How Modern Life Simulates Meaning and What Restores Real Purpose

Name: Harvard Professor: Why Nothing Feels Real Anymore - Arthur Brooks
Uploaded: 2026-06-11T15:00:36+00:00
Duration: 1 h 54 min
Channel: Chris Williamson
Description: Summary and key takeaways on How Modern Life Simulates Meaning and What Restores Real Purpose, covering The Modern Simulation Life feels like a left‑brain
Chris Williamson
Jun 11, 2026
•
114 min video
•
2 min read
YouTube video ID: IY-UW2gmnVI
Source: YouTube video by Chris Williamson — Watch original video
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Life feels like a left‑brain simulation trying to answer right‑brain questions about love and meaning. The brain’s left hemisphere dominates analysis and execution, while the right hemisphere seeks mystery and purpose. Pornography offers a simulated intimacy that actually heightens loneliness, and virtual friends never trigger the oxytocin surge that face‑to‑face interaction provides. Dating apps illustrate a left‑brain solution to a fundamentally right‑brain problem, confirming the claim that “you can’t simulate the meaning of life.”
The Meaning Crisis

Meaning breaks down into three pillars: coherence (why things happen), purpose (why I am doing this), and significance (my life matters). When coherence falters, conspiracy theories emerge as a coping mechanism. Boredom, rather than being a flaw, is the price of a life that is not “day‑to‑day boring.” Moment‑to‑moment boredom signals an open space for genuine meaning to arise.
Pathologies of Success

The “arrival fallacy” describes the false belief that reaching a specific goal will permanently fix internal emptiness or make one special. High achievers often internalize the idea that love must be earned through performance, yet true love is a free gift, not a reward. The “parental attribution error” shows that what we are praised for publicly often costs us privately, and many of our shameful traits are the dark side of the light we proudly display.
Digital Boundaries

Eating together releases oxytocin and strengthens kin bonds, but phones interrupt this neurochemical flow. Keeping phones out of the bedroom protects sleep architecture and prevents cortisol spikes; the average American checks a phone 205 times a day. Schools could become phone‑free zones from kindergarten through PhD programs, and a 96‑hour annual technology fast is recommended to break dependency and restore a sense of bliss.
The Search for Meaning

Transcendence occurs when the “Me‑self” (the internal narrator) recedes and the outward‑looking “I‑self” becomes dominant. Modern digital life fuels narcissism by trapping individuals in a “virtual mirror,” reinforcing the Me‑self. Suffering remains the ultimate meaning‑making experience; avoiding it keeps one from being fully alive.
Career and Calling

A calling is something deeply interesting and necessary, not merely fun or status‑driven. The “spiral” career pattern suggests dismantling one’s professional path every 7–12 years to launch a new, meaningful adventure. Entrepreneurs in the “business of life” must resist the sunk‑cost fallacy and pivot when needed, embracing agility as a core virtue.
Leisure and Enjoyment

Happiness consists of three macronutrients: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Leisure is atelic activity—pursued without a specific end goal or compensation—and deepens spiritual, philosophical, or relational life. Strivers often view leisure as wasteful, feeling guilty for not being productive, yet true enjoyment requires releasing that guilt and allowing the I‑self to explore.
Takeaways

Modern society runs a left‑brain simulation that fails to satisfy the right‑brain need for love and meaning, making virtual intimacy and dating apps ineffective substitutes.
Meaning consists of coherence, purpose, and significance, and moment‑to‑moment boredom signals the space where authentic meaning can emerge.
The arrival fallacy tricks people into believing that achieving a goal will permanently fill internal voids, while true love remains a free, unearned gift.
Digital boundaries such as phone‑free meals, bedroom bans, and annual 96‑hour technology fasts protect oxytocin release, sleep quality, and overall mental health.
A spiral career pattern that resets every 7–12 years, combined with atelic leisure, helps individuals align with their calling and cultivate lasting happiness.
Frequently Asked Questions

What is the arrival fallacy and how does it affect happiness?

The arrival fallacy is the belief that reaching a specific goal will permanently fix internal emptiness or make one special. It leads people to chase achievements without lasting satisfaction, leaving them perpetually dissatisfied once the goal is attained.
How does hemispheric lateralization relate to the modern meaning crisis?

Hemispheric lateralization assigns the right hemisphere to mystery and meaning and the left to analysis and execution. Modern life over‑relies on left‑brain functions, leaving the right hemisphere starved for purpose, which fuels the widespread meaning crisis.
Who is Chris Williamson on YouTube?

Chris Williamson is a YouTube channel that publishes videos on a range of topics. Browse more summaries from this channel below.
Does this page include the full transcript of the video?

Yes, the full transcript for this video is available on this page. Click 'Show transcript' in the sidebar to read it.
Helpful resources related to this video

If you want to practice or explore the concepts discussed in the video, these commonly used tools may help.
Leisure The Basis Of Culture Book Recommended
This classic philosophical text explores the concept of atelic activity and the importance of leisure for human flourishing, directly supporting the podcast's discussion on meaningful living.
Amazon →
Analog Alarm Clock For Bedroom
Removing smartphones from the bedroom is a key recommendation for protecting sleep architecture and reducing cortisol, which an analog clock facilitates.
Amazon →
Physical Journal For Daily Reflection
Journaling encourages the 'I-self' perspective and helps break the 'Me-self' digital mirror cycle by fostering deep, offline introspection.
Amazon →
Hardcover Book On Stoic Philosophy
Stoic literature provides practical frameworks for managing the 'arrival fallacy' and finding purpose through struggle, aligning with the guest's focus on meaning.
Amazon →
Links may be affiliate links. We only include resources that are genuinely relevant to the topic.
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Full Transcript YouTube

Why do so many people feel like modern
life is simulated rather than real?
>> Because it is. We're living in the
Matrix. That movie, The Matrix, came out
27 years ago. I hate to shock and sadden
you. It'll make anybody who was alive
then feel old. But the plot of that
movie was that a great artificial
intelligence was dominating the human
race and kept the human race placid in a
pleasant simulation so that it could
feed off human kinetic energy. It kept
them in pods and ran a simulation. And
and the truth of the matter is that we
are subjugated not by people
necessarily, but by algorithms that
fundamentally are creating a simulated
version of a real life that's pleasant
enough, keeps us from being bored and
that feeds off our attention and energy
and money. We're living in the matrix.
And that's why people say, "I don't
know. It doesn't feel like real dating.
Is it does it doesn't feel like real
friends?" Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. It
doesn't feel like real achievement game
game
because we're living in a simulation.
>> What's happening neurologically though?
>> So what's happening neurobiologically is
that we're literally in the wrong half
of our brains. So this is the work of
Ian McGillchrist, the great Have you had
him on the show?
>> Friend of the show.
>> He's fantastic. He's an Oxford
neuroscientist. He's, you know, a great
genius. And and he brought back the
whole idea of hemispheric
lateralization. That's the the concept
that the two halves of your brain do
different things. I mean, they do a lot
of things the same, too. But the fact is
that they have different core
competencies. Now, when I was a kid in
the 70s, this is long before you
youngsters were born, there was this
belief that there were right and
leftrain people. Right people were
creative. Leftrain people were
analytical. My mom, who was an artist,
was a right-brain person. My father, who
was a mathematician, was a leftbrain
person. Growing up, I was a right-brain
person like my mom because I was a
musician. and I was a classical musician
and I painted and I wrote poetry and and
then I got my PhD and I became
apparently a leftrain person because I
became a scientist. Well, the truth is
that that theory didn't work. What does
work, however, is what Ian McGill
brought back to show that we have we ask
and answer different questions with the
different hemispheres of our brain. The
right hemisphere is the complex why, the
mystery and meaning of life, the things
that set us out in the hunt for the
things that matter in life. The left
brain is the how to and what. It's how
we execute. It's the linear side. It's
the analysis. It's the engineering. It's
the apps of life or the leftbrain side.
And what's happening is when we're
running a simulation of life, we're
running a leftbrain simulation to meet
our rightbrain questions of love and
mystery and meaning. And you can't
simulate the meaning of life.
>> Is it not a good thing for people to be
more rational and analytical and
objective? Is this not something that
only a couple of decades ago we were
trying to push more on people?
>> Yeah, I suppose. Except that we need
both. The truth is that we need both
because life is full of both kinds of
problems. Look, if you if you don't know
the why of the things in your life, the
how to and what mean nothing. But if you
only know the how to and what, then the
why and the and the why is elusive. I
mean, you get the point that I'm trying
to make. I mean, you can either be
incompetent in executing anything in
your life or you'll have no purpose in
the life that you lead. You actually
need both. You know, I go to work every
day. I'm, you know, traveling around
doing my job. It's great. I know how to
do it. I'm competent at it because my
left brain is working properly. I know
how to get where I'm trying to go and
>> do what I'm trying to do. I can write my
speeches and my columns and books, etc.
>> But I got to know why, which is that I
want to do something good for the world.
I want to support the people that I
love. I want to glorify God. That's what
I want. That's the why side. And that
originates on the right side of our
brains. And furthermore, all the things
we really care about are not the
analytical things. The things that we
care about are not the physical, they're
the metaphysical. That's what we really
care about. So, I'll give you an
example. A big left brain question is
how does my car work? I actually don't
know. I have the slightest idea, right?
It's just I mean it's a car, right? And
but I could know because I could
actually get a book or I could, you
know, get a guy and come teach me or I
could watch a bunch of YouTube videos
and that's knowable because those are
complicated leftbrain questions. My
marriage is a right brain problem. It's
completely unsolvable. I have to live
with it. I can't figure it out. I will
never figure out my marriage. Dude, I've
been married 35 years before you just,
you know, an hour ago. She texts me, "I
love you. Good luck on the podcast." I'm
sure it's true. She loves me. Tonight, I
could call and she might be completely
pissed off at me. I I don't know. Oh
yeah, but you did decide to date
somebody with Latina blood.
>> It's Well, that that adds that adds a
level of complexity, I grant you.
>> Correct. It's like a Yeah, it's a
multiplier.
>> She's a big pulsing right hemisphere,
right?
>> Sure enough. But but this is the thing.
The reason I love my marriage is because
it's unsolvable, right? The reason
people want to get a a real cat, not a
mechanical cat, is because it's alive.
And things that are alive are right
brain problems and things that are
mechanical are leftbrain problems. And
so what we've done is we've we've solved
life. We've solved life. I mean we have
I mean everything we're trying to the
the engineering the Silicon Valley set
of solutions for everything that we're
trying to do that actually pops through
the screen at us that dominates our
culture that increasingly can be
simulated and understood through
artificial intelligence. All that's
doing is it's a curve fit through the
messy business of life using these
leftbrain algorithms and that's not
going to get done what we need to get
done. It is going to leave us
>> lonier and more depressed and more
anxious. Here's the thing. Your brain
knows. So, for example, this is one of
the reasons that the more pornography
people look at, largely young men,
because more than 85% of pornography is
being consumed by men. Now, you're
thinking yourself, I know what you're
thinking. Who are the 15%?
>> Old men. No.
So,
>> is it you?
>> Thank you. Thank you very much.
So, they the more pornography that men
look at, the the lonier they get. So, in
the moment they feel less lonely and the
more satisfied they feel, but the more
unsatisfied and the lonelier they
actually get because it's a simulation
for the experience they're actually
seeking and it's unsatisfactory as a
result of that. You want actual human
connection with another person. That's
what you actually want. And you're
settling for a a two-dimensional
similacum for it.
>> What are some of the other counterfeit
sources of meaning that people mistake
for the real thing?
>> Achievement is a counterfeit source is
something that you actually get that
doesn't build anything real of any real
consequence in life. So, the idea is
like the score in a game gives you a
real uh short-term sense of of
achievement, which is a source of
purpose, which is a component of
meaning,
>> but it isn't real. It's fake. It's a
it's a it's counterfeit. It's a it's
simulated. And that's one of the reasons
that you'll find you got to do more and
more and more and more and more to keep
up with it. You don't you know, they
used to say if you want to if you really
want to live a good life, you know, you
need to do you need to have a son, plant
a tree, and write a book.
I don't know. I've done all those
things. I don't know if I planted a
tree.
>> That's what you're missing.
>> I don't have a green thumb, you know.
So, this isn't my problem. I mean, plant
more trees. But the whole point is that
what those things have in common is that
they're real.
>> They're in real life. They're real
achievements in real life. They don't
say, "Plant a tree online, you know,
pretend you're planting a tree, you
know, get really good at doing it. Have
a sun online." You know, the whole idea
of simulating these experiences is
unsatisfactory. What it does, it it
simulates the experience in the moment.
That's another example. Having friends
is another way is another way we think
about it. Virtual friends, they they
simply don't meet your needs. And one of
the ways that we know this is that the
more virtual friends that you have, the
less that you're actually illuminating
in the experience of interacting with
them, the right hemisphere of your
brain. You know, one one of the reasons
that you don't like to do your show
virtually is because you don't have the
same experience. And the reason is that
you and I are connecting with our right
brains right now. our right. You and I
are friends. I mean, we text and talk to
each other even when we're not doing a
show, which is great
>> because we're friends and we have that
texting relationship because we've
actually looked at each other in the
eyes and had real no fooling
conversations with each other. And
that's how you have to link with other
human beings. Otherwise, it's a
simulated friendship. It's one of the
biggest realizations I had when I was
trying to work out what I wanted to do
with my life toward the end of my 20s. I
had all of these friends because shock
horror in the nightlife industry in the
northeast of the UK, there weren't many
people that were into the things I was
getting into. There weren't many people
that, you know, maybe they'd heard about
Sam Harris and they were thinking about
doing meditation or they'd read a bit of
Robert Green and then got stuck after a
couple of pages and then were struggling
with that and then felt real bad because
they couldn't sit still. Like all of
these things that I was going through,
it was I was finding it difficult on the
front door of a nightclub to find people
to resonate with. So I made friends
online that were into the same sort of
things that I was. And I found that
these friends kind of distilled out into
two str of people. Even if all that I'd
done was as I was going through a city
on a train,
>> stopped off for a 30inut coffee with
someone, that person immediately went
into a different bracket of I've
actually met this person. They're real.
In three dimensions, they're real.
>> And uh cuz your brain actually
apprehended that person in a different
way. Yeah,
>> what you did was you had an imprint of
that person in you know flesh and blood
in real life which is by the way how the
brain was evolved. You know, we are our
brains are more or less the same size
and shape. Slight physiological
differences, but trivial for what we're
talking about here as they were 250,000
years ago in the mid in the middle place
to scene.
>> And during that period, all human beings
lived in bands of 30 to 50 individuals
who are kinbased and hierarchically
related. And that meant that the
relationship they had with each other
was absolutely paramount. And our brains
are wired for in-person relationships.
That's one of the reasons that you get
oxytocin when you look at somebody in
the eyes. You and I have a better
conversation when we have this bonding
hormone that's actually going through
our brains when we're looking at each
other in real life. You don't get it
through Zoom screens. There's a lot of
research on this at this point. You get
a different kind of experience when you
have the in real life experience. And so
one of the things that I do when I'm
talking to couples and my my wife and I,
we do we do work, you know, we do we'll
do these marriage retreats, for example.
One of the things that we'll do with
couples, we'll say, "Okay, before you go
to sleep, you need to stare into each
other's eyes before you go to sleep."
And you're lying on the, you know, lying
in the bed, you know, on your sides
looking at each other. Stare each other
in the eyes for for 5 minutes.
>> That that's it. That's the prescription
because you want to establish this thing
that probably they haven't had for a
really really long time
>> and that your brain actually needs so
that your brain registers that's my
person. You can't get it any other way.
>> Why is it that meaning can't be
simulated? Meaning can't be simulated
because meaning is this fundamentally
complex right hemispheric experience.
And so when you're the simulation is
always in the wrong side of the brain.
And so it'll look like it's meaningful,
but it isn't
>> is what it comes down to. It'll feel
like in the moment like love, but it
isn't. It'll feel like friendship, but
it isn't. so interesting with this
conversation because a lot of people
when when I think about how this lands
on the internet there is a kind of
cohort of people that will say something
like
this is good enough this is actually as
good there's a a disbelief that you
actually do need to go into three
dimensions uh there is a a I'm happy to
wait for the sector robots to come I'm
happy to have the AI partner there's
even a company that makes AI versions of
your ex's So, if you don't ever want to
leave the relationship with them, you
can just keep on texting. Um, and I
think that kind of when I read those
comments, it makes me sad. It makes me
sad because I think
>> it sounds like somebody who's got hurt
or is scared that the world isn't going
to be able to give them something that
they know that they can get compliantly
online uh permissionlessly uh with lower
risk of rejection or zero risk of
rejection. And um it makes me it makes
me sad. But yeah, it's so much of what
we're seeing in the modern world is
people getting what they want but not
what they need.
>> And this is something that people need
but don't realize that they want.
>> Yeah. Well, they do know that they want
it. They just don't know how to get it
>> and is ordinarily what's actually
happening. I mean I I rarely meet
somebody who would say I actually would
prefer not to meet anybody in real life.
I mean there are people who are
agorophobic for example. There are
people that have particular pathologies
along these lines. But the truth is it's
they feel like it's the best that they
can actually get under the
circumstances. Look, when when 62% of
couples are forming online, then it's
very hard to form. It's increasingly
hard to form a a couple offline.
>> Mhm.
>> And and if you're an exceptionally
online person or you're living in a
remote location or you, you know, came
of age during COVID, which means that
you you don't have social skills that
were wired into you at a tender age,
then then you're going to struggle is
what it comes down to. But here's the
thing to keep in mind. The biggest
predictor of depression and anxiety is
is to say I don't know the meaning of my
life or my life feels meaningless.
That's the number one predictor
>> why that well it it it all gets down to
the fact that these pathologies that
actually follow from this sense of
emptiness, you know. So people often
say, "So why has depression tripled? Why
has anxiety doubled?" Which they
literally have clinically since about
2008. Why? and they'll say, "Well,
because generational difficulties,
because you know, boomers wrecked the
economy and created income inequality
and and and made houses expensive or
something." They have all of these
exogenous economic explanations for this
stuff. These are all wrong is what it
comes down to. Since 2008, when life has
become increasingly online and we, you
know, the average American is now
checking her his phone 205 times a day,
what you've done is you shoved yourself
into the wrong hemisphere of your brain.
And in so doing, you haven't been able
to naturally experience
this meaning. And that's what leads
empirically, that's what actually leads
people to feel empty, to feel depressed,
to feel anxious, to actually feel
lonely. That's the big predictor is what
it comes down to. We have a meaning
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Let's say that you're going to design a
life for someone to have as little
meaning in it as possible.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> What would that consist of?
>> It would start by um waking up um when
the sun is warm. You know, making sure
you don't start your day like before
dawn. Make sure you start your day when
kind of when you get up. Make sure that
if you have an alarm clock that is your
phone. Um look at your phone before you
roll out of bed, right? Uh then make
sure that the first thing that you do is
eat a bunch of, you know, highly
processed foods high in sugar. Make sure
you get your coffee in the first five
minutes. Uh, so you get a big dose of
caffeine and make sure that you're
looking and scrolling on your phone
while you're eating your first meal.
That's a really important thing to do.
Make sure that your whole first hour is
neuro is is neurocognitively programmed
to be on the screen. Then make sure that
you have a remote job. It's very
important that you go to work back in
your bedroom and and you look at a
screen and you look at a screen all day
long so that your colleagues are kind of
squares on the Zoom screen and you see
them sometimes in the clients and etc
etc and you don't actually know where
anybody lives and you don't have a
relationship with anybody, right? It's
actually better if you don't see anybody
the whole day as a matter of fact. Now,
if you're going to date, make sure that
it's it's swipe right, swipe left, swipe
left, and so that you're only getting a
two-dimensional understanding of the
person that you might want to fall in
love with as well. like no
multi-dimensional,
multi-ensory understanding of who the
person is. Make sure you can't smell
that person, right? I mean, that's
really important because, you know, the
alactory bulb does all kinds of meaning
related things in the brain. So, make
sure you rule that out, right? Um, and
make sure that on your own dating
profile you're lying a lot. That's
important, too, right? Then, uh, let's
make sure that that for fun that you're
spending sort of the evening not doing
anything of of real importance. I mean,
you're not working on a big project.
you're not going out and seeing people
that you're kind of staying in and
scrolling uh and and watching YouTube
shorts and and if you're doing something
that's kind of competitive and
achievement oriented, make sure it's
gaming. Make sure that you know it's
really oriented toward that. So, it's
kind of writing your life in
disappearing ink.
>> Um and and then go to bed. Make sure you
didn't do any exercise. Important not to
do any exercise at all, right? And um
and then
repeat
times where n equals any number that you
can conceive of so that that that you're
never bored. You're never bored, but
your life is grindingly boring. See,
here's the key. If you want your life to
have no meaning, make sure that there's
no boredom moment to moment, but that
day to day and week to week and month to
month, life is boring. That's what
you're actually going for. as opposed if
you want your life to be really
meaningful, make sure you got plenty of
boredom moment to moment and then then
your life won't be boring at all. Isn't
>> that a strange paradox?
>> It is. I mean, my my great-grandfather
um Leroy Brooks, he was born in Tha,
Kansas. He married the sheriff's
daughter. John James was the sheriff.
Was strung up by Quantrell's raiders
during the Civil War. Kid you not. This
is Americana in my family, Chris.
and and and and he married Mary Ellen in
Ta Kansas. And that's pretty much what I
know about him. But I'm gonna make a a
prediction about good old Leroy. He
never came home to Mary Ellen and said,
"Honey, I had a panic attack behind the
mule today."
His brain was working the way it was
supposed to. I promise you that his life
behind the mule looking at a mule's butt
was was pretty boring moment to moment.
But he was not bored. his life wasn't
boring because he was living a real
life. But a lot of people today who have
figured out a way by checking the screen
and living online and and living the
hustle and grind culture that's been
engineered out of Silicon Valley and
various other places around the world,
hide or bad and wherever you want, that
not being bored from moment to moment
gives them the most boring lives
possible.
Is it the case that ambitious people are
particularly susceptible, vulnerable to
meaninglessness?
>> So, asking for a friend, right?
>> Of course. Of course.
>> Me, too. I'm I'm like a senior version
of you, man.
Except you're not going to be bald.
>> That's right. I'm going to have to lose
a lot of hair to
>> You're going to have to lose a lot of
hair. I know. If I had your hair, I'd be
president of the United States right
now.
>> I think you would.
Um,
yes and no. So, one of the the the
problems that really ambitious people
have is that they they they don't know
how to live with themselves. So,
ambition, striving, busyiness
um is is is really a way that people
anesthetize themselves because they're
very very uncomfortable. So, you know,
one I'll give you an example. One time I
was talking to a great friend of mine um
who traveled constantly for work,
constantly for work. And and his wife
was just in his grill. It's just like he
had kids and and she says that I miss
you and and you always every year you
tell me that this year is going to be
different
and and I realized getting to know this
guy really really well. The problem
wasn't that his job made him travel too
much. The problem was he didn't want to
be home.
>> He didn't want to be home. He wanted to
be distracted because his life stressed
him out so much. This is what it's like
to be a stver is is like having this
unbelievably chaotic life and and and
you need to distract yourself all the
time. And so sometimes your ambition
will be distracting you. Sometimes your
success will be distracting you.
Sometimes your your overriding need to
be special or to be applauded by others
is your way to distract yourself from
all the things that are actually going
on, all the storms and things inside
your head, right? and and and when you
have a down moment then you panic and
that's when the screen comes out or or
for that matter that's when alcohol and
drugs come out. There's very interesting
data from the OECD that show that above
average busier than average people are
above average risk in alcohol in alcohol
abuse. So you don't think you think of
somebody who's an alcohol abuser or as
an alcoholic as somebody who's down and
out, you know, you know, a bum, right?
No, it's more likely to be an investment
banker. It's more likely to be a
wealthy, successful podcaster. And and
the reason is because successful
strivvers anesthetize themselves with
drugs and alcohol, with pornography,
with screens, with anything that will
actually make you like, "Don't leave me
alone in here, man. I don't want to be
alone in there."
>> Which is why they're strivvers in the
first place. How often do you think
people are pursuing goals because they
genuinely want them versus because they
want approval?
>> So, everybody pursues goals because
human beings, homo sapiens, only get
satisfaction in their life when they're
making progress. It's that satisfaction
is the joy of an accomplishment of
making progress toward an accomplishment
with struggle. That's what satisfaction
is all about. That's why that's why
goals are incredibly important and
struggle and pain are incredibly
important. That's what it comes down to.
These are the two things to teach your
kids is have goals, accomplish stuff,
and struggle and don't be afraid of
pain. Those are the things that you
teach your kids and they'll get a lot of
satisfaction. Satisfaction is one of the
macronutrients of happiness to be sure.
The trouble with that is that if it's
somebody like you, highly intelligent,
super hardworking, unbelievably
energetic, then you can actually start
fooling yourself into thinking it's
actually not about making the progress
and the struggle and the hustle and
grind of life itself. It's actually
about if I finally get that thing, then
it's going to be okay when I finally get
that thing. So, you know, I've I've I've
worked with Olympic athletes and and and
it's funny because you'll often they
think they're alone in their struggles
and you'll say, "Did you when you won
that gold, were you depressed
afterwards?" They'll be like, "How'd you
know?" Like, cuz it's always true.
>> Every other gold medalist. It's
literally called gold medalist syndrome.
>> Yeah. It's called gold medalist. And and
what it is, it's al in in my field in
behavioral science is called the arrival
fallacy.
>> And the arrival fallacy is just like I I
I I got to get there and when I get
there, I'm going to feel that thing.
Now, what what is the thing I'm going to
feel? And this gets back to your
question. I'm going to feel like I'm
worthy.
>> I'm going to feel like I'm something.
I'm going to feel like I'm special. I'm
finally going to feel like I'm special.
And you don't. And you don't. And that's
the problem. That's what a big part of
the driver's curse.
>> You know what's fascinating about the
arrival fallacy? No one's ever been able
to make it popular.
>> So, the concept.
>> Yes. Yeah.
>> Correct. has tell me the most well-known
book on the arrival fallacy that points
it out exactly.
>> Yeah, I know.
>> [ __ ] So, I was on my way out to
Australia texting Mark Manson about this
and I was explaining one of the problems
I was trying to navigate with the show,
this live show that I was doing that I
was putting together and one of them is
that a good bit of it is kind of about
the the arrival fallacy. It's a PG
version because I'm aware that it's
>> chronically the most unsexy topic to
ever talk about and his response was,
"Good luck. I've tried to talk about
this publicly and every single time it's
fallen flat. It's not just not mimemetic
that people don't want to talk about it.
It's not just mimemetic neutral that
people will accept it and maybe bring it
up and maybe not. It's actively
anti-mimetic. People don't want to hear
it and won't tell their friends about
it.
>> It is.
>> No, I know. I know.
>> It feels saying to people that are still
climbing, which everybody is,
>> the view from the top of the mountain is
not as good as you think it's going to
be, feels like you're sucking the gas
out of their fuel tank.
while they're still on the way up. It's
like you as a fat person
>> saying to someone who's starving, well,
you food's not that nice in any case.
And it's an unteachable lesson. And the
only way that you can learn it is by
getting there. And because the the
alternative to this with the arrival
fallacy is that every successful person
ever in history has been inducted into
some kind of cult that pulls the ladder
up after them where everybody gets the
same memo which is so I know that you
all of the problems that you had, all of
the internal voids, your feeling of
insufficiency, the chip on your shoulder
from when you were a child, your
desperate desire for validation from
random humans on the internet. I know
that all of that was fixed when you got
the 30,000 foot house, but we need to
tell the poor that that's not the case.
So, you now are a part of this elite
group of people that are trying to sigh
up everybody else into not trying to
strive for it. That's the alternative,
which is or is it more likely
>> that that's just the sense that the gold
medalists got? And that's not to say
that it's everyone, but it does seem to
be a pretty big cohort, way more than
the people that are striving would think
it is.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So there that there's a
reason that is antimmatic and that's
because it goes against mother nature.
Mother nature wants you to be fooled.
The reason that that the that the the
ancient Williamsons, right, from some
place, some Anglo-Saxon tribe of
something something Scotland. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> The reason they passed on their genes is
because they were fooled by mother
nature. That they were fooled that they
actually they they chased the arrival
fallacy again and again and again and
again and again. The reason that you're
not going to be satisfied, the reason
that it can't be satisfied is because
mother nature needs you in the hunt. But
the only way you're going to stay in the
hunt is with a promise that you're
finally going to get there. Now, there's
a side note to this. There's a
metaphysical side note to this, by the
way. This is kind of a this is a little
a little bit of of a a side note that
kind of takes us in the transcendent
dimension. We'll come back to the
arrival fallacy in a second. But you
know there is a philosophical set of
arguments for the existence of something
which is that the the desire for
something is actually proof of the
existence of its object. So for example
proof that water exists is that I feel
thirst.
>> Proof or or or evidence that food exists
is that I feel hungry. Now I want
unremitting happiness. I want it and I
feel like I can actually get it somehow,
but I I can't. I can't. But that
philosophically is a proof that it does
exist.
>> Not here.
That's actually proof of a divine
afterlife. Actually, it's evidence of a
divine afterlife that you have this
hunger for unremitting happiness which
suggests that it actually does exist,
but you can't get it in this life. Maybe
you can get it someplace else is what it
comes down to. And this is one of the
great proofs in most of the both
Abrahamic and karmic religions for the
existence of nirvana heaven whatever it
happens to be. Anyway, mother natur back
to this the question at hand. Why would
mother nature play this trick on us?
Because because we got to stay hungry.
She wants us to stay hungry. So she's
wired in a mistake. She's wired in a
mistake. He's wired in something that it
is such a deep mistake that we make
again and again and again that even when
people speak a manifest truth that
people deeply believe they still will
reject it. I remember when David Brooks,
you know, the author David Brooks, he
and I are super old friends. We're not
related. Share a surname. It's common
surname. It's a common surname, right?
And so, um, my Brookses, you know, snuck
out of Lancaster in in 1630 to
Massachusetts, one step ahead of the
county sheriff, but in his came later.
Anyway, David Brooks, he said, I
remember years and years and years ago,
he said, you know, being number one in
the New York Times bestseller list, it's
really not that great. We're having
lunch and I said, "Let me try. Let me
see how it feels." Right? And and that
was exactly the point that you made.
Now, now Ryan Holidayiday talks about
that, too. The first time he had a book
that was number one in the New York
Times bestsellers, he's like, "This is
great." And the next week it was some
yo-yo who had a stupid book as number
one. And he realized how how little it
actually meant, but he wanted the next
one to be number one, too. Actually,
it's more tyrannical than that because
if your next one doesn't make number
one, now you used to be great. And
there's almost nothing worse than that.
>> Yeah. The only thing worse than never
having made it is having fallen off.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I almost I I wanted
to do a show at one point. I talked to a
producer about the idea of a TV show um
called I used to be famous where you
know I as a behavioral scientist will go
talk to people who are like living
relatively ordinary lives and they used
to be famous. Some are happy, some are
not. Some are addicts, some are crazy,
some are like normally married.
>> Fascinating show. Wildly unpopular,
>> you know, like just it's just
>> Yeah. But if you if you if you want to
have that, it's the underdog story.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. It's from zero to hero, not from
her to zero. Although it's pretty
interesting when you when you hear about
people who are living who are much much
much happier than they were in the
limelight.
>> You know, when people are living
ordinary lives um and and they're they
used to be really famous and people go,
"Oh, I remember he was so and so in the
Partridge family or something. Now he's
got a happy marriage and four kids and
you know he you know he works for a
cardboard box company or something." How
can people work out the meaning that
they've got in their life? What are the
big questions they should ask?
>> Yeah. So um there are three big why
questions that constitute meaning. And
this actually comes from the work of
Michael Steager who's a a really good um
social psychologist at uh u in Colorado
and he uh he has the three parts the
three elements of meaning which are
called coherence purpose and
significance and there are three why
questions. Number one is you have to
have an answer to the question, you
know, why are things happening the way
they are in my life? You know, things
are happening all around me all the
time. Why? Part of meaning is having an
answer to that. Maybe that's a maybe
that's your religious answer like
because of the mind of God. Maybe that's
your scientific answer because these are
the laws of the universe. Maybe you're a
conspiracy theorist and say because
powerful people are doing these things.
>> Conspiracy theories are nothing more
than crying out for an answer to the
coherence question which is a meaning
problem. You know, when so so if you
have a a relative who's going down the
rabbit hole on the craziest conspiracy
theories, don't you don't throw data in
their face and say, "You [ __ ] that's
the wrong way to approach it. They're
they're having a meaning crisis. They're
having a happiness crisis is the reason
they're doing this in the first place."
So coherence, number one, you know, why
things happen the way they do. Second,
why am I doing what I'm doing? That's
purpose. Purpose and meaning are not the
same. Purpose is goals and direction so
you can make progress. So why am I doing
what I'm doing? And if the answer is I
don't know, then you can't make progress
because you're just going in circles.
You're just a a Carnival cruise ship
just kind of randomly going around and
round and round and around. It's the
reason I find cruises unbelievably
depressing. They don't go someplace,
>> right? I'm a teological individual like
you. I want a goal, right? And that's
purpose. And and so in the in the in the
research, you know, Sonia Luba's stuff,
have you had her on the show?
>> She's coming on next week or the week
after.
>> Super good. Yeah, she's awesome. and
she's at UC Riverside and she does these
work on goals and you'll give students
these just random goals like you're
getting a B minus in physics. You know,
let's get a B+ this semester. Just that
goal, they get happier, they get more
directed, life seems better because they
have more meaning in their life. That's
what it comes down to. Even arbitrary
goals work better to have meaningful
goals.
>> And last but not least is significance.
And that's my life matters. you know, my
life matters to someone, you know, to my
dog, to my wife, to to God, to my kids.
And so that's the love question. And all
these things are completely missing in
modern culture for so many people. You
know, why do things happen the way that
they do? It's just random. I don't know.
Why am I doing what I'm doing? I have no
idea. I get up and I scroll. I get up
and I surf. I get up and I go on a Zoom
meeting for a company I don't really
care about. And and and you know, what
is the significance of my life? Why does
my life matter? I don't think it does.
>> And that's those are the three things to
actually keep in mind.
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happens psychologically when life feels
random? When life feels random, then it
feels like anything could happen at any
time and there is no control. There are
no levers that you can actually pull. So
you you're not an active player in your
own life when there is no coherence.
When you don't see a pattern, it's a big
problem. You know, when you when you the
you remember when you learn to drive,
>> how old do you have to be in in the UK?
>> 17.
>> Okay. And and when you first, you know,
you got a lot of confidence, but when
you're looking at the traffic and like
and it's like it's like chaos,
>> wildly intimidating. I learned to drive
in a mini, which is a very British way
to do it, but it's [ __ ] terrifying.
You're like half the height of everybody
else.
>> Yeah. And you know, any any system that
you're in that doesn't seem to make
sense, that's that that that it tends to
feel really really meaningless because
you don't know what you can actually do
to have some sense of agency. There's no
sense of agency when there is no
coherence is what it comes down to. So
for example, if you believe that things
happen the way they do because that's
what God wills, then you're going to try
to work that lover. You're going to
pray, for example, you're going to have
a relationship with God. If you believe
it's because of the laws of science,
you're going to learn more about science
and you're going to actually enter into
that particular dimension. So for
example, I'm a behavioral scientist. I
really believe in science. I really
believe that it's just like it gives you
incredible amounts of power. My job is
to explain the science and explain how
people can interact with the science.
It's a pure coherence play is what it
comes down to. And if it's all about
conspiracy theories, then I'm going to
get online and, you know, share them
with my friends.
>> So that that's why coherence really
matters. So that you can have agency
over your life.
>> And why are directionless people so
psychologically fragile?
>> They're fragile because they don't know
actually in which direction that they're
going, which means they can't make
progress. Now remember, this whole idea
of happiness comes from making progress
toward a goal. And there's tons of
really interesting examples of this. The
weight loss literature is super
interesting in this. So, diets are all
effective and they're all catastrophic
failures is what it comes down to.
Effective in so far as that almost any
diet will make you lose weight, but they
have between an 80 and 95% failure rate
after a year, meaning you gain all the
weight back and then some.
>> It's a weird industry. It's like a $40
billion industry in the United States
that fails.
>> Bora Boros of nutritional advice.
>> It's craziness. you know nine out of 10
times they fail. Um now now why why are
they successful? Because in in
economically it's because temporarily
they make you make progress but they
ultimately fail because once you get to
your goal your goal weight the reward is
never getting to eat what you like ever
again for the rest of your life.
Congratulations
>> that and then you get the arrival
fallacy is what it comes down to. So
what you want in life is something where
you can just make constant progress. I
want to be like I want to be a better
dad. I want to be a better person. I
want to create more value with my work.
And that's there's no end to that. I
can't be like, "Yeah, well, I got to the
best dad I can possibly be, so that's
all good."
>> No, I'm I'm I can always work to be a
better husband. I can always work to be
a better friend. I can always work to be
a better citizen. I can always work to
love my country more. I can always work
to actually do something more important
in my work and reach more people with
the with the the the moral objectives
that I have. And that's what I need. I
need goals I can't meet.
I don't I think that the confusing thing
is it if significance is about being
valuable to others and not famous
why is it the case that modern people
confuse the two
>> part of the reason is because um what
strivvers they get into there's actually
a pathology that that that is in the
middle of this um so what you find is
that certain people
let me back up a little bit um I work
I'm sort of a strive whisper
In my work, I specialize in people who
do incredible things, right? And not
just because that's fun, although it is,
but because that's the kind of books
that I write. You know, people who do
amazing things and still don't have
perfect lives. That's kind of my area of
research. As a matter of fact, they have
a common childhood. And it kind of looks
like this. You know, super strivvers who
are never satisfied and struggle.
They generally speaking um found that
they only got attention and affection
from their parents when they did
something, when they got good grades,
when they made pitcher on the baseball
team, when they made first chair in the
orchestra, when they right when they,
you know, set up a lemonade stand and
made more money than anybody thought
possible, whatever it was, right? And
and their parents often their parents
are immigrants or or came from poverty.
and they'll reward their kids when they
do a thing thinking that they're
actually wiring in success and happiness
for their kids. What they're telling
their kids is that love is earned.
They're teaching their kids that love is
earned. And they kids will learn that.
And when your brain is synaptically
plastic, boy, will you ever learn that
lesson. And then you will go through
life trying to earn love over and over
and over and over again. You'll look for
if you're a man, you'll look for women
who make you earn their love, right? and
and that you'll spend your marriage
trying to bring in more and more and
more and more money. For example, women
will try to stay young forever by trying
to earn their husband's love. You'll
find that they will surround themselves
with sycopants and yesmen who are just
like fake friends who make it make these
people earn their love um with gifts and
favors and fanciness and and you'll
surround yourself with people because
you believe that love is actually
earned. Well, the truth is that's wrong.
Real love isn't earned. It's a free
gift, freely given. It's a grace.
Anybody who makes you earn their love
doesn't love you. That's what it comes
down to. But they don't learn that
because that's actually what they've
what they've what they've they've um uh
evolved over the course of their lives.
And they they become success addicts,
winning addicts, looking for the
specialness. And and in the modern
economy when you can metastasize that
from one to your family to your
community to your church to your city to
the whole world on the internet then
you're going to be searching for the
adoration of strangers because it's the
best possible dopamine hit that you can
get and life is going to feel gray if
you don't get it. So this is a pathology
that actually people have and the more
talented you are the more danger you're
in. One of my favorite ideas of yours is
this difference between specialness and
happiness. Like it's so good when you
see it. It's something you kind of can't
see anymore.
>> Yeah. And and it's it's a lot of people
who are, you know, there people watch
and listen to Modern Wisdom because they
want an edge. You know, it's good. It's
good entertainment. I'm I'm I'm a fan.
Long before I met you. Yeah. But it's
it's actionable material for people.
>> Well, I'm I'm I'm actively making less
actionable material.
>> Yeah. I know. which is an interesting
pivot at the moment. I think there's a a
new term floating around which you might
not have seen yet. It's called grind
slop. And uh grind slop is kind of this
[ __ ] your feelings, just work harder
achievement and progress and
optimization at any cost.
>> Yeah.
>> And I think that people are feeling a
lot of fatigue. I've felt that for a
while. And you know, if
I go back and look at what I was talking
about 2 years ago, 18 months ago, a lot
of that was I'm going to try and feel my
feelings a little bit more. I'm going to
try and see if there's something a
little bit deeper. I'm going to have a
little bit more fun. I'm not going to
optimize for outcomes at the expense of
experience. And that has really come to
a head. Uh I think for a lot of people,
I think it's worsened by AI. I think
that if you can have a oracle in your
pocket, which you always had, but now an
oracle that speaks to you personally and
knows exactly everything that you need
and kind of gives you this very curated,
idiosyncratic, customized version of
what it is that you want in a chat
format is almost as if you're speaking
to your best friend that happens to be
God.
>> People have got information overload and
what I don't think that they necessarily
need more of is just getting like how
fuagra is made, right? just force
feeding that high velocity like high
density stuff.
>> Um, and I think that at least for me,
what I'm finding myself enjoying lots of
is I took something away from that.
>> Yeah.
>> And I had a good time
>> as opposed to optimizing for you know,
you think about short form or Blinkist
or Spark Notes or you know what,
whatever your favorite book summary
service of choice was like what is it
that you're doing? You're like trying to
get to the outcome.
>> Yeah. Yeah. No, you're you're to get
points on the board. You're trying to
get points on the board. Yeah.
>> No. And and
>> I can't remember. We that that was a
digression from something from the
original that that we
>> me saying if significance is about being
valuable to others and not about being
famous. How can people confuse those
two?
>> Oh yeah. And so specialness and
happiness. Correct. Yeah. So specialness
and happiness is really really
interesting because the idea of I mean I
will literally hear people say look any
loser can have a family. You know any
loser can have an ordinary job and
provide for his wife and kids
>> but not everybody can start a company.
Not everybody can be CEO. Not everybody
can have a famous podcast. Not everybody
can do those things. And and in other
words, they're saying, I know what would
make me happy, and I'm going to forgo
that happiness for what I think is a as
a happiness beyond it, which is
specialness. And that will always lead
to ruin. It always does. I mean, again,
I talk to people my age. I've talked
about people who are older than me. I
mean, it's like this classic thing. It's
a friend who is um 25 years older than I
am. um an icon in finance, an absolute
icon of finance. And I said when I said,
"How old were you when you figured out
you were going to be rich?" He said,
"32." He knew when it was. I was 32
years old. He said, "It was like I you
know, I actually left this bank and I
actually went and opened my own firm and
and it was starting to make money and
and we weren't rich yet, but I I
realized I was going to be rich." And I
said, "You must have thought, what's it
going to be like to be rich? What's it
going to be like to be rich? What's
going to happen?" He said, "Yeah, he's
not a very materialistic guy. He doesn't
have a boat. He doesn't have 15 houses.
He doesn't have any of this stuff. He's
really, really wealthy man.
>> Scott Galloway.
>> My doppelganger. You know, I should go I
should I said I I said to Scott the
other day cuz I we were doing a thing
together and I said, you know, we should
go on tour together with Stanley Tucci.
>> I said no.
Like
>> and put you should be under a big red
cup.
>> It's like you three card Monty or
something like that. It's like which one
do you get? Which one?
>> Three card Baldi. Right.
And so I and he said and he I said, "So
what did you think when you're when you
got rich how life was going to be
better? How did you really think life
was going to be better?" Because this is
interesting for me as a behavioral
scientist. I mean, this is this is deep.
And he he thought about it for a while.
He said, "I thought that when I got rich
that my wife would love me. Really love
me."
And I said, "So what happened?" And he
said, "She didn't."
They just stared at me. And it was this
moment of pathos, right? It was this
moment. It's like this what's pathos?
This moment of deep understanding and
feeling, right? That and it's almost as
if when he he had never said it before.
When he articulated it, he understood it
for the very first time.
>> Do you think he'd selected a wife that
was the sort of person whose love needed
to be won?
>> Of course. Of course. Because you know,
if you believe that love is earned, then
you're going to surround yourself with
people who make you earn their love.
Yeah.
>> Every single time.
>> You've got you've got cause and effect
going on here.
>> Of course. I've got
>> this line from an essay I wrote
recently. What you are praised for in
public, you will pay for in private.
>> Nice. Give me an example.
>> Uh your psychological resilience. You
know, in the boardroom, people call it
strength, they call it decisiveness,
assertiveness. Uh they call it uh uh
anti-fragility. Yeah,
>> but around your kitchen table it makes
you put up with a relationship that you
should have left long ago.
>> It makes you impenetrable to the actual
psychological and emotional needs that
your spouse needs.
>> I had a a Navy Seal sat here, Andy
Stump, and he said, you know, I built
myself up like my entire career was made
out of being a person who doesn't quit,
>> right?
>> That caused me to stay in a marriage
that was toxic for 10 years longer than
I should have done.
>> Your strengths are your weaknesses, but
your weaknesses are your strengths.
What's that mean?
>> You tell me. I'm [ __ ]
You've Uno reverse carded me on a a
limmerick that I don't understand.
>> But I mean, think
>> the Riddler sat opposite me here.
>> Yeah,
I'm a Batman villain.
>> Correct.
>> The the bald man, the baldy, the um the
um
>> What is your greatest weakness?
>> Uncertainty.
>> Uh-huh. How have you turned that into
one of your greatest strengths in what
you do?
>> Paying attention to every different
permutation of how things could go to
ensure that the plan is in place.
Hypervigilance,
>> uh,
galactically unreasonable attention to
detail.
>> Exactly. Right. What's your next biggest
weakness?
>> In the similar sort of circuit is that
overthinking.
>> Uh-huh. You fear failure,
right?
>> Fear.
>> You fear shame. Fear shame more than
failure.
>> How does your fear of shame and like I'm
not I'm not divulging anything to to our
friends.
>> No one's no one's [ __ ] surprised.
>> No one's surprised here. It's nothing
that I haven't said on stage in front of
thousands of people with tears in my
eyes.
>> It's like the shamefaced boy part of the
program.
>> Yeah, exactly. Um
>> so so how does sh how does it feel
shame? Which by the way is very common
for for
>> success working hard enough so that you
don't have to feel it. you know,
overachieving, outstripping what anybody
thought to this the point where nobody
could ever think that it would be
something shameful, right?
>> But it does cause you again what you
what you are praised for in public, you
pay for in private. It means that you
have
>> um
>> opening up about how you feel,
especially about weaknesses and
vulnerabilities.
>> That's hard to do because you go, well,
I'm supposed to have it all together.
the reason that the world gave me the
love that it gave me is because of look
at my competence and here it is on
display and I'm and then you go I need
to I there's a there's a hole in this
armor and I need to show it to somebody.
>> Uh and I and the map that I have of
reality from the real world gets ported
across into the relational world.
>> Yeah. And that's very very difficult to
that's a a tough thing to watch. It
feels like being Batman and Robin for a
lot of people. Sorry. It feels like
being Batman and Bruce Wayne for a lot
of people. You know, it feels like you
have one life out there,
>> right? And then when you come home, you
can either choose to keep the mask on,
>> but taking it off means that you have to
start living this double life where you
need to not feel the things that you do
privately when you're in public and not
use the tactics that you have publicly
when you're in private.
>> Right?
>> So,
>> right, and that actually is can be
really disconcerting and it can be
highly damaging for personal
relationships.
>> And this is one of the reasons that you
find that when people start to get
really famous that they're much more at
ease in front of a thousand people than
they are in front of one person. M
>> because they actually have to use a
different set of social skills. They've
got the theater ability in front of a
thousand people. But when they're
actually talking to mom or, you know, an
actual no fool and girlfriend, life, it
gets real dicey real fast, right? Is
what it comes down to. But but what you
put your finger on is that look, you
will pay in private for what you're
applauded for in public,
>> but you will also, you know, what you're
paying for in private is the source of
your strength in public. And that what
that means is that you shouldn't just
try to you shouldn't just be thankful
for what they're applauding you for in
public on the contrary. You should be
down on your knees thankful for the
weaknesses that you have as well.
>> And that's that's the that's the pro
move. That's what it comes down to.
That's actually how we ultimately learn
to manage ourselves is that we recognize
that we have these frailties, that we
have these weaknesses, that we have
these, you know, feet of clay
>> and and we say, "Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for that weakness." because
and indeed that is a source of my
strength.
>> Yeah. Most of the things that you're
most ashamed of are just the dark side
of something light that you're really
proud of.
>> And you know, if you've got a sword,
most swords are double-edged. And
sometimes it nicks you on the back
swing. That doesn't mean that you throw
the sword away.
>> Yeah.
>> Just means that you learn how to hold it
properly.
>> Yeah. And then the the ace move is being
grateful for the wound for the wound
itself. It's really interesting because
actually what you find in a lot of
Eastern philosophy is that you know we
have a tendency to be very stoic about
the way we talk about problems and
suffering and weakness in our life to
say I will bear up under it.
>> I will I do accept it. I do accept it.
But it's not enough to accept it. You
need to love it. That's really that that
that ultimately is the is what makes you
fully human is to actually love it and
to accept it as the divine will. this is
the way it's going to be and because
it's happening that's what I want I my
will I want what I want is what is
happening sort of aimatically I realize
it's sort of philosophical in its way
but ultimately I think this is what we
need to get where we need to get in our
lives is is recognizing that there are
both strengths and weaknesses that we
actually have and we should be as
grateful for our weaknesses as we are
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I had this idea the parental attribution
error like the fundamental attribution
error that
>> we are often prepared to especially in
the modern world right um blaming our
parents for stuff is basically a right
of passage in modern psychology modern
therapy culture. Uh but if we're not
prepared to lay our strengths at the
feet of our parents then maybe we
shouldn't be so quick to call them the
villains for what's wrong with us. So,
you know, you say that your desire to
work hard is because you were never
freely given love at home, but
>> isn't that also the same thing that's
made you so driven and ambitious?
>> You say that your hyper vigilance was
brought out because people didn't
observe your needs ahead of their own.
>> Isn't that also the same reason that
you're so concerned to ensure that
everybody else's welfare is put before
yours? All of these things are they're
not even two sides of the same coin.
It's just a single [ __ ] piece of
metal. This thing exists. It's woven
throughout it all.
>> Right. Right.
>> And uh
>> well, you're what you're doing is right
now you're being very subversive because
what you're doing is subverting the
culture of grievance.
>> Mhm.
>> And which actually you're pretty good at
that at this point. I've noticed that.
But
>> people got really angry when I when I
talked about that. Maybe didn't like it.
>> Well, the whole point is that you know
the unhappiest people are people who are
whose identity it revolves around
grievance and victimization. And that
this is by the way one of the ways that
people in positions of relative cultural
authority and power keep you subjugated.
The way that I a baby boomer like me
technically in the last year of the baby
boom can conscript culture warriors who
are Gen Z into my movement is by
convincing they're victims and they
should be agrieved
>> about how the world treats them, about
how older people treat them, about how
the culture treats them.
>> It was easier before you, so there's no
point in trying now.
>> Yeah. Well, or you should be really mad
about it. You should be angry about it.
you should be, you know, carrying a a
sign in the streets.
>> Apply your efforts to complaining about
the problem as opposed to
>> go Starbucks. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it seems
like a lot of what you're laying at the
feet here, the issue is largely
technology that that is one of the
biggest movers. Is that a fair?
>> That's the tip of the spear. It's
actually what it is. It's a the
technology is a manifestation of the way
that the culture of engineering has
given us this scientism this conceit
that every problem is a complicated
problem that can be solved as opposed to
the most important problems which can't
be solved. They can only be lived with
and understood. That a more human
approach to what we're talking about is
that there are plenty of complicated
problems that we can solve but the most
important ones are the ones we can't
solve. And that's what uh properly it's
interesting because that's what most of
the you know Buddhist teachers will say
that the the wrong turn of the west was
that was the scientism that said that
everything is a solvable complicated
problem whereas you what we need is
balance between complex and complicated
the complex problems of the right
hemisphere and the complicated problems
of the left hemisphere and they exist in
a system and there are many things that
we shouldn't try to solve because we
can't we should live with them
>> we should understand them
>> we should leave them as permanent
mysteries that actually give our life
flavor. But the truth is that especially
over the past 25 years in the era of
hyperdevelopment of technology that is
an expression of the idea that no, we're
going to hit the singularity, man. We're
going to live forever. We're going to be
actually be able to figure out how to
upload our brains. we're going to be
able to solve any problem with whatever
app or douad or or or
supplement or whatever it happens to be
that we will have the scientific acumen
to solve everything that actually u is a
problem in our lives. And that's just
axiomatically wrong. And how do I know
that? Because we're solving more and
more of these problems and we're getting
less and less and less happy. It's the
same kind of thing to say, for example,
if we had enough therapists, we wouldn't
have any more depression. Well,
depression has tripled and the number of
therapists has tripled. So, what's going
on here? Obviously, there's a cause and
effect problem and a a glitch in our
logic. I wonder if this is part of the
reason why people are feeling exhausted.
They've got personal development
fatigue.
>> Yeah.
>> That permanently asking the why
question, permanently trying to optimize
everything becomes exhausting. uh the
kind of cost that you pay of trying to
optimize everything is worse than being
underoptimized.
>> Yeah.
>> That the process of trying to be perfect
will kill you more quickly than the
imperfections would.
>> And yeah, all of this together is like,
dude, I got enough on my plate.
>> I got enough on my plate. Do I need more
homework? Yeah.
>> Do I really need more homework right
now?
>> As opposed to like
>> ah I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm I'm
trying and I'm trying hard. And that's
that's pretty good.
>> Yeah. And you know, there's nothing
wrong with these big why questions. The
problem is having these big why
questions and believing that if you
watch enough internet videos and take
enough supplements that you'll be able
to answer these things. And and this is
one of the this is a big generational
difference that we actually find. So
there every philosophical school um of
note and of merit has something that the
ancient Greeks called aporeia which is
to sit in a state of puzzlement over
questions that can't be answered. So,
Zen Buddhism is based on coins. Cohens
are riddles. You know, what is the sound
of one hand clapping? And a strange
unanswerable question. You're supposed
to ponder that. And in the pondering,
you gain a certain kind of complex
knowledge, which we know is, you know,
the the dominantly processed in the
right hemisphere of the brain. Right? A
big generational difference is that
what's very what's missing for a lot of
people's lives today is that at night
with their friends, they're not having
these BS philosophical conversations
about big questions that can't be
answered.
>> That was what you did right at 11:30
after you came home from a party with
your friends in college in 1985.
Is it like I don't know, dude? Do you
think God exists? Right? It's like wow,
dude. and and and now it's like
so we've stopped doing that one thing.
There's nothing wrong with big why
questions. The problem is that we only
ask either ask questions that can be
addressed by Google or Chad GBT or we
believe that if we have enough
scientific knowledge that these
questions can be answered. Both of those
are a big big wrong turn. They're a big
wrong turn philosophically but they're
also a wrong turn neurobiologically.
>> Weird, isn't it? Because the promise of
modern technology, culture, science,
being able to answer a lot of questions
and fix a lot of the problems that
previously were huge. Infant mortality
and [ __ ] cuts on your you know how
Ignise died.
>> No,
>> bro. This is [ __ ] money. Tell me.
>> So guy that discovered the germ theory
of disease, he's finds that child bed
fever is being transmitted from corpses
to uh newborn babies because the doctors
weren't washing their hands in between.
begs his colleagues to adopt
handwashing. He gets laughed out of
every single institution he's trying to
do it to. Uh he keeps on talking about
it for so long that he drives himself
insane. Everybody thinks that he's
insane. And his wife helps to commit him
to an asylum. While he's being removed
from his own home by the nurses that are
taking him away to the asylum, he gets a
cut on his leg. The cut on his leg is
treated by a doctor who doesn't wash his
hands after touching a corpse and he
dies due to the infection.
like the most
>> like tragically ironic way to die.
>> Uh
>> but yeah, we we've got all of these
promises made by by by the modern world.
And the problem is no one. It's the
first time that we've had the oracle,
>> right? It's the first time that
humanity's gone through the wow, maybe
we could answer everything, maybe all of
the problems as opposed to some of the
problems.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And um
>> and the whole idea is that if we we we
dig a little deeper, we'll find it. We
dig a little deeper, we'll find it.
>> But you're saying that there's a
particular category of challenge which
is simply unsolvable.
>> You're dig like when you're in a final
stop or something.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Now, this is important because this is,
you know, a classic mistake that people
make. There's a conceit that people
have. I talked to a guy one time who was
a big part of the war on poverty in
America, which was this idea that we're
going to be able to wipe out poverty
with social programs, with social
welfare services. And it did a lot. I
mean, social welfare programs did a lot
to lower caloric needs and and make sure
there's more public access to education
and all kinds of good stuff. But the
truth of the matter is that after a
certain point, it starts to wire in
pathologies. Actually, it makes it
harder for people to actually become
independent, etc.
>> Because they become reliant on the
money.
>> That's the idea. Yeah, that's that's the
whole idea of of this and it's certainly
not true for everybody but is certainly
true for other people and and I and I
asked him who is one of the architects
in this war on poverty what would have
made it that would truly have won you
really wiped out poverty once and for
all and he said just a little more money
>> but that's what a lot of people in the
valley think today is that we're going
to get an out for that that these are
world we just need to go deeper we need
to go deeper
>> I mean you saw the the test
uh experiments with UBI from a couple of
years ago.
>> They failed.
>> Both of them failed. They failed.
>> Failed massively. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Why? Now tell me don't say let's say
why. What did they do? You remember?
>> Not fully. I mean I know that people
they looked at the discretionary spend.
They looked at where people were putting
money away. They looked at how much of
it was being spent on things that people
said they needed to prioritize. Stuff
like healthare wasn't going on
healthcare. What the quality of the food
wasn't increasing.
>> It wasn't going to education. Yes. The
whole point is that it if it went toward
human capital development, if it went
toward what my parents would have put it
into, right? Um it would have been
great. It would have been this fabulous
thing. And the whole thing is is based
on this idea that everybody has the same
values, that everybody has the same
priorities, which they don't. And it
wasn't a question of money. Furthermore,
when you actually give people for
nothing, you strip away their sense of
earned success. And earned success is
part of this idea of satisfaction. It
gets into this idea of progress. It gets
into the wiring of homo sapiens
>> is what it comes down to. It it denies
the primacy
>> and respect due to human evolutionary
biology, which I know is something you
love, right? Me too. Right? Because it
explains so much of the odd behavior
that people have. And so every time that
we try to reorder the way that human
beings are wired evolutionarily with
some utopian idea that we've got this
technology, we've got this economic
policy, we've got I got I got I've got
this new idea for how the how the
genders are going to behave toward each
other. Yeah. No, from now on we're no
longer going to be like people were
50,000 years ago. It's gonna fail.
>> It's gonna fail. And we you you need to
you need to go with the the current. You
need to actually swim with the current
or you're ultimately going to fail is
what it turns out.
>> Getting back to the technology thing,
how do you interrupt this doom loop that
everyone's on?
>> So the doom loop is that I'm, you know,
I don't want to be bored. Um because I
don't like boredom because it's boring,
right? And so I distract myself. And
when I distract myself, what I do is I
become less tolerant of boredom. Um my
life feels less meaningful because I'm
actually illuminating the parts of the
brain that are necessary for that. And
so I'm more at loose ends. And so I
spend more time online, more time
scrolling, more time, you know, doing
what people do when they're when they're
really bored. And that makes the problem
worse. Much the same way with drugs and
alcohol, you know, and that's how
escalation and dependence actually
works. Um, the two biggest predictors of
alcoholism are anxiety and boredom. And
so when I'm anxious and bored, I drink.
>> Well, that makes boredom and anxiety
worse the next day. And so I drink some
more. And then down and down and down
and down it goes. And so what you have
to you're in a doom loop. Any addictive
process is a doom loop. The same thing
is true with the way that we use
technology. The same way is true you
know anything any
>> which is totally hidden under the radar
by the way. Completely you know and you
most people despite the fact that
alcohol is having a resurgence only
after it was recently sort of stripped
away. Uh um
>> most people understand I I I I'm I'm
doing this and I didn't used to do this
and when I do this I keep it seems to be
ratcheting up. I'm drinking more than I
used to. I'm I'm That's probably not
good.
>> Well, it depends on how much you drink.
It might be good.
>> Well, I mean, if you're getting to five,
six, seven drinks a night, I don't think
>> that's a big problem.
>> Yeah, but but how many times does that
entropy start to build because your
tolerance you're chasing you're not
chasing having the drink, you're chasing
the sensation of the drink and your
tolerance I
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> I'll drink that's a doom loop.
>> I'll drink
>> 10 20 times a year maybe at most now.
And that means half a Corona in I'm like
that's nice. It's like being 14 again,
you know, that's cool. Uh, but
>> a half rack at 14. I don't know what's
wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,
>> the problem with using your phone in
this way is it's a completely socially
acceptable, under the radar. Nobody is
ever going to say, no one's ever going
to come over. How many time like someone
will make a joke about, "Dude, you're on
your phone a lot tonight." It's very
different to, "Dude, you're pissed
again." And it's five nights in a row.
>> Like that's different, right? It's much
more obvious.
the gambling thing, the porn thing,
these kinds of compulsions, these kinds
of habits are significantly more
obviously destructive,
>> right,
>> than using your phone is. And then while
I'm doing it, I can feel myself
internally [ __ ] rolling my own eyes.
Yes. Okay, too much time on the phone is
too much. Like, you know what I mean?
>> I know. And there are other, by the way,
there's a whole spectrum of these things
of these dependencies that are all
involving the the, you know, the
dopamine cycle in your brain. Some of
which are not just sort of neutral and
hidden like the phone. Some of which are
are are applauded. You know, if you're a
workaholic,
>> nobody will say, I mean, if like if
you're a pathetic alcoholic, nobody will
say it's like, Chris, you were a you
drank,
>> you know, you drank 750 milliliters of
gin last night. I saw you put that.
Congratulations. You're excellent.
Correct.
>> They're going to say you you got some
problems. I mean, I think you got to get
that looked at, right? But if you work
16 hours a day and neglect your family,
you're going to get a promotion and a
raise. You're going to get rewarded for
that. So there's some addictions that
that that you know people actually love
because it works in their favor. It
enriches them and it actually leads to
the world's rewards which people admire.
>> Yep.
>> So the point is that we have a
responsibility to look after ourselves,
look after the pathologies that are
actually in inherent in our behavior and
to see is it actually making my life
better or is it making my life worse
notwithstanding the reaction of the rest
of the world.
>> What does fixing the doom loop look
like?
>> What does fixing? It means clipping. It
means cutting it at a particular place.
So um all addictions getting out of
addictions they have sort of three steps
in common. It's it's really behaviorally
they have three steps in common. Now I'm
not talking medically. I'm not talking
about the medical interventions because
that's different for different things
with gambling and drinking and
methamphetamine whatever. But the three
behavioral steps in getting out of an
addiction are number one, you got to get
pissed. You got to get pissed. It's like
this is subjugating me. This is I'm in a
cage and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of
actually being a wholly owned subsidiary
of that company or this behavior or this
culture. I'm tired of it. I'm not going
to put up with it. You need to fight
back by rebelling. That's number one.
You need the spirit of rebellion. If
you're not ready to rebel, you're not
going to get out. Number two is you need
to figure out how to stop. You need to
actually have an algorithm. And that's
dependent on what the substance or
behavior actually is. There are
different ways to do it, but there's
tons of science in every area. If you
can get addicted to it, there's science
that tells you how to stop. And then the
third is you have to learn how to live
with yourself again because you've been
distracting yourself from yourself. If
you're addicted to something, it means
you didn't like being home in your head.
That's what it comes down to.
>> And you know, it's like I I haven't had
a drink since I was 38 years old, right?
And I remember in my 30s, I didn't like
being home in my head. Didn't like it.
Didn't want to be there, right? And so I
left, right? I got a little relief. a
little vacation in the bottle and it it
just it was going nowhere good and it
was really clear and then my dad died
and and and you know a couple of people
I cared about said this your that's your
future. You just saw your future, right?
And so I stopped.
But it was the hard part was step three.
The hard part was actually being alone
with myself, being awake with myself,
being alive with myself is what it comes
down to. And that's probably even more
extreme for people who are very very
online because you're trying to break
the doom loop of a technology is
breaking your brain, not letting you
find the meaning of your life, making
you angry and depressed and anxious and
lonely.
>> You're addicted, which is why you keep
doing these self- terrible
self-destructive things to yourself. You
first you get pissed and second you got
to quit. And look, I got the algorithms
to help you do that. But then, man, you
need new friends.
Like, you know, you need you need to
live in a society. You need to live, you
know, in people who are alive in real
life. And you have to be able to sit
behind
the wheel of your car at a red light
with nothing to do in your thoughts,
right? and be in a supermarket checkout
line without your phone and and walk
before dawn without a device and hear
the crunch of the gravel under your feet
and say that's the sound of my feet on
the path and that takes work.
>> How easy is it to recover from this? I
think a lot of people feel like they're
lost and totally unreoverable.
>> It's absolutely possible. I've seen it
again and again and again and again. I
mean, look, this is this this is not
heroin that we're talking about here. I
mean, the the the process of detox, for
example, isn't you don't even have to
give up your phone. You just have to put
it in proper boundaries and have some
rules in your life, right? And and
actually have some proper habits. And,
you know, we're our life is if you have
a fairly functional life, you've got
good habits already, right? I mean, you
get up at a certain time, you work out
every day, you you eat something you
don't eat like an 11-year-old. I mean,
you have good habits and then you just
put protocols around it. You know, it's
like Huberman talks about protocols and
which has kind of infected the culture.
It's a culture of protocols. Um, and and
I'm I'm an absolute believer in that
when it comes to your phone. I mean, you
you wake up in the morning, if you can,
don't look at it at all for the first
hour for neurocognitive programming. If
you're a journalist or, you know, you
have your job, you got to look at it,
make sure nothing's on fire. That's it.
Put it down. That's it for the hour,
right? First hour of the day. While you
eat, neurocognitive programming while
you eat is critically important. is best
not to eat alone and never eat with your
device.
>> Why?
>> Brain is is actually your the the
neuropeptides in your brain, most
notably oxytocin, they flow very
liberally when you're eating with
somebody. This is how, you know, homo
sapiens would establish and and foster
kin bonds, is by sitting around a
campfire, putting pieces of yak meat
into their mouths, discussing their day,
and looking into each other's eyes.
That's how we're wired. If you have a
phone on the table while you eat, or god
forbid, if you're looking at it, there's
no None of this neurochemistry happens.
>> What if you're on your own?
>> Then um you might read a book, you might
listen to music, but don't look at your
phone.
>> There's a meme online of uh guy starves
to death even though he had food because
he couldn't watch YouTube. Yeah.
>> Cuz his phone had run out of battery.
>> Or it's like or died of sepsis because
he didn't go to the bathroom.
>> Yeah.
>> He couldn't take his phone in there. So,
and last but not least is the last hour
of the day. Now, that part of that is
sleep architecture and blue light, etc.,
etc., the pineal gland, melatonin, yada
yada. We all know the physiology of
that. But part of that is just the way
that you actually understand yourself at
the end of your day and get ready to
rest. If you're living with your
partner, that's critically important to
your relationship is not to be looking
at your device in the last hour so you
can be fully present as you drift off to
sleep together. That's super super
important for your relationship. But
just those three things. Then there's
phone free zones. You shouldn't have
your phone in the bedroom ever, ever,
ever, ever because I mean, God forbid
you get up to pee at 3:00 in the morning
and look at your phone. That's a big
mistake.
>> Get over.
>> Well, I mean, it's it's your pineal
gland shuts off, right? No more
melatonin for you and and so which is
problematic on its face, but it's also
you just you you spike your cortisol. I
mean, it's bad stuff happens to you. So
the phone should be in a different floor
in a closet plugged in someplace from
the hour before you go to bed until
after an hour after you get up. That's
number one. It's a phone free zone.
Second is that that I mean this is just
you know basic public policy. There
shouldn't be a a phone in any classroom
in any school in the world between
kindergarten and PhD. It is complete
insanity because it interrupts
everything that we're actually trying to
do. And it's it's child abuse. that
there's phones in classrooms, you know,
and and the most important hour they
shouldn't have phones is during lunch,
by the way,
>> because they need to.
>> So, it's even worse. You should be in a
classroom, and it definitely you
shouldn't be in the cafeteria.
>> I mean, most of what's going on in the
classroom is not that interesting to
begin with. I mean, I don't think I ever
learned anything in public school. I
think it was mostly babysitting, but
>> but you know, at least I had friends and
and and they don't have friends.
>> And then and then people need phone
fasts. They need technology fasts. I
recommend 96 hours a year is kind of
this is and there's a little bit of
research on this that shows that this
actually can break the relationship that
you have. So you prove to yourself that
you actually don't need it and you're
kind of in a state of bliss by the
fourth day.
>> You know, it's really really I mean I go
on a spiritual retreat every year for 4
days. No phone. Oh, it's great. First
day it's like children screaming in my
head.
>> Yeah.
>> Second day I'm calming down. Fourth
third day I like it. The fourth day I
wish it were the whole year.
>> That's what it comes down to. But just
those things, phone free times, phone
free zones, phone fasts can re can can
can can do this part two. This does not
give you part one, which is rebellion,
or part three, which is you got to get
comfortable back with yourself.
>> Mhm.
>> Different processes.
>> How important is romantic love to
meaning?
>> That's one of the best ways you can turn
on the right hemisphere of your brain
because that's something you will never
solve. How do I know that? Because if we
could have solved algorithmically
romantic love, we wouldn't still have
app developers that were trying to make
the ultimate dating app. The dating apps
are fundamentally a leftbrain solution
to a rightbrain problem. Right now,
they're getting better, but the way that
they're getting better is by figuring
out ways to add more human friction into
the algorithm as opposed to taking human
friction out of the algorithm. So, for
example, you're finding early
experiments would suggest that a good
way for you to find your matches on an
app is to have your matches, some of
your app matches go to your best friend
and have your friend decide which ones
you're going to go out with
>> because you're adding a right brain into
the mix. You're adding your friend's
right brain to the mix, for example. Or
having a whole bunch of potential people
in a group that I will actually meet in
a mixer, you know, that's a good way to
do it, too.
>> Yeah. Uh-huh. uh and then pair up if
it's meant to be or make friends if it's
not. And so that that's those are ways
that we actually do that. But the point
the point of the matter is that the
human brain um is is highly attuned to
this incredibly complex indescribable
experience of falling in love. That's
one of the reasons that all country and
western songs are about romantic love.
That's the reason that the greatest
poetry is about romantic love because
it's not described scientifically. It's
described artistically
>> because it's a right hemispheric
experience. So you want to you want to
turn on the meaning in your life.
>> Go get your heart broken.
>> I mean go take a risk. I mean that's
that's when you find the meaning of your
life, right? I mean when you've had your
heart broken, that's horrible and that's
hard, but that's meaning rich. That's
when you ask all those big questions.
>> You're definitely alive.
>> You'll learn a lot about yourself. You
learn a lot about yourself, right?
Unless you stay drunk.
>> What's the ladder of love?
So, Deoteim of Montinea was this
prophetus that Socrates sought out. So,
Socrates sought out the the Deote of
Montinea um and and and she described to
him that the way to find the meaning of
life starts with this ladder and each
rung of the ladder gets you closer to
the meaning of life. And the first rung
of the ladder is falling in love. The
first rung of the ladder is actually
attraction toward the beautiful other.
Romantic attraction, not just like, you
know, Chris is awesome. He's so smart.
He's got such a great show. It's such a
great conversation. Such a good friend.
>> Thank you.
>> But it's it's like that spark that you
can't quite understand. No, actually, we
do understand neurochemically what's
happening when you're falling in love.
We know how the sex hormones start and
then we get the the catacolamines
actually involved along the way and then
we get a really dramatic drop in
serotonin and then we get the
neuropeptides and in and the sequence.
We know when the sequence is off between
two people is why they don't is why they
don't actually succeed in a
relationship. There's all kinds of
really fascinating neuroscience of
falling in love, but it's still a
mystery. I tell you that that the
neuroscientists who are doing this
cutting edge research, they can fall
hard in love just like anybody else.
They can like, I don't know what
happened. I don't know what happened.
Yes, you do. You wrote that paper,
right? But still, I mean, it's like I I
I I teach this stuff to my students at
the Harvard Business School about the
the neuroscience of falling in love, but
I don't understand this relationship
with my wife. I just love her, you know?
I just It's like, okay, yeah, a lot of
oxytocin and vasopressin and, you know,
and there's some amount of dopamine and
and and norepinephrine involved and and
there drops in serotonin when you're
fighting and
that's not it. It's because it's this
deep metaphysical experience. Most
religions believe as Montine of of of
Deotima, Socrates's prophetus suggested
that romantic love is the beginning of
an antenna to the divine. That and and
most religions believe that if you're in
a serious marriage and you deny your
spouse love, you're denying your spouse
God's love.
>> That's how rightrained and complex this
actually is. Well, just because you can
explain how gravity works doesn't mean
that you're not going to hit the ground
if you jump out of a a skyscraper.
>> You can understand it plenty well.
>> Yeah.
>> Still at the mercy of these things.
There's that uh interview that Sam did
with Daniel Carnean Mr. Thinking Fast
and Slow, Nobel Prize winner. After
many, many decades of studying the
fallacies of the human mind and mental
models and all of the different ways
that our rationality goes ary, has it
made you any more rational?
>> Not really.
>> Not really. I know. I know. No, it's
interesting, too, you know, and and Sam
and I have had one conversation um more
or less along these lines. He's the most
soulful atheist I've ever met.
>> Yeah,
>> he really is. He's a soulful guy. I
really have.
>> He'd be a great believer apart from the
lack of belief. But that's the point
because his soulfulness
would seem might seem on the outside to
to contradict his his uber rationality
as an atheist. But it doesn't because
these things coexist. These things can
reside next to each other and because
Sam's brain has two hemispheres to it.
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That's drinklnt.com/modern
wisdom. Do you think people think enough
about transcendence?
No, I don't. And transcendence is
important because it once again it
contradicts mother nature's tyranny. So,
mother nature wants you in the psycho
drama of your utter stoaltifying
Christmas from moment to moment to
moment. My job, my flights are late. You
know, my podcast guest, you know, it
might be good. I got to prepare for that
thing and my stomach is rumbling. I
forgot to eat lunch and uh oh yeah, the
payment didn't come in for that thing.
It's so boring. But mother nature wants
you to be the star of that psycho drama
all day long in your head. That's what
uh William James called the MI self. The
MI self. It's looking at yourself and
thinking about yourself all day long.
And you need that for self-reference to
make your way in the world. If you don't
understand what you're doing, you're
going to be a pretty bad driver. You're
going to be in a traffic accident pretty
quickly. But there's also the eye self,
which is looking out at the world, which
is transcending yourself by looking at
out at the world in which you're one
player, but you're only one player in
it. And and it's interesting because
transcendent experiences are those where
the mei self disappears and the I self
becomes dominant. There are times
actually when when they they become
confused and that's kind of what a fugue
state is psychologically
where the where you become disassociated
with yourself in this weird way and you
all of us have experienced this. I
remember one time um I had a lot on my
mind and I was putting gas in my car and
I was just like really worried about
something. this back when I was a CEO
and my life was like a living like
dystopian hell hole, right? And
everything was a problem every single
day and I was putting gas in my car and
it was like 8:00 at night and and I and
I finished and and I got back in my car
and I was driving. My daughter was with
me in the car and she was a little girl
then and there was this like weird
clanking sound behind me like somebody
had a muffler down right behind me and
like they were following me and I said,
"Honey, what is that sound?" She said,
"I don't know." Like clankity clankity
clankity clank. They following me.
what's going on until people started
pointing to me at my car and I realized
that I had driven away with the hose in
my gas tank and I pulled it out of the
gas pump and I was dragging it behind me
the whole mechanism behind me. Clankity
clankity clank, right? And so I thought
somebody else was doing a thing that I
had actually done. I'd confused the me
self and the ice self. I was in this
like weird fugue state. It got real real
fast when I took it back to the gas
station and these four Iranian dudes
were standing around the gas pump really
mad like who destroyed our pump. I also
also found out how much it cost to fix a
gas pump. It's expensive. But the whole
point is that that that what we want is
not to get into a fugue state. We want
to have these experiences where we can
be in the eye self where we can stand in
awe where we can get outside ourselves
which is religious experiences and
that's spiritual experiences and
philosophical experiences and and
experiences of service and love toward
other people unbidden by any
self-interest. And that's where life
gets really interesting and beautiful.
And when you do that, when you truly are
in a transcendent state, that's when
you're in the right hemisphere of your
brain. And you don't find meaning,
meaning finds you. Which is why I'll
often recommend to people, it's like, I
don't know. How do I find the meaning of
your life? Go volunteer. Go volunteer.
Go pray. I'm not religious. I don't
care. It's not what I said. Go pray.
Why? Because when you do that, you will
induce a state in your brain and you'll
want to do it more.
What is it that people are missing? Why
is transcendence so rare without
engineering it in that way? At least in
the modern world.
>> Yeah, it's it's especially true in the
modern world that it's rare because the
modern world is a big mirror. It's a big
me self. That's especially true in
online. Uh online you're looking in the
mirror constantly because you're looking
not in the at the the dialogue you're
having with other people looking at
them. What you're doing is that you're
it's it's think about it as the Zoom
problem. The problem with Zoom when
you're in a Zoom meeting is you're
always looking at yourself in the Zoom
meeting. It's really hard. It's a really
good idea to turn off your own camera um
or at least your own view of your own
camera so you can focus on the other
people. But one of the ways that Zoom
has has made communication a lot harder
for people is because you're always in
the me self even when you're trying to
be in the eye self and and this is true
certainly with social media as well.
You're looking at your likes and your
mentions and how did people interact
with what I was doing and it's this one
big virtual mirror of everything that
we're doing. It's become very it's
induced narcissism where it wouldn't
have existed otherwise which is
incredibly misery provoking because it
it it kills meaning in the crib from the
very beginning. You can't get out of
yourself. You can't get out of your
head.
>> And that is increasingly true. Now it's
interesting because people who have
experimented with trying to stay in the
eye self um in in in literature but also
just in real life have had these
incredible results. I had this PT this
guy worked on my back. my back hurts.
And so you get to my age, your back
hurts, right? And um and he always he
worked on my back every week. Great guy,
unbelievable. I mean, just like
talented,
full of love, you know. And uh and I
said, "How did you get these skills?" I
mean, is this did you were you always a
physical therapist, acupuncture? He
said, "No, no, no. I used to be a I used
to be a fitness influencer." I'm like,
"Dude, tell me more. I got to know. Tell
me more." Said, "Yeah, you know,
basically took off my shirt on
Instagram. And I was kind of sold
supplements and it was all about the
abs. And and and I said, "How was that?"
He said, "It was the worst. It was the
worst. I didn't eat what I wanted for 10
years. I was so miserable. I didn't have
any normal relationships at all. I
couldn't have any functional
relationships with women because I'd be
so jealous about the fact that I'm
showing my body off for other people.
I'd be looking at my I'd be I I got to
get a photographer because this guy
doesn't understand the shadows." And he
said it was horrible and it was
miserable and I was sad and I didn't
know what to do. So he said, "I finally
I gave up. I deleted all my accounts. I
uh I enrolled in acupuncture school, but
here's the most important part." He
said, "I got rid of all of the mirrors
in my apartment, every single one of
them, and I showered in the dark for a
year, so I couldn't see my abs. And then
I finally was free."
And he's happy. Most people, I think,
look to their work for something that's
supposed to be transcendent.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh
>> calling.
>> Yeah. What do you think people What do
you think people think they're talking
about when they talk about finding your
calling?
>> Yeah. They think it's going to be the
thing that they Well, I mean, there's
kind of two versions of it. They're the
the two graduation speeches. You know,
graduation speech number one is go find
a job that that you love and that's fun
and you'll never work a day in your
life. Now, that speech is being given by
um a cardboard box magnet who's so
severely workaholic that he's had three
heart attacks and two divorces by the
age of 40, right? So, don't believe it,
right? Or the second speech is go save
the world. No pressure. You know, it's
like I well, my generation wrecked the
world. Go save the world. You know,
that's uh that's the second speech.
That's both of those are wrong.
Fundamentally,
your calling, generally speaking, finds
you as the thing that you can't stop
thinking about. It's the most
interesting thing, right? It's not the
thing that you think, I'm going to be
the savior. I'm going to be the great
Messiah. And it's not the most fun thing
necessarily. The thing that's most
interesting to you is often not that
fun. Actually, a lot of the time, it's
actually not that fun. It's just
something you can't get out of your
head. It's something you feel you really
need to do. Second, the goal is creating
value with your life, is earning your
success, is being rewarded for something
that you do well, where you create real
value with your hard work and and and
and personal motivation. And more
importantly, where you're serving
somebody where somebody needs you.
That's what it comes down to. Are you
earning your success? Not only are you
really earning, are you recognized and
acknowledged for real value that you're
creating? Not kissing up to the boss and
not because somebody's trying to be nice
to you. No, no, no, no. you're really
creating value and does somebody
actually need you? That's what it comes
down to. That's your calling.
>> How do you know or how does somebody
know when they're chasing status instead
of their calling, instead of meaning?
>> Mostly people deep down know. Because
what it comes down to is when you're
creating true value and people need you,
then you can it it I mean you can sort
of imperfectly measure that with respect
to status, but you actually know when
there's true value behind it. Most
people have an innate sense of that, a
strong innate sense of that. And and
I've interviewed a lot of people about
this. You know, I talked to a guy um who
builds homes, home builder, right? He
had a uh he got his master's degree in
um in biochemistry from MIT and was
going on to get his PhD and his parents
really really wanted him to be a
scientist is the whole thing. But he
recognized that he he his he only felt
truly alive. He was only truly
interested when he was building stuff is
what it came down to and he became a
home builder as a result of that. So
it's really really important to listen
to what your heart is telling you about
this. Status is a very very bad
barometer. A lot of people are using
status or using fame or power or money
because they don't want to look at the
truth. They don't want it's like looking
into the sun of something. And a lot of
people make big mistakes for a long time
as a result of that. Like they're doing
something they don't that's not their
calling and that burns them out. They
don't like it but they should like it.
is paying so much. They should like it.
They got so many followers for Pete's
sake, but they're unhappy.
That's what people need to be paying
attention to. Look, if you're doing
something that's highly rewarding, but
you're unhappy, it's not your calling.
>> I wonder how many people said in that
bucket, what proportion of
>> I mean, a lot. I meet a lot. Look, I
teach at a big business school. I meet a
lot of people who honestly think that
they go into business school thinking um
I will I will find my calling because
it's going to be something that's going
to pay me so well, which means I'm so
good at this thing that it's got to be
my calling. No, no, no, no,
>> no, no, no. On the contrary, look, I I I
walked away from a career in classical
music when I was 31 years old. Um I
could have done it for the rest of my
life, right? It wasn't my calling. I'd
done it since I was eight. I'd been
doing it since I was a little boy,
right? But it wasn't my calling. And and
I made a living and I made some records
and I was so unhappy. It wasn't my
calling. I'd spent many years on it. I
spent decades on it, as a matter of
fact, but there was no choice but to
walk away because it wasn't my calling.
>> What about the fear that comes up when
someone is faced with that realization?
They've got the inertia, the momentum,
the sunk cost fallacy.
>> Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's it's no joke.
It actually requires an unbelievable
amount of personal entrepreneurship.
Look, entrepreneurship is not about
building a business, about building your
life, right? Great entrepreneurs, they
change all the time. They make all kinds
of changes. You know what crummy
entrepreneurs have in common? They have
a bad business idea and they chase it
until they're broke. That's what bad
entrepreneurs have in common, right?
Good entrepreneurs, they try this and
it's not quite right and they change and
they go from this thing to that thing
and they sell when it's time and start a
new venture. That's what great
entrepreneurs have in common. If you
want to be an entrepreneur in the
business of your life, you cannot afford
the sunk cost fallacy with your own
career or your own relationships or your
own interests.
>> Agile.
>> You have to change is what it comes down
to. Now
>> there's a very interesting theory about
people who need to change the most. The
people and and these are called spirals.
This is the spiral career pattern.
There's there's four career patterns
psychologically. There's linears who
just kind of go up and up and up and up
and up and up and up in their careers
and they only change when something is
better. There are transiitories who kind
of just skip around all over the place.
They don't live to work, they work to
live, right? They, you know, I'm going
to be a barista, then I'm going to run,
you know, drive a moving van and I fell
in love with a girl in San Diego. So,
you don't
there are what's called expert, which is
like slow and steady. Yeah. It's
lifestyle, right? I have my dad had the
same job for 42 years, for example. And
the reason is because it was secure and
because uh it was low stress, right? And
that's what he wanted. The post office
is an expert career path. But a lot of
people, probably disproportionately a
lot of the people who are watching this
show are spirals where every seven to 12
years, what they need is to take their
career down to the studs and start again
>> and take everything they learned in the
last one and funge it into something
that's meaningful in the next one, but
to have a new adventure. The first turn
is hardest. For me, leaving the French
horn and becoming a scientist, that was
brutal. going back and and getting a PhD
when I didn't know what I was doing. It
was really, really, really hard. Right.
Second turn, easier. Third turn, easier.
I'm on my fourth turn right now. Who
knows? Maybe in
>> 10 years I'll be a circus clown or
firefighter or something. But the whole
point is that that's what it means to
live an entrepreneurial life where
you're pursuing your calling because you
have the agility and the courage to be
an entrepreneur in the enterprise and
the business of life.
>> What about the role of beauty?
>> Physical beauty. any kind of beauty.
Beauty is a transcendent experience. So
one of the things that a lot of people
have observed about the modern
technocratic life is it's not beautiful.
It's bereft of beauty. Now why is that?
Because stuff that goes on in the left
hemisphere of the brain never
prioritizes beauty. Beauty is a right
hemispheric experience. You know it's
it's when people see a beautiful sunset
sometimes they'll cry. You know, when
people hear a work of music, you know,
people listen to Boach B minor mass and
it's like they they weep. Why? And and
they they can't exper as a matter of
fact, anytime that you become emotional
um and you can't quite explain it, it
means you're having a right hemispheric
experience,
>> something that moves you weirdly, right?
When some people when they talk about
religion, they get really choked up.
Some people when they listen to music,
they get really choked up. It's really
interesting how this works. But those
are right hemispheric experiences and
disproportionately that's when it comes
to beauty. So if we have a society
that's entirely left hemispheric that's
technocratic that's complicated and not
complex is not going to be beautiful.
And that's exactly what we find. I mean
there's compelling evidence that music
is less objectively beautiful than it
was in the past. Newer music is less
objectively beautiful than it was in the
past. I can't really judge that. But,
you know, this is what uh this is what
we pay, you know, musicologists to do or
something. Um, that moral beauty is
harder and harder to find. Moral beauty
is just kindness toward others for no
apparent reason. You find very little of
that on X. You know, you find very
little of that online,
>> right?
um that that natural beauty is harder to
find when you're when you're never in
nature, which is sort of axiomatic, but
a lot of people will say, you know, it's
got this incredible screen saver of El
Capitan and Yusede. It's like, there's
the real thing. It's going to blow your
mind, right? And the reason is because
it is an entirely different
neurobiological
u experience for people when they're
actually out in nature. If you're behind
a screen, you're not getting beauty is
what it comes down to. And so artistic
beauty is absent. Moral beauty is
absent. Natural beauty is absent. And
the reason is because we're trying to
filter everything through the left
hemisphere. The simulation isn't
beautiful. If you want to know if you're
too much in the left hemisphere of your
brain, it's whether you ask yourself, is
there enough beauty in my life? And if
the answer is no, it probably means that
you're too far left.
>> What about if there's not enough
suffering?
>> Yeah, that's the hard one. I left
actually I wrote about that in this in
this book and and uh I left that to the
last chapter because I was putting it
off. I was putting it off. Um suffering
is the ultimate meaning making
experience and we've talked about that.
You we've talked about heartbreak,
talked about loss, talked about grief.
Um there's a little part of the lyic
system called the dorsal anterior
singulate cortex that that is really
really active when you experience social
exclusion, when you experience loss.
It's it was evolved. So that you would
be averse to sadness. Sadness is
supposed to be really really painful and
you don't want it. So people actually
they don't suffer so much from sadness.
They suffer a lot from fear of sadness.
You know you're trying to avoid sadness
which is what motivates a lot of our
behaviors. Most of the things most of
the reasons we do what we do is because
we're afraid of bad. We're afraid of
negative emotions. But at the same time,
most people will talk about the most
meaningful periods of their lives were
at times of the greatest negative
emotion in their lives. Negative emotion
brings meaning unless unless we try to
eliminate it. And this is another wrong
turn that we've taken because once again
in our our left hemispheric conceit of
the complicated world, the singularity
is one in which we will have eliminated
pain, eliminated sadness, eliminated
negative emotionality, eliminated
negative experiences. That's not only
impossible, it's actually suboptimal.
It's death for what it means to be fully
alive. We don't want to be, we don't
want to suffer, but we must suffer.
>> Strange the things that people want and
what they need.
>> Yeah, I know.
>> And the fact that those two don't cross
over all that much.
>> And and mother nature is a wicked
tyrant. She's kept us alive for
generation after generation. But animal
impulses are not the same thing as moral
aspirations.
Seems like you're saying that enjoyment
and satisfaction haven't collapsed. No
>> in the same way that meaning has.
>> No. That's right. That's right. It's
really interesting. I mean, I didn't
know, you know, when I see a big
happiness problem and I when I look at
the the depression explosion, the
anxiety explosion, I know that one of
the channels of happiness is blocked.
This is as a diagnostic matter.
Happiness is a combination of enjoyment,
satisfaction, and meaning. We've talked
about it on the show a couple of times.
As a matter of fact, these are the three
macronutrients of happiness. You want to
be a happy person, you need to enjoy
your life, which back to an early part
of the conversation, by the way. One of
the reasons that you're moving from a
pure
achievement orientation in the show
toward one, having more fun is because
you want to increase enjoyment, which
many stvers struggle with.
>> They don't enjoy their lives very much
and they want to enjoy their lives more
and they don't know how because they're
always trying to put points on the
board. So, that's a different subject.
I'm gonna write a book about how to
enjoy your life because I want to figure
it out because I need to figure it out
before I die. So enjoyment, which is not
pleasure, it's pleasure plus people plus
memory. It's a it's a conscious
phenomenon,
is actually pretty high for most young
people. Satisfaction, which is the
achievement of worthwhile goals with
struggle, that's pretty high, especially
for stvers. I mean, my MBA students at
Harvard, they're real high in
satisfaction because they're
accomplishing a lot and they're
struggling a lot. It's meaning that's
collapsed. And that's the reason that we
have this unbelievable happiness
unhappiness crisis in our society today.
Have
>> I ever told you my idea about Frankle's
inverse law?
>> Oh, no. Tell me, Victor Frankle.
>> Yeah. So, there's that famous quote,
when a man can't find a deep sense of
meaning, they distract themselves with
pleasure.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. He's arguing lack of meaning
causes people to seek temporary relief
in superficial pursuits rather than
addressing some before scrolling even
existed.
>> Yeah. Uh perhaps for many maybe even
most people this is a big issue. But
there is another group who suffer with
the opposite problem. Frankle's inverse
law. When a man can't find a deep sense
of pleasure they distract themselves
with meaning.
>> Nice.
>> If ease, grace, joy, and playfulness
don't come easily to you, one solution
is to just ignore momentto moment
happiness entirely and always pursue
hard things. You become a world champion
at winning the marshmallow test. You
convince yourself that delayed
gratification in perpetuity is noble
because you struggle to ever feel
grateful. The TLDDR is you prioritize
meaning over happiness because happiness
doesn't come easily to you.
>> Yeah, dude. But, you know, it's
absolutely the encapsulation of the
strivers lament.
You know, it's like I can't I can't
Everybody else is having a great time
and I can't feel it. I don't, you know,
they're out dancing and they're at a
club. I mean, think about it. So, you're
a club promoter in your heart. I'm a
French horn player in my heart. You're a
club promoter in your heart, right?
>> And everybody's having a great old time
and you're like, "No, no, this is my
business.
>> Go and enjoy yourself. I'm going to
suffer over here."
>> I think in a real way, and the meaning
part is quite right, but I think
ordinarily strivvers are addicts for
satisfaction from achievement. And so
they will put points on the board and
when they can't feel they can't feel
enjoyment and so they put points on the
board
>> and and part of the reason is because
they've actually never they've never
learned how to do it appropriately.
They've actually never learned how to do
that. So
>> enjoyment once again is is it takes has
the at its root things that actually
make you feel good. But that's not the
right you know feeling good just
pleasure is a terrible goal. I mean the
the the the end of the road for pleasure
is not happiness. It's it's detox,
>> right? Because you that's just addiction
is what it comes down to. If it feels
good, do it was the hippie motto and it
didn't end well, right?
>> Um so, so that's so that's important
that that you add people in memory to
it. So, it's a conscious experience.
It's in the prefrontal cortex, not just
in the lyic system. Um but it's not
apparent for everybody how to do that,
especially if you're brought up in this
way where I got to do more. I got to do
more. I got to do more. Because what
happens is that this idea that you're
stopping and smelling the roses feels
like waste of time. Maybe you have
parents who say that, "Are you
practicing?" I remember that they would
yell through the door, "Practice." I was
practicing five hours a day when I was
in fifth grade.
>> And and and so then the whole idea of
stopping and going and having fun feels
like you feel kind of guilty about it.
And so you're you're frankly just bad at
it. And you don't like to do things
you're bad at. you don't learn how to.
And then my wife is really good at
enjoyment. Really, she just really
enjoys life. She's Spanish. I mean,
that's like it's a it's a whole country
of people who enjoy life, right?
>> And in the States, we're a little bit
less good at it. And I'm especially bad
at it.
>> So, part of that actually, one of the
one of the the protocols
for helping people like you and me is
understanding leisure and actually
having a structured, disciplined
approach to leisure. M
>> and actually take it if you don't know
how to do it, take it seriously.
>> You need to work hard at not working so
hard.
>> But but it turns out there's a
philosopher who specializes in
understanding leisure and that's Yseph
Peeper who wrote leisure the basis of
culture. Have you read it? Oh, it's
great. It's a little thin book that he
wrote. He's one of the greatest, you
know, 20th century German philosophers
untainted by Nazism. Thank god. And he
wrote, you know, the four cardinal
virtues. He wrote these really beautiful
books. But his his probably his most
influential book was leisure the basis
of culture where he define culture as a
serious business. It's not chilling on a
beach which is called aidia also known
as laziness or torpour you know it's
like I can do that for like
>> an hour
>> and then you want to run away screaming
it's the worst. He says that leisure is
something that you're not being
compensated for by the outside world but
that's creating value. That's leisure
and that's what will bring you
enjoyment. He talks about in terms of
deepening your spiritual or
philosophical life, deepening your
relationships, and learning things you
don't need to learn. Just learning
things you don't need to learn.
>> So, when you think about what you're
doing with the podcast, right? You're
deepening relationships.
>> You're talking about things you don't
need to talk about, right? You're doing
people would say, "Yeah, I'm not sure,
you know, I'm not sure I can fit into
this table, but that's leisure." Because
you want enjoyment. I have a friend who
was given a a
exercise by a coach. He was told that he
needed to start doing a hobby, but that
he wasn't allowed to try and get better
at it.
>> Yeah.
>> And he decided to take up watercolor
painting, I think, and did the first few
classes or sessions or whatever, and
immediately found himself going to
YouTube to find out what exactly the
best kind of paintbrush was to do the
thing. And I'm going to find actually
what's the best class in Austin that can
do it because I can get better. if I can
do this and what's the cadence? Do I
need to be doing it three times a week
in order to maximize my it's going to be
struggling it's going to be difficult
but three times a week cuz I got the
knee and uh
>> turn into a job
>> coach came in and said no you're
>> not allowed to try and become better at
this thing.
>> Yeah.
>> Doing it like telically.
>> Yeah.
>> Not exotic.
>> It should be atelically atelically. So
that that's you know and and it's
interesting because Aristotle talks
about that with people that real
friendship is based or is atelic.
>> Mhm.
>> You know it's the same idea right so if
you have your friends because it's
relationship it has a tilos it has if
they're useful it's not it's kind of
deal friends but real friends are atelic
they're actually useless. It's the same
thing with your activities the
relationship that you have with the with
the activities in your life. If it has a
a really really strong
>> tilos, I'm going to get better at it
because I don't know. Yeah. You know
what? I bet I could sell that.
>> You'll strip the strip the love out of
it. My My brother and I were both very
talented classical musicians. He's three
years older than me. He's a bass player,
string bass, classical string bass.
>> I was French horn. I had that. I was
super telic. He was. He's And he still
plays. He plays in community orchestras.
He's a extremely skilled amateur. He
loves playing the bass. He loves music.
He loves it so much he doesn't earn a
dime from it. That's why he loves it.
>> Let's say that someone feels completely
empty right now.
>> Yeah.
>> Where should they start? What are the
most important habits in order to
increase the meaning in your life?
>> Yeah. So the things to be the things to
be thinking about are along the lines
the the sustaining activities that will
actually use your brain the way it's
supposed to be used. So number one is
understanding that your emptiness is not
some sort of psychological weakness.
That notwithstanding what anybody's
going to tell you, there's not something
wrong with you. On the contrary, your
brain is working the way your brain
works and you're living in the world and
it's the malfunctions are not your
fault. The malfunctions are you're going
with kind of the slipstream of the
culture. The culture is being driven by
the technology. It's making you work in
a way that's completely contrary to your
ancestral habitat. And that's what's
making you feel like garbage. That's
what it comes down to. It's kind of like
you're eating meal after meal of
Twinkies and wondering why your
digestion is wonky and weird. That's why
is what it comes down to. What we need
to understand then is you need to become
aligned. You need to have a brain that's
properly uh hemispheric that's properly
um balanced between the hemispheres of
what you're doing, which means you need
to change your behavior. So number one
is getting right with technology. That's
the number one thing that almost
everybody today needs to do. Almost
everybody's addicted. Almost everybody
has a dysfunctional relationship with
it. Some more, some less. Me less
because I'm older. I remember the before
times, right? I mean, I could you could
throw Instagram up in front of me. I'm
like, "Okay, you know, good. Good. This
is really good for my business." You
know, this is good. I could wildly
interesting for for, you know, sharing
my ideas with other people, right? You
know, clips of you and me talking.
people really like them and that's great
makes me feel great but I'm not going to
get I'm not going to scroll for an hour
like right but many and the younger you
are the more prone you are because you
don't remember the before times so
actually changing your behavior with
respect to it and there's ways to do it
that's what I write about then you got
to live in a new way you got to live in
a new way the first thing I recommend to
almost everybody is go get bored go get
bored get get good at it Right. I don't
mean like this whole thing where you
stare at the front of the seat in front
of you for a 9-h hour flight on the way
to Greece.
>> Raw dugging.
>> Raw dugging a flight. Yeah. It's a great
expression, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's
disturbing. But the whole I mean, I'm
not talking about that. I'm talking
about actually living moment to moment.
You know, putting your hands in your lap
when you're in the on the train looking
out the window and saying, "Huh, it's a
tree." You know, being fully alive and
saying, "I'm fully alive right now." So,
you know, one of the ways to do that is
to become more comfortable with, you
know, repetitive prayer or meditative
ideas that you would actually bring into
your life. So, you can be more mindful.
Just bring in some of those ideas so you
can become more comfortable with your
brain working the way it's supposed to.
Which, by the way, ignites the default
mode network in your brain, which you
know about the set of structures that
that allow you to mind wander. Mind
wandering leads to meaning just as as as
predictably as as night turns to day.
That's the second thing. And then is
actually having the experiences that
that naturally open up the right
hemisphere of your brain. That means
allowing yourself to actually fall in
love and make friends and doing things
in real life with other people in
relation to other people and taking
risks in your relationship. It means
actually entertaining the idea of
something metaphysical beyond yourself.
The left hemisphere is profoundly
physical. The right hemisphere is
metaphysical. It says there is something
more. And again, you don't have to do it
my way. I'm a Catholic. I go to mass
every day. You don't have to do it that
way. You can do it like Sam Harris. He's
super right hemispheric guy, right?
Because he has a sense of soulfulness.
He has a sense of things beyond what we
can actually see and touch. He believes
there are things that we can't see and
touch that exist. He doesn't think it's
God. So, you know, you do transcendence
your own way. Looking for calling. How?
By serving other people and being
needed. by doing something, you know, by
allowing yourself to be served and
loved. This is actually how you can find
these things. Looking for beauty,
actually experiencing more beauty, real
beauty, real beauty. You're not behind
the screen. It's not there. It ain't
there, man. I don't care how long you
look at it. It's not going to be there.
That means going someplace in nature,
listening to music that really sends
you, I don't know, read a poem, go to a
museum, right? Witness somebody helping
other people just for no reason. And
last but not least is uh lean into your
suffering. Bring it on. You know, it's
like I have this I make my students say
my suffering is sacred, right? And
there's a there's a you know, do you
remember Norman Vincent Peele? Does that
name ring a bell? Okay. He had a very
famous self-help book in the 60s called
the power of positive thinking. That
that sound that rings a bell, right? He
was a minister at a at a Protestant
church in New York City. And he would
say every single day when he started the
day the psalm, this is the day that the
Lord has made. I will rejoice and be
glad in it. And he would actually re,
you know, he was like the gratitude list
originator and the whole thing. All
these good things, good things, good
things. List all the good things that
are happening in your life. List the bad
things and say, "I'm grateful for that,
too. Bring it on." Right? Say as you
wake up in the morning, it's like, "I'm
really grateful for the beautiful things
that are going to happen this day. I
woke up today. It's like I get to see
Chris. It's going to be great. I'm
really grateful for that. But
something's going to happen today. I'm
going to get a phone call or a text or
an email that I'm not going to like.
Bring it on. I'm grateful for that too
because when I lean into that, then I'm
going to be fully alive. That's the
moment that I'm going to be fully alive.
And that attitude of nonresistance to
pain will actually
lower the suffering paradoxically as it
raises the meaning in life.
>> Heck yeah. Arthur Brooks, ladies and
gentlemen. Arthur, you're awesome. I
appreciate the heck out of you, man.
>> Thank you.
>> Where should people go? new book. What
else is going on?
>> Yeah. Uh, so I'm all about, you know,
looking for the sources of meaning in
life. And so my my my website,
arthurbrooks.com, actually has all kinds
of ways people can interact. We have the
meaning experience, which is a a
collaboration of people from all over
the world on the internet that meet once
a month and and and talk about different
ways to find the meaning in life. And I
give a like a an academic lecture and
then we have this great discussion. So
we have all kinds of stuff and many ways
to survey and measure where we are in
our meaning journey. Uh, many ways to
interact with each other. It's all at
all the websites.com.
>> Heck yeah. All righty. See you next
time, everyone.
>> Dude,
>> thank you. Thank you.
>> You're great. I mean, you're you're the
best.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> Thank you very much for tuning in. If
you enjoyed that episode, another one
that I know you love is just here.
Help & FAQ
The Hidden Cost Of Overthinking Everything - George Mack

Chris Williamson
Jun 15, 2026
The Meaning Crisis

Pathologies of Success

Digital Boundaries

The Search for Meaning

Career and Calling

Leisure and Enjoyment

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