriculum and me teaching by the kitchen table because we believe a lot in freedom and we do trust the process and there is a mix-up in the mindset of people and and this is obvious because everybody goes to school so we have this idea that basic education can only happen in a school setting, because for most people basic education happens in a school setting. You don't have the misconception that the basic education will only happen if coerced, because all kids in school are coerced. They don't do it voluntarily. It's pretty boring. It's a pretty um, artificial social setting. No one would organize themselves like that spontaneously, especially not seven-year-olds, um, so we get that mix up that this is the way we have to do it, because what we see is that everybody does it that way. But if you let the children be and give back to them those 10 000 hours of their childhood, what will they do with those 10 000 hours?

Asger Leth: 47:34

fascinating I promise you they will not sit and look at a wall no they will probably no, totally and they will learn how to uh, to probably learn how to read and write, because it's so easy today to learn to do math, and quicker, probably because you're in these school environments. You're sitting there, you're dying slowly inside. Well, when you're using your skills outside, you have to just make things work. Then you make it work. So that's that was my old man. He just came back. No problem, art is a very, so that's that was my old man.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:08

He just came Welcome, no problem.

Asger Leth: 48:18

The very, very academic all of them. They're kind of book nerds.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:20

So there is a big difference between not schooling and not getting an education.

Asger Leth: 48:31

Absolutely when I was in school, when I was in the fourth, third grade, or whatever. I don't know how to translate that to other nation's school system.

Cecilie Conrad: 48:41

You said your age at the time.

Asger Leth: 48:43

But I was about when I was about 10 or whatever, like nine years old or whatever, and from then on my parents would take me out of school so much it was crazy because they were traveling all the time working. So the headmaster of the school, he was like, called them in for a meeting. It was like, hey, you know this doesn't work, you know you can't have your kids out of school all the time. How are they going to learn anything? And then my father said to the headmaster well, I actually think that my kids and my son is going to learn much more by traveling. And luckily we had a very intelligent headmaster. He actually got it. So he was like, okay, but Eske, I mean you have made internet.

Jesper Conrad: 49:33

I mean, what have you learned anything you ended up doing? And a movie watched by a lot, of, lot of people. You have made movies in Hollywood and but I have a fun question around that. So you are almost an educated lawyer, yeah, well, yeah, but have you went to school for learning some of the film stuff? Or is that all self-taught or would you call it?

Asger Leth: 50:02

That's all self-taught. When I grew up, we had a house in Fredericksburg it was a suburb of Copenhagen and we had a film company in the house, a documentary film production house. My father had it, together with a couple of friends and my mother, and in the basement we had our own little almost like a mini cinema, like a 16 millimeter projection room. The basement we had our own little, uh like almost like a mini cinema, like a 16 millimeter projection room, and we had an editing table and the walls were filled with film ideas and so on and so on. So it was like, uh, it was a film school, uh, in a way, and then we were traveling all the time. We were traveling to all kinds of countries shooting documentaries and, yeah, feature films, whatever, and yeah, so that was just learning, life learning.

Jesper Conrad: 50:55

Yeah, but that is one of the most fascinating ways to learn. It's when you have someone there who can show you the tricks of the trade.

Asger Leth: 51:06

Yeah, at some point I applied for the Danish film school, but cause I thought basically I needed um sort of like. Not because I thought I could learn anything, particularly there. I thought I actually had a pretty good grasp, but I felt, like I, that that part of it was not the problem.

Asger Leth: 51:23

It was more like I wanted to at that time have um no it was more like I wanted to at that time have um official stamp. No, it was more like you know, when you, when, when you go into school, like a film school, a creative school, an art school, it's also, um, a playground, sandbox, you know, uh, where you can fuck around and nobody's gonna judge you. So but when you're outside, everything you do do it's not a playground, it's for real. It's very difficult, especially in some countries and some environments, to do stuff and experiment without being judged on your work.

Asger Leth: 51:56

But if you're in a school environment, especially art schools, you are expected to experiment and do crazy shit and even do shangos and stuff that you're not even have a taste for yourself. So you're never gonna be just on it. But if you're outside and every work you do is a part of your overall, it's like people are gonna be all he likes horror movies or he likes Comedian comedies or whatever. But if you're in a school, you expect it to experiment with all these genres and Then you leave school and then you're, then you, then you, you find your, then you're in your own language, but in school. So that's the only reason I felt that it could be fun and liberating to be in film school, simply as a sandbox to play around.

Cecilie Conrad: 53:32

I would personally take another education in a heartbeat if I had the option. I think voluntary specialized educations for adults are amazing.

Asger Leth: 53:44

What I vote against is the coercive compulsory forced schooling of innocent children who didn't choose to be there didn't choose to be there, yeah, so, uh, going back to, uh, this, this new, and now we have, because of I mean, I mean the way we've grown as a civilization now, and technology now, you were in a position where you can actually go to university on your, on your phone yeah you know uh if that's what you can learn to chop, you know, and then do something else to to on your phone or your computer like a podcast or whatever, to make a living, or that there's different ways to do it.

Asger Leth: 54:27

Now you don't have to necessarily be boxed into a classroom.

Jesper Conrad: 54:33

And going back to lake house facilitating people meeting. Thank you for for doing that. I work a lot in my line of work, which is funding. Our life is helping people with marketing and stuff, and I'm a big fan of using a lot of AI to support me. In that sense, and instead of being afraid of AI and the future, I'm actually believing real life will be more and more important for people real dialogues between people.

Asger Leth: 55:07

I agree. I agree with that 100%. Yeah, also, in terms of there's a lot of filmmakers who are nervous now, and myself included on some level, but not in a global scale. I'm not worried. I'm more worried about, you know, when there's ripples. You know it's difficult sometimes to manage the ripples because you know entire businesses become obsolete overnight and so on, and people you know I think it's a natural phenomenon and so on, and people you know it's, I think it's a natural phenomenon, but it's just the ripples are dangerous feels and I experience dangerous to people in their everyday life. You know it can be difficult, but I'm not so worried in terms of, uh, the global, um, I mean in terms of my work, for instance, like as a filmmaker, and so on.

Asger Leth: 56:02

I think that, yes, it can be detrimental to normal filmmakers or writers could be, but it could also be that it just will feed a desire that there will be labels to stuff. Okay, this is AI movie, this is AI script, this is real movie, this is AI script, this is real. There's a desire for real. I think that the desire for real grows. That doesn't mean that you can't do crazy stuff in AI In theory. I mean just in terms of you can already now do action sequences entirely in AI that are wilder than anything you could do on a shoot. And it's not about nitpicking and saying I look there, you can see that it's fake, but I just still feel that there's that probably there will be a desire to watch more and more just eye toeye, real stuff, and we might end up going to theater, all of us, but instead of going to the movies. But actually no, I think there will still be a desire for movies. I think that it would just be a different kind of desire.

Cecilie Conrad: 57:14

Our oldest son, who is 19, said to me a few days ago in a conversation that he believes that the whole internet thing, which is, you know, it's a thing that came in my lifetime and and and has grown into something. It's like breathing air. You know, you can't, you can hardly function without your smartphone any longer. It it's so dependent. It's just there all the time, like a religion kind of thing, supporting lots of different things and a lot of it is information. He said now, with the AI and the way the internet is distributing information, he thinks that there is a tipping point coming and coming soon, where globally we will stop believing in things we find on the Internet.

Asger Leth: 58:08

Yeah, I think so too. I think that's already here.

Cecilie Conrad: 58:11

For me it's there. It's been there for a while, but it's not globally there. A lot of people still share information because they read it somewhere on the internet, but they don't really you know where did this information actually come from?

Cecilie Conrad: 58:26

Now with the AI. Where did the AI get it from? There's no way we can know. And the interesting thing is, if that tipping point actually happens and people stop believing find it on the internet, you can't rely on it. Then we have to start reading books again, then we have to start knowing an expert talking to real people.

Asger Leth: 58:50

I think that's absolutely possible. I think that's a natural. I don't even think it's far-fetched, I think it's an absolute. I think it's an absolute necessity and a desire that will happen automatically, because there will be no policing this. It's impossible to police. Ai is so good already and will become completely impossible that eventually the only thing you can trust is the real life that you see and feel right in front of you, the people you meet and the people who stand by something as a book or as newspapers, for instance. Newspapers have had a hard time for years and are maybe at the least trustworthy moment in time, but eventually, the idea that there's newspapers with editors who have a legal responsibility to vet the news, it will become eventually, very soon, the only way to trust your news again.

Cecilie Conrad: 59:49

And the editor is the person.

Asger Leth: 59:51

Yes, so trust and responsibility are the two things that will be the most high in demand, and it goes from news to reality, to movies, to art, to, I think, for every, every walk of life, what's real and trustworthy and something that people vouch for and stand by and you can see them right there and say, yeah, this is my work, I did this. You can trust this and you have to see it physically. Maybe even you might not even we might invent some avenues, some tunnels through the internet where you're like, okay, that stuff in there, I trust that's. They only do curated stuff and all the channels that mix um and allow, uh, fake news and fake stories, uh, to mix with reality, becomes a place you don't want to be anymore.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:00:41

Yeah.

Asger Leth: 1:00:43

So as a means of transportation.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:00:45

It must somehow survive the internet. But but the whole, you just go grab information, go home and chew on it On the way home from from our expedition yesterday. Yeah, in the car we were discussing how big is an elephant? It's pretty basic. It's because our van is pretty big and we were like, is it bigger or smaller than an elephant? It was in the context of a conversation and one of the kids looked it up on the internet and the information he got was so random internet and the information he got was so random. There's no way that's the largest elephant on the planet. There's no way they can be that small. There's no way an elephant is three meters wide. And it was just funny how.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:01:31

It's a funny example and how, pulling things up, you use ai a lot, so you very often share information which is AI information. I'm like there's no way I can validate this information. So this destabilization of information harvested from the internet is coming. But the internet as a way of communicating. We're speaking here on Zoom. People are going to listen on their smartphones. Of course, that's not going to break down.

Jesper Conrad: 1:01:58

No, no, no.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:01:59

But the information sharing is going to have to change yeah, well, hold on, I have to.

Asger Leth: 1:02:05

I have to point out the fact that there are already now podcasts with very, very, very, very real people having conversations with other very, very, very real people in other countries about stuff like this. Except it's all fake. Yeah, you can have two different AI bots talking to each other Easy. You can already do that.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:02:27

I've heard a podcast with two AI bots or maybe it was one bot divided into two persons talking about me, Because a friend of ours who can do this kind of tech magic.

Asger Leth: 1:02:40

There you go.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:02:41

Pulled it up. He just fed the bot, like three of my blog posts, and then they started.

Asger Leth: 1:02:46

Yeah it was.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:02:47

It was.

Asger Leth: 1:02:48

You can do it with your voice. You know which is even scarier? Yeah, oh yes.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:02:51

Yeah, so how can we validate? We don't know, and that's why we need places like Lakehouse, where we show up, we can see this is a person.

Asger Leth: 1:02:59

Exactly. That's why I feel so good about Lakehouse. It's that it's going to be, that it's in person. You know, like you're there, you meet people. I love that. Yeah, it's right there.

Jesper Conrad: 1:03:12

Yeah, one of the things I enjoy most almost with our daughter being a published author is, uh, it's, of course. I'm a proud parent and everything and I enjoy reading her books. Yes, but it's going to the the day where she's presenting the book or reading a little from it and all the people having and it sounds fun to say it like this an excuse to meet up in real life people. People are not good at just meeting up. They need something to meet around.

Asger Leth: 1:03:42

Well, it's already happening. I can tell you that I'm paying attention because of what I'm doing right now, and so I go out and I go to like poetry or whatever readings, and book this and book that, and it's packed yeah.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:03:57

Yeah.

Asger Leth: 1:03:58

So that fire is already exploding, you know.

Jesper Conrad: 1:04:02

Yeah, and it's the talks after the poetry, it's the talks before the poetry itself is… Absolutely yeah, the poetry itself is important, but I just love the facilitating of the meeting between real people, and we should. We could probably keep on on talking, but we should find a place to round up. So I have one question as a lead over to a goodbye, which is so how should people, if they want to come, movie directors and writers and all the things you have done, should they go down the route of becoming a lawyer first, or what is your suggestions for how they should go about it?

Asger Leth: 1:04:43

No, I have no suggestions at all. I don't believe in fixed ideas.

Jesper Conrad: 1:04:48

Perfect, I love that answer. And then for people who want to know more about Lakehouse where do they find it? Where do they read about it?

Asger Leth: 1:04:58

And I can only say, well, we, just we just opened two, three months ago and slowly you will start reading and writing about it more and more on different spaces. But we are sort of opening soft without going out and talking too much about ourselves. But we have a website. It's at lake uh dash house dot net. Perfect, perfect, and we might change the address later on. I can tell you the address already because I have secured it. But we will get a lakehouse in one word, dot DK. But for now the website is Parkway. I told you.

Cecilie Conrad: 1:05:32

Perfect, we will put both show notes.

Jesper Conrad: 1:05:35

Absolutely. And then it's time to round up and say thanks a lot for your time. It has been wonderful.

Asger Leth: 1:05:42

Thank you, thank you, bye everybody.

Jesper Conrad: 1:05:44

Bye-bye.