Jon Dao: To rewind just a little bit, you mentioned listening to Stan Bush’s music when you’re feeling down. Is that your preferred method of picking yourself up when you’re down? Just listening to music?

Audi: Um, I really don’t feel down anymore. It’s been a number of years since I’ve really felt down. I can’t really answer that question of how I pick myself up. I feel like if people are down, it’s 50/50. There’s a legit reason for feeling down, and they keep themselves down. I feel like that 50% should be it, and the rest should be you trying to pick yourself up.

There was a time where I was like, “Oh, life sucks!” And that doesn’t accomplish anything. I’m not that kind of person because I get really frustrated if I can’t work and do something for myself or other people. I don’t really have time to be depressed.

Jon Dao: That’s what I think it boils down to. And that’s how eventually, after I give myself time to feel like shit I have to realize… It’s always kind of surprising where I’ve met people who were so stubborn about it. [People] who wanted to expend all their energy building that.

When I was in Japan I served as a counselor in my last year. My idea of how counseling worked before I did that role to after completely changed. The bottom line is: oh sure, it’s great to give advice. And everybody, they’re not required– it’s not mandatory that they follow your advice. But it gets exhausting when you talk somebody who constantly turns back to you.

All they do is say the same stuff over and over. And they’re so committed to being miserable.

Hopefully that’s not how I come across to you when I talk about my confusion over my next career path.

Audi: Oh no, not at all. But I would say that maybe that comes from that safety. It’s safe to be that way. They don’t much else, and it really doesn’t impact them being that way. They still get the goodness of life.

I know the depression thing in the US– for some people it’s a choice. You can be depressed there and still have a fantastic life. And you can still sit there and complain because it still gives you that sense of “people should feel sorry for me” and “I deserve to be felt sorry for”. At the same time, they have everything they really need in life.

Going back to the time when I was in Brazil, there was a caste system that was completely asinine. It’s just poor districts right up to the rich districts. And the rich people flaunt their money while the poor people try to do the best with what they have. The people I related to were absolutely not the rich people but the poor people. They have a very realistic, but at the same time, very positive outlook on life.

They were constantly trying to make things better. And the times they did manage to make things better meant something.

The rich people were all miserable. On anti-depressants. Drinking a lot. They had absolutely nothing really, other than the money. They didn’t have anything to fight for either because they had all that money they could just buy it. They didn’t have any sense of building up anything because it was already built up from the ground even before they were born.

I think that’s one reason why I can’t be that way… feeling sorry for myself. I saw poverty. Extreme poverty. But at the same time, such optimism. If I was there, part of that community, I would never understand how to live that way.

That gave me a big wake up call. I didn’t feel right feeling sorry for myself anymore.