Life's journey requires discernment to navigate between binary thinking and complexity, recognizing that different situations demand different approaches—some require clear choices while others require flexibility. True growth comes from engaging with others, accepting responsibility, and finding joy in the tension between exploration and connection, as exemplified by the metaphor of tramping through landscapes where one must balance individual pathfinding with shared human experience.
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What marks your path? Books, relations, poems, and more with A. A. Kostas on Love and PhilosophyAjouté :
book. Here it goes. The less you carry, the more you will see. The less you spend, the more you will experience. On the road, the weak and strong points of character are revealed. You stretch out your arms for hidden gifts. You yearn towards the moon beams and and the stars. You listen with new ears to bird song and the murmurss of trees and streams.
So, I thought that was a nice quote to go into this conversation together after hearing and also just for your day. Hope you have some of those moon beams or murmurss of trees or bird song. And also maybe just go explore. Go 10 minutes out of your usual route. See what you find.
Open to new possibilities. Or just read a book that you might not think you would normally read. or go read a poem if you don't don't normally read poems.
Do something just a little off thebeaten path and see how that feels and [music] see if it opens you to something new or just listen to this conversation which is probably a little off the beaten path. [music] And I hope you enjoy it.
I'm really happy to have met Alex and I'm looking forward to his novel. Check out [music] the show notes for links to his Substack and to all the other things I've mentioned here. Go to our Substack, Love and Philosophy, for links to the books. All right. Bye.
>> Okay. Well, hi, Alex. Thanks for being on Love and Philosophy. It's [music] great to meet you.
>> Good to be here, too. I'm really looking forward to this.
>> And you're in Singapore, right?
>> I am right now in Singapore. Yeah.
>> I want to hear how you got there. But first, I want to hear how you became a writer. Or do you even think of yourself as a writer?
>> Yeah, I think I do. I mean, it's always a hard thing um in this day and age where everyone can technically be a writer. um [music] there's no there's no real barrier for entry. I haven't done much um formal study of writing in some senses. I haven't got an MFA or anything like that. Um as part of my uh university studies, I did take some courses in in writing, especially in poetry and in creative writing. Um but those are all undergraduate studies and not related to my profession. Um though my profession is law so I guess I am technically reading and writing all day just a very different kind of writing.
Um in terms of when did I first think of myself as a writer. I can't remember a time when I wasn't like I'm one of those annoying kids who was always writing something in a journal. I was I'm one of those kids who used to you know you read a book and then you like make your own kid version of it and claim it as your own. So, my mom has Somewhere Buried in one of her boxes, my original creation, which it definitely isn't by CS Lewis, which is The Tiger, The Wizard, and the Door, which is very different from The Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe. Um, so I think I've I was always doing stuff like that.
>> That's beautiful. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I can I can identify with that. And where were you growing up at? Because it's hard to tell really with your >> you've been to places, your accent.
I was on a call the other day and someone said, "You have the most non-acent I've ever heard." And I was like, "Yeah." Um, so I was born in Canada and we moved around a lot as a family. I lived in lots of different cities in Canada. Um, but my dad's Australian and my mom's English, so I had this really weird accent. I actually got sent to speech therapy. We're living in a very small Canadian town at the time and they never met anyone from not that Canadian town. And I got sent to speech therapy because my accent was really weird. It was this Australian English hybrid and I was pronouncing words differently obviously and so they sent me to speech therapy and eventually the speech therapist realized I didn't have a speech problem. I just was from a different from parents from a different place. Um uh yeah but then I've yeah so my mom's English. We used to go back to the UK a lot and then uh I did all my university and and initial kind of professional working life in Australia. So my wife's Australian. Um, and then I did lots and lots of travel and living abroad and now I currently live in Singapore. So there you go.
>> But you work somewhere in another in other countries, too. So you're very modern in a way.
>> Yeah, I'm I'm I'm lucky to uh to make the most of kind of, you know, the world we live in, which is it's very easy to pick up and and move around, right? So, >> well, speaking of moving around, Wayey Markers is how I found you because someone read you and me and I have um this love and philosophy project we all do, but then I have this little thing called way making. And so, way markers is your substack and I have way and we were both writing about similar themes relative to kind of beyond binary or something like this. But I also then really found once these people introduced me to you or this person, um, you're writing beautiful poetry, fiction, non-fiction, a lot of different things. You're creating these kind of beautiful books. I mean, how would you describe what you're doing to people or what what way markers is?
>> Yeah, it's a good question. Um, well, maybe I back up a little bit. So, I I decided to start way markers. So, I I'd always been interested in creative writing, blah, blah, blah. you get involved in these different scenes. So I was involved in the kind of poetry scene in Melbourne, Australia in the kind of 2014 to 2020, the kind of pre-COVID years. Melbourne had extreme co lockdowns. So that kind of is a very natural break where things really stopped. Um, and I interned at poetry magazines. I, you know, you're in this scene and it's a particular scene and it's, you know, you can imagine, you know, anarchist poets and all that stuff, right? Um, and I won't make too much fun.
>> I think I was scene a bit in New York.
Uh, you know, a decade before you or something, >> right? Melbourne is Melbourne wants to be the New York of of Australia. So, if you understand Australia, Sydney wants to be LA. Melbourne wants to be New York. Okay. And obviously isn't quite that, but it tries. Uh, but then I kind of I don't know, life got busy. I maybe got a little bit burnt out from the scene and I was writing stuff that was really just writing for the sake of writing which is nothing wrong with that like art for the sake of art but it didn't necessarily fully reflect the entirety of who I am and and what I am interested in. Uh then in 2024 my wife and I quit our jobs. We're both lawyers.
Quit our jobs. Got rid of our house. Got rid of our car. put everything on hold and put our life into two suitcases and went uh on a kind of spiritual journey pilgrimage through India, Nepal, Japan and Philippines. So that was a really interesting time. So that went for about eight months.
Um and >> that's really interesting. Sorry, we'd have to pause there for a minute. Maybe we can come back to it, I guess, if you want. But >> yeah, it was a fascinating time and I, you know, there's a lot that came out of that. How wonderful to have a fellow way marker or way making partner and that's very special >> wayfairer. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Yeah. Totally right. So, so we're very aligned in that way which is amazing.
>> And in that time I discovered Substack.
I'd never heard of Substack. Didn't know what it was. That's 2024. And we were using it just purely as a way to send like a newsletter to like friends and family about like what we were doing.
That was that's all we used it for.
There was it's a different was a different one. It was private. No one could find it unless we invited them. So it was very kind of just using it as a newsletter. But then obviously I found this whole world and I was like this is amazing. There's this like whole way of kind of communicating your writing and it really got me excited about writing again because I had all these journals filled with things I was writing but hadn't done anything with.
And then out of that came this idea of like there's things I want to talk about and things I want to write about that probably skew more on the kind of philosophical metaphysical religious spiritual side of things but are hopefully accessible to somebody who's maybe just exploring that. So not necessarily just pushing my own ideas of this is the only way to think about things but here's what I found helpful.
And I was writing a novel at the time.
We could talk about that too. And in that novel, it the novel itself is a is a pilgrimage journey. And it felt like we're we were on a literal kind of pilgrimage in a spiritual sense. I was writing a novel about a character on a pilgrimage in a in a different way. And then the point being of when you've done if you've ever done pilgrimages or even if you've done like through hikes or big hikes, right, you've got even though sometimes you can feel a bit lost along the way, there's often are certain points where there is a literal way marker that points you physically and the way to go. And just having that sense that a lot of the things like whether it was books or films or pieces of art or music um that I felt like oh actually when you start looking back over your life you realize these things were like way markers in terms of pointing you towards kind of more and and and different higher things. Um yeah, so I think that's where the idea of way markers came out is like can I share reflections on things that I have found to be wake markers for me but also create my own way markers things that hopefully will be that to other people.
>> That's really beautiful. When you look back what do you I mean what comes to mind is these kind of signs or carns or I mean you actually put a lot of pictures of different sorts of way markers within in the work. Is there I mean even if we go back to the little kid who was being CS Lewis in a way do you do you have a few kind of consistent markers that maybe even change as you as you continue on your journey?
>> Yeah, definitely. I mean there's yeah there's definitely a few. I mean yeah this the Narnia books are obviously a big one but then like have you ever seen the film Into the Wild? Um you know big big film. Um >> and the book >> and the book. Yes. So, the book is written by um uh oh, what's his name?
That's bad.
>> Cracker, I think, or >> Crackow. Yes. So, the book's written by Crackow. And the book is much less novelistic. It's much more non-fiction and a and an exploration of what really happened to Chris McCandless. Uh whereas the film takes it and makes it more novelistic. Right. It's kind of like a story. Um >> or even poetic.
>> Yeah. It's very well done.
>> Yeah. And it's separated into chapters and it's it's well done. Um, and a great soundtrack. Um, great Eddie Veter soundtrack. Uh, that is a film that I think whatever point I was a kind of early teens, mid- teens when I watched it and just like captivated me because I think that tapped into that very youthful urge of like to run away and explore and get out into nature and and experience what is truth and all that, right? Like it's a very there's some kind of yearning in in a lot of people for that, right? which it explains a lot of why people do what they do. It's a particularly youthful kind of thing, right? Like I want to get away into nature and I've always been someone who likes being in nature, being outdoors, doing hikes and camping and things like that. But what I like about Into the Wild is that it's quite cautionary and that if you actually watch it all the way through and think about it and dwell on how it ends, spoilers to anyone who doesn't know, but it's not a happy ending. It's actually quite a tragic ending. And buried in that tragic ending, this kernel of, you know, in his last days, which they because they found his diary, um Chris McCandless's kind of realization of being a kind of lone wolf and being out by himself in the middle of nowhere actually kind of destroys any meaning of his life that actually you can't experience joy and happiness without sharing it with other people. So to me that's one of those ones that you can take it as a way marker on one hand to say get out ex explore life don't stay safe don't conform to society don't conform to materialistic society especially get out and seek truth and seek beauty which is true but kind of temper your youthful enthusiasm and maybe your own ego and your sense of I can do this all by myself um you know the value of other people and the value of other people as way markers because when if you watch the film the the recurring theme is there's all these people who are trying to help him and try to be to him what maybe he didn't get from his own family but he rejects it ultimately because he just wants to be by himself and which is actually kind of a cautionary tale if you think about it so that's a classic one for me that I often kind of come back to >> I love that movie that story for many reasons too but also I think it's really interesting what you brought up there the learning that we can do because I think a lot of us do have that feeling of almost wanting to get away and you think of it as being alone to get away from whatever is constraining you especially if you feel like you don't really fit in with kind of what's around you and you think there might be another world where you feel more normal or natural which is often the case right we have to find where we feel that but um yeah holding that can be so hard when you're young like you feel like you need to go extreme but how to hold that cautionary that's the word you use I think that's really really such an important thing to be able to learn is how to hold that tension in a way and I I think I feel that in your work with when you're writing about the you know the binary kind of stuff a bit is that something you've learned over time through these kind of way markers do you think the one you just expressed or being able to be in a place that's a little uncomfortable but still explore the edges >> and be cautionary.
>> Yeah. Well, it's like right. I mean, I think it's maybe less from stuff I've read, but just even personal experiences I've had. I mean, I and I guess, you know, you have personal experiences, you realize that the world does not fit into nick categories. You realize that things are much more like in real life things are much more complicated than you ever thought. Um, especially the thing is of like I always think the first thing is to get out there and actually do stuff because you never get to learn any of this by sitting by yourself and reading books and watching films. You do actually have to get out into the into the world. You do have to, >> which can just mean going right out your door and talking to people, by the way.
But >> doesn't mean traveling overseas. It's just getting out there, >> put yourself into situations and talk to people.
>> Totally. Get out there, do something a little bit outside your comfort zone, whether it's, you know, um, talk to people, walk around, whatever it is. Um, some kind of thing that fits into the loose category of adventure. Get out.
But once you're out there, then you realize, yes, all these preconceived notions I had kind of don't quite perfectly map to the real world. People are much more complicated. The world is much more complicated. The world is much more strange and metaphysically difficult to comprehend. Right? So you get out there and you realize that. And I'm now I think I think I'm now just coming into the age where I feel capable of writing the kinds of things I do. I think if I tried earlier it would have been shallower and more trit and probably as I get older I'll think the same as what I'm writing now. But um that sense of like okay so things are not as neat as the as say the internet would have you believe. Um and and any thing that comes up in your life, people are going to say, "Well, it's either this or it's that, and it's just as simple as that."
Or there's going to be other people saying, "Oh, nothing matters. You can just do whatever you want. Nobody should tell you what to do. The choices are infinite." And you kind of go through real life crises and you know, you everyone has their share of crises or or difficult things that they go through, scenarios they didn't expect. And you realize that it's kind of both and neither of those things that some situations there is a clear right choice and you have to make it. It's a hard choice that you have to make. Some situations there is no right way and you've just got to pick one and you've got to kind of roll with the punches.
Like it that there is a binary in a sense, but the binary is a much more higher meta level binary which is like some things are quite simple and some things are quite complicated and you have to understand which part of the trail you're on. And I think that's what I read about in that article you're referring to, which is like it's not a question of always applying one framework to every situation. It's a first higher level question of discerning, okay, what kind of decision is actually in front of me because people try to set up and the world tries to set up and even our own brains try to set up false binaries all the time because it's easier to have a binary to say it's either this or it's this. But often there's more than two choices. Um, and so you have to kind of do that first step of saying, "Oh, whoa. What actually am I deciding here, right?" So I think that goes to what you're saying.
>> Yeah, definitely. And there's a lot of overlaps. I'm I'm thinking about something I think you write where you're on maybe an ice sheet or something. I don't know where where you're looking at kind of the top of of the mountain and you're realizing there's, you know, you could go a million different paths, right? But you're going to end up at the same peak in a way, but not really, too. I mean, because this is something I write about too about there's many paths uh of the same mountain. It's something it's like a recurring theme that people think about and each path you take is going to be a different experience. So, you're going to have a different experience of that landscape, but you're sharing the landscape. So I think there's something very hard when we're young where we we we feel like we have to be really extreme or maybe we want to be famous like so everyone will like us you know we're going to be a famous writer and there's you know there's one path to do that and it's it can be very emotional or whatever and I guess what books and philosophy and living being alive you know having kids whatever it might come you start to realize exactly what you just said I like to think of it as like trying to constellate I mean this is a little bit too vill philosophical but thinking of it more like constellations of possibilities instead of either or always. So you always can see an opposite to wherever you are but there's always all these other options. I don't know if that makes any sense to you and also that am I remembering that image right of Yeah. Okay.
>> Yeah. So I took that image from I've had this actual experience. So on our during our honeymoon so we I promised my wife an overseas vacation. We got married during co as it happened. So we literally couldn't leave Australia. um because of co flights and everything.
>> So I took her to Tasmania which technically counts as an overseas vacation because Tasmania is an island off Australia. So I I technically win that one. Yeah. Yeah. But uh Tasmania is full of amazing nature and hiking you should go if you haven't gone. Um half the island is national park. It's incredible.
>> Uh and so one thing we did on our honeymoon is we hiked Cradle Mountain which is this incredible place to hike.
Um but and it's the middle of summer.
It's like middle of summer in Australia, which is the opposite to the northern hemisphere. But we get to the top and it is like covered in snow and ice cuz Tasmania is kind of wild even though it's summertime. All the weather comes from Antarctica. So you just can never predict what you get. So snowing ice up there. We go to the very top and the trail just ends and it's what's called a Felen Mir, which is basically where snow and ice has retreated and left us like a rock field. And these rocks were quite big. They're like boulders. Um, and there's just no path anymore. So, it's just like, you know, that you're trying to get to the peak. Like, that's the goal. And then my wife, who's slightly less confident than I am, was like, "Oh, where do we go?" And I was like, "Oh, just follow my footprints in the snow cuz I'm going to go first. You just follow them." But obviously the problem becomes I'm much taller and have much longer legs um and feel much more confident. So, I'm striding along. And I look back and she's completely freaked out, gripping to the boulders, and she's like, "I can't follow your way anymore.
I'm going to have to figure out my own way." And so that inspired what I think I wrote about in that essay, which is that point that you get to certain parts, certain situations, certain parts in the trail, certain parts of the journey. And now I'm I'm speaking more kind of metaphorically, but in your life, and you have to understand that sometimes there won't be a model to follow that you can kind of mimic someone else's journey or someone else's life. Exactly. You can both aim for the same place. And even if you're kind of traveling that way together, say me and my wife in a literal sense, we're traveling together. But in our lives, we're both hopefully traveling generally in the same direction. Otherwise, that would get very difficult. But we can't always go the same way. We can't make the same cognitive leaps. We can't feel the same emotions.
So, you can hopefully align on, okay, we're actually both trying to get to that peak. That's where we're trying to get. Um, but we might have to take slightly different ways to get there.
And no one way is going to be the right way. No one way is going to be the same way. Now, the danger is that I think in this kind of postmodern world that we live in now, we're kind of we've stripped away a lot of kind of set narratives and and meanings and it's very individualized.
You then apply that framework to every single decision. And I don't think that actually is helpful either because then you're just completely solopistic.
you're completely individualized and atomized and you can you have no community. So, I don't think that's that's not what I'm saying. But I think there are times and seasons where or situations where you do have to just figure it out for yourself and you can't just kind of coast on someone else's trail. So, yeah.
>> Yeah. And also realizing we are sharing the landscape. I think sometimes we go overboard and think, oh, it's all a hallucination or it's all a completely different landscape that everyone's in.
And actually that misses the kind of beauty of the fact that we are here to share the different ways we're seeing the same >> landscape which yes it's not exactly the same for you or me but that's the beauty of what we can share together or you know all of us whoever we are writing books or whatever we do I mean any conversation we have we we give this gift in a way yeah I think that's a really important thing you use the word discernment I think uh >> which kind of points to this yeah what do you mean by that word do you think >> I I'm trying to use discernment as that higher level thing of like before you even make the decision or make a choice.
Think about what is the choice, right?
So don't just get fooled that every choice is a fork in the road even to pick A or B. Not every choice is that.
Don't get but also don't get fooled that every choice is like oh it's an infinite landscape that we're all sharing and I can just go whatever way I want because I think I use the counter example of if you're on a very thin I've been on hikes where you know you kind of have these hikes where you're on a very thin ridge line and you got to stay on the ridge line. Obviously if you go the ridge line eventually leads you to the peak. Um, and it's kind of tricky because you're del delicately balancing on this ridge line. And if you've got friends saying, "Oh, it doesn't matter. Anyone can go any way, but all the other ways are down, which is not up.
It's kind of not true that you can just go any way that you want because you won't get to the thing that you're getting to. You will just go down into the nice pleasant valleys and, you know, everyone can do their own thing, but that's not actually going to get you where you're going." So, um, that's probably where I think the discernment comes in is like actually what is is this a choice where all paths will genuinely lead me to the same place ultimately I've got to find my way or is this a situation where everyone's saying or you know different voices are saying it doesn't matter just do whatever you want and I think actually no but that won't get me any closer to my ultimate goal right whatever that goal is so >> I think that speaks to the embodied aspect of it too I mean coming from philosophy and neuroscience. I have to think through those lenses that yeah because we are different literally spacetal bodies we might even see what's possible in a different way. So the goals that you see might not be goals for other people but that's why you can't necessarily take those other paths or you have to I call it holding the paradox being able to discern in that way um but still make a choice and not necessarily you know think you have to only stick to that choice. So this is a really hard idea that we're all trying to maybe figure out now and it seems to be coming even more important as you write about too in terms of the way our technology kind of tries to rut us even more into this more binary uh mindset. I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit. And I'm also interested in just the way that you know I said at the beginning how you're doing so many things with poetry with fiction with non-fiction with photography I think even and art. And I wonder if that is also a way of um keeping this mindset in play. This kind of way of of keeping these many different paths or something like that. I I just want to put those two things out. You can take either one of them but >> yeah know I can touch on both of them. I think yeah definitely the point that our technology our technology that we all are using we're using it right now is literally built on binary systems. It's how computers work right. So it's it's a series of logic gates that go zero or one yes or no that's how everything works that I think does have downstream effects in some way which is we can see it in the way things have become more polarized we can see it in the way that things are fed to us um different forms of of information how we can live in kind of alternative reality universes depending on our algorithms all that stuff to me I think is downstream from the fact of we've built technologies and a way of thinking and economic models whatever ever you want to say which are kind of built off black and white binary systems where we all everyone will everyone can say we know the world isn't actually as simple as that um and yet we kind of build systems off that because it's easier so I think that definitely has negative effects you have to kind of be mindful of um and and caution against kind of when things when things seem too simplistically binary just to stop and think it could be that that decision or choice in front of you is literally binary and you shouldn't just pretend that that's not possible. But that's one of many ways that you can make that decision. It's like you look at different indigenous cultures, it's not that they didn't have the concept of of black or white binaries, but many indigenous cultures um kind of outside of the kind of western rationality, western enlightenment, thought of different ways of thinking, right? And and so it's not that we go completely against the concept of binary thinking that it just doesn't exist, but it's knowing that it's one of maybe a constellation of ways that things can work. So that's that's that side of things. In terms of yeah, my approach, I've always been uh uninterested in getting pigeon holed into one kind of writing. So that's just me. Um and so when I started way markers, I thought, huh, I get to decide what this is. And I'm going to purposely set out to I I call about I say like I'm braiding I'm braiding three threads. I'm braiding the thread of fiction with the thread of poetry with the thread of essays, ideas.
Um, and is it possible to have a journal that does all three and people still want to read it? At the moment, the answer is yes. Um, which is nice. Um, it keeps interesting for me because it's just different formats.
And also, I think it escapes something that I sometimes I'm going to use an Australian word, something that I I winge about a lot. I don't know if this is this translates, the Australian concept of winging is very very useful, which is kind of just moaning and complaining without doing anything. Um, [sighs and gasps] it's very easy now.
We have, you know, centuries of great literature and works of art behind us and we can get this kind of recursive spiral where we spend our times debating, reviewing, redebating, re-examining great works of the past, which is obviously important. And yet, nobody's creating anything new on top of those those kind of great works. you know that idea of standing on the shoulders of giants, you actually still have to build something new off those shoulders, not just constantly reexamine the nature of the giant and what is the specific aspect of this giant that makes it so much better than the other giant and so on and so forth. So with the poetry and fiction, it feels like I like reading poetry. I like reading fiction. I could just talk all day about the poetry and fiction that I like to read, or I could try creating some of my own. Um, that obviously builds off what things I like to read, but hopefully is is in some way creating something new. So, yeah, I think that is part of the practice for me is like don't just get stuck in a a reviewer's spiral, but actually try to contribute and and move things further.
and and then I think that's the application of the ideas that I'm often my essays are just things that I've been thinking about and by writing about them and fine-tuning them I actually make them clearer for myself but then applying those ideas one in my own embodied life but I'm not a vlogger so no one gets to see that and then but in fiction and poetry there are chances to apply those ideas in in different ways that maybe maybe touches someone a different way I don't know for you how much poetry or fiction you you read but for me a really good poem can can really change the way you think or see the world. Um it's there's a kind of to me a good poem has a spiritual aspect to it. And then fiction I mean I think we are inherently storytelling creatures. So a good story you know it kind of gets into your bloodstream. you kind of, you know, gives a narrative structure to things that I think for whatever reason our brains do like narrative. They likes causation and therefore that happened and therefore this happened, right? And so I think sometimes a better way to communicate than just a non-fiction essay that says these are the some things I'm thinking. So yeah, >> poetry is very important. I actually often read poems on this show kind of at the end usually or something. And uh yeah, I was also a young poet in New York. So it's very important. I think it's a very different opening of what the body is and what you can be and feel. I almost feel like right now poetry is almost the most important thing. At least I don't know. We need that. But yeah, it's interesting what you said about the binary, too. I think that's very important to understand contrast is real. It's not that you say there isn't binary, there isn't contrast, >> but also that, you know, it's that both and either or at the same time kind of thing. That that's what I feel like is very hard. And poetry can do that without having to put it in those words, which is why it's so wonderful. You can you can sort of feel it. And it's I think music, too. You seem to be very inspired with music. I think music can also open and hold that space in a way that's um you know, we can't really I can't really put into words right now.
Does that make sense to you? Mhm. Yeah, totally. Because music also I mean music operates on a level beneath language, right? Like it it's it's rhythmic and it and it works off vibrations which our bodies are full of literally our hearts are beating, blood is pumping, things are moving. So I definitely definitely see that um how music can touch something that kind of language never is able to perfectly encapsulate. Like for me if if you were building it it's like if music is that kind of foundational it's math um put into you know so math which is you know obviously our our universe can can be really understood through math to an extent and and that's true and and music is a form of math that operates kind of pre- language.
Poetry to me is the most basic level of language where you can really drill things down to a few words and somehow in that kind of very quantum physics way pack a whole bunch of almost like a universe into a poem because there actually is so much left unsaid that allows in a good poem. The amount that's left unsaid allows the reader of the poem to kind of read into it their own experiences and understanding without fully destroying the meaning. Like the worst poems are just like abstract art to me where I'm like you could interpret it anyway. It's just sound and therefore it kind of doesn't have a great use. But a really good poem finds that tension but without being ridiculously didactic and telling you exactly what to think acts as a kind of framework or trellis for a plant to grow up right where the plant still grows. So the reader still experiences the poem in their own way and imbuss it with their own meaning to an extent, but the the poet is still setting some boundaries for us. And then obviously fiction and non-fiction kind of build off that. But I agree with you that that musicality.
Sorry, I'm going to ramble on, but that reminds me too, and this is a really good piece of writing advice. It's it's it's CS Lewis who talks about Rebecca C.
about reading what you've written out loud because ultimately most people not everyone most people when you read something you actually are hearing a voice in your head and the language of that the music of that language sorry does make a difference to how you experience it. Which again comes back to the point of how important rhythm and music is, right? Which is it's a funny thing like why should it make a difference what symbols on a screen or a page sound like in my head but still that is how we experience language and how we experience the world which is pretty interesting.
>> That's a great point. And I I even read philosophy papers out loud because I find first of all, you just notice things differently because it's almost like, you know how when you write something, it looks different after you've sent it to someone.
>> Yep.
>> Every Substack essay I publish >> and then it's completely you're like, "Oh, I completely missed all these things." Yeah. It's just reading it out loud can do that, too. But also the way you just said you Yeah, it's it's different. But um I wonder if you ever studied philosophy or read philosophy in any of these journeys of you yours or do you think of yourself as philosophical in a way because there's a lot of philosophical questions here. I mean I can see why someone put us in touch you know.
>> Yeah. I think I mean I think in an amateur way I mean you I think any kind of serious thinking you do you end up brushing against philosophy right? Um, so a lot of my philosophy came by way of kind of religious background, but always been interested in philosophy and reading philosophical work up to the extent that I'm kind of mentally capable. I have my little pet theory is that in at least common law countries, so countries which basically the law develops by case courts making decisions. So not like a a Napoleonic system which is you know codified fully but so the US is is one such system.
Canada, Australia, um the UK, obviously Singapore is too because these are countries where the law develops over time based off judges and judges end up obviously being influenced by the culture around them etc. I think being a lawyer in those countries and studying law you end up it's essentially applied philosophy because ultimately you go back to first principles every time. You can often I have this in terms of what I do. You can often reason your way to a legal position that is I'll make say 90% accurate in that country by kind of going from first principles and reasoning your way through kind of philosophical methods towards a certain answer about what should happen in society. So law ends up being an applied philosophy in that way which is probably why I enjoyed studying it. Um but yeah I think probably going in that journey through India, Nepal, Japan and then Philippines led me to read and engage more with kind of Eastern philosophy which is also very different to my own cultural background.
So I think that's that's also been interesting the last few years and I've kind of continued reading things um from from a very different that kind of very different school. Right. So >> you also ask these very big questions. I you know I I think of Decard even with the you know about God and what does God exist? I mean and also um Thomas Meritan for example maybe or St. Augustine because you write about love and what is unselfish love. These are pretty big questions that I think a lot of people ask. I mean they are sort of part of our life even if we don't think of them philosophically. Do you think your writing, your exploring has helped you in the way we were talking about before come to a way of addressing or asking those questions without necessarily answering them the ways that would be kind of from the past this way or that way only?
>> Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think so. I think it's made me I think say yeah say Merin. Um in Japan I visited DT Suzuki's museum >> and so Merin and Suzuki Yeah. It's worth going to. Very worth going to. I mean, even just as a physical place, it's extremely, >> without getting too mystical, it's extremely potent a place. Um, feel it.
[snorts] >> Can definitely be like that in >> Yeah, I've had experience. I mean, I one time stayed at a um a strange little actually, it's a convent, I suppose. I don't know. It's a strange little place outside of Dharmmstat in Germany. um which is had a similar um feeling to it though that was probably slightly different. Anyway, so this place so Suzuki for those who don't know who listening in so Suzuki and Mertton had lots of dialogue. So Suzuki was probably for his time the kind of preeminent uh scholar of Zen Buddhism um for the west. So he was very good at kind of translating Zen Buddhism which really um found its maturity in Japan um for kind of western audiences and he was quite the celebrity of his day which I hadn't realized but kind of extremely popular and lived to a very old age. And then we've got Merin who was a Catholic priest um but um very interesting thinker um kind of very liberal um thinker for his time um especially for being within the Catholic Church at that time um and very interested and so the book the Zen and the birds of appetite is a kind of dialogue between the ideas of Zen Buddhism and Catholicism and spec specifically Catholic mysticism which Merin was are familiar with and how closely they kind of come and maybe touch at some points and maybe don't touch at certain points and it's it's worth reading. I I really enjoyed I'm I don't pretend to be a philosopher or have any formal study and yet I found it absorbing and interesting. So I think anyone could read it and and find something there. Um so where were we? So yeah, so I think those kind of things I think open you up to this idea that okay my um particular view on the world that you're born and raised with which all of us have is not necessarily wrong but it is just one window into kind of understanding people the universe cosmos whatever you want to call it. Um, and so seeing reading those kind of books where there's kind of a conversation happening from maybe a tradition you're more used to and then leading you towards maybe things that you're not so used to, but seeing where they touch and don't touch does help you kind of think of different ways to to ask different questions and maybe leaves you to some answers.
Like I think for me at the moment where I sit I think I see Zen Buddhism and even Tauism as very helpful in terms of how to live your life. I just I think they are I think that's undeniable. I think they arrive at some conclusions about the universe and our place in it that I don't know that I agree with and I don't see the I don't see necessarily the benefit of of following that all the way to its conclusions um for myself. But that's obviously obviously knowing that you're biased towards the things that you know and maybe fit with your uh culture um best. But it's certainly helpful here in Singapore where Singapore most people are Buddhist, right? Um at least culturally. So, so yeah. So, I think that's right. I think you you allow yourself to be open to engaging with other things without being completely like um slapping a coexist bumper sticker on your car and saying everything's equal. Everything's exactly the same.
um you can see people who are much more uh invested in these discussions maybe than you are right now actually engaging in these things and following along those arguments and seeing how they hit you and kind of where they change the way that you think. Um which I think is helpful. I think it's healthy.
>> Yeah. kind of that mountain image that we brought up before seems pertinent here that you can sort of think of it as trying to you know you see the goal a little differently but we're sharing this and there's different ways to get there and we have to find our way and also I think with at least for me the dowist or the Buddhist having kind of come up in a very Christian uh household that was a really beautiful contrast for me in a in a way that did sort of open into constellatory way more constellations because it kind of helped me hold, you know, there's something about those and even the writings that you were speaking of where you can there's a poetic kind of feeling to it.
You know, they they're not necessarily able to express with words, but the Dao the way or whatever you you can feel that place where you can hold a lot of tensions without losing uh the rigor, which is I think what you were speaking to before of what poetry can do. I think that's one reason I want more scientists to read poetry or I I think it's very helpful as a scientist to read poetry because you can start to understand that you can be much more precise and rigorous at the same time that you actually open the space of possibilities. It's a very hard thing to do, but I I do feel that a bit with with these kind of readings like Dowoism and Buddhism. I wonder if that speaks a little bit to to what you're you're thinking of or >> Yeah, totally. I think I think it brings a bit of a humility to you, right? cuz I think you we naturally gravitate towards feeling like we understand everything.
Um and so you kind of do too, right? You know, >> you know the right way up the mountain and so you can >> and most people will tell you, hey, this is the way I walk. It's the best way. Do what I say.
>> This is the right way.
>> Yeah. And that's, you know, these are the communities. These are the families we grew up in. And none of that's wrong per se, but there has to be some element of of humility of realizing, well, probably we don't each one of us probably doesn't have the whole answer.
that would be unusual um and surprising.
It's even like so I read I read the cloud of unknowing um last [clears throat] year when I was in Korea funnily enough and it was very foggy while I was there so it felt very pertinent. It was clouds everywhere. Um I mean the cloud of unknowing the concept of God is basically completely unknowable that you basically I mean so cloud of unknowing is is it 10th century it's very old English text um by an unknown u monk writing to a junior monk about what does it mean to fully engage with and understand God and basically this monk is like you can't do it because God is infinite so there's no point trying to kind of imagine a physical person God. Um, but actually experience the joy of being under this kind of cloud of unknowing that actually I mean part of the argument would be if you actually could experience God and his fullness, you would be completely obliterated. And it's funny you take that concept which I think basically you know kind of makes sense once you kind of start thinking about God and how it works. Um but then the kind of Buddhist concept of God is essentially um almost the concept of God is an infinite light versus God is an infinite void kind of I mean I think Merin makes this point in Zen in the birds of appetite like is there any real uh practical difference if God is kind of the absolute emptiness of nothing before all creation begins and all creation ends or God is this infinite powerful light that you can't ever fully comprehend. And to us there's not practically there's not much difference in terms of my experience of God. Maybe we experience aspects of God in different ways but um experience God through through the universe in different ways but in terms of God um in its totality and his totality you know and so I think those things are helpful right like like you say from even from a scientist point of view that humility well any of our point of view I mean we all I think we live in a very scient scientific age or scientism age right where everyone kind of thinks most people in western countries think through the frame of science this is how we've been been raised. That's the triumph of science, right? Which is not necessarily a bad thing. It just is does give you a certain framework on the world. Um and so that humility of realizing, well, not everything can be fully explained by science in the way that we think of it, which is, you know, fully replicable, fully kind of verified experiments that produce the exact same thing every time. Um, so there's a humility in that, which I agree. I think if there was more of that in in the sciences that would maybe lead us to a better kind of clearer not clearer place actually in a way wouldn't be clear but in a in a maybe a more realistic and um accurate place in terms of what the world is like which is you know it's like I mean you've probably read it Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is a great book for that I mean people have certain hang-ups with it but in general the idea of someone from >> the academy kind of finding the the faith millions of science uh in terms of being able to fully explain our experience of the universe and then having a huge mental crash out as a result. But uh it's a helpful book in that way I think to kind of go through that journey especially for people like me who I'm not in I'm not in the academy and I don't have a scientific background. So as a lay person again kind of going on that journey through kind of very rational ways of thinking and logical ways of thinking in terms of the western sense of logic but seeing where there is a limit to that and that you have to have some degree of humility when you approach these things. Yeah, I think there is a lot of utility in doing that.
>> It's interesting with your law background. I wonder how that's been changing lately, but that would take us down another path. But I'm thinking of Chris McCandless again. There's something I feel like I want to get into a little bit of how we we we kind of crave to feel that feeling of light or of um oneness with everything or sort of dissolving even or that can come with uh all these things we've been talking about music or poetry, philosophy, even science actually when you have that moment in the lab you know where something clicks and you're you know these kind of moments seem to be what do something very important to us and I I wonder about in your own life or how you think about this and how that too can be you know back to that cautionary thing where because you know I'm thinking of Chris McCus in those moments where he where we feel that um he has found love in a sense he he loves himself or he loves the world or he feels kind of part of something you know I think there's something about that that we're all craving and finding and all these things we're talking about too but that can also be dangerous or like we need that logical side too. I I don't know if this is making sense to you or you felt this in your own work in life with all these things you're juggling, but >> yeah. Well, I think you're touching on something I'm kind of working through at the moment. Like I've got a an essay that I'll share in the next I don't know few months on on on Substack, which is this concept of Yeah. Yeah, that you have those you kind of have these kind of more mystical moments I guess where you have a sense of connection to the universe or and maybe since I've I mean my son is now 8 months old so I think you have a kid and then you are maybe more opened up on even an emotional level to some of those feelings.
>> Yeah. Um but this idea of like yeah that craving I think to be fully connected to the universe and to nature around us and to everything else that we see that we get only glimpses of.
I I don't know where that comes from. I think it comes from something very very long ago where maybe we lost something along the way as a as a species. Um, maybe that's the trade-off for being the species that for whatever reason we have the most capacity for certain forms of kind of higher thinking or or you know, I'm not a biologist, but you know, we we clearly have some capacity that the other creatures that we share the planet with don't seem to have, right? Whatever that may be with your tool making, language, etc. And the trade-off for that seems to be that that kind of desire, that craved, for lack of a better word, kind of mystical connection where you are in sync with, this is the problem, you end up sounding very newagy when you go into this stuff.
But I think >> very hard to talk about.
>> It's hard to talk about without kind of going into that language. But you have that sense where whatever it is, you're in the lab and just something clicks. I think again um Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance he talks about how does it happen that one day I'm trying to solve a problem and I think through every possible solution I can't get it the next morning I'm brushing my teeth and the solution pops into my head so then where does it come from because it didn't come from me consciously and then this gets into the whole problem of consciousness but we won't touch that but that idea that somehow something can happen that it just is a moment of you jive with something whether it's music and something just hits you in a certain way but then every maybe a year the same music wouldn't hit in the same way. Why is that? It's the same music.
>> Um, uh, you know, and then religious experiences, spiritual experiences, >> or even just riding the motorcycle, too.
I mean, you know, there's that where you're one with this kind of machine and this landscape and this, you know, people have this surfing or many different hiking even.
>> Yeah. That flow state.
>> Yeah. But it's not it's flow, but it's also >> it's not flow like you're just uh clicking on the internet because that can happen, too. I mean there's there's a there's a meaning and a kind of presence of your body with it, you know.
You're not just Yeah.
>> Yeah. No, you're right. I have never thought of flow state is happening on the internet, but you're right. Yeah.
So, that idea that, you know, when you're actually in the midst of doing something and body and mind and emotions and soul seem to all somehow click um and that oneness with things around you.
So in terms of for me I mean where I I'm kind of working through with that is that idea that if there exists within me this becomes a version of CS Lewis's most kind of apologetic arguments but if there exists within me this concept that I have this strong desire that I've kind of experienced flashes of from time to time which is to be fully at one with everything around me you know um that means maybe taking a logical leap there that must mean that there was a time when that was possible. There is a time when that is possible. Um and so then what kind of logically does that lead you to? Um for me maybe showing my own biases from my background that showed me that there is a desire and a possibility of having a kind of personal experience of the living world around us. Um which requires I think some other person on the other side of that. Um so for me that would I would call that God. I would say that there would be some way to experience a personal relationship with the universe uh through having a personal relationship with with God. But that then would then encompass having a a more clearer and soulful connection to everything around us and people around us. Um so I think that leads us somewhere. It obviously doesn't give us all the answers. And a hard thing with this stuff is that it does become very personal which gets very tricky to replicate for other people because also you I don't think you can conjure these experiences. So I think when people whatever religious or spiritual practice you try if it tries to conjure these experiences of like by whatever means whether meditation music I've you know I've experienced it all. So you you go along to meditation practices they try to conjure it in in different ways.
You go along to a church that you know uses certain music. I mean, you can try to conjure. I just don't think that actually works very often. And if it does, it kind of becomes a little bit of a cheap trick. So, the difficulty is how do you live your life knowing that those experiences may come and go, not necessarily always at your choosing. Um, and yet taking with you each time the awareness of what that kind of those implications are, right? Um, so this might be too mystical for your podcast, but anyway, that's kind of where I'm at.
>> Quite mystical here. People often ask me if I'm a mystic, whatever that means. I don't even know what that word means.
But no, I think it's really important to try to talk about this stuff and what you're saying is actually a very very important point and it's something I it's very hard to put into words, but how can we all understand that we are going to find that connection with what's around us differently literally because we're different uh spacetal parts of the of a shared ongoing something, right? Mhm.
>> Instead of trying to think, oh, they got there through meditation, so that should be my way.
>> Yeah.
>> Because you, you know, to come to your way markers or way making or there's a kind of compass that you sort of are as a body [laughter] >> and you get to a point where you can be comfortable with yourself as a body and not comparing yourself to everything and then you can sort of what is it sort of align and kind of move with that but you need help from everyone else. So I think an important word is you know love of course but also care. uh you tend to write I you you seem to write with a lot of care and you actually make these kind of objects that you actually send to people. You do a lot of extra it seems through this what I'm trying to get at here this kind of um noticing being present and being precise but also open which is a very hard thing to do and we help each other do it. I don't know if that makes sense to you, that word care and actually what that means when you're writing or when you're making these objects and how that might relate to how we can help each other fill into this whatever we want to call it, mystical, whatever it is, because you said maybe we lost it, but maybe we're not separate from life and maybe life is kind of that and we're finding another way to know it or notice it, right? Maybe that's the top of the mountain that actually is never a top because it's it's forever since we're going into the mystical realm.
>> Yeah, we're going to the mystical. Let's dive in. I mean, I agree with you that point that like I mean, you never actually fully reach the top. Um, I I don't think you ever get there, but it's a series of peaks and and the point is to kind >> like a fractal kind of something.
>> Yeah. And you keep going. I think I think the problem with the fractal or all these things is that it can lead people to despondency or nihilism, which is like, well, nothing matters. You're just going to keep climbing, so what's the point? You know, it's very sisophian, which is like, well, if I have to keep rolling this boulder, I might as well just stop rolling the boulder.
>> Whereas the point, >> it's not always climbing, I guess. But, yeah, that's an important point. It it's incredibly meaningful and becomes more meaningful. But because it's meaningful, you're co-creating it and extending it.
>> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And never quite kind of reaching its culmination and and enjoying that while also realizing that you are going to achieve new uh levels of maturity, insight, all of that stuff does actually come. Like I don't buy into this idea that if everyone's always seeking all the time and you never fully find the culmination, there's no actual progress.
I don't think that's true. So, but back to your point about care, I mean, I was reflecting on this the other day with some writers that I meet up with here in Singapore.
And the point being, I think all of us had this in common was like we all actually when we're writing are thinking about either a specific person or people who we're writing this to. And it changes depending on what you're writing, which I think then brings in the care. I think if I'm writing to somebody, it's because I care enough about them to write. Now, I mean, I'm not writing horrible, angry screeds, so I suppose if you were doing that kind of writing, you would technically also have someone in mind, but I don't mean that.
But everything I write, I do have a a person or people in mind that I either have know or I've met or I've interacted with in some extent. And even they might not never know that that's written for them, but I know. So, I think that then tempers any desire when you're writing, which I think is partly an immature desire that you you'd learn over time.
It's kind of a lazy desire to just to kind of go blah here's all my thoughts and here's as strongly as I feel them and here's whatever without thinking how that person would receive that and how would they even understand what you're saying and would that overly emotive language actually turn someone off from what you're trying to say right um in my own life I have to often learn that uh that lesson in real life especially with my wife uh she's very helpful at telling me when my language is overly emotive for what I'm trying to communicate. So, uh, thank God for my wife. But when you're writing, you have the opportunity to not just kind of blast it out. You could take your time and shape it, which is a benefit of of the written word over over just the verbal word. Um, so yeah, so I think there is care behind what I do, which is what I'm trying to do, which is to make it something that does communicate an idea or a point or a thought. So it doesn't just kind of reduce it to, oh, everything's the same, but does it in a way that's caring and loving to the people reading it so that it doesn't unnecessarily kind of push someone away by either being too overly academic or too complicated, but also um too shallow or too emotive.
Um that leaves itself open to a degree to people who have a different viewpoint on on life than I do because of course there are pe many people out there. And I think too also I'm not I'm not interested in playing to the choir. I think you could very easily find your tribe of people who think the same way as you and then play to them and then two things happen. One, you cut yourself off from learning and communicating with other people. But two, I think there is that sense of audience capture where you end up there for, oh, people really liked this one. Oh, I'll write more in that theme. And then before you know it, you've you've become even someone that you're probably not even truly are. Like not someone who really is you. Um, so I'm not interested in that. And I've seen that happen to people, you know, people who you kind of over the years read and enjoy what they're writing and it kind of veers towards the most extreme version of themselves. Um, which is feels like instead of it becoming a maturing that openings opens up into complexity becomes a a kind of weird inverted version of that. Um, and then yeah, that bleeds into I mean what happened with the the So I send little pamphlets that I print and handbind and send them out all over the world to people who are paid subscribers to way markers. In complete complete transparency that happened because some people took out paid subscriptions who I did not know these people and being very Canadian, I felt very guilty for taking their money and I was like, "Ah, how do I what do I do? I need to give you something as a gift for like I I mean this is this is not good. This is don't take my advice on this. Whoever's listening, I felt like I'm just giving you nothing. I'm giving none of my stuff is paywalled. I just you can read my stuff for free. Why would you send me money? Um, and maybe that's part of that era I grew up of of first publishing writing where you published for very little or for free in journals that you know didn't make any money. So that idea of kind of monetizing my writing felt weird. So then I was like, what can I do? Well, actually the benefit of living in Singapore, Singapore is like the world's transport hub. So postage from here is very cheap anywhere in the world. Doesn't matter where you are. Um, and so it actually is is postage is very inexpensive. So I thought actually I can print out things that I've written, make little pamphlets and and you know take the time to you know fold them and you know put them together and I can send them out to anyone who wants um wants that. And that also jives I think generally with my interest in locking off the internet [laughter] as much as I possibly can. But um yeah, >> what you just said is really uh important to me because this idea of care I think sometimes it can be too we think of it as sort of sweet and sentimental which of course it can be but it's also a kind of tension like that tension you felt that someone's giving you money right they're they're supporting you and you feel like there's a tension there. I think that's a precious thing actually, a hard thing, but similar to what we were talking about before of discernment or something. There's there's something about like I think of care as that that sort of space that we try to run away from maybe sometimes because it's so hard or we try to immediately solve and I think that is a precious thing, right?
And at the same time, I also kind of grew up with that don't you don't want to sell out or something or you know, you you you write to all these you write for the writing and you um and and that can be very hard in this world that we're in now too of how to be real like keep real and what you were talking about where we you know take take the kind of vector that's going to make us famous so to speak. why even questioning what that is and is fame actually healthy and why are we structuring worlds around certain kinds of things like that I mean all of that to me is what I'm kind of thinking about as care and it feels a bit tense to me but I wonder if that makes any sense to you at all this this notion of caring but also it not necessarily being always comfortable >> yeah well that's right and same as love right love isn't just this nice feelings and so yeah I mean I think if you take that idea that care is a form of attention attention is as a form of devotion and and prayer. Attention can be deeply uncomfortable when someone you care about is doing something crazy or or destructive and you still pay them attention and you don't just kind of leap in to fix the situation um or solve what you think should happen. Um which is another constant topic in in our household because I think that that very stereotypical masculine feminine uh size of relationship where the instinct for me is always to jump in and just like what's the problem? I'll fix it. um which is not actually caring 90% of [laughter] the time. It's just a desire to solve the problem as opposed to give space to the person and and and to love them. So yeah, I think that's right. I think you have to be willing if you're willing if you're interested in loving people and caring for people and paying them attention. You have to be willing to find that uncomfortable and tense because you can't solve things for other people. You can't do things for other people. You can help to the extent that they wish to be helped. You can make suggestions. You can you can model behavior. I mean, I think a lot of that, you know, it's funny. We we very much are comfortable with telling people what we think they should do and not that interested in just living that way ourselves and realizing that people will will pick up on on the way we act. I mean, I think you would have this. I have this. There's people I know often people older than me who I admire not because they dole out great advice, but just because of the way they live their lives. And so we see that, we know that, but then the difficulty is actually to be met ourselves as opposed to becoming, you know, fountains of wisdom. So yeah, I think that's right. I think there is discomfort in care and love. Um, but it's it's worth like I think it's worth it. That's kind of the juice of life, right? Like otherwise that whole point of, you know, people talk about, you know, a frictionless life doesn't make any sense. But that's part of the friction. Like you have to you have to find it kind of agonizing sometimes. And out of that agony sometimes comes ecstasy. That really joyous feeling of of being in love with someone or caring for someone. And love doesn't just mean romantic obviously, but just that loving care for somebody. But um sometimes it's agonizing, right?
>> We seem to think that's wrong or something, but being able to let that be what it is and not necessarily try to solve it all the time is kind of what is what you were saying. That can be very hard. but so rich. I think it does open us maybe to more of that feeling of what of being connected and >> yeah there's some connection there uh even even with the way we've been talking about exploring and sort of going to our edges I think doing that with a kind of care and discernment and caution is a kind of tension but then at the same time it's opening what's possible for you and for others and I guess what I'm also trying to get is that we're not you know back to that Chris McCandless thing we're not just alone here we don't do this just for ourselves. Even though it can feel like that, the point is actually caring for others and being cared for, letting ourselves be cared for, which can be even harder.
>> Yeah, totally. Totally. And and that thing of like, you know, you actually get more out of anything you experience with another if you do it with another person, even if that other person strikes you is sometimes quite frustrating and annoying and gets on your nerves. Like I think it's another one of my favorite way marker books um is called The Gentle Art of Tramping and it's written by >> Oh yeah, >> it's written by Steven Graham. So Steven Graham was a bit of a bizarre guy. He was like English aristocracy of the lower sort. He writes uh in the kind of early 1900s up to the kind of inter war period. He does huge kind of crazy tres and tramping through Russia. He has kind of amazing books on Russia. uh America, the Canadian Rockies, you know, that era where people kind of have basically no equipment and then go off and live in the wild for months and just kind of like make up as they go along. Anyway, >> jumping on trains and all this.
>> Yeah. Jumping on trains, just doing stuff. You're like, that doesn't People wouldn't do that now. We have all this incredible like technology and equipment and you know, he's doing it with like boots that are falling apart and like >> anyway, gentle tramping is fantastic. I recommend it. It's a little bit of a summation of the things he's learned from a life of tramping. But he points out that thing of like even if you're tramping along with somebody who's the most egotistical person you've ever met and you also were very egotistical because you know let other people be a mirror to you and all that. Even if you're doing that you're going to get a benefit out of it because things are going to get shaken up, revealed. Now you don't have to be that person's best friend for your whole life. I mean there's a point to which being around people like that uh isn't healthy.
>> But these encounters discernment, right?
Yeah. But these encounters and these times with people and these shared experiences with people, even if they're not your favorite people in the world, there is something's going to come across out of that. I think he the word he uses which is, you know, his archaic language, which is like something healthful will come out of that like something that is good for your health.
um because something will get clarified even if part of the clarification is I can see all the foibless and failings of that person and that actually makes me realize my own foibless and failings you know um and I can see where that person is hurting and the things that they haven't been given whatever it is so I definitely subscribe to that in theory the reality of that is obviously much harder to live in but I'm working on that myself um but to find that place of like actually enjoying connection and relationship with our fellow human beings um for the sake of of their [snorts] sake and and for caring for them and realizing actually without it being totally self-obsessed, but it does end up benefiting you because it's kind of what we kind of need that and it for some reason we're built for that connection, right?
Yeah, it's a beautiful way to say it and touches something I've had to go, you know, just when you go through these sort of experiences that can be difficult with, you know, tense situations doing what kind of taking them in the way we've been talking about here even when they're really hard and even when you know you have to just like let that go because you don't need to cultivate every kind of relationship, you know, uh, forever. But you you do realize that the landscape has changed and there are new possibilities. Even if that just that you now know you can kind of sit with that tension and handle it and and still get back to the place of care.
There's something incredibly powerful about that in this way that we've been talking about landscape. And you bring up you've brought up some really wonderful books. I just want to thank you for that. Ones I haven't thought of in a while. And it's interesting how many of them have to do with walking through landscapes or hiking or moving in some way on the motorcycle or whatever. And I'm also really drawn to those kinds of books. And before we go, I want to hear how all this movement, you know, what you think about all that because for me it's so important. I have to walk every day and walking and moving. Um, it's part of, you know, what I study with the hippocampus and stuff.
So, I wonder about movement for you. And I'm also thinking of that other story I love of yours about like loving a stranger or something where you're literally just kind of sitting on the street and you see a guy smoking a cigarette on his break from being a janitor or whatever just like a normal p person like any of us and you feel this like love for him. I've felt that too and it feels connected to me to some way that of moving through the world or almost like being able for a minute to feel like you are in the body of another person or you are connected in that way.
So I just want to put all that out there. You can take it wherever you want. But >> yeah. Yeah, you're good at these. You set up these really big things and I'm I'm doing my best to keep up with you.
But [laughter] um yeah, so I think on that example, so that is a real story. I was in Philippines. I'm I'm sitting watching a real person. You know, that's the thing like I think the the the danger of the internet I mean I guess the TV to a degree before that, but the real danger of the internet where we are today is that it fools you into thinking it's no different like being in present in in the same room as a person is no different than say what we're doing now.
But I see unfortunately there is a difference and we can never we're never going to fully transcend that. I I mean thank god but we we aren't despite what our um our technological masters would like us to do. I just don't think you can like I think we are bodies and your research would obviously show that but >> yeah we are >> I mean the whole point is the body in a way that's what's so wonderful >> yeah but we can and so I think so we are bodies we are and actually even in that like say if you look at it from a theological point of view which is I'm interested in the kind of clear shift I've seen over the last 10 years of people really taking time to write and think about the fact that anything that kind of tries to de divide your soul, spirit, mind, emotions from the physicalities of your flesh. It's just unhealthy. It just never leads to a good place. Um, and and it leads you to all sorts of kind of uh kind of strange results.
Um, so yeah, so that example, I mean, I'm sitting in a real city, in a real place, and across the road from me is another real guy, and I I don't think I would have that same feeling of love for him because if I saw him on a I don't know, a YouTube video or something like I just wouldn't because I'm not in the same place. And whereas we're two people occupying occupying the same space and time with our real bodies. This is where we are. We're not we're limited to these little pockets of of space and time. So we are here and now with these people.
Um and even if you do subscribe to some idea of you know there is some spiritual soul aspect to our bodies and we're in these bodies only for a time.
We can't transcend that right now. So you have to find a way to live with that now. Um as opposed to kind of imagining that one day your soul whatever religion you subscribe to your soul is going to leave your body behind and go somewhere else. That's fine. I think I think if you believe that, you believe that, but that doesn't solve for present day. What are you going to do now with the life that you have now? Um, and I do think it's very embodied. So, I think, you know, a book I read recently that I've I think a review will go up this week or next week at at a different different publication was it's called good for room for good things to run wild and it's by a Canadian writer called Josh Nadau. And he talks about discovering that for himself. He went through kind of a crisis in his own life, both a a faith crisis, but also like a a career and life crisis um and an addiction crisis. And realizing he'd always carry with him this idea that his like body was bad and his mind and spirit were good. Um but actually that doesn't make any sense because I'm not just one or the other.
I'm both. And so how do I kind of find a redemption of both of those things? And for him a lot of that when you read the book it's I mean it's it's the kind of book I would recommend to any kind of lost young man basically um much more than I would recommend anything by Dr. Peterson. Um but uh that idea instead of fighting lobsters. this book was much more useful because the book was all about like okay actually how do I find a way to enjoy my body and not hate my body especially the concept of addiction right where you feel like your own body is craving something that you know is bad for you um and he finds his way through that in a various ways but it's just like enjoying being on a bicycle and just cycling around the city enjoying learning how to boulder and being really bad at bouldering and accepting that he's really bad at it and he's going to have to kind of discipline his body into a new way. Um, you know, in like even the way he talks about in a in a really beautiful way just like of spending physical time with his wife, not in a sexual way, but just being with his wife, like being together and being present, just one-on-one, walking around together. Um, so I think it's things like that where I think we have to we have to be careful. Maybe you and I are more this way where we we work and think in this kind of this very mind space like I sit here at my computer and I do my job and it's all mind and then I for a hobby I read and I write it's all still can be quite disembodied um and and realizing that the body and what we do in our bodies and how we use our bodies and how we treat our bodies and how our bodies interact with other bodies and other parts of the world and and and nature is probably just as important. Um, and you know, other spiritual practices seem to have figured that out. Other cultures seem to have got that balance better than sometimes our own cultures. Um, but it for our own part, kind of finding ways to to bring that, you know, mind, body, soul, body harmony. Again, I sound newagy whenever I speak, but you know what I mean.
>> I know what you mean. And it's also very scientific actually now and philosophical because cognition, if we use that word, is actually bodily. I mean, you're you're you're not stuck in your head. Your central nervous system is through your whole body. You know, you have neurons in your stomach for goodness sake. I mean, we are actually thinking bodies. We've just learned that we're stuck in our head. And it feels like that because we're so sensually connected to our head. But you can also live to, you know, you can fill into your body. You can start to fill your body as, you know, a thinking uh being because it is. And there there's plenty of science and philosophy talking about that. and and there's no hard boundary between you and everything you're moving through and with your relationships, the books, all those cities you've been through. All that's kind of, you know, participating in the making of your cognition. That's that's what's happening. But that's not the story we are told. And I guess that's why I brought up that movement of going through the world because there is a kind of agency in that of as you did as Chris did like getting out of where you are and you know awakening to your body in different places and the and in in so doing kind of awakening to different ways of being alive like you know and maybe developing a way to even feel the love that's kind of there in the sense you brought up that maybe we lost it.
Maybe we didn't lose it but we're we're learning how to fill into it. Um, but there is a kind of thing I want to address before we go, which because you've brought up your wife a lot and I'm also like we have people who help us do this and it's so important. That book you just mentioned sounds awesome by the way. I can't wait to read your review.
Um, but I think a lot of younger people or even us maybe, I don't know about you, but when I was younger, it's there's a kind of loneliness to this at first, right? to get back to that and you have this is not that we have to learn how to be able to [gasps] fill into all these things we're talking about. Um I think that relates to the pilgrimage too and to the walking and to I'm not sure how to hold all that right now but I just want to bring it up a little bit because this discernment maybe you've even written that somewhere can feel lonely at first.
>> Yeah. And I just want to mark that right for people who might be at a different point right now and and you do kind of continue through that right or have you had any experience of that?
>> Yeah. Well, I think you do and I think I think the danger is it becomes a individualistic journey. So I think you know because it feels that way and it is it it feels that way because I think it does start that way. So to be fair to anyone who feels like oh I'm trying to seek whatever it is truth you know about how to kind of pursue truth and meaning in my life and it just feels lonely to an extent it will never not feel lonely because it is only you can seek it for yourself so you have to be a little bit aware of that um for me I think um I found I mean you you the thing to do is always to keep in that tension again is that you are actually always seeking fellow travelers so you have to be open that fellow travelers could look different than how you would like them to look. Um that you could find them initially quite grating and annoying or they could be quite challenging. Like I've I've had people in my life who either I've known for a long time or only known briefly who kind of piss you off because they say things that I don't like to hear or the way they say it or or sometimes it's just a little bit of um you know like culture gap like say especially when you're in you're in countries that are different different culture than your own. people will say things in a way or express things in a way that are challenging for you just even to kind of grasp but then once you kind of push yourself to move through that try to understand what they're saying um so I definitely think that so I think calling intention this concept that at one on one hand yes you you are always only responsible for you so you have to you have to discover what it is for yourself but you have to part of that is you have to constantly be um seeking people who can help you whether they're at the same point as you, whether they're ahead of you, whether they're behind you, uh whether it's hard to tell where you're both at, but you're trying to seek fellow travelers. Um uh I think that helps. I mean, for me, I've been lucky. Yes, my my wife, my life partner, you know, we've been together for a very long time. We met very young. We got to experience a lot of that traveling together because we were both still young enough to like be still seeking and being very open. But I think when you're young, whilst you have that instinct towards immaturely blasting out your opinions, I think you also actually have less more of a thin skin and are more permeable to different things.
Whereas over time, we tend to kind of build up layers and and think that we know very well, thank you, what all the arguments are and I've already made my decision. So I think we were lucky in that way. But that doesn't have to be the case for everyone. can meet anybody at any point and if you're both willing to move beyond the kind of outer layers of of your shells of you know your hard views on the world that can take place at any time and I've definitely seen that other people I know who've kind of met people who they really just vibe with really well at the you know end decades of their life and so you just kind of can't predict that one.
Um for me I will say I found a lot of it in religious communities just by nature of religious communities. Um not every religious community obviously but some religious communities should have people in them who are seeking these things because that kind of is the telos of religion in an ideal world people are seeking answers. Now not every religious community does that but people the most of the people not every person but most of the people I've met in my life and travels around the world have some interest in some kind of spirituality and religion and therefore you have that in common. Um and that sometimes means going along to religious communities that you find weird or scary or strange and you don't understand. I sometimes think about this. I say this to people.
It's like I've gone along to things where ultimately I've met a person in that community who I really feel like there's something there and there's some connection and we're kind of talking and part of the ticket for entry is I go along to the whatever it is the service the ceremony that doesn't really do anything for me but it's part of being part of that community that to respect that that's what is important to this community.
Ultimately, you do learn things and you do um get shaped and formed by things in a way that maybe you don't even expect.
But you don't have to like, you know, that idea that you have to 100% agree with everything that that thing is about before you go along.
Uh I think ultimately closes off so many doors as opposed to being open to things that I don't necessarily know if I agree with or seem to kind of cut against what I think. But actually, there's still some there's some kernel in there that I'm interested in and I'm going to kind of figure out what that is. So that's my my two cents on that. What I've found helpful in my own life.
>> I think that's also true in other communities like philosophy for example or different kinds of science. I mean we also tend to kind of you know you can just find your group and then you just say everything they say and you do everything they do so that you're part of the group. But this is kind of part of what we've been talking about too is just being able to understand that sometimes your paths are going to resonate and yet everyone's coming with a completely different history, right?
Trajectory and that's what's interesting. So when you resonate that's wonderful, but you don't need to resonate all the time with all of it. I really like what you say there. Also, as you were talking, I was thinking we're also kind of in a conversation with ourselves. you know, you you do come into realizing that you're alive in a place that feels a bit lonely, but as a body communicating with itself, you can also do this with yourself, right? I mean, you can >> you can also care for yourself in the way that we've we've been saying and and notice that the relationships you're having with others and the way you're talking to your friends or your wife or even the person that annoys you is contributing right to the way you're going to also communicate with yourself.
um that just sort of came I was thinking of that uh >> as you were talking but >> I don't know is there anything before we go that I was thinking one thing I did want to raise is you're quite funny too I don't know if humor helps you with any of this or I just kind of wanted to raise that because and you also start you know some of your fiction is really interesting like what is that one line about the stroller like nobody suspects the man with a stroller I think or something like that >> nobody suspects the father with a stroller Yeah, great started for this uh fiction piece that you wrote that I will recommend to everyone conspirators that conspirators. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean before we go first just humor, you know, what what does that bring up for you? Um and then yeah, I'll have one more question, but >> I I don't know if humor is important. I mean, I I like humor. I think humor can deal with some of that tension, right?
Like I think humor is a tension uh tension diffuser um at times. Um, I think I actually think most of the people I know who like these people who I talk about, who people who I respect who seem to have, not everyone's got it all figured out, who seem to have some degree of maturity, have kind of found a way of life, a tower of life, if you want to use that language, that gives them a sense when you're with them, you sense their kind of peace and oneness with things. And you know, I assume I' I've had the benefit of meeting a handful of people like that, right? They tend to be quite funny. Uh I don't know if you noticed that. I think because they don't afraid to laugh at themselves. Um >> they're not afraid to laugh at the world because the world is quite funny. Um the the absurdity of things, how things don't make sense, that life is joyful even when it's not always easy. Um so yeah, I don't know. I think humor does I mean I think humor is a mark of intelligence but some of the people I'm thinking about they're not intelligent in the way we would measure it. I'm thinking of a guy I know in in Nepal. We spent two weeks with him. Um, and he's a hilarious guy, but he's not trying to be funny. Like, he's not doing like an act. He just is. He's just is very He's very He laughs at things. He finds things funny. He's very joyous.
>> Boy, that's good. I think there's a real connection between this joy, this bubbling kind of life and this absurdity to in a way and this kind of >> almost ecstasy, right? There's a kind of strangeness to the world that it is it is funny and it is joyful.
>> Yeah. And it to holding the paradox. I think if you if you're going to live in the paradox, you're going to have to acknowledge that that's quite funny from time to time, right?
>> Yeah. And it does open the space, right, to be able to look at it from a humorous angle, too. That does help you notice the the glacier again or whatever.
[laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that's right. So I think also I mean conspirators as an example I was noticing being a new father things that were funny about being a new father but then I didn't I mean I'm not a humor right humor but I think he kind of it diffuses through the the short story the the serial fiction I did which was like what if a new father was also having to be like a spy situation and there's you know conspiracies and things happening around him how would that look and there would be humor inherent in that um and there would be awkwardness and difficulties inherent in that. Um, so I think that's right. I think I think humor is one way we kind of it's a different lens to look at things that are in tension. So >> yeah, and it helps with that tension. I think it helps us kind of move it around almost musically kind of play the tension, you know?
>> Yeah. Yeah, you're right. It's like a way of harmonizing with tension because it's like it's the same thing but in a different key, >> which is what you do in that piece a bit, too. I think writing is a bit like that. you know, you're kind of moving the tension around to keep the writer, the reader, the story, you know, that engagement is really interesting.
Writing is a really interesting craft of of that in a way.
>> Yeah, definitely.
>> Well, I just uh before we go, anything you want to say to anyone or any I always ask if there's any experience of love or whatever that you know you want to like share, which I know is a heavy question, but I just always put it out there if it anything comes relative to all of this or anything at all. It doesn't have to be necessarily about that.
>> Yeah. No, I will I'll share this. I mean, this is going to this it's hard to talk about love without sounding cliche because you know the horrible >> That's the point of all this. We have to try.
>> I know. But you know the horrible thing about getting older is how all the cliches start coming true and you're like this sucks. I was always the guy who's like that's so cliched and then you experience the clich.
>> I think that's a good sign in a way.
>> Yeah. I know.
>> Reason cliches are cliches.
>> Yeah. But okay, for me I say this to a lot of people. So I I my son is now 8 months old and you have the the experience of being a new father, baby is born and you're I was in the delivery room and people all my like male friends who don't have kids yet like oh how did it feel like? What was your feeling your emotion that time and for me it's interesting. It's not that I didn't have the feeling of, wow, this is like a baby that now I, you know, I love. Of course, you do. But what I found interesting was kind of identifying what was actually going on in me was that sense of, and this kind of connects everything we're talking about in terms of interpersonal relationships.
I had a responsibility instantly from the moment that baby was born that I didn't have because I wasn't the one carrying the baby. As soon as the baby comes into the world, I now have a responsibility for that baby. And the weird thing is unlike every other area of life, I cannot really put that responsibility onto anyone else. I can't like defer it.
Like, you know, in anything else in life, you kind of always can find somewhere to offload some kind of responsibility. Um, and I can't with this one. And so, there is love.
Obviously, there's like affection, and the affection grows the more you get to know the baby. But instantly there's responsibility. Like, I am no one's going to help me and my wife care for this child and keep it alive. It's just down to us. That's it. No one else. No other safety net. There's like our system is not like there's other people waiting in the wings to come and take care of the baby. It's like me and my wife. And then particularly we're here on our own. We don't have family in Singapore. So maybe that was heightened.
But finding that beautiful as opposed to finding that daunting that actually if we take ownership for um the care of other people and now that's it's specific to your own child obviously but then extending that out in a kind of a a web of of responsibility that part of what gives a part of the soil say for love to grow in is a sense of of responsibility and and obligation. Um, even though obligation sounds like an unromantic, very unsexy word, that sense that actually I do owe I I have taken on the responsibility of we've brought this child into the world. I owe him so much to kind of, you know, keep him alive, but keep him healthy, keep him happy, um, keep him well. So, that was an insight for me. It's specific to kids, but it doesn't really just stay with kids, right? I think it's anyone that you I think if you have a sense of love for someone, it's it's also kind of maybe um analyzing or discerning where's the kind of responsibility and obligation that you may owe them. Not in a heavy moralistic legalistic way, but in a joyful way that actually obligation is a joyful thing as a place for love to grow.
>> That's very beautiful really. And also that you talked about soil a bit because we've been talking about movement and going everywhere but also there's this rooted or this this growing right that's also happening that is care too and that and letting people care for you and caring for others and that tension I guess that's kind of the tension I was talking about too. parenting is like a very beautiful difficult example of it, right? Where you the way you described it, I have never really heard anyone describe it exactly like that before where it's kind of noticing that you're you're locked in in a way to life and that's a beautiful thing even though it's tense or hard, you know, something like that.
>> Exactly. Right.
>> Even when you make something, right, you're doing that in a way. You're you're locking yourself into the world in a sense. So, yeah, thanks for that.
That was just very beautiful and I've really enjoyed talking to you. I love your your work. I'm so glad whatever listener out there introduced [music] us. Thank you so much. I can't wait to read more. So, keep going.
>> Thanks, Andrew. Really appreciate it.
>> Yeah, it was fun. See you later.
>> Cool. See you.
[music] >> Okay, folks. Thanks for making it all the way to the end. Since we mentioned poetry here, I couldn't not read a poem at the [music] end. And this one is from Roomie. R U M I. And uh I'm not sure which translation it is, but it's one that came to mind and it's called Oh, oh you who've gone on pilgrimage.
Sorry, my throat's a little scratchy.
It's been a long day. Okay, here's a poem from Roomie. Oh you who've gone on pilgrimage. Oh you who've gone on pilgrimage. Where are you? Where? Oh where? Here. Here is the beloved. Oh come now. Come. Oh come your friend. And he is your neighbor. He is next to your wall. You heiring in the desert. What air of love is this? If you'd see the beloved's form without any form. You are the house, the master. You are the Cabba. You, where is a bunch of roses, if you would be this garden where one's soul's pearly essence, when you're the sea of God. That's true. And yet your troubles may turn to treasures rich. How sad that you yourself veil the treasure that is yours.
And that's the end of the poem. So don't veil the treasure that is yours today.
Okay?
It is a treasure. [sighs] Um also thanks for supporting the show and sign up on the Substack if you want more information. And uh I also have a book coming out about the navigational [music] approach to mind. It's called Holding Paradox. I sure would love to hear what you think about it. And another book will come out soon from Harper 1 that I'm very excited about and it's about being alive. So, I can't wait to share those with you all and I really hope you'll let me know what you think about them. Okay, bye.
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