Meaning in life consists of three essential components: coherence (understanding why things happen the way they do), purpose (understanding why you are doing what you do every day), and significance (understanding why your life matters to others). These three 'why' questions together constitute the complete meaning of life. The modern meaning crisis, where depression has tripled and anxiety has doubled since 2008, stems from people failing to address these three components. Technology and constant stimulation keep us in the left hemisphere's complicated problem-solving mode, preventing us from engaging the right hemisphere's capacity for mystery and meaning. To find meaning, one must: (1) ask deep 'why' questions that don't have answers, (2) rise before dawn for contemplation, (3) engage in ordinary activities that illuminate the mystery of life, (4) serve others, and (5) worship the divine. The key insight is that meaning comes from living authentically and loving others, not from external achievements or possessions.
How To Find The Meaning of Your Life | Arthur BrooksAjouté :
It's unprecedented what's going on today. Depression tripled since 2008.
Anxiety doubled since 2008. The biggest predictor saying, "My life feels meaningless." The average American checks their phone 205 times a day.
You're not weak. You're living the same way as everybody else. It all feels fake. I get up, check my phone, scroll social media. I want a big project, but I can't dig in. And it all feels like I'm living in a simulation. No, I won't have it. I want the real thing. I want to suffer. We try to solve life like a complicated problem. But most of the things you care about, you can't solve. Everybody wants their calling.
They want to feel complete because of what they do. People who have a calling have two things in common. Earning your success in service to other people. I would have loved being a French horn player, which I didn't do it in love.
This was my mistake. When I was 55 years old, I retired from a CEO job after walking commino to Santiago, praying, "Lord, what do you want from me? Who do you believe you fundamentally are?
>> It's an absolute thrill to be an apprentice in the divine purpose that I believe is my life.
That's who I am. There is a crisis. It's not your imagination. And so the way that you fix that is by Wow. You're missing your life.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the know thyself podcast. Our guest today is a social scientist, one of the world leading figures on human happiness, which is a big subject. He is a Harvard professor, a three times over New York Times best-selling author, and somebody who's going to help guide us as a maestro in the conversation today around the meaning of your life. Arthur Brooks, thanks for being here.
>> Thanks for having me, Andre.
>> Could you help us by setting the lay of the land in terms of what the studies and the science is saying for the current meaning crisis? like how bad is it compared to say 10 20 50 100 years ago?
>> It's unprecedented actually what's going on today. We you know people have been asking does life feel meaningful or meaningless? Just kind of a throwaway question for the longest time and a small a small percentage of people would say my life feels meaningless. That exploded after 2008 and it was exactly coincident with the increases in in clinical depression and generalized anxiety. So there's this big debate going on you know why has depression tripled since 2008? Why has anxiety doubled since 2008? And there's all kinds of blame going around. You know, the that the millennials and jenzers blame the boomers and the boomers say you're just a bunch of, you know, delicate flowers. And but it really comes down to this meaning crisis. You find that the biggest the biggest predictor of saying I'm depressed and anxious is saying my life feels meaningless. And that didn't exist before. And boy did it actually pop up after 2008.
>> Can we define the term?
>> Yeah. What's what's the meaning of meaning?
>> Yeah. What's the meaning of meaning?
>> Oh, that's such a Harvard question.
That's such a logic chopping question, but I promise I won't I won't just, you know, wrap around the axle on this. But that's a really smart thing because a question because when if I told you, you know, you will find your bliss in Squim, you'd be like, what is Squim? You know, is it a meditation technique? It is a is it a nutritional supplement? It turns out it's a it's a small town in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State and but you have to know the meaning of what you're looking for. So if you're going to find the meaning of your life, which is not the meaning of my life, you need to know the meaning of meaning, what are you looking for? And and turns out there's been a lot of work that's been done on that. In in my field of behavioral science and in philosophy, there's kind of an agreement that meaning has three parts, the three big wise. So the meaning of your life is an understanding of the answer to three big why questions. Meaning is always why.
It's never how to or what. Why question number one is why do things happen the way they do? That's coherence. Why is the world coherent? You know some people will answer that like you and me because of the mind of the divine or or I would also answer that because of the laws of nature because of science. Some people who reject those ways of thinking will say because powerful shadowy figures are doing things behind the scenes.
Conspiracy theories are a struggle to answer the coherence question of why things happen the way that they do.
Which is why if you have a relative going down the rabbit hole doing doing his own research on the internet, don't yell at him and say, "You [ __ ] you know, read these studies." That's a cry for coherence, which is a cry for meaning. The second is why am I doing what I'm doing every day? You know, that's purpose. Am I just going in circles? Is it all for nothing? That that that why question is critically important because you need to be able to make progress in your life. You need to feel like you're doing something that actually makes sense. Like you say like if I asked you why are you doing this podcast? You're like no reason. That would be pretty meaningless. It would mean that you're saying that the podcast doesn't have a whole lot of purpose.
Thus it doesn't have a whole lot of meaning. And and then that's why goals and direction are so critically important. When you give uh like an adolescent just almost a trivial goal like go from B+es in this class to A minuses in this class and they start going after that particular goal, they get much happier because they have this sense of forward progress which is how homo sapiens are built. And the last why question is why does my life matter?
That's the significance question. That's the that's really the question of love.
Why does my life matter? because my mom loves me, because God loves me, that's the the real sense of your life's significance. And and if you believe that you have no essence, that you have no significance, your life is going to feel meaningless. And so when I'm talking to young people or anybody who's in a meaning crisis, I try to try to dig in on which one of those things I need to do work on. Do I need to help them understand who loves them? Do I need to give them goals and direction? Do I need to introduce them to ways to understand the coherence of the universe? But I got to know first.
>> So if we take that lens of coherence, purpose and significance and look back historically and we see this decline of meaning which are in your definition constituting of those three things. Uh what would be the predominant reasons and factors for why those three things aren't being met on an individual level which builds to the collective issue?
>> So that's the big science question. you know, um, I started doing work on this 5 years ago when I saw this huge crisis. I had I left academia in 2008 to go run a big a big nonprofit organization in Washington DC and I wasn't paying much attention. I came back in 2019, 11 years later and it was like the bubanic plague had gone through my village and what happened here, you know, it was the happiest place in the world when I left 2008. When did you go to college? When did you finish college?
>> Uh, well, there's an assumption baked in there. You went to college then I just finished it.
>> Um yeah like 2016 I went up to MSU for like a very short period and then >> Michigan State Lancing >> dropped out. Yeah. And then dropped out and came here >> and uh see my own thing.
>> I did a I took a gap decade too by the way.
>> From when I was when I was 19 I dropped out. I didn't I didn't drop back in till I was 28.
>> Maybe that's my arc. Yeah.
>> Maybe I'll come take your class.
>> Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I I finished a month before my 30th birthday. As a matter of fact, that decade was awesome. It wasn't much fun for my parents. They were a little worried mostly because they were academics. But but you know, so so you know the whole tell me wind back on the question I went down the rabbit hole.
>> The coherent significance and purpose what happened. So when I came back to academia in 2019 and I found the and I found the plague had gone through something had gone wrong. 2008 when I left, college was happier than non-ol.
You know, people were falling in love like every week and and people were making their best friends for life and they were experimenting with ideas. I mean, the whole idea you'd go to college campus and hear crazy ideas and you'd like protest and try to get your professor fired. That's insane. That's just the nuttiest thing ever. You're supposed to be like, "That is thrilling that they're telling me everything I learned as a kid might be wrong." That's the whole point, right? Supposed to be a big adventure, right? It's supposed to be scary and dangerous intellectually, but that all changed when I came back in 2019. It was like cancel culture and safe spaces and and and the huge amounts of depression, anxiety. Um, and some campuses, 55% of the of the students were in counseling, which I got nothing against counseling, quite the contrary, but that's a lot. That that is an indication that something's really really up.
>> So, I said, "All right, what's the deal?" And I started interviewing students. I I looked at the data and that's where I found these data on meaninglessness that had exploded and then I started talking to people because the way you do forensic social science like I do is that you see you see a pattern you look for data to confirm the pattern and then you start talking to people so the penny will drop that will give you clues then you can start running experiments and do these other approaches. It's kind of like figuring out the source of a virus. That's kind of how it works as if we're trying to figure out what caused COVID or something. And I started talking to students and young people. My students are in their 20s. I teach master students, MBA students at the business school. And they would, you know, they would talk about their lives and be like, I don't know. I mean, I I don't know what I'm meant to do. I do everything I'm supposed to do, but I don't know what I'm meant to do. And I don't know the meaning of any of these things. I don't know the meaning of these relationships. I don't know the meaning of my experiences. I don't They kept talking about meaning. It's like, wow, this is really deeply philosophical. And and so I knew that that was up. They also said something really interesting, though. They would say, it all feels fake. It all feels fake. Like, you know, I get up, check my phone, scroll, social media, you know, watch YouTube shorts. By the way, this is going to be a YouTube short.
They um And then I go to work. I don't go to work. I go into my bedroom and I'm on Zoom screen and I date on the apps and I do a lot of gaming and I want a big project but I can't dig in and it all feels like I'm living in a simulation of her real life. And so that's when I'm starting to understand that there's something actually going on with the brain. That's the dead giveaway. Now as a scientist that's where you start to get these clues because of these words that people say. And that's when I started looking deeply into the neuroscience of how life changed especially after 2008 that broke our brains. And the truth is it happened and it broke our brains in a way that we couldn't even understand or even ask questions of meaning. And that's where we are today.
>> And I know that you seem to have quite a proclivity towards studying the eastern side of the diagnosis for these reasons as well. I'm just curious why or how did you come to that exploration on uh for you know discovering what the the solution to the crisis is.
>> I have found in in my work studying human happiness which is my main area the science of happiness is that you one discipline isn't enough. You need to triangulate across multiple disciplines.
It's inherently interdicciplinary because happiness is the experience of life. The best questions come from the faith and wisdom and philosophical traditions. That's where you get the questions. You get the structure, the causation, the understanding what's happening largely from biology, um, from studying neuroscience. You get data about why things are happening and how they work from behavioral science. And then you actually go back into the wisdom in eastern traditions and western traditions to have practices to use what you've learned to change the situation, to fix the problems, to enhance the strategies that you've actually got. So the whole thing requires triangulation across faith or philosophy, neuroscience, behavioral science, and then committing to action. That requires that I'm reading all the traditions in the different angles on these things.
Now, when you find there's a discrepancy between Buddhism and Western psychology, sums up. Sums up. You know that probably we're coming at it from the wrong direction, often in Western psychology, as a matter of fact. But when you find that these are consistent ideas and they're pointing you in the same direction, then you've got some confidence because you'll also be able to develop some tools, deep understanding and tools.
>> So for everybody who's listening right now, we have probably a wide spectrum of people at different points in their life. Some feeling fulfilled, a lot probably feeling this low grade of numbnessing in their life. Malays this feeling like you're in an airport lounge waiting for a flight that's super delayed and you're just kind of scrolling to or gaming to take the time away >> waiting for something something something but it doesn't happen. Yep. to the other end where you know at the deepest end you know full crisis like I can't stand every day you know and for all of them your new book the meaning of your life the studies that you've been doing what you've really devoted the past many decades of your life researching and studying and triangulating on is why why that's the case the solutions the many different solutions to to that so for everybody who's listening to this conversation that maybe reads your new book and studies your work >> what is the promise after having listened to this conversation that they can gain more insight on so that we can spend the rest of this conversation fulfilling on and keeping everybody until the end of the show.
>> Listen to the end.
>> Retention.
>> It's like this is the internet number seven will shock you.
>> See, I can work the algorithm. We're doing it.
>> Unbelievable. Um the promise is this.
Your life does have meaning and you can find it, but you have to know where to look and you have to know how to live differently to do it. That's what this book is about. You know, there is a crisis. It's not your imagination.
You're not weak. You're living the same way as everybody else. There's a reason that your brain has changed. You can change it back and live in a new way and your life will never be the same and it will be much, much better.
>> Fantastic. So, let's go through some of these. That was well said. The doom loop is an aspect that I think a lot of people can relate to. Obviously through 2008 even before and especially in the past many years this advent of social media and technology has bared so many incredible fruits and at the same time enabled so much neurosis and dopamineergic solutions to what we used to you know uh have much healthier outlets for.
>> So what is the doom loop and let's kind of go and I'm curious your thoughts on technology in particular.
>> Yeah. So, I'm not anti-technology quite the contrary. I'm a techno optimist, but I recognize that the technology that we've developed makes promises that it can't keep and it does change our our brains. It and and and that's a really big problem. The problem actually isn't technology. The problem is the promise of engineering. You know, it's interesting that if you go back to the the industrial revolution or or or even the late 19th century, the promise was that, you know, physics and chemistry were going to solve every problem and science was going to find the solution to every social problem. And so you had Karl Marx promising scientific socialism, which ended pretty poorly, or or even people in in countries like the United States promising scientific public administration where we could set up a government that would where people would work like machines and and you know, everything would be great. And that doesn't work that way. And there's a reason it doesn't work this way, which is that all the things that we care about as human beings, this is the beautiful thing about those of us who are interested in the metaphysics of life, not just the physics of life, is that we are complex adaptive creatures that we live in a complexity of mystery and meaning. Now, now there's a neuroscience behind that. Your brain is hemispherically lateralized. You got a right side, you got a left side. The right side is dedicated to the why questions of mystery and meaning. The left side is dedicated to the complicated questions of how to and what. The engineering approach to life which is largely emanating from the philosophy of Silicon Valley which is that we can hit the singularity. We can figure all of it out. We can build algorithms that are even better than humans and suggest that we're nothing more than the left hemisphere. That life is nothing more than a series of complicated problems. But we live in the space of mystery and meaning. We live in the space of complexity. Most of the things you care about, you can't solve.
I mean, my marriage, I've been married 35 years. I haven't solved it. I'll never solve my marriage. That's why I love my marriage because it's different.
It's alive. You know, it's funny. We had I was having a kind of a stressful conversation with my wife as I was driving up here today. And just as I threw my phone away, she texted me, "I love you." That's the complexity of my marriage. No algorithm would predict the dynamics of how that actually worked.
And so the result of it is when we're looking for these complicated solutions to the complex problems of life, we become alienated. We turn off the hemisphere of our brain that we actually need to understand the meaning of our life. That's the problem. And that's a doom loop because the more that you distract yourself, the worse it gets.
The worse it gets, the more miserable you are. The more miserable and meaningless things feel like they are.
the more resistant that you are to sit in the in the stillness of yourself, the less tolerant you are of actually being with yourself. So, the more that you scroll and the more that you swipe and the more that you shop and things get worse and worse and worse. It's very much like anything that actually implicates the brain chemistry of of addiction.
>> Y >> you know, people are bored or anxious and so they drink alcohol. Those are the big predictors of alcohol abuse or boredom and anxiety and and that temporarily relieves it but it makes it worse and so you do it more and you escalate and you wind up in alcoholism and we have the same basic set of problems. That's the doom loop of technology. M >> I think as the rise of AI becomes more and more pervasive, we can see >> how what we really value is competence and predictability and narrowing in on that and we are inherently unpredictable complex creatures like you were referring to, you know, and >> and so when someone's scrolling till their last brain cell fries on social media or Tik Tok uh and they their life feels devoid of meaning, it can get this this exist I'm curious your thoughts on how this existent ial this existential angst to find the meaning of our life could be really simply supplemented with a walk in nature. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you're you're hitting on the solution of the problem. Now, to begin with, when you have any problem like this, you got to get clean first and then you have to live differently. But when if you said, "Hey, Arthur, I've got this. I've studied addiction psychology and medicine for a long time." And when people have a real problem with substance or behavioral addictions, the first thing you need to do is to get really pissed, right? So, you're determined to actually make a change in your life. Then you need to get clean, which means you need to do something to heal your brain. And then you need to do the hard part, which is live differently, right? To become comfortable with yourself. You know, one interesting thing about alcoholics, they always move. They always think if I get, you know, move to a new place where I don't know anybody and I don't have all those like degenerate friends, things are going to get better. So you move from LA to New York and the first thing that pops out of your suitcase is you.
That's the problem. And so so really the solution to this is we got to get clean.
We have a have to have a better relationship with technology and and the engineered life. And there's a lot of stuff in the book about how to do that.
There's a lot of science about how to get clean from you don't throw your phone in the ocean. I mean, you look at you, you're you're spiritual adept, but you still have a phone. And that's because you have a proper relationship with your devices. You manage them and they don't manage you. And I talk about how to do that very practically with actual protocols. But then you have to live differently. And the way that you have to live differently is by doing things that stimulate the right hemisphere of your brain. They were ordinary. You know, my great-grandpa Leroy Brooks didn't have to think about this. But I'll tell you something. He didn't come home from work and say, "Honey, I had a panic attack behind a mule today." So, his brain was working right. His brain wasn't he wasn't flooding his HPA axis. He was using his brain properly. And but so, so what was ordinary no longer is. And we have to retrain our brains in the old ways. And that's really what this is all about.
How are the ways that you can illuminate the right hemisphere of your brain once you're no longer being managed by your technology? So to zoom in on that a bit more, what are your thoughts on the death of boredom?
>> Yeah.
>> Because it seems like any single moment we have for silence or stillness, we just have the technology to fill it with something stimulating.
>> Yeah. We don't like boredom because it's boring and that's uncomfortable, but there's a lot of things that are uncomfortable. I mean, there's I go to the gym every day because I want to take care of myself and I want to live to, you know, take care of my family and and and I want to be able to be at the top of my cognitive game. And so, I go to the gym every day. I don't go in thinking, man, this is going to be feel as good as a massage. It's going to hurt. Today was leg day. That's really uncomfortable is the whole point. But I'm intolerant of psychic pain. People don't want mental pain. They don't want they try to they resist sadness and fear and anger and disgust and boredom. They don't like that. So they think that there's something wrong when they feel those things. That's that's that's as wrong as thinking that the pain that you feel when you're underneath the bar and when you're doing a the bench press supposed to feel that way. And and and a characteristic of a life where with a brain that's working properly is that you're bored a lot. You know, that's there was no way to escape that. You know, great grandpa Leroy was bored all the time. But here's the irony.
He was bor bored from moment to moment, but his life wasn't boring. People today, the average American checks her or his phone 205 times a day.
If you're at the supermarket checkout line, everybody's looking at their phones, right? And that's because they're resistant to boredom. And they're never bored moment to moment, but their lives are boring.
>> That's the irony. We're the opposite of Leroy. And so what we need to do is one, get clean as I mentioned, but then live like Leroy. I should have just called this book live like Leroy.
>> Doesn't quite have the same ring.
>> I know it doesn't. It's like who the heck is Leroy? This is this is not a bestseller. Live like Leroy. Or maybe it is. I don't know.
>> You never know.
>> Yeah. U so so >> life becomes boring.
>> Life becomes boring. And and so the way that you fix that is by doing the ordinary things in life that that use your brain properly that illuminate the mystery and meaning of your life. And you know that's that's a lot of things.
That's asking deep deep questions. But it really starts by giving yourself the space. Okay. So, back to boredom itself.
There's a lot of studies that laboratory experiments on how much people hate boredom. They're hilarious. I mean, I have this colleague named Dan Gilbert at Harvard. He's a psychologist. He's a great and visionary psychologist. And he's done these experiments where he invites a bunch of undergraduate students into the lab because they'll do like anything for 20 bucks. And and he'll sit them in a chair in an empty room with nothing to do. 15 minutes.
Just sit there for empty for 15 minutes.
Nothing to listen to, nothing to see.
And he gives them just a little key fob.
And if they touch the button, they self-administer a painful electric shock.
>> So, you know what he's studying?
>> Yeah.
>> Boredom or pain.
>> A quarter of the women shocked themselves. Twothirds of the guys. It's kind of what you need to know about men, >> right?
>> We're clearly the more intelligent species. Yeah.
>> Right. Sure. One guy shocked himself 190 times in 15 minutes and like got eliminated from the experiment because clearly he was some sort of a freak who liked it, you know, like, oh, not that.
So, so, so this is what we do and and we've created these key fobs. They're just called our phones >> that eliminate boredom. Look, social media is the shock machine. You don't like it. Who's like, I just love Twitter. I just love it so much. I mean, there's somebody out there, but most people are like, it's okay. It's okay.
But it's a shock machine fundamentally.
And when you're looking at your phone every 13 minutes, and that's on average, if you're sitting behind a light, you're looking at it the whole time. Like, anybody wonder if anybody texted me or something over there on WhatsApp. I wonder You mean right?
>> That's what we're actually doing. And the result of it is that we're we're keeping our brain in the complicated space in the space of the wrong kinds of questions of information because this is what we're getting is information.
Information information. Did you want that information? Not necessarily.
You're being flooded by information.
Information. And that's keeping you away from the mind wandering, the flights of fancy. It keeps you away from the space of deep meaning. You're going to have to suffer blank space if you're going to get to meaning is what it comes down to.
Which is why I I give my students homework to get on a flight and not look at their phones.
>> Yeah.
>> To ride the train and have their hands in their laps looking out the window and say, "Huh, a tree." To walk for an hour before dawn uh without devices to to not look at their phones for the first hour of the day during meals in the last hour before bed and life changes fast.
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>> I love Young's phrasing of uh how pleasure is tension reduction.
>> Yeah.
>> It makes me think about how that is in very much in essence what we're doing and and in all of those moments where we feel some sort of unease within ourselves and we cope, you know, um it's providing us some sort of solace moment to moment. In your book, I I heard I saw you refer to Emerson and his, you know, as his writing son on self-reliance and cultivating this rebellious spirit towards a culture and society that profits off of the vampurification of your attention and your energy. And so I'm curious your thoughts on that because I feel like it really does take a you know going against the grain when the grain the culture is every second of every day of every moment is taking your attention towards this social machine.
>> Yeah. You know um when I was talking to young people and I was doing the interviews to actually you know figure out what was going on. I was doing my Sherlock Holmes behavioral scientist routine and they started talking about the simulation. It reminded me of a movie that that came out in 1999. It's a long time ago called The Matrix.
>> And if you had Kiana Ree on your show, >> no. I mean, >> goat.
>> Yeah, that'd be he'd be a great guest.
>> Um, he's a very deep guy. I understand.
I don't know him.
>> But the the whole plot of The Matrix is like far out fantastical, impossible science fiction in 1999. There's an artificial intelligence, a machine intelligence. Okay, so far so good. And back in 1999, it's like what? And and what it does is it feeds on human energy and it keeps humans placid enough to take their energy by keeping them in a simulation by putting them in pods, running a simulation of life that's like sort of good enough, that's pleasant enough. And the the rebellion against it comes when Neo, played by Kander Reeves, like no, no, life is meaningless. I won't have it. I want the real thing. I want to feel it. I want to love it. I want to suffer. I want the real thing.
And some people don't. Some people don't. They want the blue pill. But the whole point is this. You're not fully alive under the blue. in that movie and you're not fully alive when we're talking and when you're going with the flow, when you're in the matrix, when the artificial intelligence that is just sort of the the culture, the machines, the technology, the overengineered solutions to everything. When you're living in that and saying, "Good enough, good enough. Just take away the just sand off all the rough edges.
>> Take away all the right angles. Just give me a simulated version of my life."
For me, it's not enough. And for most people, it isn't either. And there's a side effect to it, which is there's a disease, a psychoggenic epidemic that crops up, an unintended consequence called meaninglessness downstream from which we find depression, anxiety, loneliness, addiction, self harm. It's no good, man.
>> So, let's continue to take the red pill in this conversation, >> right? Let's do it. No, no, for sure.
Let's do it. Absolutely. Because this is the only way out is is to to live a full life. Live like Leroy.
How did Leroy live?
>> How how else did Leroy live outside of the tech side of things?
>> Yeah. So, he didn't have the tech, which means that he had he had to live in real life. And this is the IRL experience is what it comes down to.
What I found in the research is that there are six big previously ordinary ways of living that that dramatically illuminate the right hemisphere of the brain. So I'm going back and forth between >> philosophy and neuroscience and behavioral science. Obviously >> we've had Ian Miguel Croissan uh we did a deep dive on the differences hemispherically um and so these are more now >> mainstream I guess.
>> Yeah. And then also is it Toltoy's irrationality?
>> Irrational knowledge. That's TTO's concept of irrational knowledge which I migchrist would say is right hemispheric knowledge rightchrist is the world's leading expert on hemispheric lateralization and his ideas have had huge influence over me and actually we did an event together at Duke University just a few weeks ago talking about these ideas he's a he's a a neuroscientist and philosopher I'm a behavioral scientist and so we fit together pretty nicely on this and I'm able to use his work in in really useful ways >> right hemispheric experience largely comes from sort of Six things. Number one is asking deep why questions that don't have answers that you must ponder that lead to wonder that lead to discomfort.
>> This is a poria.
>> Yeah. Apora.
>> Exactly. Right. This is the Greeks talked about this. So almost every religious and great philosophical tradition is based on unanswerable questions. I like the coins of Zen Buddhism. So um I've studied a lot more Tibetan Buddhism because I spent a lot of time in Dharma Salah in the Himalayan foothills um with the community of the Daly Lama. And so the Tibetan Buddhism is a different tradition. Zen Buddhism is sort of is more of an attitude of observation but it's largely based on these coins which are riddles and and they they're senseless in their way. Um so I'll give you an example. um a young monk, right? Um uh an Ensui is a is a junior monk and and he finds a chikitsu the the master monk walking toward him on a path in the forest and he asks the master monk, "Where are you going?" And the and and the the master monk said, "On a journey." And he says, "What's the destination?" And the master monk says, "I don't know." And the junior monk says, "Why don't you know?" And the master monk says, "Because not knowing is the most intimate form of knowledge.
Consider."
That's a ponderable question that will illuminate the right hemisphere of your brain because it's not based on information. And that that's the key thing. If you can ask Google or chat GPT, it's not a right hemisphere question. Uh the the classic one is what is the sound of one hand clapping? which is that that's actually only about 150y old Cohen in Zen Buddhism, but it's it seems senseless, but when you think about it, it actually makes perfect sense, which is the sound of one hand clapping is an illusion. It's an illusion of sound and only becomes a reality when you add a second hand. Your life is incomplete in the absence of others, which is a deep Buddhist concept of emptiness.
But but that's an example and and doing that the classic questions in the west would be why am I alive for what would I give my life those are deep questions I I defy anybody to put those into a chatb it makes me definitely think about some of the current faults with the current structure of the education system um and this sort of top down versus bottom up processing right like if we're told what everything is from the external world in this top down way, then we we presume and we walk through the world as if we know, >> right?
>> As opposed to experiencing a tree or a bird, not through the name we've learned, but through the bottom up processing of experiencing it raw in each moment, which allows us to actually meet life more fully and fully alive and discover things that we otherwise might not have if we just move through life with our preconceived notions and prejudices of it. Um, likewise, aduko, right, which is the Latin origin of education means to evoke from within.
And so that it seems like that that Greek term aporeia and this like puzzlement of the seeking and searching allows us to discover instead of just take the blue pill and walk through and do what you're told through life, you know, >> you know, and the the the blue pill of the engineered existence is one in which we're we find more information to be adequate.
>> You want you don't understand something, go get more information. Yeah. And and no, understanding does not come from more information. It's interesting.
There's a a quote that's attributed commonly to Einstein. Who knows? Because you know, most quotes on the internet are completely unattributable, but it's possible where he said most people will read too many books. Most people and what they're doing is they're they're substituting information for the process of deep understanding. You need to read less and ponder more. And that's that's actually is very sound neuroscience and behavioral science. What you find is that your understanding that you're learning doesn't come because you have such a great teacher who explains something you say ah if you if you're sitting in class and there something is very deep you're learning philosophy or science or something is very hard and you understand it exactly when the professor explains it probably it's not very good. What you need to say is I don't get it. I don't get it. Then you need to go home and chew on it. then you need to go home and work on it. That understanding integrates the hemispheres of your brain between information and understanding which is the way your brain is supposed to work. The modern information economy is just throwing random information that's pretty easy to understand all the time. Now that's not your philosophy in the show. Your show is dedicate I know it is dedicated to asking people to ponder bigger ideas more deeply. And that means that the big benefit from this is for people to watch this and then go on a walk without devices, ideally an a half hour before dawn as the sun is coming up and think about the ideas. Think about the three or four big ideas that actually they're presented with in your work.
>> Amazing. So that was this the first of the six.
>> That the first of the six.
>> All right.
>> That's that's assignment number one.
>> Yeah.
>> Is is the Brahma Mhorta to to rise before dawn.
>> Yeah. So Brahma Mahorta talk about that because that's been a big >> practice of your life you know and guarding that that secret time in the morning.
>> Yeah. No so brahma mhorta is the idea of the creator's time um in Sanskrit and it's an hour and 36 minutes before dawn >> an hour and 36 minutes before sunrise.
>> It's two it's two mahortas which is 48 minutes each >> which has particular significance in ancient Vic wisdom and the neuroscience of this doesn't specify. The neuroscience clearly says, however, getting up before dawn. If the sun is already up and warm by the time you get up each day, you've kind of lost the first battle.
>> And getting up has before dawn has special properties for creativity, for the depth of understanding, for focus, and for mood, for mood management. It's just really good for you to get up before dawn. I recommend when, you know, I get, you know, 15 emails a day from people who's like, "Professor, what do I do? You know, I I I graduated from college. I feel so lost. And the first thing that I'll recommend to everybody who really feels lost is, you know, it's not going to taking more creatine monohydrate.
Good, but that's not going to do it.
>> I took 20 grams of it before this conversation.
>> 20? You're doing 20?
>> Just today. I haven't been doing it every day this week.
>> I do 10. I do 10. So, and and uh because I have this old grizzled adrenal system.
It's very inefficient. You You're young.
But anyway, it's good. That stuff's great. But but the whole thing to think about is not is not some supplement. The way to do it is to actually awaken your senses and awaken your full brain. Get up in a half an hour or so. Get up before dawn and walk for an hour. So ambulation, a pilgrimage every day. There's a reason that every religious tradition has pilgrimage. I've done religious pilgrimages in my life. I very deeply believe in them. There's a we're we're a walking species.
>> Commino trail.
>> Yeah. Communino Trail. I mean, it's just pray and pray and pray and pray and walk and walk and walk your way into it, an opened aperture of spiritual knowledge that will then find you.
>> So, Guan Camino for an hour without devices before it gets light and as the light comes up and do that every day for 30 days and then we'll talk again.
That's what I tell young people and they always say the same thing. I didn't find what I was looking for, but it found me.
And that's what we're looking for is something that we're looking for the thing that's actually looking for us.
>> Yeah. Not just what you want of life, but what life wants of you.
>> Yeah. So, you know, we think we're seekers, but we're actually we're >> sought as deep. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
And so that time, that window, providing that space to to see what is called of you, what you stumble upon to.
>> If we're again consumed by various different stimulus in our life and we don't we don't give that space, then we're less likely for those things to find us or to be sought in that sense.
Um, just to wrap a bow on that. So your >> could you just run through a quick overview of like your time in the morning?
>> Yeah. Yeah, >> I have protocols that I set up. So, it's not as if I'm just taking it as it comes. As much as I am fundamentally spiritually based, I do honestly believe that I'm a to, you know, a spiritual being having a physical experience. I mean, I deeply believe in this and I and I'm my my my faith is literally the most important thing in my life. But I honestly believe also that you know the organism per se requires that I use I use it appropriately and that requires healthy protocols such that I can tap into the metaphysics and I'm not stuck in you know trying to build with willpower and cognitive bandwidth the you know the the habits that I need. So I get up at 4:30 and I'm often jetlagged. I I'm on the road about 48 weeks a year. Um three or four nights not not all week. Um but that means I'm changing time zones a lot. So, this is correcting for time zones. Sometimes I get up at 4:30. I I I lift heavy things and run around for an hour first thing. I really I wake up my body and I'm I'm fully alive in this way. I work out, you know, and and and as much as it sounds like kind of a bro culture thing, I'm sure you do, too. And this is a great thing. This is to say I'm still alive. It's so beautiful. And then then is my the time that I actually dedicate to my my religious practice.
And so depending on where I am, I either have half an hour of meditative prayer or I attend religious service. I'm a Catholic and I'm a daily communicant.
So, which sounds like your grandma, >> right? I bet your grandma literally was a daily communicant, right? I mean, you're you're you're Middle Eastern Christian tradition. So, there's a lot.
I mean, and those they're badass, by the way. They they've got it together that you know, you you're raised Orthodox, right?
>> Yeah. That's a cool thing because they've got it together with respect to their religious protocols. I'm Catholic and the great thing about being Catholic, it's like Starbucks, you know, it's a it's a highly uniform and high quality product every place, like every place. So, uh, generally speaking, I'll go to mass right after I'll get cleaned up and I go to mass for a half hour. If there's not a mass available, I pray my rosary and then I'll go to mass at night. Sort of depending on where I am.
So, either the mass or rosary in the morning. and then what I didn't do at night and so I begin and end the day in that particular way in the space of relationship with the divine critically important and I've studied many of the karmic traditions as well and I've learned much of the technique that I use as a Christian from the karmic traditions sitting in meditation with the Tibetan monks for example is very has helped me very much in the way that I practice my faith after that um and I have I I don't ingest any calories at at this point because I want complete clarity. I'll have you because I'm working out hard. I'll have electrolytes and creatine monohydrate and and a few other supplements that I use that I like that I think are actually really good but not caloric. I don't want nutrition.
By the time I get back from mass, then I take the first bololis of psycho stimulant. You I take which is just a nerdy way of saying I drink coffee and I drink a lot. I mean I drink but but in one dose I'll have between three and 350 milligrams of caffeine which is a lot. I mean but >> you have to wake up to focus.
>> No no it's neotropic. Yeah, >> I don't use it for for waking. I use it for focus, which is really critically important. So, caffeine blocks the A2A adenosine receptors and and there's a lot of evidence that suggests that if you use it to wake up, you're going to get a crash in the afternoon and you've wasted the focusing properties. So, I don't drink caffeine for 2 and 1 half to three hours until after I get up. And then I take my first nutrition and when I do it which is heavy in protein and very low in carbohydrate and do it with micronutrients that I actually get from nuts and berries etc. but a lot of Greek yogurt with protein powder etc. very clean >> and then I get four hours of dopamine in my freefrontal cortex. I get the best concentration and focus I can get. I've done body and soul and and I've taken care of myself in a particular way and and and I don't have to think about it.
None of this takes cognitive bandwidth or willpower.
Hey fam, a quick share from a partner of ours. Caffeine does not actually give you energy. It just mutes this signal that tells you you're tired. The fatigue is still building underneath. You just can't feel it until it wears off and then it hits all at once, which is the crash. What actually produces energy in your body is a process that runs on electrolytes. So, if you're depleted, no amount of coffee is fixing that. You're just masking it. This is why I've been really enjoying Element's new lemonade iced tea. It uses a full black tea extract, not isolated caffeine like most energy drinks. And they also make these stick packs and sparkling 12 oz cans that I've talked about and love. The lemonade and grapefruit flavors are personal favorites. And they have a chocolate salt, which in hot water is a low-key gem. If you want to try them out, it's 100% risk-f free. Order it and if it's not your vibe, they'll give you a full refund, no questions asked. You don't even have to send it back. Go to drinklementnt.com/nowell for a free 8count sample pack with Element's most popular flavors with any purchase. Links down in the description as always. I hope you enjoy. Hey guys, a quick share. Did you know that your body runs on magnesium? It's involved in over 300 biochemical processes. Everything from how your nervous system regulates itself to how well you sleep and your muscles recover. Yet roughly 80% of people are not getting enough of it. The problem is most magnesium supplements give you one or maybe two forms and your body does not absorb them well. So you're just basically getting expensive urine. Magnesium Breakthrough by by Optimizers is the one I use and recommend to my friends all the time. It has seven forms of magnesium. Each one targeting something different. Stress resilience, deep sleep, energy, cognitive function. It's full spectrum and your body will actually absorb it.
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any uh quick little tips to help intermittent faster tech and like set oursel up for success i.e. phone out of the bedroom or like what are some things you've found?
>> Yeah, the protocols are are pretty straightforward and and very well studied. Um first hour of the day because you're the neurocognitive programming is happening largely when you first get up. So, if you're having trouble with a particular habit or or you know, people who suffer from ticks, for example, ticks that come and go, like not full-on Tourett, but people who suffer from nervous ticks, if they can actually not start the day with any ticks for the first hour, they can break the tick.
>> But if you you can't do it after the first hour because of this programming that actually occurs. And so, think of your phone as a tick. The 205 checks a day, that's a tick, right? And it's much the same way. It affects the brain much the same way. Now, if you're in media, for example, you're going to look at it to see what came in overnight. What's on fire, right? But that's just quick information, then down. No scrolling. No scrolling. Put it away. The second protocol is not drinking while you eat.
I I recommend if you can not eating alone. Human beings, homo sapiens, I realize you live alone, so that's a hard that's that's hard to do. But homo sapiens were evolved to live in bands of 30 to 50 kin-based hierarchically arranged individuals. And we get a good deal of the neurochemical reward of that when we eat together and talk. So we sit around a campfire and talk about our day while making eye contact and put pieces of yak meat into our mouths or gazelle into our mouths. And that's where we're and so never have your phone at the table. Never have your phone while you eat. Even if you're eating alone, never have your phone while you're eating is critically important. And the third is the last hour at night before you go to bed and put it away in a closet locked away. Um, never. And this also requires given this first and last hour that you're not sleeping with your phone. My students will be like, "How do I wake up?" I said, "Well, I have this incredible new invention. It's called an alarm clock. It's unbelievable. It's five bucks on Amazon." Um, >> do you still use it if you feel like you've hitten your routine? Does your body >> that it doesn't it doesn't matter. So, I can use my phone as an alarm clock now and I won't look at it during the night >> because because I've got the protocols to the point where I've broken the grip, but it takes >> usually about 6 weeks.
>> The the the norm is 42 days >> on anything like this to break the grip is what is how that works. And then some certain zones, you know, the bedroom is a phone free zone. Classrooms should be phone free zones. It's insane that there's a single classroom in America from kindergarten through PhD where you can have your phone.
>> That's just nuts. That's child abuse as elder abuse, too, because a lot of people are anyway. And then last but not least, you need a fast. You need at least one fast a year. I recommend 96 hours. I go on spiritual retreat every year. Strongly recommend. It's great.
The first day, your brain is screaming for the device. The second day, you're calming down. The third day, you're in bliss. And the fourth day, you just wish it were lasting all year round.
>> Yeah. is and so just those protocols that's simple stuff your life will change.
>> Fantastic. I love that we're bouncing between the theoretical, the practical.
>> I'm a practical guy because you know the theory is one thing.
>> Yeah.
>> But you know look you and I are spiritualists, right? It's not helpful to say I believe theoretically in spiritual practices.
You got to do the practices.
>> Absolutely.
>> All right. Do you want to touch on any of the remaining six? Romance, transcendence, calling, beauty.
>> We got five left. Take your pick.
>> Oh boy.
>> This is a whipman sampler. Which which chocolate do you want?
>> Little sample platter.
>> Yeah.
>> Talk about want to talk about romantic love.
>> Yeah, sure.
>> You going to do some you going to do a little little You going to do some self-disclosure to me here?
>> Yeah. Is that Did I give something away there?
>> People find meaning in the pursuit even the unsuccessful pursuit of romantic love.
>> Yeah.
>> Is this true in your life?
Um yeah I I did last year celibate and right now I'm not in partnership on purpose.
>> No just no one wanted to hook up with me >> involuntary the worst kind.
>> Um >> now you're going to get a whole lot of proposals you know in the track.
>> It's all part of the strategy reverse single. I had no idea.
>> No it was it was intentional to really focus my creative energy and um but I agree. I mean, falling in love being, you know, in in in the exploration of that, it's like you're I feel everybody can agree. You're in you're alive to a to a big degree during that.
>> It sounds like the time we live in though with all the apps and all the different ways again, incredible on one hand, but then also a detriment to another.
>> Yeah. So, falling in love is a right hemispheric experience when you do it right. How do you do it wrong? by reducing it to an algorithm, by making it into a left hemispheric complicated engineering problem, by it's like I'm going to find somebody who's just like me. Now, it's a weird thing that you'll find people who are who are on the apps too much. Some of the apps are actually getting much better by injecting more human experience into the algorithm. And this is a a truth in life. Look, the the the the robots are coming. The cyborg experience is coming. But the secret to living well under those circumstances is not by adding more robotics to your human experience, but adding more humanity into the robotics. We need to add more human friction into all levels of what we're actually doing with machines. And and dating is a perfect example of this. So when you go on the apps and you date, thank God. I mean, it's like I'm old, so it's like I I I I I got married in the before times, right? But what people will do is try to solve the problem of romantic love by setting up a sameness.
I want somebody who votes like me. I want somebody who, you know, likes California like I do. I want somebody who um likes Sriracha. I want somebody who wants to move to Austin. I want and and pretty soon they're dating themselves, which is super not hot, right? And and part of the reason is because we intuitively know this is a right hemispheric intuition that we want somebody who completes us, not somebody who copies us.
>> You don't want somebody who's just like you. You want somebody who makes you who, you know, is the perfect amalgam.
>> Yeah. Strong, not like complimentary.
>> You want the yin and the yang.
>> This isn't this is a truism across all philosophies is things that fit. You know, the pieces of a puzzle are supposed to be different and opposite.
And yet, we forget that when we try to solve it like a complicated problem.
When we live it like a complex problem, it's super risky and it's super scary and it's impossible to understand. I mean, I I have an unsolvable marriage. 35 years, man. Unsolvable. Unsolvable.
That's the point. The point is getting to deeper understanding with somebody who's not like you, with whom you can have best friendship. That's really what's going on. And so when you allow yourself to give your heart away, when you do that risky thing, you're you're stepping into the unknown, it's super scary. It's way beyond the complexity and the mystery of what most people do.
And what we've done is engineered it into something that we can clearly understand. And the result of it is that we don't like it. And even though there's more availability of people than there's ever been before because of the technologies, there's less attraction.
People are about a less a third less likely to be in love in their 20s as people were when I was in my 20s. Like that's all there was to do. That's all I wanted. I mean, it was all about love and because we were more comfortable exploring the mystery and the danger of the right hemisphere of our brains.
>> The optionality, too, is like a is like is wild. You know, you live in Tuscaloosa and you got Kathy and Susan are like your options, you know, >> and that leads to the paradox of choice.
>> Yeah.
>> And the paradox of choice is just another manifestation of taking a right hemisphere mystery and turning it into a left hemisphere problem to solve.
>> Well, I I want to circle back to romance, but um I I want to jump forward to calling right now because I think a lot of people can You know, we both live in a time that is more comparative than ever, right? So, we're seeing everyone's highlight reels, of course, >> and we're oftent times feeling devoid of having what in the Hindu tradition is spa dharma, which is like this >> not just like doing what you're supposed to be doing. But >> the natural occupation >> is actually a vehicle for selfreization.
And um it's not just something nice to do. literally becomes your vehicle for self-actualization and realization. And uh I'm curious how we can just talk about how to zone in on discovering that calling >> or do you you refer to the you know discover your viewers cuz you're somebody that started making pizzas, French horn player, think tank, happiness expert. You have gone through many different iterations and I'm curious how you >> Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people they're looking for I mean everybody wants their calling. They want to feel complete because of what they do. The problem with that is that once again we have a tendency to solve it like a complicated problem as opposed to experiencing our lives, finding our calling by what we do with an integrated approach that allows ourselves to do something that might be way off the beaten path or do something that's really different than what the best, you know, the the engineering department at university says is is actually the best life.
Here's the way to think about it. People who have a calling in their work have two things in common. These things do not include salary or position or title or mom's deepest dreams or what your college counselor told you to do. They have the sense that you're earning your success, that you're creating value, that you're rewarded and recognized in some way, shape, or form for something that you're authentically earning. This is why merit-based systems are everything. and like tenure and and trust me, I'm an academic. Tenure is terrible. It's completely demotivating because you're not earning your success.
They can't fire you. Um and loyalty based systems are the worst. You kiss up to the boss and you're his friend and you you hang around. They're completely demotivating and they they they lead people to actually feel depressed and learn their helplessness. Earn success is the idea that people need me. And that's the second part which is service to other people. If you earn your success and you're serving others, then you're in the zone of your calling and it can change. You can spiral in and out of that eight times. I I'm sure that you feel like you're living your calling with this show. I'm sure I can see it in your eyes, but I bet that there have been other things that in which and there will be more things because you're young that you're going to be able to manifest. You're a classic spiral. By the way, there's the the the social science of of career trajectories says there's four kinds of people psychologically and the way they pursue their careers.
>> Some are what they call experts. That's like your grandfather who kind of stayed on the same track. My dad had the same job for 42 years. Same university, 42 years, college professor, got about a 2% raise every year. Came time for tenure.
He didn't even apply. Just showed up in the mail. Um it was like super predictable. He had a lot of security.
And the reason is because what he wanted was something that was that that led him to have a lifestyle that he wanted and he could count on. That's the that's the that's the expert career path.
>> The transitory people who jump from thing to thing because they don't want to live to work, they want to work to live, right? Then the two of among real stvers, really successful people are linear careers, which is ambition and points on the board. These are not the happiest people. These are people who only change jobs, let alone careers, when there's something bigger and better in line for worldly rewards, money, power, honor, right?
>> The happiest people who are really, really successful strivvers are the spirals. They have 7 to 12 year careers of their own design and nobody gets to nobody understands them but themselves >> where you funge the greatest spiritual gifts from one to the other. Sound like you? Starting to sound like you, right?
Yeah, I can see for sure like >> that naturally transitioning at different points >> and and mom's like, "What's going on, >> but it doesn't matter >> because you're actually building that."
That's how going from French horn player to doing my PhD and becoming an academic >> to being a CEO to building a happiness company, dedicating my life to lifting people up in bonds of love and faith of hope.
>> You're spiraling more and more closer towards alignment of what you're here to do is what you would say. I hope it's heaven. I hope it's heaven. I hope that it's the spiraling upward toward my true home, which is the image always of angels, by the way. They're always in a I always spiral, you know, up toward heaven. But of course, I don't know. But the whole point is that that's the adventure of finding your calling. And it manifests it itself in different ways. And the two things to look for, am I earning my success? Am I serving other people? In other words, am I needed is how that works. And I don't care. Maybe it's maybe it is making pizzas for a while. Maybe it's with a really frustrating boss. Maybe it's something you don't want to do. But the truth of the matter is that that's not the point if it's in the spiral trajectory of your calling.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's a beautiful thing.
>> It reminds me of this quote which I underlined from the Gita that you quoted in your book. By performing one's natural occupation, one worships the creator from whom all living entities have come into being and by whom the whole universe is pervaded. By such performance of work, a person easily attains perfection.
>> I know. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? Because that's the whole the whole concept that we're made in the image of the divine. The divine is a creative entity.
The divine, the Godhead created the heavens and the earth. A and and our little version of that is us creating the heaven and the earth in our own way.
You know, in the in the in the Hebrew Bible, you know, people talk about the, you know, the unpleasantness of the snake and the and the and the tree and the apple and all that. And the penalty for Adam and Eve was they had to go toil in the garden, right? But read it closely.
The bliss was working in the garden. The whole point is whether or not it has meaning. The whole point is whether or not it's the calling. They were working the garden. They were working the fruits of the beautiful labor labor of God and then later they were working by the sweat of their brow. They went from calling to no calling in its own way.
And what do we want? We want to live in a particular way of integration, of faith, of hope, of love that actually makes it so that we're working in the garden before the snake.
It reminds me also of I I was very lucky and blessed to stumble upon some teachers early in life. So like at 16, not even necessarily just in person, but you know, through different books and and audios, I remember Earl Nightingale saying, you know, the strangest secret is that man becomes what he thinks about most often. And that success, his definition of success, the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
>> Yeah.
>> The progressive over time realization of a ideal that you deem worthy.
>> Does that resonate with you?
>> Completely. Homo sapiens are dedicated to progress. The biggest mistake that strivvers and by the way this is a strivever show. These are people who want to be better. Nobody's like yeah I don't want to be better. I don't want you know anything like spiritual perfection you know. No know thyself is the anthem for the stver. Right. That's good. That's good. All strivvers are sort of homo sapiens par excellence in what we truly want which is progress toward something. The problem for the striber is the belief that once you actually hit the object of your affections, then you'll have a permanently happy mood. That your lyic system will keep you in a state of bliss. That's not how your lyic system works, man. I mean, you're not there. I mean, your your lyic system doesn't isn't there to give you happy days every single day. You'd be eaten by a tiger sumily if you actually didn't have negative emotions. If your bliss was p were persistent. That's why MC Jagger is saying I can't get no satisfaction. He should have said I can't keep no satisfaction but I try and I try and I try. The first thing that a billionaire says upon earning the first unit I need another unit because I don't feel it. It doesn't what it isn't what I was going to feel. And so the point is night andale's point is the progressive unfolding of a goal that's worthy.
Progress is everything. And we see this all around us. You know, you can lose weight on any weight loss program practically. I mean, there's some stupid, you know, the all pizza diet is probably not going to do it, but any serious weight loss diet, you're going to lose weight. And the reason is because you will be rewarded with the goal of a scale going down that's sufficient to keep you from eating things that you like. The problem with hitting your goal weight is that the reward is never getting to eat what you like ever again for the rest of your life. Congratulations. which is why weight loss programs generally don't work. And that's this whole principle.
What we need is a worthy goal that can only be that that really is always on the horizon and that we're working toward that. Now, here's the thing.
Here's the thing. Let me ask you if you see if you agree with this. I've actually never talked about this. I've been thinking about this. We believe there's an ultimate cosmic goal.
We believe there's something beyond this life. Most people do, right? I mean, and it's in different traditions.
It's described in different ways, right?
Um, we want to be happy in this life, but we actually can't be. We can be happier.
That's my job. But it's imperfect happiness. But we believe that there's a cosmic bliss. We actually believe that.
You and I believe that. That to me kind of like thirst is evidence of the existence of water.
Hunger is is proof of the existence of food.
That hunger for a perfect bliss is evidence that it exists. There is something beyond the here and now.
Yeah. I keep quoting honestly man your book this book is great. Like I I really loved it and it reminds me of the section um humans lack these senses but to assume they don't exist would be silly even dangerous. We have no reason to believe either that the world of science has exhausted the fields of material reality that are beyond our sensory perception. On the contrary the most logical and rational assumption we can make is that we are surrounded by forces and entities of which we are completely unaware of and that are as yet undiscovered. And it it just makes me think of okay this is what you're referring to is a bit of more of a mystical calling and that there is water that we are thirsty for union with God however we want to describe it that we find in our own you know individual ways. Do you feel that our calling is bestowed upon us by some unseen force or that we are co-creators with it that we are complete generators of it? How do you conceptualize that? So that's that's a really interesting question because that is the in essence the answer to that question is whether or not you follow the Abrahamic or karmic traditions, >> right? The whole idea of co-creator of what the destiny is is a more karmic view. The idea that your essence precedes your existence is more Abrahamic.
>> The essence is the true you. Who you're supposed to be. Your existence is being born in this earthly experience that we're having. And the essence precedes you. Meaning that there is a plan, but you have to discover it and live according to it. That's your goal in life. That's what it comes down to. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I of course I have a view. I follow an Abrahamic religion. I go to mass every day. And so, my my my natural muscle memory is that essence precedes existence. That my essence is not co-created with my earthly existence. I have to my my my my intuition tells me as well as my religious training as well as Sunday school that that God had a plan for my life that that that existed before I did. And when God created my soul, he said, "Be a good and faithful servant, you know, live according to this essence." But at the end of the day, um, if I'm wrong, that's okay, too.
That's actually okay, too. Because I believe that in the in the in the ultimate metaphysical sense, probably these two ideas, they converge. And the idea of pre-existence of essence and the and the co-creation of essence, there's no reason that they couldn't be the same thing when the when when the continuum of time collapses.
>> Mhm.
>> Which in the deepest metaphysical sense, it almost certainly must.
>> Yeah. No, absolutely. Well said, man.
Reminds me of the, you know, it's better to be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right. Whatever are the objective truths to the claims we have within our beliefs and religious beliefs, what is the onlogical experience of the person who believes it, you know, and does that leave you in a better place where you're contributing more to the world? Well, I'm going to take that one.
>> Yeah. No, and and there's nothing wrong with >> with following a particular physics.
>> Yeah.
>> There's nothing wrong with that. I like my physics.
>> You know, I think it's a really a a great way for me to understand, you know, God in my life. And I have no reason for for I have no reason to say because I believe that this is right that I must condemn everybody else.
>> Right.
>> Right. I mean I encourage people all the time to to to who grow up as Catholics for example or who are curious about it to do it. It's so great. It's so great.
I just love it so much. It's the most important thing in my life.
>> Right. But I'm also just an admiration of people who have that experience who are my Muslim brothers and sisters who are you know I and I have many Hindu teachers when I go to to I'm not a Hindu that's not my beliefs I study with the Daly Lama I've been studying with the Daly Lama for 12 years I love that I love him he's greatly enriched my life and I don't understand how quite how to how to to to accept mine is not to reject theirs and to figure out what that means is something that hasn't quite unfolded for me yet, but I'm I I think it's right.
>> I think one thing that is a pervasive plague is what you referred to earlier, which you also name is the arrival fallacy.
>> Yeah.
>> So, you know, even this kind of goes into the positive psychology movement, right?
at in its sincere form as a vehicle for self-realization at a certain point it can cross into a path of solicism and this unending task to fix a perceived broken self.
uh you know people that take up the spiritual path much you know there's a saying that uh like enlightenment or meditation is porn for perfectionists you know >> and and so whether it's building a business or pursuing this path we have this >> pervasive and consistent delusion that our ideal life is someday not present now um I was reading this book the age of anxiety from Alan Watts I love >> yeah that's a great book >> it's great Yeah.
>> Um I started putting together a new book list for our community >> and that and he was such a deeply troubled individual >> which by the way is characteristic of everybody in this business.
>> Yeah.
>> No, totally. It's all me search not research. And you know you don't find somebody who studies this who's looking for to understand bliss who who has it.
>> Yeah.
>> You know my I don't study air because it's pl was plentiful. But if it start wasn't it weren't plentiful I'd be pretty darn interested in it. Right.
>> Almost everybody I know in my business of the science of happiness um lacks it and finds it hard.
>> You know, in a weird way, it sounds off-brand, but it's actually perfectly on brand, isn't it?
>> Went into the field for a reason. You know, I one quote from that book that stood out was uh to plan for a future which is not going to become present is hardly more absurd than to plan for a future which when it comes to me will find me absent looking fixedly over its shoulder instead of into its face. They fail to live because they're always preparing to know that's that's the whole idea of the miracle of mindfulness from Ticknot Han which he starts off that book um describing the experience of washing the dishes. He said, "When you're washing the dishes, you should be fully alive while washing the dishes.
You should be paying attention to washing the dishes because if you're not paying attention to washing the dishes when you're washing the dishes, you're someplace else and you're missing your life." And and that's important because you know we have this uncanny ability with this incredibly developed prefrontal cortex the supercomputer of the brain that this is really distinguishing factor not the lyic system of emotion but the the the 30% of our brain that's a prefrontal cortex that that that that allows us to time travel. Your dog can't time travel. It can't, you know, think about the past and learn from its mistakes except intuitively, except with depending on instinct. And it can't think about the future and practice future scenarios.
The problem is we're so good at it that we're never here now. And it's incredibly uncomfortable.
>> Now, the father of positive psychology that you just referred to a minute ago is Marty Seligman. My great mentor Marty Seligman. He's incredible. And he he believes that presantism, mindfulness is actually unnatural to homo sapiens.
>> That's why it's so hard. You know, people are like, "Okay, be here now and get into a a mindful state." It's super hard because you immediately the default mode network and your brain turns on.
You start thinking about the future. He says we shouldn't be called homo sapiens. We should be called homo prospectus because we're naturally thinking about the future. The average person spends 30 to 50% of their time thinking about the future. The average struct, but you're missing your life. You know, here here's the thing to remember.
Really old people spend more time thinking about the past. Really young people think about the future all the time. Um, very few people spend very much time right now. But you can only love now.
Love only happens right now. The less you're here, the less you love. And that's God's plan for your life is love.
To love and be loved, which requires that you be here now. To quote Ramdas, be here now. Why? Why would you want to be here now? Well, let's think about the porn of meditation. The Daly Lama told me that he discourages Westerners from becoming Buddhist. Why? Why? He says, "Cuz they're doing it wrong." I said, "What do you mean?" He said they want to meditate to feel better. Meditate to feel better. I said, "So what should they be doing?" He says, "You should meditate so everybody else feels better."
>> The point of your meditation is to lift up the whole world. That's the point of your meditation. Not so that you will lift yourself up, so you'll feel less anxious, so that you'll become more productive, so that your depression will be alleviated. On the contrary, it's completely secondary to this. And that's the point of understanding that right now, right here is the only time that we can love. And that's why when we have this conversation, you and I are here right now. We're not thinking about the future. And we're loving this moment.
And that's what we're trying to achieve.
Because as we love this moment, we get to have this conversation. We're trying to bless other people. The point is not so that Andre and Arthur feel better.
The point is that we're trying to lift up the world. And that's the essence of now. And that's the essence of love.
The act of service to me feels like it fills those buckets of coherence and purpose and significance, you know, that we mentioned earlier. And it seems like no matter what the calling is, whether it's flipping pizzas or talking on a podcast, you know, or professing, you know, there's this quality of meta of well, wishing for the well-being of others through the unique lens in which life, God, whatever the creator, the universe has given you certain gifts and skills and aptitudes and proclivities and and through that you're giving to the greater whole. Um, >> chopwood carry water.
>> Once again, that's just just another of these Zen Buddhist coins where the ensu goes to the Jigjitsu.
>> These are great names.
>> I know. I know. And says, "I'm ready for my assignment, master.
I'm ready for my assignment." And Jiki Jitsu says, "Your job will be to chop wood and carry water." Okay. He's in the he's in the monastery for years. He chops wood and carries wood. He's got chapped hands. It's cold in the winter.
He's got sore muscles. Finally, he's attained enough enlightenment, enough knowledge that he can become a master himself. And he goes to the now aging master and says, "Master, I have attained all of this knowledge. I've done everything asked of me. What is my job now?" He's thinking, "I'm going to become maybe a contemplative. You know, maybe I'm going to become a teacher. I'm going to be able to work inside."
And the master says, "Yes, you have attained enlightenment. Now your job will be to chop wood and carry water because the whole point is as Mother Teresa said, don't do big things, do little things in love. You know, if I had known what it meant to make pizzas, I wouldn't have resented making pizzas.
If look, I would have loved being a French horn player, which I I didn't do it in love. This was my mistake. Because there's a reason that it didn't last is because I didn't do it in love. Right.
Finally, I mean, better late than never.
When I was 55 years old, I retired from a CEO job after walking a long pilgrimage, the Commamino to Santiago, and praying, "Lord, guide my path. What do you want from me?
What do you want from me?"
And I believe God put the knowledge on my heart that I was supposed to spend the rest of my life lifting people up and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love using science and ideas.
And I said, "Okay, I get it. Okay, I get it. And now finally, I can do this in love. I wish I'd done it when I was your age."
I mean the relatability and the arc of your journey I feel like is also what allows you to connect with so many people like >> because this is life.
>> Yeah.
>> This is our lives.
>> Yeah.
>> And you know I really specialize in people who have big dreams and a lot of ambition and who are hard workers, super strivvers. I get it. I mean I know not everybody's like that. But >> everybody thinks quite mistakenly that if they had your success they would automatically be happy. And you say, "Shoot for happiness and you'll be successful enough." Now, the strive panics at that last sentence because the word enough.
>> Yeah. Right. Because we we're under this consistent thought that like happiness is the goal. We're supposed to be like happy moment to moment. How would you describe your feeling of like joy of fulfillment? Like what is the better approximation of really what it means to not miss our life? M so happiness per se is a combination of it's not a feeling to begin with. Stop chasing feelings.
Feelings are liars. Your entire limbic system is dedicated to producing emotions that are nothing more than threats uh signals of threats and opportunities. It's a very unscentimental way of understanding emotions. But it's literally true. You have fear, anger, disgust, and sadness to alert you to threats that you've perceived below your level of consciousness. You have joy. You have surprise. you have interest to alert you to to opportunities that will allow you to, you know, get food and pass on your genes, you know, mating, etc. And and those are animal impulses is what it comes down to. That's not the goal is to actually have a series of feelings. And the biggest mistake people make about having happy lives is they chase feelings. Stop chasing feelings. Let feelings occur as they occur. This is the proper functioning of your brain.
Look for the three elements of a truly happy life, which is enjoyment, not the same good pleasure, satisfaction, which is the joy of actually achievement after struggle, and meaning, the biggest one of all, which is what we're talking about here, which is what the new book is about. And that's finding coherence, purpose, and satisfaction. And so, there's a science behind each one of these things. There's a spirituality, there's a theology behind all of these things. And the best part is this, man.
It's a complete adventure >> in each one of these silos and and God gives us like 80 90 years to go on these adventures to figure out what does it mean to go from pleasure to actual enjoyment of life. What does it mean to to become comfortable and celebratory of the struggle that goes into achievement and not just the achievement per se?
What does it mean to find the meaning of my life through all the pain and suffering >> which is actually part of the experience itself?
>> Would you say around like your late 50s when you went on that trail was that a time where you really kind of collapsed or >> stop misconlating internal worth with external success?
I'm sure it's >> a theme that you know still comes up but like >> that that that gap >> and that that that perceived relation between external success and >> it being enough.
>> Yeah. The scoreboard scoreboard's a killer and the scoreboard is really the the big the bane of the existence of the driver.
>> That's called those are called extrinsic rewards. And there's a big literature on extrinsic rewards. Like if you if a kid loves playing with a toy just from the joy of it and then you give them a cookie to play with the toy, they like the toy less.
>> Ah, paradoxical, right? It seems like it would compound the satisfaction that actually comes from it. It diminishes it because we say if somebody's paying me to do it, then therefore it must be ownorous. And so the joy, the intrinsic joy of something is is is lowered by the extrinsic rewarding of that things. And so and so the the superstated achievementoriented person is all about the ex external uh scoreboard. Um that's hard and that's a real problem in my life. How have you guarded when your passion turns into a business?
How do you guard the >> totally >> you know because it can quickly become this engine and this machine that's running and you become again >> like a cog in it instead of you know we can become disconnected from the original intent >> and no doubt you're looking at your viewer numbers >> there's no way to avoid that and that's so deflating right and and and on the weeks I'm hoping that this one will be a million and a half viewers >> YouTube algorithm bless us with a one out of 10 come on you can do But and we joke but sort of no joke, right? And and so what what we're trying to do is we're we're in the meditation.
We're doing the meditation to lift up everybody else. That's the that that really is why we do it. Of course, >> because you know this is not like the most financially rewarding thing that you can do and I'm not making any money at all, right? But we love it. This is love because it's present here and now.
We spoil it by reducing it to these scoreboard effects. I write books. Do you think I don't look at the New York Times bestseller list? I wanted to open a number one baby. That's what I want.
But it spoils it. It ruins it. So, how do you guard against it? Number one is knowledge. Number one is actually recognizing that that's the case. It's actually feeling that that hollowess has a is is motivated by by the extrinsic rewards. The second is actually having people who love you enough to hold you accountable to it. That's where marriage comes in. You know, that's where you have to, you know, somebody who who denies you love except for the extrinsic rewards doesn't love you.
>> Yeah.
>> You know what? Here's a pathology of strivvers. They have the same kind of childhood. I write about in the book a little bit. Um, these are people who become workaholics, for example. It starts when they're kids and they get the attention and energy and affection of adults when they do something good.
They get a good report card. They make first hearing the orchestra. They, you know, they're they're the lead in the play and and they they're synaptically plastic little brains process this conclusion. Love is earned. Love is earned. Now, that's wrong. Love is a free gift freely given or it's not love.
Anybody who makes you earn her love doesn't love you. It's an important thing in the dating world, right? And people go through life if they're if they believe that love is earned, they'll marry people who demand that love be earned. They'll surround themselves with suckup friends where love is earned. They'll believe that God God's love can be earned. And that's a craziness of life is a way that that works out. When you have the person who completes you, where the one flesh in a good marriage in a romantic partnership is the union of the right hemispheres of your brain, which becomes an antenna to God. That's what you're looking for.
That's not about sex. It's not about not being lonely. It's about it's about a it's about a link to the divine.
That's what marriage is supposed to be.
That's what best friendship with your spouse is supposed to be is that antenna to the divine with this union the complex spaces of your brain. That's the person who will say you can't earn my love and and the world what you're doing in the world is dilitterious and it's harming you and it's harming us. And that's what I get from my wife. I have a I have a a deeply deeply mysterious relationship with my wife. My wife is trying to walk me into heaven side by side. I mean, she's the last person on whom I will lay my eyes as I take my dying breath. I firmly believe. And the next person I'll see is the Lord. That's what I hope.
That's what I believe because that's what I feel with this union of our hemispheres. And she's the one who holds me accountable to get back to the grubby reality of the extrinsic rewards. When she sees me waiting until 510 on Wednesday, which is when the New York Times bestseller list comes out, she's like, "What's wrong with you? what's wrong with you? That's just going to lower your sense of love. That's going to lower your sense of purpose. This is going to lower who you are. This degrades who you are. And it pisses me off when she says that. She's completely right.
>> It's interesting because we both have that side. And and then also when our work is aligned with what we want to see more of in the world, success becomes, at least the story I'm telling myself, a benevolent altruistic thing. The more success means the more positive impact in the world. So it's like both of these balances. No, there's nothing evil about it, right?
>> This is the thing. The problem is when when it becomes an ultimate reward.
>> Yeah.
>> See, here's the thing. So, Aquinus in 1265 writes the Suma theology. He says that people are beguiled by idols. Man is beguiled by idols. Now, idols are a substitute for God. Right. In his view, we want happiness, which is the same thing as we want the divine.
>> Yeah.
>> Which I believe you believe. Many people watching us believe. Many don't. But that's okay too.
The idols that beguile us are false versions of that. They have divine characteristics, but they're, you know, they're they're they're golden calves.
What are they? Money, power, pleasure, and fame. Those are the four. Very astute social science. Because now, of course, we have all the brain scans that show that the four idols are money, power, pleasure, and fame. He was right.
He was completely right. Each one of us is beguiled more by one than the other.
And we know what our idol is. We have power because we're able to we're we're able to avoid falling into the trap.
Sometimes, yeah, not always, but we'll always be beguiled by that. The problem is, however, that we shouldn't get rid of these things. The whole idea of sell everything, you know, live like a popper. Um, that's not the right solution necessarily, certainly not for most people. It's recognizing that those are intermediate goals and dangerous goals, but they can refract to the blessing of other people. You can do good things with money. I I believe that the free enterprise system has lifted people out of poverty at rates unbeknownst to humanity, but if we make it a religion, if we make capitalism into a religion, then it then it then it ruins our happiness. It ruins our bliss.
But if we use it to pull people out of poverty, it's great. Your fame, for example, you're well known. People recognize you in the airport, for sure.
But here's the thing, that can't make you happier. What it can do is make you more magnetic and have people seek the source of your power, which is your belief and your bliss, and that will lift them up. And that's how it works.
>> Use what could have been an idol as a way to refract to the greater glory and bliss of other people.
>> That's uh that's a powerful reminder cuz I feel like, you know, I have some friends that are like truly famous and >> Yeah. We have mutual friends. We're truly famous.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. mutual friends and there's a level of I mean it's I feel like incredibly burdensome from the outside in at times but also it depends from where it's being received when somebody comes up to you especially for me in like small pockets where people come up to me if it's like a if it's received from the head or if it's received from the heart they have two completely different qualities >> um one can be inflationary or deflationary the other one is just like >> being appreciative that your whatever you've done has some sort of semblance of impact on people That's absolutely true. And by the way, that's a very good point. If you're an actor who gets like really really famous and people yell, "I love you for moving cars because of a character that you played that's not you," that's hugely alienating.
>> That's really really bad for you, right?
I mean, you have to be incredibly well >> I love you for who you're not.
>> I I know. Exactly. And you know, I've been on tour. My last book was with Oprah Winfrey. We co-authored a book and and and that was an incredible experience. She's one of the five most famous people in the world. She's incredibly well equilibrated emotionally >> because she understands who she is and many people forget who they are because of what other people project onto them.
On the other hand, people are going to come up to you and say, "I really, really love your work and it's helped me in my life and they love you for the true essence of who you are," which is a great blessing. That's the least obnoxious fame you could possibly ever have.
>> Yeah. You know, I I love We just had Joe Hudson on. Who do you know? you guys would really amazing uh human being who just talked a bit about humility and how it's like honoring your god-given place on the planet, you know, and and so even in, >> you know, the reflection of your bigness or appreciation from somebody who's been impacted by your work, >> disowning it or not acknowledging who you are and the role that you've had and impact impacting others is is not this altruistic thing that you're telling yourself. You know, it's actually a shadow aspect to not own and accept who you are and the impact you have.
>> That's not humility. Actually, >> that's false humility.
>> Yeah. Exactly.
>> Is to humility is is is not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.
>> Yeah.
>> It's living in the eye self. So, William James talked about the self and the me self. The eye self is looking outward at the world and blessing the world. The me self is looking in at yourself and saying, "What do they think about me?"
You need to be able to do both. You can't drive if you don't think about others in traffic and what you're doing.
>> The problem is that mother nature wants you to stay in the me self all day long.
And it creates great misery and it creates great idolatry and it creates great harm. Living more in the eye self to understand who you are perfectly but to not dwell on it. That's the secret.
>> What have you learned about self-trcendence from the Daly Lama?
>> Yeah. uh self-trcendence has two aspects to it. One is vertical and the other is lateral. So vertical self-trcendence is one in which you stand in awe of something greater than yourself. And and lateral transcendence is to serve other people selflessly.
And both of them gets you into the self and out of the me self in a way that's actually the best kind of experience because it's blessing the world. It's a blessing to the world or it's a blessing to the divine. and and both of those things are are incredibly good for understanding the meaning of your life.
Now, neurobiologically, it's because these are right hemispheric experiences.
But once again, I believe that these that that that the spiritual realm has physical manifestations. So, this does not rule out, you know, the metaphysical properties and the ultimate truths that we're talking about here. So, he talks about this all the time that there is a a sameness to worshiping the divine and serving others. that in point of fact, you serve the divine when you serve others. You you worship the divine when you serve others. And when you serve others, you're worshiping the divine whether you believe in the divine or not.
>> Absolutely.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. I mean, you could look at it through Spinosa's conception, right?
Pantheistic kind of conceptions of God >> not being two separate things, you know, all the natural world and human beings.
I'm curious, do you view all life around you as God or as created by God or the same thing? Is this mental?
>> So all being God and being created by God um can be one and the same when God is I am the the great misconception of God according to Aquinus um and according to you know all great both Abrahamic and even karmic philosophers is the idea that God is something in the world. You know that's idolatrousness.
That's idolatry. It just is. You know that God is a a guy with a beard in the sky and he's up there. He's mad. He's pissed, man. He's really pissed because he know sorry it's like he saw what you were doing last night and and that's just it's just nutty but but when God appears to Moses in the burning bush he said he basically and Moses like so what's your name and God is like I am right I am that's important and that's a really important concept that we can only understand metaphorically St. Augustine said um if you think you understand God you don't right and and the ancients would say that you need the via negativa to understand the divine which is not this not this not this in Sanskrit neti neti netti anatman the whole concept of what what god isn't is the whole thing and the best metaphor for understanding this is this is my father's metaphor my father was a great was a was a most brilliant man I ever knew he was a biostatistician >> and deeply religious >> biostatistician Yeah. So he was a you know he was a scientist but he was a a brilliant scientist but he was a deeply religious Christian.
>> And he said that if I he said if I were a scholar of Picasso I'd need to know two things all about Picasso's paintings and all about the man. And I can't get information about the one by looking at the other. I can't find any information about Picasso the man by looking at his paintings because he's not in there.
Similarly, if I revel in the creation, it's wonderful, which I do as a scientist. I'm in awe. But you know what? I want to know the creator, too. I want to know the creator, too. You know that that's what I want. I want the painting and I want the painter. That's what it really comes down to. That's the wholesome knowledge. That's the that's holistic in the understanding of what it's all about. That's the ultimate experience that I seek. And that's the reason that my faith and my reason complement each other ultimately.
>> Yeah.
>> And this gets back to your point about the things unseen.
>> The ultimate thing unseen is the ultimate seer.
That's how I understand God is an example of what can't be seen because it's not in the creation. It made the creation.
>> Yeah.
>> What you referred to about kind of on some level admitting your own ignorance.
Uh, I read this book recently, The Unknown Craftsman. It's a Japanese insight into beauty.
>> Oh, nice.
>> I haven't read it. I got to I have to understand this yet.
>> Yeah, it's great. But >> tell me more.
>> Um, there is one uh Arabian saying which it quotes. If a man knows and knows not that he knows, shun him. If a man knows and knows that he knows not, awaken him.
If a man knows and knows that he knows, follow him. Uh, and it's it's a beautiful kind of Zen and and Buddhist kind of take on >> the knowledge of ignorance like knowing that you don't know as a as a starting point.
>> Socrates idea that wisdom is is a true recognition understanding of your own lack of wisdom.
>> That that that was the paradox of Socrates was exactly that >> um that to know know thyself ultimately is to know that and and or maybe the great sage Donald Rumsfeld got it right.
There's known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns.
The basis of foreign policy.
We've turned into blues clues or uh um Senica, death lies heavily on him who though to all the world well known is a stranger to himself alone.
>> Yeah, that's the that's the that's the could have just been the model of your show.
>> Isn't that what it's all about? Who am I? Who am I? This a huge mystery, but it's a huge adventure, isn't it? I mean, it's funny because we're being distracted from this question. I mean, the the problem with engineered culture, the tip of the spear of which is the supercomputer in the pocket, is that is that it militates against your show.
That's the problem.
>> You're being distracted from the one thing that you get to figure out, which is to know yourself, the ultimate mystery, the ultimate adventure. And you're being distracted from it by what?
Twitter.
Why? Why? Why would you distract yourself from for one single second? And the reason because it's an uncomfortable bit of knowledge and because it's a hard question because it's a complex question and because you have bad habits and because you're exhausted and you know because you had a bad day at work or because the the thing is blinking and saying that somebody is on your notifications.
It sounds like there's from the context of this whole conversation been a few very important aspects to be able to know yourself and discover your calling from these yearly spiritual retreats to >> the sacred time in the morning where you're not >> being stimulated by the outside world.
>> Who do you believe you fundamentally are?
I believe I'm a child of God, made in his image, put on earth to love and be loved, and to lift other people up. I believe I am put on earth to glorify God, to edify others. That's why I'm on earth.
I do it poorly. I'm bad at my job, but I'm trying to get better.
>> I disagree.
>> Thank you.
But I get a year or two or a couple of decades to actually figure out how to get that done. And it's an absolute thrill to be an apprentice in the divine purpose that I believe is my life.
That's who I am.
>> Beautifully said.
>> Thank you.
>> Both now and earlier when you were speaking of your wife, there was this emotion bursting through your eyes and your being and >> I'm in love. I'm a man in love.
>> Yeah, man.
This is this is like that you there there there are connections to our our our divine spirit and that's what marriage is supposed to be.
>> That's what we're supposed to be looking for, you know. So I talk to my students and they I have a unit in my class called falling in love and staying in love. It's the most popular class, the most popular set of lectures that I give every semester because they're super interested in it.
>> But it's very important that people understand what the purpose of this is.
Dating is not for entertainment. It's serious business because you're looking for the person that can actually walk you into heaven and that you will walk into heaven, whatever heaven means to you because this is your divine connection. And again, like there's a lot of people watching us, but there, you know, viewers of this show are not like, "Ah, it's all nonsense.
They turned off the show a long time ago. They think that's nonsense."
>> And and and romantic love is, you know, hooking up and No, no, no, no. The sexual revolution got this all wrong.
It's divinity, man. It's really, really deep and beautiful and serious business.
And you're trying to find the person that is supposed to become your sherpa in the the business of the metaphysical.
It sounds like from what I the limited information I have between you and your wife, how you found her or she found you or God found you both, whatever. um to the journey you went on and saying yes and uh having children and adopting a child. I'm curious, have you talked much about that time when you guys went and you adopted a girl?
>> Yeah. A lot. And it's it's interesting because um so we had two biological sons together and um that was great. But my wife at one point started having a dream, a recurring dream about a little girl abandoned in a park in China. Like what the heck, right? And and and at the time I was actually doing research on charitable giving on charitable behavior and I found this really weird thing which is that when people give in a particular way it has has catalytic impact on their life. So it's very easy to kind of sprinkle dollars out of a helicopter, right? I mean, but it's it's it's fundamentally different in how it affects you and others when you try to change the whole dial for one person, right? And and there's an ancient um talmudic saying from the book of the Sanhedrin, a man who changes one person's life changes the whole world because each of us encapsulates the world, right? That's the that's the the union of the one and the all, which is a weird thing, right? I mean it's mathematically impossible and yet spiritually all things are are possible in this way and um and and I kept finding that when people did this really changed turned the whole dial for a whole person uh that life was different for everybody and I was telling my wife about this while she's having this dream she said you know I think we should adopt a baby and I'm like it's only a book like father of the year and uh and and so we started the process because she had me dead to rights cuz she's spiritually a droid and I'm just a Right.
And we we started through an adoption agency in Denver called Chinese Children Adoption International, which is a you know, it's it's a great organization that that the the founder of which wound up becoming one of my students in my nonprofit management class at Harvard of all things by weird coincidence and a great it's a great couple that does this. And the Chinese government at the time was doing a lot of these. There was 26,000 foreign adoptions in the year 2004 when we adopted our daughter. And um they they match the government matches you up. It's a like this like completely murky. Nobody knows how this in numerology or you know computer algorithm. Nobody knows how.
>> And the the little girl they tell you just a little bit about her. She was abandoned at 12 years old. 12 months old. 12 no 12 hours old. I'm getting I'm getting the unit wrong.
>> She was abandoned at 12 hours old in a park in southern China. It was my wife's dream. It was weird.
And um we went through the process and about a year later we were we we we got to go pick her up. She was 15 months old and my wife couldn't go cuz she was not a citizen. So she couldn't execute an adoption. We had two little kids at home. Somebody had to stay home with our boys who were at the time three and five. And so I went by myself and they'd never seen a guy alone, right? It's like what did your wife die? No, she's dead to me. And and um and it was it was it was the most magical experience. It was like it was weird because they had that she was very shy. They said she's a shy baby and she's never been around men and and so that's going to scare her and she's going to she freaks out when somebody takes her away from her nannies. There's nine nannies for 100 babies. She hasn't been picked up very much. They mostly just sort of spend all day lying in a crib, 15 months old, understimulated, etc. They did the best they could. And so I was really really really nervous. And they bring you into a room. They they and they bring the baby over to you and they my little baby and they she's like grabs me like a monkey and and she looks up at me with her little eyes, little like coal eyes and she would like go and I had to sign some papers. And so 3 minutes later her nanny she know the only person she knew tried to take her back and she screamed bloody murder cuz she knew the link was there.
The cosmic link was there. And ever since then, it's like my baby. My baby.
It's my baby. She's my baby. Every time she comes home, it's like that first day in the orphanage. She's 22.
>> Wow.
>> She's a second lieutenant in the US Marine Corps.
>> She's a badass.
>> Wow.
>> And she comes home and she's tough as nails, man. 4 foot 11.
>> And and uh she's still my baby in the orphanage.
>> I mean, it's without question what that's done for her and her life. What has that done for you and your life? I try to meditate so I can lift up the rest of the world. You know, the whole point is that what it's done for me is helped me understand that what my life is really all about. Of course, it's been great for me. Of course, it's been great for me, but I didn't do it so I could feel like a good person. I did it because I believe that that this person was placed in my life. It was placed in our life. And the the knowledge was given to my wife and I respect that. And it turns out it was this catalytic experience. It really glued our family together. Now we're very close. My kids are all really different from each other, but you know, we live near each other. I live in the same house with one of my sons and his wife and their kids.
I live with my grandsons. The others are right up the street. But the whole point is it's been this experience of of, you know, bringing home this baby and bringing us all together and through the hard times and through the easy times.
Love is actually what keeps you together is what it comes down to. But you have to have a physical demonstration of that. Sometimes we're dense, right? And and and and you you you have to see the model of it. And a lot of us when we see her, we still see the model of the person that was brought to us that wasn't the product of genetics.
He was the product of nothing more than a than than a dream and a message from God and and a decision and and and and all of these things are actually even more important than than the than the flesh and the blood and the genetic similarity that we have.
>> What has that taught you about the role of suffering in life? Um >> yeah, you write extensively around that.
And I think suffering is something we're unknowingly knowingly avoiding any second of every moment, you know, of every day, right? And it changes the script when you turn it on its head and and put it into its proper place. I'm a big fan of suffering, you know, and part of the reason for that is that I mean just neurohysiologically there's a guy at University of Wisconsin Madison named Richard Davidson. He's a he's he also has worked a lot with the Daly Lama actually great neuroscientist and he's found that the right hemisphere of the brain is way more active when you're suffering when you're experiencing negative emotions averse emotions fear anger disgust and sadness that's when your right brain and the way that you've they test this by the way is you look at the musculature of the face the right side of the brain controls the left side of the face the left side of the body when you involuntarily you use muscles in the left side of your face it means your right side is more active and that's more common when you're suffering is what it comes down to. So we know that now the right side of the brain is also implicated in in understanding meaning and so not coincidentally almost certainly this is only plausible there's been no tests of this but it makes perfect sense that that's why when you ask people when they really experience their life's deepest meaning they always talk about something painful that they talk about my mom died my business went bankrupt I got fired I went to jail really really painful times in their life and they'll say and that's when I had acute understanding of something. I understood meaning in that particular way. The problem is that we have a tendency to to want to avoid it because we hate pain. We're aversive to pain because of our evolutionary biology. You know, pain means that there's a threat and so we avoid it. We try to avoid pain. This is the the great insight that the karmic religions have brought to us is that suffering is not the same thing as pain. Suffering is pain. multiplied by resistance to pain.
And that means we got two options. You can try to lower your pain or you can lower your resistance to the pain. When pain is inconvenient and utterly avoidable, you might want to take a Tylenol when your back is hurting. But when pain is unavoidable, like by the way, most back pain, the way to deal with it is to accept it. That's the best way to live your life. So that even when your pain is high, your suffering isn't.
And in that lowering of resistance, you inevitably find more meaning in your life. And that's hard.
>> How does one lower resistance in that equation?
>> Generally speaking, it has to do with acceptance, understanding and acceptance. And there are many good traditions in in western therapy, >> a psychotherapy, talk therapy that do that. Jung talks about that a lot. I mean there's a lot of therapeutic practices that talk about finding the lowering your resistance to to pain by understanding it using metacognitive practices to sit with insight into the nature of your suffering without trying to lower it. And that's that's the way that we do that. You know, every religious tradition talks about non-resistance.
Non-resistance. What does it come down to? You mean the the Christian religion, my own religion, worships a guy hanging from a device of torture in the act of physical pain. Why? Because that's a metaphor for life itself and a metaphor for the ultimate meaning of life in the Christian religion. It's not coincidental that his suffering on the cross is emblematic of the meaning of life and that he's God. That's the ultimate solidarity that actually comes to us. The the paradox of suffering is that when we try to avoid suffering, especially when we try to avoid pain, we accidentally avoid meaning and that leads to avoiding happiness.
>> What's the link between that and beauty?
>> Beauty is another way that you illuminate right hemispheric experiences. So the experience of beauty is beyond is ineffable, fundamentally ineffable. And that comes in natural beauty, artistic beauty, or moral beauty. They're all ineffable experiences. Anything that's so beautiful that it makes you want to cry and you don't know why, that's because your language centers are not implicated. That means you're having a right hemispheric experience. So you see that you never look at, you know, somebody that you're attracted to sexually and they're so beautiful that you want to cry. That's cuz it's a different kind of beauty, right? That's not what we're talking about. But you hear I get really emotional when my favorite composer is Boach Johan Sebastian Bach. He's the greatest composer ever lived. Hugely spiritual guy by the way. He said that aim and final end of all music is nothing less than the glorification of God and the enjoyment of the soul. That's what he believed, right? And he would put to the glory of God at the end of every manuscript, right?
>> And and you know, he had 20 kids.
>> This is that guy was productive and >> and Bach, you know, I listen to Bach, man, it's it's just hugely emotional when I talk about when there there's certain things that I see in natural beauty. When I when I see examples of moral beauty, there's a great psychologist named Rhett Diesner who's the world's leading expert on moral beauty. He'd be good to have on the show. As a matter of fact, he's Rain Wilson's uncle.
>> Oh, wow.
>> Of all things. Isn't that weird?
>> We love Rain. We were just talking about before.
>> Yeah. Yeah. He's he's fantastic. He's a great friend. But and I just knew his his uncle's work. I didn't know it was his uncle.
>> That's weird, isn't it? And he talks about moral elevation, what it makes you feel physiologically. But these are the things to go look for. One of the things that I recommend to almost everybody who's struggling with the meaning of life is to experience more beauty.
>> I mean, go for a hike. I mean, I look out your the window of your house. It's like stunningly beautiful California hills and mountains. Incredible.
>> Um, listen to the work of Bach or whatever actually does bring you to tears in beauty.
>> Experience the moral beauty of people that are exemplars. read the life of Mother Teresa, somebody who really is a a deep moral exemplar. This will illuminate the right hemisphere. This will give you the complex experience of life's meaning. Fully agree. And I think for me like how viewing myself as like uh reflecting on my ability to craft an environment that revokes that sense of beauty for me has been one of the most I think fundamental aspects of bringing more beauty into myself and in the world. It's been absolutely huge. For sure. And this you'll become an integrated person. The technologized life is not beautiful. There are a lot of people whose greatest exposure to nature is what they see through the screen. You know, a picture of Lake Louise is not the same thing as Lake Louise. It affects your brain differently. It's filtered through the left hemispheric concept of a complicated similacum for the true thing.
>> Believer goes to Lake Louise.
>> Exactly. Right. And gets all choked up.
I've been looking at and you know it was life is beautiful but it's got to be real life.
>> Yeah. That's what it comes down to, you know, not, you know, a fake, you know, tell chat GBT to give me an example of moral beauty. No, >> real person.
>> Go figure. The real world >> IRL.
>> Yeah.
>> That's the only place where you're going to find the beauty. I mean, life is strikingly less beautiful. There's some pretty good analysis that suggests that music is getting less beautiful. Um, and the experiences that people have as filtered through the screens are less beautiful. And God knows on the internet there's not that much moral beauty out there.
Your show is an ex is an exception.
>> Which is why you do it, right?
>> Thank you. Thank you, man. Your work is uh man, I'm all in perfect timing, but uh I'm I'm very happy at this moment that we were able to get connected and have you come on. Um you know, I live for these kind of conversations. It gives me so much life. And likewise for you, I see you come online and and you're so passionate and >> um do you have any last words on that aspect? How when you >> like there's a level of intelligence and impact that becomes possible like the capacity for that becomes possible when you're in alignment with what you truly love to be doing. Like there's another gear that kicks into place. You don't get burnt out as easily because your fuel your fuel source is fundamentally different.
>> Um any any words there? Yeah, I mean we talked a little bit about you know being needed and by earning your success and serving other people and that does not depend on the exact activity even over the course of a single person's life to be sure >> but it also requires that you you be in equilibrium that you have let me see if I can put it into a formula right I'm kind of about formulas at the end of the day >> um when you're not feeling it when things are out of alignment Even if you're successful, it almost always means you're following a particular worldly formula.
And and here's what it is. You are loving things, you're using people, and you're worshiping yourself.
That's the the dark formula. There's darkness in the world, and that's the dark formula. Now, how does darkness work? It takes the light and changes it a little. Right? And and the reason that people fall for this is not because it's so outlandish. There's nothing outlandish about what I said. It sounds a little right. And the reason it sounds a little right is because it's just off.
Just off. Here's the formula that if we can correct and live according to it, it will bring us the meaning that we seek and thus the happiness that we crave in greater abundance.
Use things. It's great. It's a world of abundance. It's so beautiful. Use them.
Enjoy them. Right. And like seriously, I mean it's great. I mean, people who are trying to be so acetic all the time and feeling guilty about eating that wonderful dinner or or or having a watch that you think is nice and and and reading the time off it. Use things >> with joy, but don't love them.
>> Don't let them use you.
>> No. And because love is only designed for people.
>> Love is for people and worship is only for the divine.
Use things. Love people. Worship the divine and all will be well.
>> Don't love things. Use people. And worship yourself.
>> Yeah.
>> Cuz the best news of the day is you're not God. Great news. You're not God. Cuz that would be a pretty grim universe, right?
>> Oh man. So good. So good. Any last words for the whole context of this this conversation? if you had like like one last message to give to our listeners, what comes to mind?
>> Yeah, I mean it's it's funny because you know the formula I just gave is sort of is it's not reductive but it does reduce things to things that you can actually remember. um in you know in it's in in the Bible um the there's the ten commandments and the ten commandments are summarized in Deuteronomy 6 which in Hebrew is called the shemma and the shema is love the lord your god with all your heart and all your mind and all your means right and then Jesus is asked in the new testament to sum that up he says I mean because you know the ten commandments This is a lot to remember. It's a lot to remember. He said, "Don't worry about it. Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, right? And that's all you need to remember." Okay? So then St. Augustine and you know, three generation, three centuries later, it's like that's kind of a lot to remember.
So then he says, "Here's what you remember. Love and do what you will."
St. Thomas Aquinus in 1265 in the Suma Theologia then defines love to will the good of the other as other that's what it comes down to. So if you don't know what to do right and you can't remember the formula we talked about a minute ago notwithstanding your feelings because Aquinus says it's not a feeling. Love isn't a feeling. It's an act. It's a commitment. Right? It's not to Jesus didn't say to like your enemies. He said to love your enemies not withstanding your feelings. That's power. Love and do what you will. Love and do what you will. Make the conscious decision to love and do what you will.
And that's where you'll find happiness.
And that's where you'll find meaning.
And that's what to do today, no matter how dark things feel.
>> Thank you.
>> I appreciate it a lot.
>> Yeah. We'll leave links down where people can stay connected with you and your work and your book. You're just a fire hose of wisdom and uh and love and passion and I I appreciate you and the force you are in the world, my friend.
>> I am really grateful to be with you. I'm really grateful for what you're doing.
Um you're putting something out there in the world that the world really really needs. And by the way, using the means that are so often misused and using it as a force for good shows that the problem isn't the means.
>> The problem is actually how we use them.
Your your show is an example of the fact that we can turn anything to love. Oh man, thank you. I appreciate you. It means a lot. And uh >> yeah, I feel so completely fulfilled after these conversations, man. It's fantastic. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Walking each other to heaven.
>> Right on, man.
>> You, you, your wife, and me.
>> Let's do it. Let's do it. I'll see you there.
>> Yeah. Um amazing. Thank you everybody who's been tuning in. Yeah. God bless.
>> And I love your tea.
>> Oh, yeah. It's good stuff. Hey. All right. Till next time, everyone. Be well.
Hallelujah.
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