Between The Seasons: Stories From A South African Childhood - What Now? with Trevor Noah Podcast

Speaker 0:00 [upbeat music]

Speaker 0:02 Before the new season begins, we return to where Trevor's story was first written: South Africa. In the laughter and struggles of childhood lie the roots of who he became. These are the tales we gather now. [upbeat music] Our journey begins where Trevor's family always began: with prayer. In the townships, prayer was more than faith. It was identity, a reminder of where you belong.

Speaker 0:41 This is the awkward part, how, how you start a conversation.

Speaker 0:44 It's the worst part of every conversation.

Speaker 0:44 Yeah, it's the worst part.

Speaker 0:45 Why don't we start with a prayer?

Speaker 0:47 The guy-

Speaker 0:47 This is, this is actually why our grandmothers started meetings with prayers.

Speaker 0:50 Oh, yeah. To cut the awkwardness.

Speaker 0:50 Because that was not... Yeah, 'cause it's to cut the awkwardness, 'cause now you're gonna... You can't just come together and be like, "Your son has a drug problem, and your husband is cheating." If you start with a prayer, then it opens it up.

Speaker 0:59 But it was also a township power move because everyone here will know whose house this is.

Speaker 1:04 [laughs]

Speaker 1:04 'Cause you can't lead a prayer at-

Speaker 1:06 You can't lead a prayer at somebody else's house.

Speaker 1:07 No.

Speaker 1:08 When you pray, when you pray in a South African household, right?

Speaker 1:10 Mm.

Speaker 1:11 First of all, like, I don't, I don't know if your grandmother did this. My grandmother used to give her address, and she used to give, like, where she's from and her name and everything.

Speaker 1:17 No, my grandma never did that.

Speaker 1:18 No, really. My mo- my grandmother would do that.

Speaker 1:20 Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1:20 She'd be like, "My name is Francis Noah." And then she'd be like, "La, la, la."

Speaker 1:24 Location.

Speaker 1:25 "62- 6236 Orlando East."

Speaker 1:26 Sends, sends what location.

Speaker 1:27 Yeah. S- you, who you are, where you're from, whatever. And I remember I asked her once, I was like, "Why are you doing this?" And then she was like, "Why do I assume..."

Speaker 1:32 She knows where I am.

Speaker 1:33 She's like... Yeah. She said, "I..." She said, "Trevor, I, I must just assume that God is always listening to me." She's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah. That's not fair."

Speaker 1:41 Oh.

Speaker 1:41 And if you think about it, most South African, like, prayer in general-

Speaker 1:44 Mm

Speaker 1:44 ... I think is very, like, considerate of God. It's very much like we know that you're doing stuff, and we know that, like... You know what I mean?

Speaker 1:52 Yeah, but I need to... I, I think because of missionaries, we never as Black people thought that God is with us. God was brought to us.

Speaker 1:59 Huh.

Speaker 1:59 So we always have to identify ourselves and also, uh, separate ourselves from the non-believers.

Speaker 2:05 It's funny. Now that you say the missionary thing-

Speaker 2:06 Yeah

Speaker 2:07 ... I actually think a lot of that was real.

Speaker 2:10 Mm.

Speaker 2:11 Is that, like... 'Cause think... I, I always think about this. I go, like, imagine being a Black person anywhere on the continent.

Speaker 2:18 Mm.

Speaker 2:18 Right? These people come with religion, right? And then they tell you that the reason things are going bad in your life is because you don't have-

Speaker 2:28 Religion

Speaker 2:28 ... this, this God in particular. 'Cause there was religion.

Speaker 2:30 Okay.

Speaker 2:31 There were different religions all over the continent, all over South America, all over these places.

Speaker 2:35 Mm.

Speaker 2:35 They would force, um, y- you know, the, the native people, they would force them to buy goods from them that nobody else wanted to buy-

Speaker 2:42 Mm

Speaker 2:42 ... at predetermined prices. They would say they would do the work of, like, donkeys and mules and, and all of that stuff. But the main thing was they also came in with religion. So everywhere in the world I can see this, this, this vibe where people have come in with religion saying to you, "Hey, all these bad things that are happening to you are because you don't worship God."

Speaker 2:59 Mm.

Speaker 3:00 And then it must have been weird because the natives are like, "You, you are the bad thing that's happening to us." They're like-

Speaker 3:05 Mm

Speaker 3:05 ... "Yes, exactly."

Speaker 3:06 But-

Speaker 3:06 "If you had prayed..."

Speaker 3:08 "... and you have penicillin." [laughs]

Speaker 3:10 [laughs] This wouldn't be happening to you.

Speaker 3:12 But I thought you didn't need penicillin 'cause you can pray. Hey. Shh.

Speaker 3:16 [laughs] And this is-

Speaker 3:17 Trevor, go put on clothes.

Speaker 3:19 [laughs]

Speaker 3:19 It's not cancer time yet.

Speaker 3:20 [laughs]

Speaker 3:25 [laughs]

Speaker 3:25 Trevor's mind moved to its own rhythm. Some saw disorder, yet it was a gift, a gift that once left him shoeless on the side of the road on his way home.

Speaker 3:39 My record with my mom, the, the story that she keeps bringing up is one day I came home from school. I had no backpack, and I had no shoes.

Speaker 3:50 [laughs] Come on.

Speaker 3:52 And then my mom said to me... And my cousin always tells the story as well because he says-

Speaker 3:56 [laughs]

Speaker 3:56 ... that day I got one of the all-time beatings.

Speaker 3:58 All time.

Speaker 3:58 And he says he remembers, like, watching me going, "But this could have been avoided." He was also a child-

Speaker 4:03 [laughs]

Speaker 4:03 ... but he was like... He says he watched me, and he, he thought to himself, "But he could have avoided this."

Speaker 4:08 [laughs]

Speaker 4:08 And what had happened was I came home, and apparently my mom was like, "Where's all your stuff?"

Speaker 4:13 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4:13 And I said to her, I said, "The bag got heavy."

Speaker 4:16 [laughs] Put it down.

Speaker 4:17 So I put it down.

Speaker 4:19 [laughs]

Speaker 4:19 I literally left it on the side of the road.

Speaker 4:20 Yeah.

Speaker 4:20 Very logical. I put it down. To me, logical.

Speaker 4:22 Yeah.

Speaker 4:22 And then she said, "And what happened to the shoes?" And I said, "The shoes were new, and I didn't wanna finish them."

Speaker 4:27 [laughs]

Speaker 4:28 "So I left them somewhere close to school so that I don't have to wear them out on the way home."

Speaker 4:32 Oh. [laughs]

Speaker 4:33 'Cause you know, like, your shoes would get worn out on the, on the sides, right? Like, we couldn't afford new shoes-

Speaker 4:38 Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, uh-huh

Speaker 4:38 ... the same way other kids could. Mm-hmm. So I noticed kids always had, like, a flat heel on their shoe. Look at how observant you are, though.

Speaker 4:44 Yeah.

Speaker 4:44 Exactly.

Speaker 4:45 Yeah.

Speaker 4:45 And then my shoes had the slant-

Speaker 4:47 Yeah

Speaker 4:47 ... that looked terrible. So I was like, "Okay. If I can preserve my shoes, then I won't get laughed at as much."

Speaker 4:53 Oh my God.

Speaker 4:53 "So I'll leave the shoes near school and then walk home barefoot." And we went back, and everyth- everything was where it was- Oh ... which means my plan worked technically. Technically. Yeah, but she, she couldn't understand. And my brain, I remember thinking this made sense and-

Speaker 5:07 To me. Yeah.

Speaker 5:07 Mm-hmm ... to me it makes complete sense. Yes.

Speaker 5:10 As children, Trevor and his friends turned the streets into playgrounds, claiming space where none was given. He remembers how community can be built from nothing but bricks and courage.

Speaker 5:26 I think the truth is that we think we don't have the third spaces, but we... It's, it's just because we've made every space a private space. Like, I was just thinking this walking around, like, parts of Brooklyn the other day. I've noticed a dip in how many block parties there are.

Speaker 5:43 Hmm.

Speaker 5:44 Yeah. Just that was a simple event-

Speaker 5:46 Yeah

Speaker 5:46 ... mm-hmm ... where you closed the streets.

Speaker 5:48 Yeah.

Speaker 5:49 You agreed, neighbor at the, at the end, neighbor at the end. We all agree.

Speaker 5:53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:53 On Saturdays, we are going to close our block.

Speaker 5:55 Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:56 And everyone's gonna just open their door and, like, walk out-

Speaker 5:59 Yeah

Speaker 5:59 ... and the kids can kick a ball-

Speaker 6:01 Yeah

Speaker 6:01 ... and can hit a ball.

Speaker 6:02 That is so great for everyone.

Speaker 6:02 And I've seen a few parts of New York where they do it now. Mm-hmm. Like, this is, like, in Manhattan, by the way.

Speaker 6:06 Mm.

Speaker 6:07 Like Chelsea, somewhere there.

Speaker 6:08 Okay.

Speaker 6:08 I remember driving one day, and I was irritated because I was in the car-

Speaker 6:11 Mm

Speaker 6:11 ... trying to get to an airport, and the road was closed, but I loved the fact that, like-

Speaker 6:14 Yeah

Speaker 6:14 ... I saw, like, someone hitting a ball, a baseball- And then people running. The whole street was just closed.

Speaker 6:19 Yeah.

Speaker 6:19 And I was like, "Oh, we've been tricked into thinking the thing that's right outside our door is not a third space."

Speaker 6:25 No, but that's not a third space.

Speaker 6:26 Why is it not?

Speaker 6:26 That's a home. Third spaces are, like, actual-

Speaker 6:29 The-

Speaker 6:29 I'm talking about- True ... parks-

Speaker 6:31 Yes, yes

Speaker 6:31 ... libraries. No, no, no. Yeah. They, they have decimated them.

Speaker 6:33 I'm, I'm with you.

Speaker 6:34 That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6:34 And I'm telling you that when I grew up, they didn't exist.

Speaker 6:37 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 6:37 Black kids couldn't go to a library.

Speaker 6:38 Oh, yeah. You were- Wow ... apartheid. I get it

Speaker 6:39 ... there was no park.

Speaker 6:40 Right, yeah. apartheid.

Speaker 6:40 There was no-

Speaker 6:41 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 6:41 During apartheid, none of this exists.

Speaker 6:42 Yeah.

Speaker 6:42 But I have the full childhood that you're talking about.

Speaker 6:45 Okay. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 6:45 Because the third space was-

Speaker 6:47 I get it

Speaker 6:47 ... the street.

Speaker 6:47 The street. That's right. Okay. I get what you mean. Yeah.

Speaker 6:48 If your grandmother told you-

Speaker 6:49 Right, you travel around the world. Sometimes you don't see girls. Right But you always see boys playing in the street.

Speaker 6:53 Yes.

Speaker 6:54 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6:54 The third space is the street.

Speaker 6:55 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 6:56 So you go, you tell the kids, "Go out-"

Speaker 6:58 Well, okay, we need to get rid, rid of these SUVs.

Speaker 7:01 [laughs]

Speaker 7:01 I would let my son- No ... play in the street if Americans didn't have-

Speaker 7:03 Yeah, exactly

Speaker 7:04 ... these huge ass cars.

Speaker 7:05 You know, and you see-

Speaker 7:06 That I'm like, "If he runs in front of the car"

Speaker 7:07 Yes. But that's what I mean by close the street.

Speaker 7:09 Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7:09 So I go, I would love to live in a society where we go-

Speaker 7:12 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7:12 Like, we used to do this on, I, I wish I could, like, take you to the picture in my brain. We as the kids ran the streets as if we were adults.

Speaker 7:22 [laughs] Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7:23 So we would close the street with bricks.

Speaker 7:24 You take responsibility.

Speaker 7:25 Yeah, we would take bricks-

Speaker 7:26 Yeah

Speaker 7:26 ... and we would put them at the beginning-

Speaker 7:28 Mm-hmm

Speaker 7:28 ... of each road and close each road.

Speaker 7:29 Yeah.

Speaker 7:30 And then when a car would need to turn into the street-

Speaker 7:32 Oh, yeah

Speaker 7:32 ... because this is like a road.

Speaker 7:33 Right.

Speaker 7:33 You know, it's not a public, I'm not talking about, like, main roads.

Speaker 7:35 Yeah.

Speaker 7:35 So if you're listening to this-

Speaker 7:36 Right, you have no permission to do this

Speaker 7:36 ... I'm not talking about the highway.

Speaker 7:37 This is just an informal thing you did.

Speaker 7:38 Yes.

Speaker 7:38 Yeah.

Speaker 7:38 I'm not talking about a highway. I'm not talking about a main road.

Speaker 7:40 Yeah.

Speaker 7:40 I'm talking about, like-

Speaker 7:41 In your neighborhood

Speaker 7:41 ... yeah, your neighborhood.

Speaker 7:42 Or beside, yeah.

Speaker 7:42 It, it was a township, but it was still a neighborhood.

Speaker 7:45 Yeah.

Speaker 7:45 We'd put bricks there. A car would need to turn. There would be kids stationed at every corner.

Speaker 7:50 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7:50 And you'd shout, "Koloi!"

Speaker 7:52 Yeah.

Speaker 7:52 You know, car.

Speaker 7:53 Okay. [laughs]

Speaker 7:54 And then you'd run there together. You'd move the bricks.

Speaker 7:56 Move the bricks. Let them through.

Speaker 7:56 Everyone would clear the road.

Speaker 7:57 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 7:58 The car would drive either through where it needs to go to, or it would, like, stop at the house that it's stopping at.

Speaker 8:03 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:03 And then we'd put the bricks back on the road.

Speaker 8:05 Yeah.

Speaker 8:05 And then we'd continue playing. And, and because I agree with you.

Speaker 8:07 Yeah.

Speaker 8:07 I'm not saying, like, "Go play in the street," but I'm saying sometimes we look at problems in life and they, they seem insurmountable because we're looking at them the wrong way.

Speaker 8:15 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 8:16 Okay, no phones and no this-

Speaker 8:17 Yeah

Speaker 8:17 ... and no, and where, now are we gonna build third space? How much is a third space? Where do you get it?

Speaker 8:21 Yeah.

Speaker 8:21 How do we build a park?

Speaker 8:22 Yeah.

Speaker 8:22 Do we get permits? Do... Guys, everyone, if you are lucky enough to have a house, if you are lucky enough to be renting a space, if you-

Speaker 8:29 Mm-hmm

Speaker 8:29 ... you literally have the third space right outside your door.

Speaker 8:32 Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 8:32 You just have to claim it back.

Speaker 8:34 Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

Speaker 8:34 You literally just have to claim it back collectively.

Speaker 8:37 Yeah. In his home, drugs and drink where shadows never touched. But one day, Trevor's mother offered him a cigarette and a sip, teaching him that even temptation could be faced with honesty.

Speaker 8:53 I think about growing up and my perception of drugs. So I didn't touch weed my whole ... I've, okay, so I'll, I'll, I'll even take it before even, like, drugs drugs.

Speaker 9:07 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 9:07 Uh, my mom doesn't drink, my mom doesn't smoke. My dad doesn't drink, my dad doesn't smoke.

Speaker 9:10 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 9:11 All right? So I grew up in a home where that wasn't a thing. My grandmother, et cetera.

Speaker 9:14 Yeah.

Speaker 9:14 And my mom said to me when I was 13, 12, 13-

Speaker 9:21 Mm-hmm

Speaker 9:21 ... maybe even younger, she came to my room, and she had cigarettes.

Speaker 9:27 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 9:27 And she had, uh, beer.

Speaker 9:29 [laughs]

Speaker 9:30 And she said to me, "Do you want?"

Speaker 9:33 [laughs]

Speaker 9:34 And, and I was like, "Oh, this is a trap."

Speaker 9:35 [laughs]

Speaker 9:36 "Obviously, this is a trap." And I was, I was almost disappointed, and I was like, "Come on, lady."

Speaker 9:40 [laughs]

Speaker 9:40 "I'm not gonna fall for a trap like that."

Speaker 9:41 [laughs]

Speaker 9:41 "You're gonna come into my room and offer me cigarettes?" And, and she was like, "Do you want, do you want to try them?" And I was like, "No, because these are bad things-"

Speaker 9:48 [laughs]

Speaker 9:48 "... and we should ne-" And then she said to me, "Listen, honey."

Speaker 9:50 [laughs]

Speaker 9:50 "You're gonna, you're gonna encounter alcohol. You're gonna encounter cigarettes and things."

Speaker 9:54 Mm.

Speaker 9:54 "So if you're gonna use it, I would rather know that you use it-

Speaker 9:57 Wow

Speaker 9:57 ... and then you use it at home."

Speaker 9:59 Yeah.

Speaker 9:59 "And then I don't worry that now you're out in the world using it, you know, hiding it from me, and then getting into situations where you can't share that you're not, you're using it."

Speaker 10:09 Harm reduction.

Speaker 10:09 Exactly.

Speaker 10:10 [laughs] It's amazing.

Speaker 10:11 Which is wild. I, I mean-

Speaker 10:12 Yes, please. Yeah

Speaker 10:12 ... my mom is, my mom is, like, super religious and super-

Speaker 10:15 Yeah

Speaker 10:15 ... strict and super-

Speaker 10:16 Very progressive.

Speaker 10:16 So, yeah. And so then she didn't even know how to, like, light a cigarette.

Speaker 10:21 [laughs]

Speaker 10:21 So we had to go to, we had to go to an uncle of mine, and then he was like, "Trevor, what's up?" And she said, "He wants to try cigarettes." And the guy was like, "Okay, you want to smoke?" And he gave, gave us the cigarettes, and I puffed with him. And I was like, "This is trash."

Speaker 10:33 [laughs]

Speaker 10:34 "This is so..." I was like, "How is the taste in your mouth..." You know what I mean?

Speaker 10:38 Yeah.

Speaker 10:38 It, it, it tastes like someone's, like, eating everything disgusting and then farting it into your, your, your oral cavity. And then the alcohol beer just tastes like, like old water that has, you know-

Speaker 10:49 Yeah

Speaker 10:49 ... dribbled down a sewer into-

Speaker 10:51 I'm a bad bre- I don't like, I don't like it either.

Speaker 10:53 So I, I didn't like any of that. And then drugs was almost in the same category for me. In fact-

Speaker 10:57 Because of that in- initial experience.

Speaker 10:59 Yeah.

Speaker 10:59 Okay.

Speaker 10:59 Yeah. In fact, drugs the way I grew up was, you are a loser.

Speaker 11:04 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 11:05 You are gonna end your life. That's how I knew drugs.

Speaker 11:07 So that hasn't changed now [laughs] though, just when you grew up? [laughs]

Speaker 11:09 That's, that's how I knew drugs. That's all I was told. These are the things that'll happen when you take drugs. So I didn't, I didn't touch weed. I smoked weed for the first time when I was 21.

Speaker 11:17 Okay.

Speaker 11:18 That's how, like-

Speaker 11:19 Yeah

Speaker 11:19 ... anti-drug ... I used to judge people, and I would look at them and I would say to them, "It is a pity that you've chosen to do this with your life."

Speaker 11:26 [laughs]

Speaker 11:26 I used to say that to my cousin.

Speaker 11:27 [upbeat music] In South Africa, thinness was not beauty. Mm-mm. Not at all. It was struggle. To gain weight was to be blessed. Trevor recalls how the meaning of a body can change depending on where the story is told.

Speaker 11:48 Now, I think that one of the things that our whole fascination with Ozempic is based on is, and it's interesting, you know, Christian, I wonder if you have thoughts with little kids, right? Part of beauty is thinness as, as it's taught to you from a really early age. Like, fatness, queerness, darkness, all of these things are, like, coded as signs of deviance. I f- like, you, you learn as a really young child in Disney movies, in anything, like, beauty is really coded as morality.

Speaker 12:16 Right, right, right.

Speaker 12:16 And there's this Protestant work ethic thing, right? It's something that you should achieve through hard and punitive work and discipline, right?

Speaker 12:23 Yeah.

Speaker 12:23 And when people use Ozempic, it's like, "Mm, you cheated."

Speaker 12:26 Yeah.

Speaker 12:26 "You skipped the hard work part," you know?

Speaker 12:27 Mm.

Speaker 12:28 Yeah.

Speaker 12:28 And so you, you got the thing we demanded of you, but now we find this a vaguely immoral thinness.

Speaker 12:33 Like you worked hard-

Speaker 12:34 Yeah

Speaker 12:34 ... to achieve the right thing. Okay. I, I, I hear what-

Speaker 12:38 Yeah.

Speaker 12:38 Yeah, exactly ... I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 12:38 Yeah.

Speaker 12:38 It's funny because I, I don't know how it was for you growing up, but, so I have, I've had an interesting journey with, um, weight and how I perceive it and fatness, et cetera, because I grew up in South Africa. Genuinely, growing up, this is such a weird thing to try and explain to people. In South Africa, you did not get made as much fun of if you were fat. Like, so, like a fat person, you'd just be like, uh, I mean, uh, I don't even remember if we had that many names, but I remember all the ones for skinny people was Sticks Manzanza. It w- [laughs]

Speaker 13:09 [laughs]

Speaker 13:09 [laughs] That was my favorite ones. Uh, Sticks Manzanza.

Speaker 13:12 [laughs]

Speaker 13:12 Skinny Manele. It w- like, there were all these names where it was just like you, you, you're a twig, you're thin. Yeah. You ... And it was a sign there of, of, um, a lack of having. Yeah. If you got married and you didn't gain weight, people would say that your marriage is not going well.

Speaker 13:27 [laughs]

Speaker 13:27 Literally, they'd be like, "Is your, is your wife not treating you well? Ai, man, ah, ah, ah."

Speaker 13:31 Yeah.

Speaker 13:31 "No, man, look at you."

Speaker 13:33 [laughs]

Speaker 13:33 If I would come home from the States, and like many times I would, I'd come back from America and I'd gain weight. And so whenever I'd go home, people would be like, "Ah, you're looking good, man."

Speaker 13:42 [laughs]

Speaker 13:42 "You're looking good. America is treating you well."

Speaker 13:44 [laughs]

Speaker 13:44 "You are looking Trevor Noah, man. You're looking good. Look at your cheeks."

Speaker 13:47 [laughs]

Speaker 13:47 "You're looking good." And then, and, and, and so where I grew up, fatness was considered, like, sort of a choice.

Speaker 13:54 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 13:54 And then being skinny was like, ugh, your life is not going well and you're not making the right choices. For sure. So it's interesting how it, it flips, you know. And I'm sure it's time as well. [upbeat music]

Speaker 14:17 As a child, Trevor learned that even authority could be questioned. Around the dinner table, disagreement birthed new ways of seeing. He explores how questioning can spark creativity.

Speaker 14:32 There's some classic research looking at, um, at families, uh, looking at what does it take to raise a creative child? And it turns out that creative children come from families more often than not, uh, that had regular arguments and disagreements.

Speaker 14:47 Really?

Speaker 14:48 Yeah. So, um, if you wanna raise a creative kid, um, you can at least increase the probability, I'm not sure if it's causal-

Speaker 14:55 [laughs]

Speaker 14:56 ... but by, by arguing, um, with your spouse a little bit more.

Speaker 14:59 What, what do you think that is? I have an idea, but I'd love to know what you think that is.

Speaker 15:02 Well, I wanna hear your hunch before I, I tell you what I think because I've, I've-

Speaker 15:05 Okay. So I-

Speaker 15:05 ... thinking about this for a long time.

Speaker 15:06 So, okay, so here's what I think it is. I think the reason children who grow up in houses that are a little more argumentative might be a little more creative is because they're existing in an environment where there isn't one way to think. And so what happens is they're both stumbling on what I like to call third thought, right? I had this i- like this idea when I was working on The Daily Show with my team, and I'd say, "I think everyone has a thought," right? And then, like, w- you can have a second thought even by yourself, but I think there's this elusive third thought that can only come from two different thoughts clashing together and forming a third thought that isn't from one specific place.

Speaker 15:44 Yep.

Speaker 15:44 And so I think if you are watching people who don't agree as a child, people who you generally love or you care for, et cetera, you are listening to a person and you are agreeing with them maybe or just seeing their point of view. You're looking at another person, agreeing with them and seeing their point of view. And then maybe you're holding both, including a third, which might be yours, which is another opinion of it, and that might force your brain to think of more things th- than just the things that exist, which I think is what creativity fundamentally is.

Speaker 16:17 I love this. Okay. So, so your theory is cognitive complexity comes from seeing people argue.

Speaker 16:22 Okay.

Speaker 16:22 That you don't default to-

Speaker 16:23 I need to remember all the ... You, you make, like, some of my ideas sound way smarter and fancier than they are, which I like. Cognitive complexity, write that down. All right. All right.

Speaker 16:30 I, I just give you terms for things you already know.

Speaker 16:32 Okay, okay, okay, cool.

Speaker 16:33 I also think you learn to be a nonconformist through that same process.

Speaker 16:37 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 16:38 That instead of just defaulting or deferring to whatever an authority figure tells you, you realize, well, there are two different authorities in the room and they don't agree. And you, I, I think that can both lead to cognitive complexity, but it can also lead to more courage when it comes to challenging the status quo, 'cause there's not a right answer coming from above.

Speaker 16:57 There is not one coming from above.

Speaker 16:59 Yep.

Speaker 17:00 You know, it's funny you say this. My mom is very religious, extremely, extremely religious, but I also think she is one of the most progressive thinkers I've ever come across in my lifetime. And one thing I always noticed as a child was how sometimes she would disagree with the sermon that the pastor gave when we'd leave church. And I'd be like, "Huh." And I'm just a kid. I'm just sitting in the passenger seat listening. And she goes, "I didn't agree with that. Mm-mm. I didn't, I didn't ... I, I, I hear where the pastor was coming from, but I think he was, he, uh, that, that story of Joseph is not about..." And then she'd go into her thing and, and then I'd be like, "But he's the pastor." And she's like, "Yeah, he's a guy who reads the Bible."

Speaker 17:41 He's not God.

Speaker 17:42 Yeah, but he's not God. She's like, "We also have the Bible." And it was an interesting way for me to view even religion is going like, huh, don't assume that the person who stands on the pulpit has, like-

Speaker 17:55 All the answers

Speaker 17:55 ... a monopoly on knowledge.

Speaker 17:57 Yeah.

Speaker 17:57 You too have the book that you can read. And so now it, that makes me wonder now, I'm like, huh, was that part of me w- you know, w- okay. I like this.

Speaker 18:05 I, I like it too. I mean, uh, you can see both of those effects playing out.

Speaker 18:08 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 18:09 You're, you're not just gonna assume that the pastor's answer is gospel.

Speaker 18:13 Right.

Speaker 18:13 And then you're also not gonna be afraid to question what somebody in power says.

Speaker 18:19 Trevor was part of the first generation to sit in classrooms across color lines, a fragile experiment, very fragile, if I'm to be honest with you, shaped by apartheid's shadow. He recalls what it meant to grow up in that moment of change.

Speaker 18:36 You know, I, I, I was talking to a, a friend of mine the other day, Dale, and we were talking about how at our school

Trevor Noah 18:42 They had a program where because we were the first generation that was like literally, I, you and I-

Speaker 18:48 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 18:48 ... were the first generation. How old are you, Dan?

Speaker 18:50 31.

Trevor Noah 18:51 31, yeah.

Speaker 18:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:52 So we were the first generation of kids that went to school with kids of a different race.

Speaker 18:57 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:58 Literally, I sometimes think about how crazy that was.

Speaker 19:01 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 19:01 When I go like literally, the first year in my school-

Speaker 19:04 Mm

Trevor Noah 19:04 ... that there were Black kids, Indian kids, colored kids with white kids.

Speaker 19:09 Mm.

Trevor Noah 19:10 That was the first time that had ever happened.

Speaker 19:12 You guys were round one. You were the first child.

Trevor Noah 19:13 We were literally-

Speaker 19:14 All an experiment.

Trevor Noah 19:15 Yo, our teachers-

Speaker 19:16 Could have gone so wrong

Trevor Noah 19:16 ... our teachers had never seen a Black child in front of them in a classroom before.

Speaker 19:20 Our parents had to wear their Sunday best-

Trevor Noah 19:22 Yo

Speaker 19:22 ... for the first drop-off.

Trevor Noah 19:23 A drop-off. Our parents didn't even know what a drop-off was.

Speaker 19:26 I mean, drop off-

Trevor Noah 19:27 Life

Speaker 19:28 ... life. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:29 No, but think, but just think about that as a concept. I remember being shocked-

Speaker 19:33 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:33 ... that when I went to school-

Speaker 19:34 Yeah.

Speaker 19:34 Mm

Trevor Noah 19:34 ... kids were dropped off by their parents-

Speaker 19:37 Mm.

Speaker 19:37 Yeah

Trevor Noah 19:37 ... in a vehicle that they owned. But like, one child-

Speaker 19:40 Mm

Trevor Noah 19:40 ... got out of one car.

Speaker 19:41 Mm.

Trevor Noah 19:42 Meanwhile, when the Black kids got there, it looked like a circus trick, where like one car-

Speaker 19:46 Mm

Trevor Noah 19:46 ... and they'd open a door, and then like-

Speaker 19:48 So many

Trevor Noah 19:49 ... you're 15.

Speaker 19:49 Mm.

Trevor Noah 19:50 You, and, and that's how we just traveled around. The back of every bakkie, the back of every van-

Speaker 19:54 Mm.

Speaker 19:54 Mm

Trevor Noah 19:54 ... was all of us. You know what I mean?

Speaker 19:56 Mm.

Trevor Noah 19:56 But that exposure, like our school had this program where they went-

Speaker 20:00 Mm

Trevor Noah 20:00 ... "We want every kid to go and stay at another kid's house," who they're friends with. They weren't even like, they're not like a stranger.

Speaker 20:06 Yeah, it's just-

Trevor Noah 20:06 But they said, "Hey, you guys are friends."

Speaker 20:07 But it was a deliberate program.

Trevor Noah 20:09 Yo.

Speaker 20:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 20:11 It was amazing to see, to talking about like exposure therapy, it was amazing to see how the Black kids weren't particularly surprised by what they experienced.

Speaker 20:20 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 20:20 Because many of them had moms who were-

Speaker 20:24 Mm

Trevor Noah 20:24 ... working for white people.

Speaker 20:26 Mm.

Trevor Noah 20:26 So they had seen a glimpse of a white life.

Speaker 20:28 Got a sense of it, yeah, for sure.

Trevor Noah 20:30 Let me tell you something. Every single white kid who went to go and live with a Black family for a weekend, every single one of them went home and said the same thing. They said, "Mom and Dad, do you know how Black people live?" And not in like a, a righteous way.

Speaker 20:45 Mm.

Trevor Noah 20:45 Just as like a child.

Speaker 20:46 Like a curious way.

Trevor Noah 20:47 Like a 14-year-old, 15-year-old. They went, "Yo, do you, do you know how they live?"

Speaker 20:51 Mm.

Trevor Noah 20:52 "Do you know how they come to school every day?"

Speaker 20:55 Yeah.

Speaker 20:55 Mm.

Trevor Noah 20:55 "Do you know that they have to take three buses to get here?"

Speaker 20:57 With other people, with strangers.

Trevor Noah 21:00 "Do you know that they don't have hot water in the morning at their house? You, you, you have to make a fire and then heat it up, and then they-"

Speaker 21:06 Or the coal stove

Trevor Noah 21:06 ... pour that out, and then you have to do it again for each person, and they have to... You know, they all, they don't have their own bathrooms. You know that their toilet's outside."

Speaker 21:13 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 21:13 Mm.

Trevor Noah 21:14 I go to school with this kid. I see myself as his direct, like, competition in that way.

Speaker 21:18 Yeah.

Speaker 21:18 Mm.

Trevor Noah 21:19 But I'm going, "How is he doing math-

Speaker 21:20 Mm

Trevor Noah 21:21 ... when he woke up like that?"

Speaker 21:22 [upbeat music] In the spinning of a simple roundabout, young Trevor found joy in bringing people together. He uncovers how that childhood game revealed the purpose guiding his life. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 21:40 Okay, tell me, um, an early specific happy childhood memory, something I can relive with you.

Trevor Noah 21:47 An early specific-

Speaker 21:48 Specific happy childhood memory

Trevor Noah 21:50 ... childhood memory.

Speaker 21:51 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 21:51 Damn, this is an interesting one. Let me think, 'cause there's many. How, how old? Give me an age and I'll tell you.

Speaker 21:57 I don't care.

Trevor Noah 21:58 No, but what, what, when does childhood end?

Speaker 22:00 [laughs]

Speaker 22:02 42.

Speaker 22:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 22:03 Okay.

Speaker 22:04 No, no, I'm being serious though.

Trevor Noah 22:05 No, I want, when you're, when you're, you know, a child, like under, you know, in, in school. Like a-

Speaker 22:09 Okay, my, my-

Trevor Noah 22:10 ... an early childhood memory

Speaker 22:11 ... one of my happiest childhood memories is me playing-

Trevor Noah 22:13 You're the only one who's ever asked me, "What do you mean by childhood?" [laughs]

Speaker 22:16 [laughs]

Speaker 22:16 Yes, because I, because I think, because I think your memories at different ages are very...

Trevor Noah 22:20 Yeah, definitely. Early specific childhood memory.

Speaker 22:22 Yeah, so okay, when I think of young, young-

Trevor Noah 22:23 Yeah

Speaker 22:23 ... one of my favorite memories-

Trevor Noah 22:25 [laughs]

Speaker 22:25 ... was, uh, playing, um, on the, on the roundabout at a park near my house.

Trevor Noah 22:30 Yeah. This is something, a, a specific time, not just a thing you did regularly.

Speaker 22:34 No, no, no. This is w-

Trevor Noah 22:35 It was a time

Speaker 22:35 ... a specific one.

Trevor Noah 22:36 Okay. Yeah, go on.

Speaker 22:36 And we were all seeing how, we were all teaming up.

Trevor Noah 22:39 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22:39 I got a bunch of people together-

Trevor Noah 22:41 Mm-hmm

Speaker 22:41 ... to see how fast we could make this thing spin.

Trevor Noah 22:43 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22:44 But like, it was, it was a monumental effort.

Trevor Noah 22:46 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22:46 Do you know what I mean? Because everyone had to be at the right place, swinging the thing at the right time to get it... Our goal was to make it fly.

Trevor Noah 22:53 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 22:53 That was the dream.

Trevor Noah 22:54 Right.

Speaker 22:54 We thought if we spin it hard enough, it's gonna take off.

Trevor Noah 22:56 Right.

Speaker 22:56 [laughs]

Speaker 22:56 And this, this was a... But that was one of my... When I think back, I go like, "Wow, what a day. What a day."

Trevor Noah 23:01 And of all the amazing things you had happen in this m- magical childhood that you've talked about, what specifically was it about this one thing that stands out so much that you wanna talk about it now?

Speaker 23:10 It's collaboration.

Speaker 23:12 Mm.

Speaker 23:12 I chose the people I was doing it with. We didn't pick the random kids who, when you had no coordination, 'cause the thing's gonna smack you in the hands.

Speaker 23:18 Mm.

Speaker 23:18 Right? So we got the strongest, fastest, smartest, like, you know, most affable. We put the people together, and we were like, "This works." So it wasn't like if you were the small kid, then your job might've been to be more on the inside. If you were the big kid, your job was to push. But we put people together, and it, it matched in many ways, right? And the most important thing, funny enough, Simon Sinek, the most important thing was that we were having fun.

Trevor Noah 23:40 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 23:40 Mm.

Speaker 23:40 And I mean this genuinely.

Trevor Noah 23:41 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 23:41 We were having-

Speaker 23:42 Yeah

Speaker 23:42 ... we had a purpose, but man, we were having fun.

Trevor Noah 23:45 So you, uh, so, so now what I'm doing is I'm looking for the connection between those things-

Speaker 23:50 Yes

Trevor Noah 23:50 ... and saying, "Okay, that's the common factor," right? Which is you, the, where you find great joy is when you can bring the right people together to do something that matters and have a f- a ton of fun doing it.

Speaker 24:04 That's, yes.

Speaker 24:05 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 24:05 Okay? And that's sort of your, your purpose in life, which is to bring people together to do something bigger than themselves and have a good time doing it.

Speaker 24:12 Right.

Trevor Noah 24:13 And if everything you do in your life, you can, is, is that, is that, is that a merry-go-round?

Speaker 24:19 Yeah, the roundabout. Yeah, the merry-go-... We also call them merry-go-round.

Trevor Noah 24:20 Yeah.

Speaker 24:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:21 The, the, and everything in your life is like that roundabout, you, you, that is what a game on is.

Speaker 24:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 24:25 And so the opportunity for you is to remind yourself of that, right? So I, whether you get a Lego merry-go-round or a picture of a merry-go-round or just, you, that merry-go-round-

Speaker 24:35 Oh, this is, I like this. This is, I like sentimental things.

Speaker 24:37 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 24:37 Right?

Speaker 24:38 This is dope.

Trevor Noah 24:38 The merry-go-round is, it's your, it's your talisman. It's your, it's your, it's the thing that reminds you of why you get out of bed today.

Speaker 24:44 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 24:45 All you wanna do in life is work tirelessly to create the merry-go-round, right? And, and the thing is, is because you're, you have vision, we're gonna make this thing fly.

Speaker 24:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 24:55 Okay? So people go, "Huh?" And you go, "You, you, you, and you."

Speaker 25:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 25:01 Okay?

Speaker 25:01 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 25:01 And now they're all coming in, and you're having a blast. And whether it succeeds or fails, it didn't fly.

Speaker 25:06 It did not fly.

Trevor Noah 25:06 It did not fly.

Speaker 25:07 Mm.

Speaker 25:07 It did not.

Trevor Noah 25:07 It did not fly. So it actually failed, if we're really honest with ourselves.

Speaker 25:12 Yes. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 25:12 But it didn't matter, because it was the joy of the together and the fun, even with the vision, that made it worth... You'd never said at any point, "And I fricking nailed it."

Speaker 25:21 No, that's not the point.

Trevor Noah 25:22 Right? The point wasn't the result.

Speaker 25:24 No.

Trevor Noah 25:24 The point was the people coming together.

Speaker 25:25 The outcome is a bonus. I always say this.

Trevor Noah 25:27 The outcome is a bonus.

Speaker 25:28 [upbeat music] And so this chapter ends. Childhood stories fade, but their lessons remain, carrying us until we meet again. [upbeat music]