Ramblings Of Coffee And Third Spaces

We start with rain, no sleep, and a fresh cup of coffee, then follow that thread into why coffee feels like comfort and community. From third spaces to intuition, we land on a simple practice: change how we interpret life and our whole day can change with it.
• speculating about how coffee was discovered and why it hooked the world
• remembering first cups and how caffeine tolerance quietly builds
• coffee shops as third spaces for belonging and low-pressure connection
• the awkwardness of seeing third-space friends outside the shared context
• online community as connection vs endless consumption and attention traps
• using “I never thought of it that way” to break mental patterns
• trusting intuition as a relationship and keeping beliefs private
• choosing interpretations that create peace then acting from that state

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

We are online.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

On a rainy spring day. April shower is kind today, but it's not yet April.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Last day of March. Lops of rain, heavy rain, nice and warm. All the winter's buildup is now being washed into the rivers and streams. Sent to its next steps.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah. Last night was a hard night. Up all night with thunderstorms. Tyke was a little scared, so she kept running around the house, jumping on the bed.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Do you know what's going on out there?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

How can you sleep through this?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Right. So yeah, today's a little, my brain feels a little foggy. But that's all right.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

That's why God made coffee.

Who Invented Coffee And Why

SPEAKER_00 0:59

That's right. Got a brand new one right here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Wonder who figured out coffee. It's kind of a strange thing. You know, when you think that coffee is the inside of a of a berry, and uh you take it and you get rid of the berry. I don't know anybody who eats the coffee berry. Maybe there's people out there who love the coffee berry. I don't know. I know that there's animals who like the coffee berry, and then what they do afterwards is kind of gross. But who figured out then to take that seed that was inside the berry and roast it and then, you know, like put it in the fire? Maybe they tried to eat it. I don't know. But then they ground it up, right, and poured water on it. And now it's like, I think it's like number two in the world of exports or or in-demand commodities, uh, just after oil. Oil, then coffee, then sugar. Those are our addictions, it appears.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

In the chat, maybe there was a forest fire and they tried to save the berry crop. And then they smelled the berries and were like, holy moly, that would make something great for the morning.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, I I'm sure it was a wonderful accident, no matter how it happened. Yes. Yes. That's a forest fire. The forest fire theory of cough.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yes. We'll take that. Put that one in the book. Because nobody, I don't know if anybody who knows. They can tell you who is earliest reported as drinking coffee.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Probably know some alien king.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

That's what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So they didn't come. You guys got the coffee plant here? Isn't that great? Watch what we do with it. We were sitting, you know, throwing the pits away from the berries, like we do with great, trying to get the seeds out without eating the seeds.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

And they said, Oh, give me those.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

And next thing we knew, we were drinking coffee like a sophisticated group of people. Various blends and roasts, various additives. I don't know who thought up caramel syrup, but I think you owe them something. Doing your macchiados.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

That's right, and getting a lot done on our first coffee buzz. That's right.

First Coffee Memories And Tolerance

SPEAKER_01 3:15

That was like that. I remember the first time I had coffee. Do you remember the first time you had coffee?

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

What happened?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I didn't notice any like buzz from it. I remember at first I was just totally grossed out by it. So of course I was the double triple sugar cream. And then I worked in a coffee house slash restaurant and and just started to get off of the sugar part. But I remember those first few coffees where yeah, it was I I was grossed out at first, so I had sugar. And then but I didn't notice a buzz. It's only honestly, it's only in the last 10 years maybe that I've noticed a buzz afterwards. And I noticed, okay, I I can't go beyond maybe three coffees in the morning. Whereas when I worked in a restaurant, oh my god, uh coffee all day. Tons of coffee working in the kitchen, because I worked in all areas of the restaurant pretty much. Working in the kitchen, I always had a coffee in the microwave or like just constantly heating it up, and more and more, because we could just order from the coffee house attached to it. It's nuts. But you used to drink like 50 coffees a day or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

It's like you're any drug, you're always chasing your first experience. Your first experience is like, wow, this is incredible. And then after that, you're always chasing it. You always need more and more and more. And yes, at one point I was, I remember, I remember the first day I had coffee, I was uh law student in a law firm, downtown Toronto, and they had two people that were called the coffee ladies, and they were in charge of catering and all kinds of things, but they brought that a coffee cart and they brought coffee around multiple times a day for people who wanted a coffee because they didn't want the lawyers getting up and leaving their office and chatting over coffee. They wanted them staying at the desk. So they would bring them the coffee, and the coffee lady came, and it was the last call for the day. It was like 6 30 or something, and I was I was putting in the night shift, I used to call it, and working long hours. And she said, Do you want anything less? And I said, No, thanks. She said, Do you want a coffee? I said, No, I never had coffee. She said, Oh, well then you should try it. And I said, Pusher. Yeah, she was a pusher. She was looking for customers, I guess. Anyway, I said, Well, what the heck, why not? She was uh she was a lot of fun. She was from New Zealand and she uh she was just a a jokester, she was a real light-hearted human being. And I said, sure. So she made me a coffee and she said, What do you want? And I said, How do I know? Right? So she just made it regular, milk and sugar kind of thing. And it wasn't terribly hot, so I just sort of drank it. And in about two minutes, I was just wired. And I I thought, this stuff shouldn't be legal. This is too much. And then there was no turning back after that. I was hooked. I've had times when I uh got off coffee for a period of time, but I always come back to it. And yeah, when I was running my own office five, six years later, yeah, I was there was a second cup franchise across the street, run owned and run by a woman named Irene. She had just migrated from Hong Kong, and she was just this, she was a joy too. Oh, why is it that coffee pushers are also cheery and happy? Anyway, yeah, I I counted one day, I got to 14 coffees that day and thought, there's a problem here, Les. There's a problem here. It wasn't the coffees as much as the brownies that had to come with the coffee. Oh my gosh. And now coffee is an institution. Coffee is an institution in our society. We have coffee houses and people go there just to be. Coffee is so much cheaper if you drink it at home. Yet people want to go and buy a$6 coffee and sit in that place where they don't talk to anybody else. They sit quietly with a computer or their phone or a notebook or homework or some work work or whatever, and they they sit in the coffee house and practice their addictions to coffee and to their to the the internet.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

I think the coffee house represents I heard this a few years ago and I really like the idea of it. I think they're called third spaces. Is that right? Yeah. First space, home, second space, work, and your third space is a space you get out to, the library, right? Coffee house, I don't know, park, like a place where you you meet with people. But I think a coffee house has always been just a lovely meeting grounds. You know, when I I worked in another coffee house nearby here. That's right, Lesla's third space is the gym. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, that's what it's become.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah. And 5 a.m. in the morning, I had to, you know, uh go to the coffee house, bake, make lunch ready, get muffins baked, make the coffee and get everything going. And by 6 a.m., you always had those regulars would come streaming in, they chat and they'd sit and they'd chat with each other and they'd chat with me. I loved it. I love, I love that. I don't know if that's the Newfoundlander in me or whatever, but yeah, I I love getting together for coffee with people and just talking.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Well, in many respects, you know, just the idea that it brings people together. It's become a social tool to to bring people together towards conversation. You know, that's a that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Think about how many shows on TV. This just came to me from something in the chat, and I'll call it out in a second. But think about how many shows on television in the past have revolved around third spaces.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Right. So in the chat, coffee house pub, Gracie Spoon. So I think of like Coronation Street, I think of Cheers, I think of friends, you know. Funny, who knew we were gonna talk about coffee today? We're just getting our brains going here. Yeah, I do think that third space is very important for people.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

It's funny where we find people, isn't it, Eddie? Where we find people and become friends with absolute strangers. And you know, even to the point where in that third space you are very friendly and these people are very meaningful to you. But outside of it, there's there's just an awkwardness. Yeah. It's just uh like uh there's something about an environment where we come together for a purpose and we see in many respects the truth of the other. And then, you know, like I I bump into people from the gym in the grocery store all the time, and we stand there and we awkwardly have nothing to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

Right?

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

We make chit-chat about what we're going to buy. And I'm sure if we chit-chatted more in the grocery store, then I suppose the grocery store could become our third space.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

But I bet you, I mean, besides the gym, chatting with them in the gym, I bet you if you went to coffee with any of them, it would change that. You'd probably sit down and ask, How you doing? I and then get into chit chat.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Absolutely. It's it's what takes the the third space friendship to the next level.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Can third space be online?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I think it can, but it's creepy.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Well, I think there's a lot of there's an awful lot of awareness in our culture of the online predator and such.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

But I think that that you can. I mean, we're trying to stab us out of the school, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Well, I was just thinking, like when you said creepy, I'm like, oh, but yeah, the chat chat rooms like in the chat, in the chat today. There they said chat rooms. I can see how that is, yes, what you're talking about. But yeah, I was thinking about our school becoming I mean, it kind of is for a few people a third space. They enjoy coming out to things, taking part in workshops and meditations and such.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

Yeah, I would like you to go back and edit out that part where I said creep. No, it's it's it's the truth that we are, you know what, I think because of my history, uh I'm a bit resistant to spending too much time online. I uh I I have an awareness that I'm spending time online and that that doesn't feel authentic to me. A lot of our time online is spent looking at what somebody created.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

That's right.

The Power Of Thinking Differently

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And that's in many respects being content. Right? Yeah, it's a lot of what we spend our time looking at, consuming, listening to is junk. It's and it serves no purpose and it's not really uplifting or meaningful. But I think it's possible, absolutely, you know, to be connected through some online methodology. I mean, I take great pride in the people that we see around the world listening to our podcast every day. We don't all we see is city locations. So wherever your IP address is, that's what we get data for. But, you know, there'll be months at a time when people from a particular place are showing up. And that makes me feel really good. Makes me feel like what we're doing has value. Because that's really the goal, right? How can we help you to think about things differently? I think that's becoming my theme. I never thought of it that way is is almost a question to me now. I have people say, I never thought of it that way. And it's it's useful to think of things differently because it breaks the pattern, it shakes up the program, and it introduces the opportunity or challenge in question. Maybe the way I think of things isn't so good, isn't so accurate, isn't so helpful.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Maybe the way I think of things can be better for me. And maybe the way I interpret these things isn't accurate, and it's certainly not helpful. And the thought that there are people all around the world, thousands of people around the world, who have listened to us repeatedly, and taken, I hope, from that, that sense of I don't have to use my mind the way I always did. That gives me great hope for what's possible with the online world. Unfortunately, it has become, like so many things, all about profit and notoriety. And and I suppose that's the negative energy of it all. And that because it's about profit and notoriety, now it's, you know, what can I put out there into cyberspace, for lack of a better word, that's going to get people's attention. Attention seems to be the most important thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And rile up their emotions. And and at the same time, you know, look at some of the uh think of some of these online personalities who I've heard of, so I've watched their stuff, and their stuff is relatively meaningless to me. But at the same time, there's something about them that creates a following, and then they've got you know two million subscribers, people coming back.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, I think yeah, and it's and it's meaningless to certain people, meaningless to you, but it's meaningful to many others, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Exactly. Those two million subscribers are finding some sense of comfort, you know, some sense of yeah, like yeah, maybe it's just the 30 seconds of peace of mind that they can count on in in bumping into today's upload.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

And I'm I'm not judging it, I'm just saying that there's there is a place for this. There is a there is a way that people are comforted and feel a sense of belonging, ownership, you know. You know, I gotta I gotta check out my so-and-so reels, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Right. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, I find it, I find it interesting to think about how, you know, because we're not our community wouldn't be meaningful for everybody, right? It's a certain type of person that would that would come out, probably a mixture of, you know, spiritually inclined with wanting to work on their mind. Or you can be one or the other and just participate in either types of things, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Mm-hmm. And I think, you know, as as you create a community and you think about success in the business sense, you're encouraged to narrow your focus, you're encouraged to go after a particular target audience. And in many respects, that's that's smart business. At the same time, sometimes the best communities are open to everybody. Coffee shops don't the only the only requirement is that you want a warm drink.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

You only need to have a warm drink, you have a cold drink.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

You just you seem to be drawn there to spend a little bit of money and get something and then combine your for some people, they go outside and combine a cigarette, and for other people, they sit inside and they combine their phone or their computer. It's all just the pursuit of comfort. For our school, I yearn to be surrounded by people who are asking questions about their mind and the way they think. I think that there's a magical moment in people's lives when they realize that they don't have to feel this way.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

And that they are contributing through the way they use their mind to an unsatisfying, often unpleasant state of being, state of mind. They take um, they take an awareness that they don't have to feel this way, and they start to pursue it. And this is where one of those, you know, uh, I've often thought, I just want to do a, I just want to do a TikTok the way that makes you go, oh, I never thought of it that way, right? Just 30 seconds of your life where you go, oh, that's weird, and then have that crack open the door, and then start to pursue something, and then realize that your real happiness waits for you on the other side of controlling your mind, getting, becoming in charge of your mind, that in fact it's your mind that's making things good or bad. It's your mind that's making you feel happy or unhappy. It's the way you use your mind to interpret things that sets up often the general demeanor of your whole day. What I love helping people wake up to that. And and so much of it is just the idea of I never thought of it that way. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. And this is why I think people, when they are at points of when they're at points in their life where they're suffering so much, you know, I always talk about sufficient suffering, they've reached a level of being unhappy that they're looking.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

There's gotta be something, right? There's gotta be a way to feel better than this. And they'll ask their friends, you know, that do you know any good books? Did you see any good movies? Have you, you know, do you what do you do when you feel like this? And they'll pass along names of books or authors or philosophies or you know, historical stories where, you know, somebody, yeah, I love redemption stories. And I think everybody does. And I know that I'm very drawn to redemption stories, you know, people who go from thinking one way about themselves to thinking another way about themselves.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

And I think that's that is a really great use of your mind. Yeah, I better pause because I'm just babbling now. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Oh no, I'm I'm just listening. I'm not thinking about like what to say next. And I don't think you're babbling. I think it all sort of ties together in a roundabout way. I think you know, this morning might be just talking things out, just trying to understand our own place. I think.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Well, I've gotten into a new habit. And I won't call it even a habit yet, but it's a desired habit. When I'm not doing well, I sit with my guides. And that is that's become really useful because I just I just get right to them. And they explain, they explain stuff to me about how the mind works, how my mind works, what I'm doing with my mind.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

What do you mean by not doing well? That's in the chat. What do you mean by not doing well?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

When my emotions get the better of me, when I feel like I'm vibrating in a negative way, when I when I'm not feeling motivated, when I'm feeling afraid of what I want to do, when I am looking at the walls around me and feel like they're creeping in, when my world is getting small, when I've lost my context, when I am feeling alone, like it's up to me. And that's the hard part, right? It's up to me. And it isn't. And learning that's been valuable for me. But, you know, when when I'm not doing the stuff that I want to be doing, whether that I think I want to be doing, I spend some time with them. And, you know, one of the things they were explaining to me yesterday was that we overvalue other people's opinions, other people's reactions. Like some people, I say this on the podcast, and some people are going to turn the podcast off. They're going to say, oh, woo-woo. And and other people are going to say, oh, at last he said something really worthwhile. And for me, I just want to say something that's honest. I want to say something that may crack open the door for somebody. And they were explaining to me, like, like, who cares what other people think?

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Your guides were saying that.

Choose Thoughts That Feel Better

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah. Everybody's everybody's trapped in the, you know, the the image is that of a bus. Everybody's got their own van, their own bus with a whole bunch of junk in it. And you're just trying to organize it and keep the bus moving forward. And whatever you decide to believe in, whatever you decide to trust in, is your business. Nobody ever has to know. Like, nobody ever has to know that I trust in my guides and I'm trusting them more and more every day. And I'm trusting in those periods of time where I sit with a journal and stuff flows out of me that I had no idea was there and that I know isn't me and therefore is them. And that who cares that I sit and imagine them. I sit and ask them to show themselves to me. And I have very, very clear images. And that these are just bizarre. Like, why that? Why would that be what I'd picture, you know? And that's totally okay because nobody has to know. It's nobody's business but mine. My relationship with my intuition, and I heard somebody say that yesterday. Intuition is a relationship. A relationship to your intuition is to be built, it's to be trusted. And nobody has to know. What you decide you're going to believe in, and I think this brings us back to what I we thought our topic would be, which is signs and things like that. It's nobody's business what you believe in and trust. Who cares? They're all going to have an opinion. And every mind is unique. Every mind has been trained in very similar ways. And we find as hypnotists unwinding that mind to have certain common ideas, right? Ideas around lovability, ideas around worth, ideas around, you know, the past. Ideas around other people. You know, most of your life is going on inside your mind. Everything that's going on around you is being perceived in your mind and then interpreted by your mind, and then fit into a past story that you tell yourself. Some people might use the word ego. All of this is going on for all of us. And so what's out there is so much less important than the way we interpret it, which is really how we're using our mind and the thought that we could use our mind differently, that we could interpret things differently. And, you know, I could interpret something as, oh, that's nice, right? That's nice. I found a dollar on the ground. Isn't that nice? And I can interpret it that way. I could, I could also, and there was a time in my life when I did, when I found money on the ground, my first thought was, how do I get this back to the owner? Right? Isn't that bizarre? Like, this isn't mine. I'm not supposed to have it. This has got to go. I have to find who it really belongs to. Right? It's kind of funny, but that's the way I was. And then it was, you know, oh, look at this. Isn't this nice? I think I'll go have a coffee. Yeah. Yeah. But I could just as easily interpret it as life always takes care of me, and money comes to me randomly and freely and openly. And the universe is always providing for. And that can just be inside me. Right?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

That I don't have to tell anybody.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah, I've I've written down here, I've seen a lot over the last few years random memes or videos saying, you know, pick what you want to do and don't tell anybody. Like if you want to go to the gym, don't tell anybody. If you want to write a book, don't tell anybody. If you I I unfortunately suffer from wanting to tell everybody. But I I think there's a lot to be said about just keeping, like you said, keeping these dreams to yourself, at least in the beginning, because they're going to, whoever you tell, again, everyone, like Les said, it everyone has their own mind, their own upbringing, and they are going to react based on one, the work that they've done for themselves. So maybe they've done like work on judging less or feeling self-love and or they're going to react how they would feel if they tried to do it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So if you're looking for a positive reaction, you better know the person pretty well. Right. Because even your best friend could have a reaction, well, well, be careful, or you know, you know how they view it. It's always about how they're gonna view it.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I think we have this program built into us that's really about doubt. It's masked as a desire to know the truth. We're told you're seeking the truth. And then we're told you can't know the truth. You're not capable. It's way beyond you. You know, I was watching news yesterday and people openly saying to the newscaster, oh, I don't know what's going on over there and that thing, but you know, I I can't know all that stuff. They can, they're doing what they need to do. And, you know, that to me is a program. Of course you can know. Of course you can have an opinion. Of course you can just come to the conclusion if it suits you to come to the conclusion that says, yeah, that's not good. People shouldn't do that to each other. You know, you're allowed to have that thought. You don't have to hand over your ability to think, you don't have to hand over your opinion, and you don't have to tell anybody your opinion, right? Because what matters is how you feel, right? So if you think that there's things going on in the world and you don't agree with them, you're allowed to think that. And if what you do with that is say, I wish the world could be like this, full of love and peace, and people leaving each other alone, and people knowing how to share, and people knowing how to take care of each other, and people just deeply knowing that all beings are important and necessary and part of the whole. And you can wish that in your own mind, and you don't have to tell anybody. And you can use that as the way you operate, and you don't have to tell anybody. And if it makes you feel better to think that way, that is good enough reason to think that way. How you feel about the way you interpret what's going on around you is important because that's what determines everything for you. That determines your state of mind. And your state of mind will determine how you experience the world. And so you don't need to justify to anybody that you're right or you're wrong. You just have to say, hey, it makes me feel better. Just like a cup of coffee. I don't have to justify why I drink coffee. It just makes me feel better. And sometimes I don't drink it, sometimes I just hold the cup. And sometimes I'll look at the cup at the end of the day, and there it is with three-quarters of a cup of coffee. But I wanted that cup of coffee because it made me feel better. You don't have to tell anybody how you think, but you can think any way you want. And if it makes you feel kind, if it makes you feel peaceful, if it makes you feel loved or loving, if it makes you want to go out of your way to be helpful to others, right, then go for it. And who cares what other people think about it? You know, find your own program, I guess. Find your own way of interpreting the world and find the place and the patterns and the habits and the practices that can cause you to feel better, and that will cause you to act better. And that'll make the world a better place, absolutely, positively. Even a tiny bit that matters.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think that was good. I think it wasn't beautiful from the chat. Beautiful. Yeah. So thanks for hanging out with us today. I know it was a little random and all over the place, but I think Les brought it together very nicely.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

No, no, FISFA. We did it.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yeah. It's funny, Tyke always knows when we're wrapping up because my voice changes, I guess. So she comes, she comes running out. But yeah, have a beautiful day. And yes, nice conversation. Yeah, we will see you later.