Self-Awareness, Regret, and Adversity: Insights from Robert Pantano

Name: The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness - Pursuit of Wonder
Uploaded: 2026-04-04T15:16:57.583200+00:00
Duration: 1 h 10 min 41 s
Channel: Chris Williamson
Description: Summary and key takeaways on The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness - Pursuit of Wonder — Summary, covering The Nature of Self-Awareness Self‑awareness emerged

Chris Williamson

Apr 04, 2026

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70 min video

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2 min read

YouTube video ID: svk7Hru2JPQ

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Self‑awareness emerged as an evolutionary byproduct that does not prioritize the first‑person experience of any individual. It creates a “cosmic ocean” of suffering because humans attach to a self that is bound to decay and death. At the same time, self‑awareness is the only mechanism that allows conceptual understanding, making it both the most horrific and the most beautiful thing in the universe.

The Illusion of Regret and Free Will

Regret appears understandable but remains irrational. Under identical physiological and environmental conditions, the same brain would always make the same decision, so regret reflects a refusal to accept the limits of foresight. The illusion of free will dissolves when deterministic constraints on decision‑making are recognized, revealing regret as a reaction to an unchangeable past.

Adversity as Fuel

Adversity functions as “fuel,” not destiny. Trauma and hardship generate high‑intensity emotional energy—anger, resentment, bitterness—that acts as a primer for change. When this energy is directed toward purposeful action, it powers transformation; if left idle, it curdles into rumination, bitterness, or self‑destruction. A bias for action, reliance on supportive relationships, and reconnecting with hobbies serve as practical antidotes to the paralysis of anxiety and the calcification of pain.

Navigating Existence

The pursuit of truth often stems from a fear response—a desire to quiet existential uncertainty rather than a pure intellectual quest. Choice anxiety eases when one recognizes that not every decision requires optimization; some areas of life are intentionally “de‑optimized.” Life proves worth the trouble not because of happiness, but because of the experience of wonder and the “hell of a fight” against the absurdity of existence.

Mechanisms Explained

The “Fuel” Mechanism – Trauma provides emotional energy that can either solidify into static rumination or, when channeled, power personal growth.

The “Pin‑hole” Filter – Consciousness acts like a tiny aperture forcing an ocean of possibilities into a manageable framework of desire, producing anxiety as a natural consequence of this compression.

Zeno’s Paradox of Consciousness – Consciousness attempting to understand itself resembles a ruler trying to measure itself; it can approach comprehension infinitely but never fully bridge the gap.

Takeaways

Self-awareness is both the source of existential suffering and the only mechanism that enables conceptual understanding, making it simultaneously horrific and beautiful.
Regret is described as an illusion because identical physiological and environmental conditions would lead the same brain to make the same decision, highlighting the limits of foresight.
Adversity provides high‑intensity emotional energy that can be transformed into growth when channeled into purposeful action, whereas unchanneled it solidifies into rumination and bitterness.
Managing choice anxiety involves deliberately de‑optimizing certain decisions, recognizing that not every choice requires maximal efficiency.
Pursuing wonder rather than happiness gives life meaning, framing existence as a “hell of a fight” against absurdity rather than a quest for constant pleasure.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the "fuel" mechanism turn trauma into growth?

The fuel mechanism treats the intense emotions generated by trauma—anger, resentment, bitterness—as a high‑energy primer. When that energy is directed toward concrete action, it powers transformation; if left idle it solidifies into rumination. Channeling the emotional charge into purposeful effort converts suffering into personal development.

What does the "pin‑hole filter" metaphor describe about consciousness?

The pin‑hole filter metaphor portrays consciousness as a narrow aperture that squeezes the vast ocean of possibilities into a limited framework of desires and preferences. This compression creates anxiety because the mind must constantly reconcile the richness of potential experience with the constraints of a tiny, manageable view. The metaphor explains why desire feels overwhelming.

Who is Chris Williamson on YouTube?

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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.

The Terrible Paradox Of Self-Awareness Book Recommended

This is the book authored by the guest, Robert Pantano, which serves as the primary source material for the philosophical concepts discussed in the interview.

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Whoop 4.0 Fitness And Health Tracker

The guest mentions tracking over 1,600 days of life data using this specific device to monitor physiological stress and recovery.

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Journal For Mindfulness And Reflection

The podcast emphasizes the importance of managing rumination and directing emotional energy; a journal provides a physical tool for processing these thoughts.

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Classic Philosophy Books For Beginners

The discussion touches on determinism, consciousness, and existentialism, which are foundational topics in classical philosophy.

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Full Transcript YouTube

Why is self-awareness a problem?
>> Self-awareness is a problem? Well, first
of all, I think it's important to
recognize that we often think about
self-awareness as a good thing. Um, we
generally think about it as a gradient.
So, we we might refer to somebody as
being more or less self-aware than
others and and more is is typically
assumed as better. When I'm referring to
self-awareness, I'm referring to just
the fact that we are aware of a self at
all. And so the mere fact that we have a
certain form of consciousness that
provides us that sense of self is a
problem for a number of reasons. Um
first and foremost,
we've arrived with a sense of
self-awareness um by a process of
evolution that doesn't really care. Um
obviously care I'm using loosely there
because evolution doesn't care at all
about anything besides it's just
continuation propagation. But the
experience of consciousness and
self-awareness
from the first person perspective is not
central to the reason for why
self-awareness and consciousness arrived
in the form that humans experience it.
And so we are often at odds with the
fundamental nature of reality in
existence by virtue of the
self-awareness in my view at least. And
and the and the reason for that is as a
self who is aware of that self, we
attach to that self. We attach to the
ideas of that self. We attach to people
and things and our desire to make sense
of our perception and understanding
through all of the concepts that we form
by nature of having that degree of
awareness. And yet reality in existence
is fickle, chaotic, uncertain. We're
going to lose everybody and everything
um through time or distance, decay, age,
or illness or death. Um and so
we we find ourselves in this sort of
cosmic ocean where the waves are
crashing on our our heads constantly.
And yet
we we must continue because we are also
a part of the same substrate that that
built us that needs continuation. So it
puts us in this very peculiar position
where we can feel the intensity and pain
and suffering that seems from a
conscious individual entity
terrible and yet we m we we just refuse
to give up. We we must endure. And so
that's why it's problematic.
But also obviously I I I see the other
side of that coin. And the paradox of
self-awareness in my view is that
self-awareness, self-consciousness,
self-apprehension is the most horrific,
terrifying thing in the known universe.
And yet it is the most beautiful thing
in the known universe because as far as
we're aware, it's the only thing that
allows conceptual understanding of
existence and reality. So we can form
the very idea of beauty and wonder and
meaning and purpose and hope. And it's
seems to me to be necessary that the
first part, the other half of that coin
is in the equation for the second half
to be possible.
>> Yeah. You've got this line,
self-awareness is a sort of poison that
we each consume upon birth.
Yeah. Yeah. I believe that's our our
birthright is the the horrific qualities
of self-awareness, uh a poison, but that
we as almost magicians or alchemists can
transmute into into gold, into art and
beauty and wonder and love and all that.
and and so it it makes you want to, you
know, you love and hate it in the
fullest possible form of those words at
the same time. At least obviously that's
my perspective. I know maybe some people
might see life in existence as purely um
positive and beautiful. Some might see
it as purely negative and horrific and
somewhere in between. There's a
spectrum, but um in my view, it's sort
of it has to be both at the same time.
And that is the paradoxical nature of
it. How much of that do you think is
just us all coming up with some fancy
philosophical explanation for our own
idiosyncratic experience of the world
that you have a bit of a grasp of the
awe and a bit of a grasp of the dread
and some people are almost all dread and
some people are almost all awe and each
of them kind of create their own
philosophical views of the world and the
universe based around just well this is
this is my typical daily affect this is
my typical experience of things.
>> I I I think that it's it's definitely
important to not universalize your own
perspective, your own experiences, and
your own way of thinking. It's it's easy
to assume that the way you think, both
in the most literal of sense and in the
most abstract of sense, is is the way
most people do. And it it's not the
case. Um there's a huge spectrum and
variety of of um modes of thought that
people experience and operate through.
And so people might be more visually
inclined, people might be more
linguistically inclined, people might be
a a more feeling orientation of the
world. So just on that level alone,
there's a a wide variety and spectrum of
experience of thought. And so we have to
start there in recognizing that our own
fundamental experience of the world and
reality is not going to be universal um
in the way that we might project or
assume.
>> If consciousness is a mystery that can't
understand itself, does that mean that
the human condition is just
fundamentally tragic?
Well, that that's that's at the heart or
a heart of the paradox. It's a
multi-hearted paradox, I would say.
Okay. Um so it's it is a a part of the
tragedy or it is partly a tragedy
perhaps is a better way of putting it in
the sense that yeah I I I I think that
um consciousness from the first person
perspective which is naturally the limit
of consciousness right you can't as far
as I I could possibly conceive there's
no reality world being entity phenomenon
in which a consciousness could perceive
itself in the world without its
consciousness and So it's a feedback
loop in that sense. And so it it'll get
increasingly
close to comprehending the nature of
itself, but it'll never breach. It's
sort of that Zenos paradox of the arrow
where it'll get increasingly close, but
it's always infinitely far away. And
that's that's sort of how I see
consciousness attempting to comprehend
itself. It's like, can you make sense of
an an inch with an inch, a minute with a
minute? No, it's it's just the same
thing um trying to you know measure
itself with itself. And so that is
tragic in that sense, but also on the
flip side of it, it's what fuels the
unending inquiry about what it means to
be a conscious entity and what it means
to be in our case a human. And so that's
the beauty if you see it that way
because what else is there to do and
make interesting about existence other
than the exploration of the nature of
existence? I mean, maybe some people
would think that we'll just sort of sit
around the surface and that's fun with
margaritas and and you know, sit by pool
the pool and all that and I I I totally
get that. But I think there is something
very riveting and and the deepest
experiences of wonder come from those
explorations that are from my view uh an
infinite landscape of possibilities,
questions and answers that um will never
satisfy, will never fulfill, will never
reach some sort of peak. That landscape
is flat. Um but there's just you know so
much territory to explore. Is there a
way to become self-aware without it
becoming self-destructive?
I I think so. I think I think that
it's a spectrum. It's a gradient of
you start from maybe a a very I don't
want to say a low level of
self-awareness because that reduces it.
it it's not like that but maybe um
reflectiveness about that self-awareness
where you can realize that and then it
might there there's a certain experience
of
difficulties and confusions and
sufferings that they are just them they
exist for themselves and you struggle to
justify them you struggle to deal with
them and I think if you continue on that
path path. You You get to a point where
you become more comfortable with the
confusions and the uncertainties and you
become you don't be you don't get better
at justifying them. You don't get better
at dealing with the problems of being a
conscious entity in the world. But you
get better at at recognizing that the
lack of answers, the lack of stability,
the lack of rigidness is is par for the
course and par for the beauty of the
course. And that I think is is the
ultimate goal to strive for when it
comes to these sorts of topics and
questions.
>> I think a lot of people have this sense
that the more that they learn about
themselves, the more difficult life
becomes. that there's a kind of
enjoyment, freedom. There's a freedom in
naivity
>> would be the way to put it. And um that
>> the
>> the the less naivity that they have, the
more challenging the world seems to be.
There's complexity and responsibility
and self-doubt and self-esteem issues
come in and there's an awareness of what
I could have done. standards kind of
begin to rise, but in kind of squirrely
ways about virtue. Uh if you've got a
critical mind, you find an
everinccreasing number of ways to
deriggate success, even if you managed
to achieve the success because you were
aware of all of the ways that you might
have lied or or or cajolled or coerced
or not been fully virtuous on route to
achieving the thing. Whereas previously,
you were just happy to have [ __ ] done
it. And then yeah, this tighter and
tighter spiral, this everinccreasing
resolution that you look at the world
with, I think to a lot of people feels
like a personal curse. I think it feels
like an increase in self-awareness just
equates to an increase in suffering.
Yeah. I mean, I first of all, I resonate
with that reaction. And I think there's
there's validity in that reaction. And
if you feel that way, um, that's
justified. That makes sense to me. I
feel that way often. I think most people
feel that way when they start to, like
you said, unravel um the absurdity of a
lot of what we are and what we're doing.
Um, and there is perhaps a better
version of of being, of existence from a
human perspective that that dulls that,
that dilutes that. But unfortunately,
you don't really get to choose whether
or not you are or are not thinking about
those things, experiencing those
thoughts and feelings. So you you kind
of, you know, you don't think in my
view, you don't think thoughts,
thoughts, you know, arrive in your head
after a sort of conveyor belt of
experiences and neurology and all of
that. And so you ultimately wind up with
these questions and thoughts and
concerns, these uh, you know, a certain
proximity to those thoughts and
concerns. um that become very difficult
to to experience and manage and it it
might make you um envious of
the idea of not feeling that way and not
experiencing that proximity. But
unfortunately once you start worrying
about something or once you start
thinking about something that that can
of worms is fully opened and you can't
you can't close it. You you have to
figure out how to how to deal with it,
how to move forward. And I find that the
the best way to deal with those sorts of
cans of worms or those tunnels is uh is
forward not back because backwards that
that that end is closed. Um in in terms
of the tunnel metaphor, you you can't
return to some form of yourself, some
version of yourself that hasn't already
um you know wondered, questioned,
pondered or or become concerned about
those sorts of things. And so I I see
that it's it's quintessential to to not
put those things aside if you're
experiencing the sufferings and pains of
almost self-alienation and self
confusion. you you have to move forward
and figure out how to in some in some
people's cases it's maybe resolving them
through through practical and tactical
methodology and in other in other
people's cases it might be more of a
embracement of of those feelings and by
embracing certain thoughts and certain
experiences
um if possible I do find that you can
reduce their uh gravity their force on
on your head and neck. What about
regret? I think one of the things that
comes along as a side dish with quite a
lot of um
quite a lot of self-awareness is
people's increase in rumination
uh
sort of whimsical
wistful uh remembering and regret. What
have you learned about regret?
>> Well, I think regret is very interesting
because regret implies that you could
have done differently. you you could
have done you know better than you had
in a particular moment of your life. Um
which in my view I get the I get the
impulse I get the the sentiment but um
if you rewind the clock of reality uh
100% of the time you're arriving at that
same moment as your same self with the
same brain, the same physiology, the
same information and the same external
circumstances. there's no way you could
have made any different of a decision.
And so regret is sort of a an
understandable illusion of our
consciousness where it makes us feel
like there's a lot of possibilities and
um we can be deluded by our hindsight
and our ability to reference back and
forth between time. But there is there
is no world in which you didn't make all
the decisions you've made. putting aside
maybe sort of quantum, you know, mult
multi- world theories, but in in in this
world, the world that we're talking
about and in, there's no version that
you could have done anything
differently. And then that brings into
sort of um you know the the concept of
free will which personally I I don't
believe in in the in the sense that we
typically refer to it as um but yeah if
you consider free will as a part of the
equation and even if you don't I see no
world I see no logic that makes sense of
of regret being it's an understandable
reaction but not a um certainly not a
rational reaction which I know we
oscillate between emotion and feeling
and and and logic. But I I I just think
that, you know, regret exists in a in an
elucory realm of our perception. It's a
weird one cuz I think the free will
argument is one of it's an in an
interesting category. It's something
that might be uh literally true but
figuratively useless. Um that it might
actually be we might be deterministic
set of dominoes all the way from the big
bang until this conversation right here.
But it's functionally pointless to
believe that as far as I can see. Um you
you need to go so deep into
non-attachment to I couldn't have done
any differently but you need to not
overshoot into nihilism and fatalism and
it's just [ __ ] it's too hard. But if
we stay if we shove the discussion
around determinism and you say okay
you you get to go back you didn't make a
decision
before you got to the point at which you
made a decision or you didn't do a thing
or you did do a thing after or before
you wish that you had
and you want to do it differently. As
far as I can see, sort of reading your
perspective, regret is kind of like a a
refusal to accept the limits of
foresight. Like you couldn't you
couldn't have chosen differently under
the same conditions and an acceptance of
necessity kind of helps to dissolve
regret. I think that's very well put. I
think and and to your point, you could
even put aside the deterministic the
potential deterministic nature of
reality. You're still limited by the
same constraints in any given moment.
Um, it doesn't mean that maybe there's
some sort of deterministic ultimate
reality that was going to pan out the
way it it has and did, but it does mean
that you are always limited in every
moment by a set of constraints. Your
physiology, your your the condition of
your mind, your emotional state, the
information you have, the, you know, the
most recent influences you've
experienced, all of that is going to
cause you to make a decision. and and
and whether it's you know built into the
laws or the nature of the unfolding of
reality is is irrelevant at that point.
It's just you are going to make the same
decision decision over and over again.
To regret having made that decision is
to deny the very fact that you're always
going to be limited by a set of
constraints. And unless you uh
intentionally decided to make the the
less viable decision, the worst decision
in that moment, which I I mean obviously
there are massochists and so forth, but
for the most part, people are trying to
make good decisions that make sense to
them in any given moment. And so you're
always trying your best given those
constraints. A and it's absurd to think
that you could have done or would have
done any better. And like you put very
well, it's it's sort of this this
foresight hindsight equilibrium that you
just sort of stretch and contort to make
the most sense for your current reality.
And I also think I think another
important point of what regret tends to
point to is is a lack of embrace around
the fact that there are no conditions of
your life that are going to resolve the
fundamental tensions that we often
experience which is you know we want a
sense of certainty, a sense of uh
happiness and ultimate resolve, a sense
of having made all the right decisions,
having done everything right and and all
these pieces are for an order. That's a
a sort of underlying desire that we all
experience. some, you know, maybe
recognize that that's not going to be
the case or not, but I think there's a
proportional relation to
how willing you are to accept that
you're never going to get out of the the
sort of hamster wheel of desire and
suffering and boredom and anxiety and
how much you might regret what you've
done and how your life has gone. This
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That's join.woop.com/modern
wisdom. You've got that, you know, that
Cormarmac McCarthy line. You never know
what worst luck your bad luck has saved
you from.
>> I do not know that line, but I I love
it. I love how I [ __ ] love that line.
You never know what worst luck your bad
luck has saved you from.
>> That's beautiful. No, I love that.
>> Well, you've got that story about the
the guy asking for directions, which is
pretty similar.
>> Yes. And so, yeah, I I mean, I've I've
written a story called the Nova Effect.
Um, and I've also done a lot of similar
explorations around the idea that, you
know, we basically never know, this is
sort of playing off a Kurt Vonagget
line. We never know the good luck from
the bad luck until this the story's
over. And and for you know for all of us
we don't the story never ends until
we're not even around. And so you never
quite can discern what was good and what
was bad for you or for a collective
until it's reached its you know
ultimation. And um yeah that goes for
each of our individual lives where it's
it's the same case. It's we we feel in
any given moment that good some good
fortune is going to lead ultimately to
good fortune forever thereafter. But
that's not how life works or reality
works. It's it's a a a sort of spurring
off of multiple lines that one good
thing, one advantage could lead you to a
misfortune or a disadvantage and vice
versa. And so there's,
you know, you always want to feel good
when good things happen, but there's and
you always you don't always want to feel
bad when bad things happen, but you do
ultimately tend to feel bad when bad
things happen. But there's here's the
dualsided coin of a of a different
phenomenon where you know you if you
know that when good things happen it's
still there's still more more game to
play more life to live
>> you're you're going to be willing to
accept the potential for more trials and
errors and all that which is not so
great but knowing that when bad things
happen that's not it's not going to just
be misfortune forever thereafter as well
gives you some some hope uh and gives
you a sense of you know the possibility
that things could could be directly
related to that that ultimately save you
in whatever sense save you might mean.
>> Yeah. You never know what worst luck
your bad luck has saved you from. I
wrote uh I wrote an essay today actually
and uh I want to read you this thing
because I thought it was really
interesting. All right.
Adversity is a terrible thing to waste.
Almost all of the biggest periods of
growth in your life have germinated from
your lowest points. Once shock, grief,
sadness, and fear subside, more
energetic emotions arise. Pain,
resentment, bitterness, anger, and a
chip on your shoulder. Change is hard,
and deeply fundamental change requires
an insane amount of activation energy.
Far more than is available by just
wanting it a lot. This is why people
change so much after losing a parent,
enduring a betrayal, losing a job, or
going through a breakup. Not because the
past version of their world has been
stripped away alone, but because they
finally have enough fuel to get their
new life off the launch pad.
>> In the mid '9s, there was a single
mother living in a near poverty home in
Edinburgh. When she left her first
marriage, it wasn't a quiet partying.
She's described the relationship as
abusive. She fled to Portugal with her
baby daughter and a suitcase that
contained the early chapters of a book
that she was working on. At one point,
her ex-husband hid the manuscript,
trying to prevent her from leaving with
it. She was clinically depressed and
contemplating suicide. She couldn't
afford to heat her flat properly, so she
pushed a pram to cafes to write while
her daughter slept. The manuscript was
rejected by 12 publishers. That's 12
people telling her in different ways
that it wasn't good enough. The
rejection wasn't abstract, it was
survival level. If the book failed, so
did her last attempt at building a life.
The humiliation of those refusals became
momentum. JK Rowling went on to sell 500
million copies in the Harry Potter
series globally and became richer than
the queen. But here's the uncomfortable
truth. Not all adversity becomes growth.
Some people are crushed by it. Adversity
is fuel, not destiny. The difference is
what you do with the surplus emotion. If
that energy isn't directed, it curdles
into rumination. The same fuel that
could power a transformation can just as
easily power self-destruction. There's
also a time window because pain
calcifies. The chip on your shoulder
becomes your identity. The story of what
happened becomes the story of who you
are. Anger gets you moving, but it can't
steer. It's rocket fuel, not guidance.
Eventually, the chip on your shoulder
has to become purpose. As a TLDDR, the
worst thing that's happened to you might
be the only thing powerful enough to
change you. Pain is temporary and fuel
is rare. So, if you're going through a
hard time, don't waste it. You never
know what worst luck your bad luck has
saved you from.
Beautiful. I think that's beautiful. I
I'm curious to think about or to ask you
about what you think allows someone to
to create that um differentiation or to
act on that differentiation between it
becoming a collapsible effect and a
fueling effect. What what do you think
it uh it is that allows some people to
to utilize
those adversities versus
>> Yeah, go ahead. Great question. And I'm
I'm always hesitant of giving some pathy
philosophical answer to this stuff
because I think so much of it is just
practical. Uh spending less time on your
own. Sounds so dumb. You go through a
breakup. Spend less time on your own,
man. Like you, it's important for you to
have your friends come around with tacos
and ice cream and watch [ __ ] movies.
Like that is an important part of the
healing process. It's important for you
to stay busy. It's important for you to
reconnect with the hobbies that you had
as a kid, right? start playing football
again or or pickle ball or whatever it
is that you like to do, martial arts or
running, whatever, and to do it in a
group. And that will carry a lot of the
difference between somebody who that
pain calcifies and it it turns into
stasis. Um, basically what I'm pushing
toward is a bias for action, but it's a
bias for action when your capacity for
action has been severely diminished. So,
you can't act as easily. your your uh
one rep max has been chopped down by
95%. And you're really going to struggle
to lift anything, even the smallest
weight. So, what do you do when you have
a weight that you can't bear while you
spread the load between other people?
So, um I think relying on other people,
but the broader lesson, not everybody
has other people, needs other people in
this way. The broad lesson I think is a
bias for action. Like, how can I just
>> what's that line? Antidxiety
hates a moving target,
>> right? that uh action is the antidote to
anxiety. And it's so [ __ ] true. And
it sounds like maybe I'm running away
from my problems, you know, maybe I'm
hiding them in the fog. And that's a
lesson that for a lot of people probably
is accurate. They they use busyness and
chaos as a way to sort of
force down whatever it is that they
should be
>> thinking about more deeply. But I I get
the sense that if anybody's a fan of
Pursuit of Wonder or Modern Wisdom that
that they have the opposite [ __ ]
problem, okay? They're like the David
Gogggins of rumination. They're the
[ __ ] Bonnie They're the Bonnie Blue
of rumination. They do not need They do
not need to be told to spend more time
thinking.
>> They need to be told to have a bias for
action. So, I think um
>> learning to trust yourself again is done
through uh experimentation and and and
evidence. Um once you've got just a
little bit of that moving, um that that
tends to help. Uh I I certainly think
not being afraid to use some of the more
negative emotions, some of the stuff
like bitterness and resentment and
anger. Um this is one of the paradoxes
or one of the disadvantages of
self-awareness that you don't like these
sort of darker emotions. You think I
should transcend these. I should be
sufficiently elevated that I'm not I'm
not tapping into this. This is a more
base version of me. It's juvenile. It's
petty. I I you know, this is a version
of me that I don't like. Go. I get that.
But what did you use to get yourself
here?
>> M
>> because for the most part, you probably
used that kind of fuel and then okay,
it's pretty toxic. If I hold on to it
for too long, I probably shouldn't still
be thinking at 45 years old about what
the kids said to me in school. Fine. But
that also means that you don't have that
fuel tank anymore. And this fuel isn't
going to be there forever. It It's not.
The anger will subside. The resentment
will wayne. Your bitterness will
eventually dissolve.
What are you going to be left with?
>> You will have the time will have passed
anyway. And that's some pretty [ __ ]
potent fuel. So I I'm saying just, you
know, go in and and maybe just [ __ ]
tap tap tap into the side of the fuel
tank for a little bit and and make use
of it. And
>> yeah, look, you're going to look back on
this period and it can either be some,
you know, kinetic spark at the beginning
of growth. you can be your own primer
switch for a hydrogen bomb or you can
selfwork your way through it and I'm
sure it'll be great. But I don't know,
it was just an idea and especially that
JK Rowling story is so [ __ ] good. And
um after I read that Cormarmac McCarthy
quote which I've been wanting to write
about for ages, I need to [ __ ] put
something together. It's not true for
all people in all situations at all
times,
>> but I do think it's pretty [ __ ]
useful.
>> Yeah. No, and I agree. I mean, I think
that it's like you said, obviously not
true for everybody all the time, but you
don't know if it's true for you until
you do everything in your power to
attempt to make it so. And and so you
you ultimately are up against um zero
possibility by not trying to take
everything in your power to make
adversity worth it for you and worth it
for your circumstances and your goals.
That's a 0% chance if you don't try. and
then you have some percentage of chance
of things working out for you and being,
you know, able to transmute that
adversity into, you know, the ultimate
good fortune that you've, you know, the
most you've ever seen in in your life.
And so I agree that
approaching it from a fuel-minded
perspective is is really the only viable
way. Um, and that's also that, you know,
brings up questions about whether or not
certain people can even recognize that
and and whether or not it it's it's
going to be um, you know, there are
degrees of, you know, environmental
factors that weigh down on people that
make it very difficult to even if they,
you know, if you might recognize
good luck versus bad luck is not always
the end all beall, there is still, you
know, there are still environment mental
and external factors that make it very
challenging for somebody to to actualize
that potentiality in adversity and
continual adversity is one of those
things.
>> Yeah, dude. I mean, it's it's all well
and good me talking about the
survivorship bias of JK Rowling's 500
million books,
>> right? But there is a lot of people that
have not just one kick in the nuts, but
a series of them that are, you know, so
frequent that their ability to even lift
the lightest weight kind of gets
degraded.
>> But I mean, the alternative is is to
just keel over. And this is, you know,
me saying it as a guy that's been kicked
in the nuts a lot over the last couple
of years, like you literally do have
only two choices. And one of them is to
give up, and the other one is to do
whatever the opposite of that is. And
um, [ __ ] that, dude. Jesus Christ. like
absolutely [ __ ] that. What's that? Rage.
Rage against the dying of the light. Y
um you might as well because you because
you've got literally got nothing else to
do and the [ __ ] time is going to pass
in any case. Yeah.
>> So, you might as well send it.
>> I agree 100%. I I think it's important
to recognize survivorship bias, but also
to recognize as an individual that if
you're still alive, you're you're a
survivor in some sense, and as long as
you're alive, there's hope. Well, give
me let me give you this one that you
know what the [ __ ] uh ultimate
inversion of the survivorship bias is
every person that gave up.
>> Right.
>> Right. Every person that reaches
survivorship bias is a mark on the wall
for somebody that didn't give up. And
>> absolutely
>> if you want if you want to guarantee
that you are not a part of the
survivorship bias numbers,
>> you can just give up and that would be
fine. Um and again that creates a
pressure. I understand that that makes
people go, "Fuck, it's all on me and
that's not fair and things are hard and
it's hard for her. Wasn't as hard for
her as it is for me and I've got this
thing and get it. I get it." But I want
to see you win and I would rather see
you win and be in discomfort than see
you lose and [ __ ] kill over. So 100%
I I mean I think there's you you can
carry both those thoughts in the same
head at the same time. You can recognize
that there is a survivorship bias. A lot
of people who try fully to the maximum
ability are going to face continual
adversity and it's not going to it's not
going to pan out. And you can also
recognize that as an individual person,
it's better to not weigh that case
heavily. It's better to weigh the cases
of the JK Rowlings more heavily in the
pursuit of the counterbalance of that
dynamic to inspire you to try everything
you can and to continue forward towards
what makes you know meaning out of the
chaos of your life more viable more
possible and to do that in my view and
this is I recognize there there's you
know maybe a tone here but to do that
until the bitter end you know you you if
you want to do anything and you have a a
preference, a a priority, a sense of
meaning, an orientation toward meaning,
whatever
you, like you said, you have your time
and until the clock goes to zero, until
the lights turn out, there's still like
just just keep going for whatever it is
that you care about and whatever it is
that makes sense to you and is
worthwhile. And there's no prescription
to what that might be. What that source
of meaning and worthwhileness need not
be some sort of, you know, ungodly
achievement from a societal level. It
could be a a beautiful relationship, uh,
a beautiful family. It could be a simple
quiet life. whatever it is for you to to
continue onward towards achieving that,
maximizing that, working towards the
maintenance of that, whatever you're up
against, uh you have your time, and and
you ought to use it wisely to to
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Given the fact that we can never step
outside of our own minds,
how should that change the way that we
treat our beliefs?
I think that and I've obviously agree
with the fact that you know there's not
only can we not obviously step out of
our own minds but there's a huge
implication to that um we will never
obtain
objective truth in my view as a
consequence of that fact and so
I believe that
humility and
almost a a love of uncertainty is the
only appropriate response to the fact
that there's just no way that you can
get out of the tunnneled vision of your
mind, your specific mind, and then your
own mind is sort of been molded and
mapped according to a particular
condition of geography, of culture, of
history. Um and there's been no moment
as far as you know if we sort of rewind
the clock every stage of history has
presented um a similar ensemble of
ignorance of futility of wrongness all
that. And so you you must recognize that
as individuals and as a collective at
any given time in any given space we're
up against this contorted chiseled out
view of of reality that's a pinhole size
and and
to have rigid beliefs have a sense of
certainty I think is a
a less than ideal response to that
condition. Um, and this isn't to say
that someone ought to be
totally nebulous about everything they
think and feel and believe. You can be
convictive and confident in life while
also not ever being dead set and final
about a belief or set of beliefs. And so
there's there's a sort of essence of
confidence and conviction that can carry
through across a spectrum of ideas and
beliefs. And the importance is is not
the individual belief but the
continuation of
you know exploration and curiosity and
openness and humility. I feel I feel
personally that that's a a sort of
essential fundamental quality of for
lack of better words a sort of wisdom.
What about choice anxiety? Because I I I
get the sense that
people who have a lot of self-awareness
again we've sort of touched on I know
how much better I could have been. I I
know all of the different optionality
that lays out in front of me. How did
you come to think about
um
netting down choice anxiety as a deeply
self-aware person?
>> You you're sort of referring to the
paradox of choice, if you will, right?
>> Yeah.
>> See, I I don't know if I have a good
answer to that because
first of all, I struggle with it. Um I
think the best way to deal with choice
anxiety is to recognize um the degree of
your you know at what point are your
desires no longer serving you and if
once you recognize that ceiling
the amount of choices that you need to
consider can reduce. So if I think that,
you know, I'm on an infinite conveyor
belt of desires and satisfaction, desire
satisfaction over and over and over,
then there's an infinite number of
choices that can satisfy or can play
into that conveyor belt phenomenon. But
if you recognize that there is a certain
limit to which your your you know
minimum quality of experience is
achieved in life um
you can start to redirect your
decision-m towards a smaller number of
options for different reasons than just
like you know if you go to a grocery
store you could there's so obviously an
infinite number not nearly I mean
there's a not literally but nearly an
infinite number of choices of cereal and
everything else and If you regard cereal
as a as a reasonable proxy of your
quality of life, you might stand in that
aisle forever. But if if you recognize
that cereal is not going to serve you,
it's not going to serve your quality of
life, then you pick one and move on. And
then you recognize that there is still a
difficulty around decision-m in other
areas of your life uh that you're going
to ruminate on and struggle with. But
you can reduce the amount of decisions
that are relevant to you by recognizing
uh the sort of ceiling around how much
your decisions are going to change the
quality of your experience. And I'm
somebody who believes that it's much
more like I I want to make decisions
that allow me to keep going. And I mean
that in both the most basic literal
sense and then sort of a more abstract
sense, which is, you know, I want to
decouple my awareness from my desire
when I'm making decisions about what's
going to allow me to get up in the
morning and still care. um a and then
also what's going to allow me to
experience some continual fuel as you
put it in in your essay. And so there's
no clean way of of totally absolving
yourself from the paradox of choice and
the anxiety around decision-m
>> unless you sort of you can kind of uh
oscillate back and forth between the
foresight of or the anxiety around
decision-m and the hindsight of regret.
You can refer to your regrets. to
remember the absurdity of your anxiety
right now. But I understand there's
maybe a degree of impracticality there.
But I I do think that just recognizing
that there is like every option in life
for everything from cars to cereal to
clothes to to relationship partners to
friends to careers. You can start to
chisel those down by recognizing that so
much of that is not what you care about.
and and you know, you decide what you
care about or you end up caring about
what you care about, but then you chisel
those things out and you're still left
with a huge chunk of decision-making
possibilities, but it's maybe a little
bit more manageable.
>> Oliver Burkeman had this question. Uh,
how much should you care about things?
Answer, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty
sure it's not as much as possible about
everything all of the time.
>> Yeah, I love it.
>> And um I I think Yeah, that's like the
curse of the overoptimizer. Mhm.
>> somebody who just for everything at
every opportunity. I have a friend who
is huge into um credit card points. You
go every different airline and he knows
to use this card for this flight and
then if he goes to this supermarket he
can get an additional 3% and then he
gets to fly his whole family for free
and all of this stuff. One of his best
friends is the most
simple person when oh you must have a
complex system just like just like a
mutual friend. He's like, "No, I I I
just decided that there was an area I
had to consciously be deoptimized in,
and and that was just one of the ones. I
can't I can't pick it for everything all
of the time." And the advantage of that
is
>> when you make the big decision
>> around I'm not going to bother about
this at all. All of the subdeisions fall
away if you can sort of relinquish it.
And there is a there is a power in sort
of letting go. It's the same sensation
anybody's had if they've left a bad
relationship that they go that that
thing and all of the decisions and all
of the rumination around it wasn't
serving me and by letting go of it I
feel liberated.
>> Isn't that great?
>> Uh so yeah it's um it's a funny it's a
funny blend for that. I think you
mentioned anxiety there. Do you think
anxiety is just the natural consequence
of seeing reality clearly and being a
deep thinker then?
I would even go so far to say that uh
you don't have to add that that last
part about being a deep thinker. I would
think anxiety is a um sort of
fundamental consequence of being aware
of reality on any level. Um and it only
goes up from there. Um I know that
people have worse cases and experiences
of anxiety. Um, but the idea that
somebody could live and not and this is
me projecting my, you know, own
experience universalizing it and
assuming everybody's the same and I
recognize that. But I do find it very
hard to imagine that anxiety is not a a
sort of building block of of
consciousness and self-awareness from a
human perspective because everything I
mean when we're talking about decision-m
we're talking about regrets, we're
talking about um adversity, all these
things, everything is this
hodgepodge of of chaos and uncertainty
that a singular framework of perspective
is trying to control and make sense of.
And and what's what could be more
anxietyinducing than that? Trying to
filter
a a ocean of possibility into a tiny,
you know, pinhole of desire and
preference and hope and idealization.
So, I would think that if you're if
you're that pinhole, there's a lot to be
worried about.
>> Mhm.
Is is the pursuit of truth really about
truth or or more about sort of a
psychological security then? It feel it
feels to me like our desire for truth is
uh a fear response to the uncertainty of
the future. I absolutely agree. Yeah. I
think that personally I think that
everything that humans do and humanity
has done is is never in it of itself.
It's never for itself. It's it's based
on some preference. And so the desire
for truth is not because we care so much
about truth. I in my view it's because
we care so much about what truth will
provide us. And that is a quelling of
the uncertainty and the unknowability of
existence and our relationship with it.
We want to know that everything is going
to be okay both now and forever
thereafter. That's why heaven exists.
That's why religions exist. That's why
philosophies exist. And so the the
pursuit of truth is is an attempt to
bring down the heavens and make it make
sense right now so that we can feel
comfortable as as conscious beings. And
so yeah, no, truth is not, in my view, a
a desire in and of itself. It's it's a
it's a sort of proxy byproduct of the
desire to reduce uncertainty and
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I'm thinking about that anxiety and I
guess anger as well which is kind of a
little bit like anxiety at motion.
Anxiety is anger at rest in a way and
and anger is anxiety in motion. seems
like anxiety
arises because of uh foresight without
control and then anger is desire for
control that gets denied.
Um and I'm wondering what what you've
come to learn about how to sort of
dissolve or reduce the anger and the
anxiety in that way.
>> Yeah. So, I mean, they're they're pretty
tightly intertwined where if you start
to recognize maybe I I would intertwine
anger more closely with something like
regret because if you start to recognize
the absurdity of regret um and your
ability to control the way things have
gone um with a greater distance in time,
there are many cases of anger in which
it might be in real time that you're
experiencing an event, but it was an
event that you couldn't have controlled.
And so in the same way,
>> it's it's a much more difficult thing to
quell in the moment, but you can sort of
start to shave off the edges of anger, I
find, by recognizing your lack of
control over everything else besides
yourself and perhaps even yourself. And
that takes it to a different degree. And
we don't need to, you know, necessarily
take it there for the same point to be
cogent.
>> No, I think the the the lack of control
over yourself is the regret point from
earlier on. even the one that's been
lobbomized from the [ __ ]
deterministic view perspective of the
universe um that I'm angry at me I
should have done differently is you're
right you're you're right to say that it
it it's closer to regret it's like I
should have done differently well
you didn't you didn't and you're trying
to motivate yourself to do it more in
future I understand and if your brain
ramps up the pain of the lesson from the
last mistake that you made you will make
sure that you don't make that mistake
again. It's basically a existential
psychological equivalent of I put my
hand on that stove. Well, I I close to
this. I got bit by a dog when I was
five. The lesson is don't go near dogs
>> for the rest of rest of time.
>> Um
that is what our brain is trying to
teach us. And the sort of amplitude, the
[ __ ] volume of the lesson is
proportional to how important we think
it was and how much pain we were in at
the time. And if you're in a lot of pain
and then you realize that you are making
the pain worse by trying to sort of whip
yourself into submission so that you
will be reminded you've cat of
ninetailes your way through this thing.
Well, in some ways you can kind of love
that part of you. That is a good thing.
That's a really [ __ ] cool thing to
love. Like, thank you so much for trying
to keep me safe.
>> I understand that I'm fallible and
[ __ ] up and I consistently make
apparently the same mistakes over and
over again. And they really have a great
like [ __ ] consecutive lineage of
often being similar sorts of things. And
I I get it. You're trying to keep me
safe. Thank you. Thank you for trying to
keep me safe. Thank you for trying to
make me learn a lesson that my uh
actions insist on not [ __ ] detecting
and not updating themselves from. Uh
that's that's great. Um it's just it's
such a [ __ ] all-encompassing emotion,
anger. So trying to think rationally
when you're in it is not easy.
>> It's definitely not. Do you think that
anger is necessary for what you just
described or do you think you can have
that um response without necessarily
anger the anger tank so to speak filling
all the way up?
>> I guess it depends. A lot of people
convert anger into other emotions.
>> Um and a lot of the time these are
people who for whom anger wasn't allowed
as a kid. It wasn't allowed in the
household. there wasn't a safe place to
express anger. Uh maybe there was a
fragile parent or an overly
disciplinarian parent or uh a parent who
had anger problems of their own or an
absent parent who couldn't really hold
that for them. And you need I I think
it's really important for people to
understand if if there's something
burbling inside of you. The world is
basically split into two kinds of
people. There's people who get mad and
people that get sad, but both of them
are generated from the same place. like
the anger gets turned outward
>> or the anger gets turned inward.
>> And um the anger that gets turned
inward, that's not the job of anger. The
job of anger evolutionarily is you
crossed a boundary
>> and there's no police force around. So
I'm going to behave in a way that shows
you that you can't do it again and shows
anybody else who's watching that they
can't [ __ ] with me in the same way that
you did because we don't have laws to
enforce this. So my emotional response
to you is going to show you how far you
crossed over the line and it's not going
to happen again. That's that that's the
the job of anger. So for the
when it's sad, not mad,
it's usually because you were
disincentivized
in a I mean everybody's disincentivized
from being angry, right? Like it's a
very antisocial behavior. It's very
antisocial thing. Sadness is pro-social.
People come and give you a hug. Anger is
antisocial. It makes people run away.
But there should be a container for
that. And if you don't learn it, there's
a long very long-winded way of saying
lots of people are angry but don't feel
anger.
>> And they turn it into other things. They
turn it into bitterness, agitation,
resentment, uh uh depression, anxiety,
um like frustrations at at at themselves
and at other people and and at the world
or politics or you know, whatever. Um so
I don't think that you need anger. I
would actually go as far as to say that
maybe anger is a bit more warping
because it's so it's it's the [ __ ]
raw uncut version of the fuel and if you
can have it just burble down a little
bit I think you can make better
decisions cuz making decision I mean
>> is there any emotion that's worse to use
to make dec maybe being horny maybe
being horny is the only worse emotion to
utilize when trying to orient yourself
than anger is
>> I I can't think of many more.
>> Yeah. Nothing come to mind for me
either. I think those are are probably
the the two at the top of
>> the two horsemen of the apocalypse.
>> No, but I think I think that's super
well put. I think that there's
absolutely a practical application for
anger. And to to just assume that you
should never be angry is um you're
cursing yourself for for a life of being
taken advantage of and never signaling
to yourself and others when when things
are wrong and when things have been um
crossed in terms of your boundaries and
lines. Um there is a separate category
of anger
I might I personally would categorize
you know there's there's the anger
towards people and things that are
that can be corrected and then there's
anger towards existence or things that
can't uh you know components of life
that things have gone wrong in your life
that
nobody intended towards you. Nobody did
that to you. No, no conscious being or
group was like, I want this to happen to
you. And so there's no person or or
group to be angry at. There's just the
nature of um misfortune, at least in so
far as you've experienced up until this
point in your life. And so that sort of
blanketed anger has a much different
ramification than if somebody does
something to me directly or a group does
something to a group that I associate
with that is tangibly um negative that
is reasonably uh you know a line is
reasonably drawn between that act um and
we can agree on that as people then then
that anger is productive. But anger of
just sort of the the humming and
vibration in the back of your your skull
and neck and spine. I mean that's that's
an anger that I think is is totally
unproductive. So is there's a difficulty
in recognizing those different kinds of
angers maybe to an extent. Um, but you
you definitely don't want to be so
willing to be angry that you find
yourself angry about things that are are
totally useful to be angry about and and
so passive that you you you neglect the
expression and and you know actually
recognizing an anger you feel and
experience about things that warrant um
a frustration that if you express it,
people will understand, people will
change. And by not expressing your
frustration and anger towards people or
or phenomena that can comprehend a
reasonable, you know, back and forth
between you and them, you're actually
doing you and them a disservice because
they don't have the information to
maintain a useful, healthy relationship.
And so they're just going to assume
everything is is is kosher, everything's
fine as is because you haven't expressed
otherwise. So you just you just sort of
um propagate you continue the the
problem by being passive in those sorts
of situations. And so there, like I
said, I mean there's there's different
ways of considering anger and different
kinds of anger, but it's important to to
try to, you know, delineate those two.
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What's the desire trap
in terms of what are you referring to?
Well, think about a your relationship
with desire and what you've learned
about it. Is it a trap? Because it seems
like desire fuels suffering in many
ways. And even the desire to escape
desire is a desire
>> as well. And then evolution sort of
hardwired dissatisfaction into us.
>> Mhm.
>> Uh and we sort of may we may secretly
prefer striving over satisfaction in
many ways.
>> Mhm.
>> So how the [ __ ] do we survive this? Uh
well, we survive this because that uh
fuels survival. In my view, it's
inescapable. I I I mean, I know that
there are people that, you know, maybe
sit on mountain sides and and and
you know, do nothing all day long and
and they're able to live an aesthetic
life and totally quell all desire. But
for the vast majority of people,
especially those who might be watching
or listening to this, uh that that's not
going to probably happen. and and and it
probably shouldn't. It doesn't you don't
have to force some sort of romanticism
around aesthetic life. And so what
you're left with is kind of comes back
to what we were talking about a moment
ago when it comes to understanding the
the constraints around your decision-m
and what matters to you. Cuz you're
never going to eliminate desire and
you're never going to eliminate the
continual pain or dissatisfaction that
comes from the very substrate that
desire functions on. Because desire is
is is not something that you you you
get, you achieve, and then you're done.
that obviously that's not how that
works. It's the same with hunger. It's
the same with every every breath is a
desire for another breath. And and that
doesn't mean you're done. You're going
to have to find the next breath, the
next meal, the next everything. And so
you don't escape that trap. That trap is
paradoxical in the same sense as many of
the other things we we've discussed
where it's it's unfortunate because it
makes you you're kind of destined to
never feel an ultimate satisfaction. But
by virtue of that, you end up pursuing a
ton of things, people, goals,
achievements, preferences, art that you
wouldn't otherwise ever care about if
you were done after your first moment of
achievement. And so the trap is also the
open door. I mean, it's it's it's both
ways. It's you're you're stuck in an
infinite, you know, hallway of open
doors, but in each door, you can decide
what you care about and what meaning you
might derive from what's inside that
room, and then you get bored,
unfortunately, and then you move on to
the next room. But there seems to be, if
you keep moving, uh, an unending hallway
of doors. So, it's it's not it doesn't
have to be purely tragic.
Okay. So, does that mean that happier
people are simply less aware or are they
are they better at metabolizing
awareness?
Oh, that's a very good way of framing
that question.
I I reluctant to answer that with
conviction because I I just don't know
if I know enough people to to say one
way or the other. Um I think that it
could go it could be both. I don't I
don't know if it's binary. I'm not
saying you're presenting it as a binary
option, but I I think that you can be
happy by being maybe uh less reflective
and less aware about absurdity and
futility and all that and the sort of
associated um you know suffering with
desire. You could be happy that way and
you can be happy is maybe not the best
word, but you could be a kind of happy
by also knowing um that everything you
do is ultimately absurd and futile, but
but you're you're still experiencing
moments that are enthralling and
interesting and you're experiencing
moments of love and wonder and those
don't you know the awareness of the
futility of those things for me doesn't
negate them. Um, so I see no reason why
both kinds of people or all kinds of
people couldn't find maybe not happiness
but a a justification, a a wonder, um, a
reason to to keep moving.
>> I guess I guess if everything is
uncertain and constructed,
why trust any of our conclusions?
>> Oh, I wouldn't.
You're saying why trust any conclusion?
I I I definitely would not trust any
conclusion. Um at least in the absolute
sense. Um when you say trust, do you
mean believing wholly in its sort of
finality?
Yeah. I suppose
how can we trust any of our insights
like our own conclusions? Everything's
uncertain. Everything's constructed. Our
consciousness is filtering what we see
in the world. There's no such thing as
real truth.
I h how are we not just permanently sort
of wallowing in our own uncertainty?
>> Yeah. So I I think I have a way out of
that to some extent. It is everything
isn't uncertain because what you're
experiencing now is is completely real
and certain. And so you have that basis
always that tether to experience and
selfhood and existence that you know
maybe can't be extrapolated out onto
some sort of metaphysics and and you
know insight about some grander picture
but you can know that you're certainly
feeling what you're feeling and
experiencing right now and you can
navigate a life and existence based on
those feelings to the best of your
ability and that doesn't provide
certainty and I think the way that we
often like to think of it but it does
provide provide a a a barometer, a
compass that we can can reference and
and derive what we're really after from.
Mhm.
What do you think makes life worth the
trouble?
I would I would certainly
So,
Pursuit of Wonder is the name of of my
YouTube channel. The reason why I'm
bringing that up is because um pursuit
of happiness is is the common phrasing
and I believe that there's you know
that's that's the wrong way of
approaching the justification around
pursuits and life in general. And so I
think what makes life the worth the
trouble is
and it's by a very slim margin I must
say but the experience of wonder the
experience of a self-produced
meaning and and you can experience
wonder from through art through
relationships through friendships
through um an you know aesthetic
experiences just walk through nature and
And and if you have enough of those
moments, and enough is relative, but if
you have enough of those moments,
you can draw, you can take the
ingredients of the trouble of existence,
you can take the graphite of of that
sort of sludge and you can make it into
something beautiful and worthwhile. And
it's it's like I said, it's by a certain
margin for everybody how much that
actually feels like you made it
worthwhile in terms of all the trouble.
But I think that's you're kind of in a
boxing match that you're destined to
lose, but you're still putting up a hell
of a good fight. And there's, you know,
there's so much spirit in that. There's,
you know, everybody loves an underdog
story and I believe each of us are are
the underdogs up against our lives and
existence, but we we put up a hell of a
fight and that's that makes it worth it.
>> Do you think uh self-awareness makes
love deeper or more fragile?
>> Probably more fragile if I had to pick.
Um, the reason I would say that is
because
it it makes you maybe more
self-conscious in obviously
self-conscious and self-awareness are
almost synonyms, but self-conscious in
the more typical sense of the word where
you're worried about how you're coming
off and how you're integrating with
somebody else's um preference
preferences and desires. However, on the
flip side of that, um to be more
self-aware is to recognize, and this is
one thing that I think is useful in all
areas of life is to recognize, you know,
how
annoying you can be and how neurotic you
can be. And so when you recognize uh a
more granular sense of your neurosis or
your annoyances or your all the sorts of
things that make you on a day-to-day
basis from inside your skull a little
bit challenging to deal with to be more
aware of those qualities makes you more
understanding of another person's
uh difficulties with dealing with those
qualities. And if you're not aware of
those qualities, then you might never
understand why is this person reacting
to me in such a way. Why are they
feeling this sort of way in relation to
my behavior? Um, you know that you have
a certain outward behavior, but without
recognizing the proper, you know,
picture, the full picture of those
qualities and how they become manifest
and why they are the way they are, it it
can be challenging to empathize with
somebody who is trying to be as close to
you as possible. Um,
and they obviously you are as close to
you as possible, humanly possible. And
if they're trying to get anywhere near
that without recognizing those
qualities, you you do tend to lack the
empathy for their perspective and
experience. So I I think ultimately this
may be more of a benefit, but it can be
also very challenging because you you
want to
you always want I mean when you're
you're you're always seeking ideal
circumstances,
at least for me. And so when you're
aware of all those negative qualities,
I'm always seeking to integrate them
fully and properly um into myself and in
a way that makes sense for other people
that I'm close with. And um that's a
impossible goal. And so that also can
make you, you know, maybe over
overzealous, over
angered by by the lack of success in
certain areas like that.
>> Yeah. Robert Pantano, ladies and
gentlemen, dude, you rule. I love your
YouTube channel. The book's fantastic.
Where should people go to check out
everything you do?
>> Appreciate it, Chris. Yeah, so I have a
new book, uh, Terrible Paradox of
Self-awareness, that's coming out, um,
March 10th. So depending on when you're
watching this, it's available for
pre-order now. After March 10th, it's
obviously available for regular order.
And then YouTube channel is Pursuit of
Wonder. Try to come out with videos a
couple times a month over there. And
then uh Pursuit of Wonder everywhere
else on all socials and pursuit of
wonder.com.
>> [ __ ] yeah, dude. I appreciate you, man.
Congratulations.
>> Thanks so much, Chris. I really
appreciate you. Congratulations. You
made it to the end of an episode. Your
brain has not been completely destroyed
by the internet just yet. Here's another
one that you should watch.
Come on.