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Finding Your Life Path, Solved — Transcript

by Mark Manson · 49,870 words · 7,286 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00You know, Drew, people listening to
0:02this, they could listen to any podcast.
0:04There's thousands of podcasts out there.
0:06There's probably podcasts with more
0:08clever intros,
0:10better theme songs, more attractive
0:12hosts.
0:13>> Mhm. [clears throat]
0:14>> Actually, probably not. More attractive
0:16host. Probably not. Yeah. But they chose
0:18to be with us. This is part of their
0:20life path and they are making a
0:22commitment to this episode with us. And
0:25so, I just want you to know that I take
0:27that commitment very seriously. I'm not
0:29taking that lightly.
0:30>> Yeah, we're putting a label on it.
0:32>> What are we? What are we audience? What
0:34are we
0:36>> Is this uh Is this getting serious? Are
0:38we committed to each other now?
0:40[laughter]
0:41>> I think we are.
0:42>> All right.
0:49Welcome everybody back to the Solve
0:50Podcast, the most thorough and
0:52comprehensive podcast in the world on
0:55life's most important topics. Now, if
0:57you're listening to this, my guess is
0:58that you are somebody with options,
1:01maybe a lot of options. You're probably
1:03smart. You're definitely curious. You've
1:05got interest. You've got potential. And
1:07people have been telling you all of this
1:09since you were 12 years old. And you've
1:10probably done the thing you were
1:12supposed to do with all of that
1:13potential. You explored. You tried a
1:15bunch of stuff. You moved to a new city
1:17or two or 14. Maybe you've pivoted jobs
1:21or even entire careers. You've
1:23definitely read all the books about
1:25finding purpose. You've taken
1:27personality quizzes and attachment style
1:29tests. And maybe you've even paid a few
1:31people to tell you things about yourself
1:32that deep down you kind of already knew.
1:36Chances are you've left no stone
1:37unturned. You've explored all of your
1:39options. And you've learned as much as
1:41you could about yourself along the way.
1:44And yet, you still don't really know
1:46what the hell you're doing with your
1:47life. You're still swiping. You're still
1:49browsing. still keeping one foot out the
1:52door of every room that you walk into
1:54just in case a better door opens up down
1:56the hall. And somewhere underneath all
1:59of that freedom and flexibility, there's
2:01this quiet creeping suspicion that
2:03you're not actually going anywhere. This
2:06commitment phobic problem that you're
2:08experiencing is quite real. It's
2:11everywhere. And a depressed Danish
2:13philosopher literally predicted it 180
2:15years ago with terrifying accuracy. But
2:18more on him in a minute. A lot of people
2:20think that finding their path in life is
2:23a discovery problem. They think that if
2:25they just explore long enough, try
2:27enough things, meditate enough mornings,
2:30that eventually their divine path will
2:32reveal itself like a magic eye poster.
2:35You just need to stare a little longer
2:37to see the dolphin in the blurry dots.
2:39But that's exactly backwards. Yourself
2:41isn't sitting there inside of you
2:43waiting to be found like some artifact
2:46buried in the backyard. Yourself is
2:48built. And the thing that builds it is
2:50your willingness to shut some of those
2:52doors. Because as we'll see, the people
2:54who never commit to anything don't
2:57preserve their options. They actually
2:59prevent themselves from becoming their
3:01true selves. Here's a harsh truth to
3:03start us off. There is no predetermined
3:06life path for you to find. There is only
3:08the life path that you make. And every
3:11year you spend keeping all the doors
3:12open is a year that you hold yourself
3:14back from carving the path that you want
3:16for yourself. In this episode of Solved,
3:19we're going to talk about commitment.
3:21We're going to talk about making
3:23difficult choices and dedicating
3:25yourself to something to find out who
3:27you are. We're going to talk about the
3:28philosopher who diagnosed our entire
3:30modern crisis of too many options and
3:33zero convictions over 180 years ago, and
3:36why nearly every single word he wrote
3:37rings even more true today than when he
3:40wrote it. We're going to talk about the
3:42three stages of commitment and what each
3:44one looks like across your career, your
3:46relationships, where you live. We'll
3:48talk about a specific type of dread that
3:50you experience when making decisions
3:52that define your life and the
3:53self-sabotaging strategies that you use
3:55to dodge it. We'll talk about why the
3:57freest and wealthiest generation in
3:59human history is also the most anxious,
4:01the most lonely, the most dissatisfied,
4:04and the least likely to have someone
4:05that they would call a close friend.
4:07We'll talk about the psychological
4:08mechanism your brain uses to make
4:10committed choices feel right and the one
4:13condition that keeps it switched off
4:15entirely. We'll talk about how modern
4:17culture quietly engineered an entire
4:19decade of your life where commitment
4:21became optional. This and much much
4:24more. We're going to argue that you feel
4:26lost because modern life has handed you
4:28so many options that you've mistaken the
4:30act of searching for the act of living.
4:33We're going to walk through exactly how
4:34committing to a single life path works,
4:37what it does to your brain, what it
4:39costs, because, well, it does cost
4:42something, and why the people who figure
4:44it out are not the ones who found the
4:46perfect option. They're the ones who
4:48found something imperfect and dedicated
4:50themselves to it anyway. Because once
4:52you understand that, it stops feeling
4:54like you're missing some crucial piece
4:56of self-nowledge that everyone else got
4:58handed. It stops feeling like you need
5:00another quiz or another city or another
5:03year of figuring it out. It starts to
5:04feel like something you can actually do
5:07starting today, like right now. I'm the
5:10three-time New York Times bestselling
5:11author Mark Manson, and this is Drew
5:13Bernie, my intrepid co-host, producer,
5:16lead researcher, and a man whose only
5:17commitment in life is to a Persian
5:19hairdresser in Westwood named Resza.
5:22>> [laughter]
5:22>> And this is the Solve Podcast. The most
5:25comprehensive podcast in the world where
5:27every episode we aim to solve one
5:30serious problem in your life once and
5:32for all. Today we are solving the
5:34problem of commitment. How to find your
5:36life path, how to choose it, and
5:38ultimately how to stay on it.
5:45>> [music]
5:45>> So you and I and probably everybody
5:47listening to this right now has more
5:50wealth, more freedom, more
5:52opportunities, more options than any
5:55generation before them in their family.
5:58Yet if you look at the data, you and I
6:01and probably everybody listening to this
6:03are more anxious, more lonely, and more
6:06dissatisfied than our grandparents or
6:09our great-grandparents were. And this
6:11creates a bit of a conundrum and a
6:13paradox. And I think the best person to
6:17address this, I think the historical
6:19thinker that just nailed this issue
6:22harder than anybody else was Saurin
6:25Kirkagard, the Danish philosopher from
6:27the 19th century. Now, as somebody who
6:28loves philosophy, it's always
6:29interesting to go back and read old
6:32philosophers because sometimes they say
6:35things that are true and interesting,
6:36but like it feels less applicable today
6:39than it did back then. There are a lot
6:41of things, you know, that like Kant and
6:43Hume wrote and Decart wrote that like I
6:46don't know, it just doesn't seem like
6:47that big of a deal today or nearly as
6:49applicable. I think Kierkagard is the
6:52rare philosopher that everything he
6:54wrote I think is more applicable in more
6:57of an issue today than at the time that
6:59he was writing. When you go back and
7:01read his work, it is almost prophetic in
7:04many ways of the world that was to come.
7:07A quick bio about Kirkagard. So he was
7:10the youngest of seven children. He was
7:12born to a very devout and religious
7:14family. And in his childhood, five of
7:17his six siblings and his mother all
7:19passed away before he reached adulthood.
7:22And so there was right away you're just
7:25confronted with an immense amount of
7:28guilt, trauma, pain, suffering. And on
7:31top of that, to make matters worse,
7:33apparently his father was extremely
7:35devout, very guiltridden, shameridden,
7:38and kind of took it out on the surviving
7:41family members. So, right off the bat,
7:44Kiraagard grows up with this kind of
7:46like morbid, pious upbringing where
7:52almost everybody he's ever loved has
7:53ended up dead or absolutely miserable.
7:56>> Perfect setup for a philosopher career
7:58anyway.
7:59>> But yeah, go on.
8:00>> Yeah, I mean I mean not to get off on
8:02too much of a tangent, but it is
8:03fascinating. Like some philosophers were
8:05incredibly happy people. Like if you
8:07read about Hume, like he just seemed
8:09like the [ __ ] coolest guy. Kirkagard
8:11is definitely one of the most miserable
8:13philosophers that I've certainly ever
8:15come across. Now, all of this tragedy
8:17and pain from his childhood is actually
8:20quite relevant because once he reached
8:22adulthood, he did propose to a woman
8:24that he was in love with, a young girl
8:26named Rejene Olsen. And actually, by his
8:30own account, the way he proposed is just
8:32[ __ ] hilarious. So, [laughter] so
8:34apparently she was singing and she was
8:36holding some sheet music in front of her
8:38and apparently mid song he grabbed the
8:40sheet music, slammed the book shut and
8:43looked at her and said, "What do I care
8:45for music? It's you I want pretty emo."
8:49[laughter]
8:50>> She didn't really say anything. She went
8:52along with it. And uh almost immediately
8:55he was consumed by this deep immense
8:58sense of dread. He believed that he was
9:01too sad and melancholic. He thought he
9:04was too tormented, that he was going to
9:05make her life miserable. He felt like he
9:08was too devoted to his his career and
9:10that he was never going to make time for
9:12her. He basically spent the following
9:15months just like flagagillating himself,
9:18telling himself that he was not he did
9:19not deserve this relationship. He didn't
9:21deserve this marriage. Now, for those of
9:24you who have listened to some of our
9:26dating and relationships episodes, you
9:28will notice the pattern here of somebody
9:31who feels unworthy for love and
9:32affection self-sabotaging and finding
9:35justifications to reject love and
9:37affection from his life. So, of course,
9:39he eventually tried to call it off. Now,
9:41Rejine actually was in love with him,
9:43and so she tried to stop him and
9:45reassure him that she did want to be
9:47with him. She even at one point
9:48threatened to commit suicide if he left
9:50her. But that didn't slow Kira down. He
9:53broke off the engagement in 1841,
9:55returned the ring by mail, which I feel
9:58like is the 19th century equivalent of
10:00like texting somebody to break up with
10:02them. Yeah. [laughter]
10:04And then he moved to Berlin. So he like
10:06literally got out of the country to not
10:08have to deal with her anymore. Now,
10:10what's interesting is that this event
10:13kind of came to define his entire psyche
10:17as an adult. his inability to live up to
10:21the most important commitment that he
10:22wanted to make with his life. All right,
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13:13Welcome back to the solve podcast. Let's
13:15get back into it. I don't think it's a
13:17coincidence that when you look at his
13:19philosophy, so much of it centers around
13:22commitments, the inability to make the
13:25sacrifices necessary for commitments,
13:27the inability to maintain commitments
13:29and the importance of commitment in
13:31terms of developing a self or an
13:34identity. So both the inability to
13:36commit and the consequences of that
13:38inability to commit and the necessity of
13:41commitment for psychological health and
13:44well-being and happiness. This is the
13:47common thread that runs through pretty
13:49much all of his work. And his core claim
13:51at the time was that one's sense of self
13:55isn't found. It doesn't just happen to
13:58you. It is built through the commitments
14:01that you choose to make. basically the
14:04sacrifices that you choose to take on in
14:06your life for some greater good or some
14:09greater pursuit that ultimately becomes
14:11how you define yourself and how you live
14:14with yourself over the long term. Now,
14:17this was incredibly profound because
14:19this predates Freud by like 60 years and
14:22as we'll see later too like the modern
14:25psychological research backs it up that
14:27he was all in all correct. Now the
14:29reason we all struggle with these
14:31commitments, Kirkagard argued, is that
14:33we all have a fundamental tension within
14:35ourselves, which is the tension between
14:38our potential and our necessity.
14:41Basically, who we are and who we are
14:44kind of stuck being, but also what we
14:47could potentially become. this tension
14:49between
14:51the infinite and the finite. The the
14:53infinite number of things that we can
14:55imagine ourselves as becoming versus the
14:58finite amount of things that we actually
15:00are between freedom and stability. I can
15:03imagine an infinite amount of selves
15:06that I could potentially pursue and try
15:08to become. Yet, I am only one self and I
15:13only have so much time and energy. I
15:16only have one body. I only have so many
15:18hours in the day. So I am inherently
15:22limited by how much I can pursue. Now
15:24Kirkagard argued that a proper healthy
15:28self or a healthy identity is a person
15:32who is able to balance those two
15:33polarities within themselves. that they
15:36are able to see the possibilities of
15:38what they could become but also be
15:40grounded in reality and understanding
15:42who they are and understanding that a
15:44lot of those possibilities are not
15:46practical or reasonable. And what he
15:48pointed out is that when we get lost in
15:51one of the two polarities, that's when
15:54we start to experience existential
15:56dread. Now this is super super important
15:59for the listener because Kierkagard's
16:02idea of dread or despair is not just a
16:05feeling. It's not about being sad. It's
16:07about a lack of self. It's about a lack
16:10of self-defin and identity. So his
16:12argument was that if you are too
16:14confined in the finite, right? If you
16:16are overly aware of your own limitations
16:19and you have too much structure around
16:21you and you have too many barriers
16:23preventing you from pursuing your
16:25potential, you'll feel stuck and you
16:27will forfeit your sense of self and
16:29identity. You'll outsource it to all of
16:31the the barriers and stuff around you.
16:33On the flip side, if you are stuck in
16:35the infinite, if you are stuck in the
16:37constant potential, the constant pursuit
16:41of some new novel self, then you will
16:44also experience a sense of despair
16:46because you will never know who you are.
16:47You will never have a a clear
16:49self-defin. You will simply identify
16:52with whatever is the most interesting or
16:54exciting at any given moment.
16:56>> The idea of balance and and this is what
16:58you're kind of getting at. It's actually
17:00very very difficult. We talk about like
17:02work life balance and then then there's
17:04some like you know entrepreneur bros or
17:06whatever out there saying no you don't
17:07need that you know just go all in on
17:08this and whatever actually it's very
17:10very difficult to find balance and I
17:12think this is the tension you're talking
17:14about this is it really landed for me
17:15anyway when we were researching this
17:17episode is the actual difficulty finding
17:20that balance between the infinite and
17:22the finite between all the possible
17:24selves and the one that you actually
17:25need to be or or are becoming it's very
17:28very difficult to find that balance and
17:29that's the whole episode I is going to
17:31be about this. But for me, this really
17:33landed this this point that he tries to
17:34make sitting in that tension. That's
17:37going to be the most difficult part. And
17:39it's finding that balance and and
17:40holding that tension. It's not just
17:42committing for commitment's sake or
17:44staying open for autonomyy's sake.
17:46>> There's a seductiveness to each
17:47polarity, right? It it is seductive to
17:50just say, "Oh, well, there's nothing I
17:52can do." Like, it's I the world sucks. I
17:56have no opportunities. People around me
17:58are are mean. and they don't they don't
18:00give me a chance. There's a
18:01seductiveness to that because then you
18:03don't have to take on the responsibility
18:04of your own agency. Similarly, there's a
18:06seductiveness to
18:08having infinite possibility and always
18:11imagining new possible selves and new
18:14things that you could pursue because
18:15there's there's kind of a dopamine
18:17treadmill to that. You get to dream
18:20about all the benefits without ever
18:21actually having to make a sacrifice or
18:23make a commitment to anything. And I
18:25think this is one of the most important
18:28takeaways of Kierugard and I think what
18:30made him so much more insightful than a
18:33lot of people who have spoken about
18:35these issues since is that Kirakagard
18:37recognized that you could be busy. You
18:40could have a really full interesting
18:42life. You could be having tons of fun.
18:45You could have tons of friends, tons of
18:46interests and hobbies and you could be
18:48full of despair because all of that fun
18:52is actually a distraction from the fact
18:54that you don't know who you are. You
18:56know, Aristotle talked about the golden
18:57mean and how, you know, this is very
18:59much Aristotle's framework and as we've
19:02learned on this show, Aristotle is
19:03always right. Kira Kakard makes the same
19:05point which is that this tension is
19:07never solved. It's only managed. It's
19:09essentially you just get good at finding
19:10the balance between understanding who
19:13you are and your limitations and and
19:15accepting them and then also
19:18imagining new potentials for yourself or
19:20new things for you to pursue or new
19:22options. This is actually very similar
19:24to we did a change episode a few months
19:26ago and in that we talked about how the
19:29self is actually there's kind of three
19:32different parts of the self and there is
19:34a base layer a personality layer that is
19:37largely unchangeable and the best you
19:40can do with that part of yourself is
19:42simply understand it gain awareness and
19:45accept it. Whereas there's kind of a
19:48behavioral component of yourself which
19:50is always changeable and always has new
19:53potential. And so the best thing you can
19:55do for that is to get really really good
19:57at adopting behavioral change. Now the
20:00other point of this is that when you do
20:01commit to something that infinite
20:03potential side of yourself doesn't turn
20:06off. It's always still going in the
20:08background. You still have to feel the
20:10pull of everything that you could be,
20:13but you have to consistently choose not
20:15to pursue it. Like that is what the
20:17commitment is.
20:18>> You're saying it's not like a one-time
20:20thing. It's like a a general mechanism
20:22for continually choosing that.
20:24>> Commitments are not done once. They are
20:27done on a regular basis. And it's funny
20:29because this maps really well to a lot
20:32of marriage advice that I've heard over
20:34the years. You don't just make the
20:36commitment once and then you're you live
20:37happily ever after. Whether it's like a
20:39marriage or a long-term relationship is
20:41something that you have to continually
20:42choose over. Both people have to
20:44continually choose over and over and
20:46over again because if you're with
20:48somebody for a long enough period of
20:49time, there's always going to be
20:51opportunities for you to to grow apart,
20:54to find other interests, to distract
20:56yourself, to hook up with somebody else,
20:58to become attracted to somebody else. It
21:00is this regular discipline of like
21:05coming back and choosing the same thing
21:07repeatedly over a long period of time,
21:09>> right? And that's where the balance
21:10again is found. It's not, oh, I could
21:12no, I'm going to just go explore all the
21:14other options or I'm just stuck in this,
21:16so I'm here anyway. It's that continual
21:18choosing, that continual holding of the
21:20tension. When I was going back through
21:22this, it made me think about the
21:23self-help industry, kind of conventional
21:25woowoo self-help. I really feel like
21:27what they're doing is they are taking
21:30people who are in despair because they
21:33feel like they have no agency and no
21:35potential and no infinite options and
21:38they are training those people to be in
21:41despair with infinite potential and
21:43infinite options. [laughter]
21:44>> Yeah. Yeah. Again, the balance is the
21:46hard part. Right? It's like, so you take
21:48people who have never had to make a
21:50commitment in their life because all
21:51their commitments were forced upon them
21:52and so they're in despair and then you
21:54just train them to never make a
21:56commitment in their life and just think
21:57about all the amazing [ __ ] that they
22:00could become while not actually ever
22:02moving towards anything or sacrificing
22:05for anything.
22:06>> Yeah. And that's kind that's where you
22:06get oh cut off all these people, screw
22:08them, go this way.
22:10>> Yeah. It's like as soon as you know
22:12everything is problematic and traumatic
22:14and you just keep chasing the next high.
22:17Another of many reasons that I think
22:18Kirkagard is the philosopher that best
22:21describes the 21st century. He was the
22:23person who originally popularized the
22:24word anxiety. His description of anxiety
22:27is really interesting because it it it
22:29actually it has little to do with fear.
22:31He called it quote the dizziness of too
22:34much freedom which is basically that
22:36when you have so many options and there
22:38are so many potential outcomes you
22:41actually feel uneasy by being forced to
22:45experience any single one of them
22:46because as as soon as you experience one
22:48of them you are shutting off the
22:50opportunity to experience all the
22:51others. It kind of creates this this
22:53panicked stasis of not wanting to do
22:56anything but also feeling bad because
22:59you have so many opportunities in front
23:00of you. You should do something but you
23:02don't want to do something because then
23:03that shuts off all the other
23:04opportunities and so you just you just
23:06feel stuck and and worried. The metaphor
23:08he uses is like standing on the edge of
23:10a cliff, right? And looking down and
23:12you're like, "Oh my god." That's the
23:14anxiety he's talking about kind of,
23:16right? It's this vertigo you get. It's
23:18not the fall really. It's not the space
23:20there and it's not all inside your mind.
23:22It's kind of the interaction between the
23:24two, the dizziness of freedom. What he's
23:25talking about the anxiety like that. And
23:28he he makes this really cool point. He's
23:29like, you know, a rock, if it's just
23:31sitting there, the rock sitting next to
23:32you doesn't have that anxiety, right?
23:34It's only that you have the freedom to
23:37move in that situation that gives you
23:39that anxiety. So it's only being an
23:41aware being, having self-awareness, and
23:44having the freedom to choose to do
23:47something that causes that anxiety. And
23:50so he even says like the depth of your
23:51anxiety is actually like proportional to
23:54the depth of your potential
23:55spirituality. Even the more anxious you
23:57are, the more you realize like, oh god,
23:59there's all this possibility in front of
24:00me.
24:01>> Right. And the more possibility, the
24:03more anxious you become because you're
24:05you're forced to make even harder
24:06decisions every single day.
24:08>> Right. Right. total reframe of the whole
24:10like how we think about anxiety. I think
24:12and that I thought that was a really
24:13cool metaphor that he uses.
24:14>> A metaphor that I'm going to use
24:16probably multiple times in this episode.
24:18To me, it's just the best way I can
24:19describe the experience of committing in
24:21the face of intense anxiety is that it's
24:25it's like jumping into a cold pool. The
24:27worst part is actually standing on the
24:29outside looking at it [laughter] and
24:31thinking about it.
24:32>> Just [ __ ] do it like Yeah.
24:34>> And you're thinking about all these
24:35reasons to not do it. all these other
24:37you're like, "Oh, I could go get get in
24:38the hot tub." Oh,
24:39>> that's exactly what he's saying. Yeah.
24:40But then once you jump in, there's this
24:42initial shock and then you're like, "Oh
24:44my god, this is so nice. Why why was I
24:46so worried about this?"
24:47>> And actually, I don't want to get out
24:50because it's so nice and refreshing.
24:51>> Okay, that's a better metaphor than
24:52jumping off a cliff. So, yeah, let's
24:54let's go with that one.
24:55>> I'll I'll uh I'll send Kira Garden my
24:57notes.
24:57>> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
24:59An important point he makes though, too,
25:00I think, is that anxiety isn't fear
25:02necessarily. Like, he talked about fear.
25:04Fear has an object. I'm afraid of that
25:06big scary wolf out in the woods or the
25:08the dog coming to bite me, whatever. I
25:10There's an object of fear where anxiety
25:12there's possibility itself. The way he's
25:14using the word anxiety, there's no real
25:16object to it. It's just this sense that
25:18we have. And I think it's it's probably
25:20kind of a default state of ours, right?
25:21Like that is our default state. Did it
25:23become that way when we had all these
25:25possibilities? I think it became that
25:26way when we had all these. We're going
25:28to get to that in a little bit because
25:30he actually he actually talked about
25:31that with the [ __ ] printing press,
25:33much less social media. And we talked
25:35about this a little bit on our anxiety
25:37episode. There's like a clear cause and
25:39effect of fear, right? It's like there's
25:41an there's a lion over there. It's
25:43growling at me. I'm scared. Anxiety is
25:46sitting by yourself in a savannah
25:48imagining that there might be a lion at
25:51some point in the future and then
25:53feeling feeling uncomfortable about it.
25:56Right. There's nothing realized. Yeah.
25:57>> There's nothing realized. It's simply
25:59it's fear of potential. The profound
26:01connection that Kirkagard made was that
26:04that potential is inherently scary.
26:08>> And I think the other brilliant insight
26:10he had is that that scariness is not the
26:12same thing as fear. Fear always has an
26:14explanation, whereas anxiety is often
26:16just like I don't know. I just [ __ ] I
26:18I'm I'm terrified and I have no no idea
26:21why. I'm just sitting here on my phone
26:22like freaking out.
26:25>> You mentioned the pool metaphor, the
26:26cold pool metaphor. Do you have any
26:28specific examples of that? I I know you
26:30do. I would say every every relationship
26:32I've ever committed to, I I have felt
26:35some degree of that. like there's just
26:36been an intense level of resistance kind
26:40of in the immediate moments prior to the
26:44commitment. I would include getting
26:45engaged with my wife um in that as well.
26:49Interestingly, not the marriage itself
26:50cuz I think it's the engagement was kind
26:52of that big leap. This episode is going
26:54to be very near and dear to my heart
26:55because I really was this guy who kept
26:59all of his options open and like was
27:01actually extremely good at creating
27:04optionality everywhere in his life. And
27:07I felt it backfire throughout a lot of
27:10my 20s. Like I felt the dissatisfaction
27:14like it was the more I traveled and the
27:16more experiences I had and the more
27:18people I dated and the more
27:20opportunities I created for myself the
27:22more dissatisfied I became and I had not
27:24read Kirk Kagard at that point but I
27:26quickly started to realize that I'm like
27:27no I think this is actually the problem.
27:29It is the optionality that is making me
27:33dissatisfied with everything. I need to
27:34learn how to like settle down and and
27:38pick something. Pick a place, pick a
27:40person, pick a career, and and I would
27:44say all three of those decisions were
27:46like three of the best decisions I've
27:48ever made in my life.
27:50>> I I'm going to maybe I'm jumping ahead
27:51here, too, but I'm going to make the
27:53prediction as well that you went kind of
27:56extreme in those areas as well. And I
27:59think you got a much clearer idea of
28:01that where somebody like me, it's been a
28:03lot more subtle of a problem, which is
28:05actually more insidious. So, that's a
28:07little I'll just I'll leave it at that.
28:09>> How about I could see that.
28:11>> Is that you see what I'm saying?
28:12>> I could see that. I mean, my personality
28:14is just all gas, no break. So,
28:16>> the the benefit of that is that if I've
28:19made a bad decision, I find out sooner.
28:22[laughter]
28:22>> You you had the benefit to the other
28:23side of it that you were paying
28:24attention. I think a lot of people will
28:26go extreme and not pay attention. So,
28:28there's that.
28:28>> And I've known those people.
28:29>> Yeah, for sure. For sure.
28:30>> We will probably talk about some of
28:32those people.
28:32>> Yeah. Whereas, like I'm saying on the
28:34other side where I've been a lot more
28:35subtle about it and not as not quite as
28:37extreme and it it's harder to
28:39>> Yeah.
28:39>> pinpoint sometimes. Yeah.
28:40>> I feel like the digital nomad lifestyle
28:43has gone through some interesting phases
28:46over the last 20 years. You know, back
28:48in the 2000s when I started, it was
28:50unheard of. It was like a very radical
28:52lifestyle. It was like my my family
28:55thought I was crazy. My friends thought
28:57I was crazy. Like I mean people
28:59literally thought I was like trafficking
29:01drugs or something cuz they didn't
29:02understand that you could just work from
29:05a laptop in Argentina and like make a
29:07living. I think once you got to the
29:082010s, it became very cool and
29:10fashionable and aspirational and I think
29:13that really peaked during the pandemic
29:15and I I feel like there's slowly
29:19a bit of a backlash that it's beginning
29:21to happen and what I have noticed is
29:23that most of the people including myself
29:26who live that way, we all kind of ran
29:29into all this stuff that Kerkugard's
29:30talking about is that it's like it's fun
29:32for a few years but then at a certain
29:34point the optionality starts torturing
29:37And it really like really torturing you
29:40because it is you start agonizing over
29:42what are objectively very dumb decisions
29:45and that that do not deserve to be
29:48agonized over. And so a lot of us just
29:50got off got off the roller coaster and
29:53like picked a place and settled down and
29:55and everybody I know who who has done
29:57that is much happier for it. It's one of
29:59those like I'm glad I live that way but
30:01I'm also glad I stopped. the people I
30:03know who are still doing it. I think
30:05there's like a certain threshold that
30:06once you're past it, like you kind of
30:08don't come back. And I think everything
30:10that we've talked about, you know, this
30:12balance between the the infinite and the
30:14the finite and possibility and
30:17necessity, it's a skill. Like learning
30:19how to pick something and sacrifice for
30:22it and own that sacrifice even on the
30:25days that you wake up and you [ __ ]
30:27hate it, you know? Like there are days I
30:29wake up and my wife drives me [ __ ]
30:31crazy, but you stick with it. Like
30:34knowing how to stick with things through
30:36that. I do believe it's a skill and I
30:39think it's it's a soft skill. It's a
30:40very intangible kind of emotional skill.
30:43And if you have not developed that by a
30:47certain age, like you're really setting
30:49yourself up for a lot of struggle later
30:52on in life. To Kiraard's point, that is
30:54what a self is made out of. Like a
30:56healthy ego is a narrative of self that
30:58stretches long into the past and the
31:00future. Like that is that is what keeps
31:02us happy and stable. And if you're never
31:04able to commit to anything, then you're
31:07not really going to be able to write
31:08that narrative of your past very well.
31:11And you're also not going to be able to
31:12have a clear narrative of your future.
31:14And so at a certain point, you're just a
31:17drift. And I think a lot of people today
31:20are just a drift. So this feeling of of
31:23being a drift, having too many options,
31:26this is very indicative of what Kierkard
31:28considered the aesthetic stage of life.
31:31And he actually had three stages that he
31:33identified that people have to go
31:35through to find their commitments, to
31:36find their life's path. Now that first
31:38stage is the aesthetic stage. The second
31:40stage is called the ethical stage and
31:43then the third stage is the religious
31:45stage. And we're going to construct the
31:46entire podcast around Kierkard's three
31:48stages. And we're going to go really
31:50deep on what each stage requires, how
31:54you fall into it, how you get out of it,
31:56how you transition to the next stage, so
31:58that you can end up in a place where you
32:00feel like you have some powerful
32:01meaningful life commitments.
32:03>> Yeah. And let me just say the religious
32:05stage doesn't necessarily mean you have
32:07to be religious.
32:08>> Yes. It's it's
32:09>> Yeah. Yeah. Kierard used the word
32:11religious
32:13not literally. It is metaphorically.
32:16There was this guy though Walter Kaufman
32:18in the 70s who kind of followed up with
32:20Kierkagard. He was like okay Kirk he's
32:22got this cool framework around all of
32:24this and not making commitments and
32:25making commitments and all this. He
32:27wrote this whole book on like how we go
32:28about doing that. So like common ways we
32:30go about doing that. The one section
32:32that I found was really interesting were
32:33these 10 ways he came up with that we
32:36avoid commitments in our life. He called
32:38this uh tendency like decidobia.
32:41Okay he coined this term. It's another
32:43type of dread or it's the same type of
32:44dread I think that Kira Kagar was
32:46talking about and it's the dread that
32:48comes with making decisions that shape
32:50your own life when your eyes are wide
32:53open. So holding that tension, right? We
32:56don't like that tension like we've
32:57already said. So he came up with these
32:5910 ways. I I don't I don't think I'll go
33:00through all of them here, but there's a
33:02few that I just found really interesting
33:03that I want to highlight. One of those
33:05being drifting. What he called drifting.
33:07There's kind of two versions of this.
33:09Okay. One is where you go through life,
33:11you go along with just the existing
33:12order, what society tells you, what your
33:14parents tell you, what the school tells
33:15you. Go with the flow. That's drifting.
33:17You don't have to make a decision there.
33:18You don't have to make a commitment.
33:19Somebody else has made it for you. You
33:21don't have to sit with that tension and
33:22that's how you avoid it anyway. The
33:24other is you just reject all structure.
33:26So, we've kind of already, you know,
33:27there's people who, like we said, we
33:29already know these people who just
33:30reject everything and they're like, "No,
33:32I'm not going to live anything like
33:33this." And so, again, you don't have to
33:35make the decision. you don't have to
33:37make that commitment to anything there
33:39either. The the interesting thing about
33:40that though, and Kaufman notes this, is
33:42that that often turns into a hunger for
33:44commitment after, like you said, most
33:47people will see like, "Oh god, this
33:49isn't working anymore." And so they'll
33:51swing really hard the other way and go
33:52for a commitment rather than just
33:54drifting along. Another one he points
33:55out is marriage. Now, there's there's a
33:59caveat here. He calls this kind of like
34:00the big one or the primary one that
34:02people will get into a marriage just to
34:06like not feel alone anymore or to just
34:08resolve that area of their life. I know
34:10a lot of people like this. I've had
34:11several friends who have gotten divorced
34:12and they're like, I got married cuz I
34:13thought that was the thing you just do,
34:15right? And they're like, I just wanted
34:16that part of my life taken care of.
34:18Obviously, that's a bad reason to get
34:20married. Kaufman isn't saying everyone
34:21does that. He's saying there's actually,
34:23you know, marriage can be a very
34:24lifeenlarging uh thing for you too, as
34:27long as you do it with your eyes wide
34:28open, right? As long as you know why
34:30you're getting into it. The other one I
34:31wanted to point out too, he says the the
34:32way we avoid
34:34really hard decisions, religion. Okay,
34:37I'm not going to [ __ ] on religion here
34:39because there's a caveat to this one as
34:41well, but he says that religion it
34:43really it reduces decisions you have to
34:46make by just supplying all the rules for
34:47you. Right? here's the book, here's the
34:49commandments, here's the the 10 things
34:51you can and can't eat or whatever it is.
34:53The problem he has with it is that most
34:55believers have never really questioned
34:57it to begin with, right? They were just
35:00born into a system and they just
35:01accepted that. He was totally a fan of
35:04like if you're in a religion because
35:05you've chosen it and you've doubted
35:08things, you've went through all the
35:09stages of the really exploring it and
35:13and identifying with it eventually and
35:15accepting that and holding that tension
35:17like this could be complete [ __ ] I
35:19don't know, but I'm going to choose to
35:20believe it anyway. Again, he's not
35:22[ __ ] on marriage or religion or
35:23anything like that. His main point
35:25throughout this whole thing was you're
35:26making these decisions with your eyes
35:28wide open and holding that tension. One
35:31of mine is like um I'll I'll stack the
35:33deck. Like I'll come into come into
35:35something and be like, "Well, I'm gonna
35:38get into a relationship that I'm not
35:39super invested in anyway, you know, just
35:42because it'll end and it's fine and I'll
35:44I'll be okay with it." That's not
35:45[clears throat] really a decision at the
35:46end. That's not a commitment at the at
35:48the end of the day, right? Like that's
35:49one I use anyway sometimes or you know,
35:52it used to be that way with jobs with me
35:54too. I was like, "Ah, this is fine job.
35:55I'll take it for now. It doesn't matter
35:56if I lose it or not." It's hard because
35:58I think not every decision
36:02deserves like a fullthroated commitment.
36:06>> That's a good point.
36:07>> And I think if we approached every
36:09decision as a fullthroated commitment,
36:12we would exhaust ourselves and and we
36:14would actually drive ourselves a little
36:17bit crazy. These are like huristics,
36:19right, of like you're outsourcing a
36:22certain percentage of this decisions
36:24with kind of the understanding of like,
36:25okay, maybe it's not going to be
36:26perfect, but I'm not going to have time
36:29to think about all this stuff or deal
36:31with all this stuff, so it seems to work
36:33for other people. I might as well do it,
36:35too. I do think some of that is
36:36inevitable. I think
36:39ultimately, and we we'll get to this
36:41later on, ultimately like we all need at
36:44least a handful of things in our lives
36:45that we do feel fully committed to
36:49with our eyes open, as Kaufman would put
36:51it, as though we have opted into it. I
36:54do think it's that perception of of
36:56agency and choice that matters so much.
36:58We all have commitments that we don't
37:00really feel like we chose and so we
37:02don't we don't identify with them that
37:05much. But when you do feel like you
37:08chose a commitment then it becomes part
37:11of who you are. You develop a a pride a
37:13sense of self around it and then it
37:15really starts to matter and it adds a
37:17lot of meaning. There's one point too
37:18that that Koffman makes in this book.
37:20Sometimes it doesn't always look like
37:21decidobia either, right? You can take
37:23the marriage example. Yeah, you're
37:24getting married because you love this
37:25person. And that's what it looked. Okay.
37:28One decision in my life that I made
37:29though, I don't think I've ever told you
37:31about this. I was actually accepted into
37:33an occupational therapy program.
37:35>> Really?
37:35>> So, this was this is my whole I don't
37:38even know where to start, honestly. But,
37:39[laughter]
37:40um, I took a
37:41>> buckle up everybody.
37:42>> I No, no, no. So, I took a
37:43>> Drew's life story. Here we go. It won't
37:46be that bad. No. [laughter] Um, I took a
37:48a fifth year in college. I had a super
37:50senior year. That's what we called it
37:51back then. ostensibly because there was
37:53one class I needed to take and it wasn't
37:55offered until the next semester. So, I
37:57was like, I'll just take the whole year
37:58and like, yeah, but and I loved college,
38:00too. So, that I was just doing that.
38:01But, I went through that and then I
38:03still didn't know what I wanted to do at
38:04the end of that that five years of
38:06education and exploring. So, I was like,
38:08oh, I I had a friend whose dad was an
38:10occupational therapist and I really
38:11liked him and he let me shadow him and
38:12stuff like that. And so I got accepted
38:13to this occupational therapy program,
38:16was fully planning on going, and then
38:19the lab that I was working in as an
38:20undergrad, they offered me a full-time
38:22position, but it was only a one-year
38:24contract cuz they only had funding for
38:25one year. And I was like, "Oh, great. I
38:27can do that instead, and it's only a
38:28year and then I can go decide again."
38:30So, I kept putting it off like that. It
38:32seemed rational and reasonable at the
38:33time from the outside that it was a fine
38:36decision, but honestly, what I would It
38:38was just decidobia is what it was, you
38:41know? So it doesn't always have to look
38:42like like oh I'm just avoiding this
38:44decision. In that case it really didn't
38:46look like I was I had all these reasons
38:47for it. I was like oh no I actually I
38:49want to go into this field instead and
38:51there's this position that opened up and
38:53how lucky am I and I've been working
38:54with these people and I know them and I
38:56know it's you know stable and all of
38:58this. So I feel like the cytoophobia is
39:00kind of like a more practical way of
39:02describing what Jean Paul Sart called
39:05bad faith living in bad faith. Like so
39:07in Sard's framework you know we are all
39:10making choices in every moment of every
39:11day of what we pay attention to what we
39:13pursue what we care about and that
39:17responsibility that comes with all those
39:20choices is incredibly burdensome because
39:23it's like who knows if you're choosing
39:25the right thing and it basically implies
39:26that every problem in your life is your
39:29responsibility. So people find ways to
39:31avoid that. And S called it living in
39:33bad faith, but he it basically was like
39:35outsourcing your responsibility to other
39:39people or other things. And I feel like
39:41Kaufman's decidia framework is kind of
39:43like a bullet list of all those ways
39:46that we tend to do that. We look for
39:48situations like that of like kicking the
39:50can down the road or just following
39:52along what our friends are doing. It's
39:53easier than having to think about it for
39:55yourself or just getting married because
39:56that's what you're supposed to do or
39:58just, you know, believing the things
39:59that the church you grew up in believes
40:01it because that's just easier to do. As
40:04we'll see, we're going to get into the
40:05Kirk guard's framework. The process here
40:07is first [snorts] learning to open your
40:10eyes and question what you're deciding
40:13and then recognizing that you don't
40:16necessarily have to make that decision
40:17and then coming back later and making
40:19that decision with full consciousness,
40:22owning the decision, owning the
40:24sacrifices that are required of the
40:25decision and then accepting it as kind
40:28of part of your identity or who you are.
40:29There's an amusing subgenre of Kirkagard
40:33that deals with the press in the media.
40:36Yeah.
40:36>> And I actually think it's incredibly
40:39timely for the world that we live in
40:41today, but it's also just kind of funny.
40:44Back in 1845,
40:47there was a literary reviewer who uh
40:49talked a little bit of [ __ ] about
40:51Kirkagard and a in a local tabloid. And
40:55Kirkagard, of course, just being a
40:57bundle of sunshine and joy, didn't take
40:59it very well. He got like very very
41:01buttth hurt about it. And so he decided
41:03to kind of like poke the bear a little
41:05bit and he he wrote some disparaging
41:07things about the publication and the
41:09author and made fun of his his ideas and
41:12his work a little bit. And in
41:15Kierkagard's mind, he was stoking an
41:19intellectual feud with another
41:21intellectual and that they were going to
41:22argue ideas to ideas. What he didn't
41:25realize is that most people don't care
41:28about ideas. They just enjoy reading
41:30about somebody [ __ ] on somebody
41:32else. And so what ended up happening is
41:34that this publication just started
41:37roasting Kirakagard brutally over
41:40multiple months and like getting into
41:43his personal life, making fun of what
41:45how what he looked like, how he walked.
41:48They dug up the stories about Rejine and
41:50just tortured him about how stupid he
41:53was and how he was like too afraid to
41:56marry this girl and how he's all alone
41:58and everything like just absolutely
42:01roasted him to the point that people
42:03would actually stop on the street and
42:05point at Kirkagard and laugh at him and
42:07be like, "Oh, are you the guy in the
42:09magazine? Oh my god."
42:12So obviously Kierard
42:15didn't enjoy this very much. I I don't
42:17think anybody would enjoy it, but
42:18especially a guy like him didn't really
42:20take to it. What's interesting though is
42:23that Kirkagard was astoundingly
42:26brilliant. And so what this inspired in
42:28him is some of the greatest philosophy
42:31and writing about media and journalism
42:34that has ever been put to page.
42:36[laughter]
42:37He basically took all of his personal
42:39grievances and turned it into
42:41philosophical works that critiqued just
42:44the whole profession of journalism, the
42:46whole apparatus of media and what the
42:50the effect of widespread media and the
42:53printing press was having on society at
42:55large. So Kurkagard's argument, he made
42:57this argument in his his essay called
42:59the present age is he said that it
43:01created an environment where people are
43:04able to disseminate opinions without any
43:07accountability for those opinions.
43:09>> Sounds familiar.
43:09>> Sounds familiar, right? [laughter] So he
43:12said basically any jackass can just go,
43:14you know, pay 10 cents, get a bunch of
43:16pamphlets printed, start putting them in
43:18on street corners and say whatever the
43:20hell they want about anybody. In a lot
43:22of cases, these people were publishing
43:24uh anonymously. There were no
43:26repercussions. There was no
43:27factchecking. There was no like I think
43:30back then there were probably no liel or
43:32slander lawsuits. So, it's just like
43:34rampant disinformation going everywhere
43:37all over the place all at once. The
43:39second thing is that he noted that this
43:41media environment created this kind of
43:44nebulous sense of quote unquote the
43:46public opinion. Now, he brilliantly
43:49broke down the fact that public opinion
43:52is like not really a thing, right? Like
43:54it's the public, everybody, it's it's
43:57thousands or millions of individuals who
43:58all have their own opinions and all have
44:01like very nuanced perspectives on all
44:03sorts of different issues, but when
44:06taken in aggregate, it just seems like
44:08this one massive blob of sentiment.
44:11>> It's like an abstraction almost. It is.
44:14Yeah. There's nothing real to it.
44:15There's
44:15>> 100%. And what he noted is that this
44:19kind of our inability to conceptualize
44:22public opinion or recognize that it's a
44:24bit of a mirage. It doesn't really
44:25exist. He said that journalists will
44:27leverage this to their benefit, right?
44:30So they will publish a bunch of stuff
44:32talking a bunch of [ __ ] about Drew
44:34Bernie, right? They'll come back a month
44:36later and they'll say, "Well, public
44:38opinion is that Drew Bernie is like a
44:39really terrible person, right?" And so
44:41so they they will seed public opinion by
44:43what they publish and then they'll come
44:44back later and say, "Well, this is what
44:46the public thinks, so we're just
44:47reporting on it." And this is something
44:49I mean, you still see this today, right?
44:50And he noticed how pernicious this is
44:53and how it breeds kind of a certain
44:55amount of distrust in others and in
44:58within society. And obviously he was
45:00kind of on the butt end of the joke of
45:02that, but it really concerned him the
45:06social direction that this would take
45:07culture and intellectual discourse. One
45:10of my favorite quotes by any philosopher
45:13ever is Kirkagard. I love this quote so
45:17much. He said, "If I had a daughter and
45:19she became a prostitute, I would spend
45:21every day of my life trying to save her,
45:24trying to correct her ways. If I had a
45:26son and he became a journalist, I would
45:29disown him on the spot and never speak
45:30[clears throat] to him again. [laughter]
45:33>> Wow. Okay. Yeah.
45:34>> That gives you a sense of kind of where
45:36Kier Kagar put the the mainstream media.
45:38The reason this matters and this is
45:41extremely appropriate today is that he
45:44said that it created this social this
45:46kind of widespread media and this like
45:48phantom public opinion that everybody is
45:51trying to live up to even though like it
45:53doesn't really exist. It creates this
45:56effect on each individual which he
45:57called leveling, which is that it
45:59creates an incentive to not stand out in
46:02any distinctive way to kind of bring all
46:06of your impulses and desires back to the
46:09baseline medium of the public opinion,
46:12right? Like he noticed that people
46:14generally outsource their decision-m and
46:17they outsource how they see things. And
46:20so if the handful of newspapers and
46:23magazines are telling them that
46:24everybody thinks this way, they will
46:27kind of default to thinking that way as
46:29well. And so what it does is it takes
46:30all the kind of spiky unique
46:33individuality of each of each person and
46:36it levels them all out so that they have
46:38the same opinions about all the same
46:40things at the same time
46:42about everybody. This prevents an
46:45ability to commit because by definition
46:47to commit to something you have to be
46:49willing to suffer for it. You have to be
46:51willing to stand out. You have to be
46:53willing to do something that most other
46:54people are not willing to do. And so if
46:57you are constantly being incentivized by
46:59this like magical public opinion to
47:02temper like the more extreme aspects of
47:05yourself, then you'll never never feel
47:07at liberty to make any of those
47:08commitments because everything you want
47:09to do is what everybody else wants to
47:11do. He has he has a great quote from the
47:14present age where he says a public
47:17contrary to an individual is an
47:19abstraction. It's a group of spectators
47:21who observe and gossip but never make a
47:23commitment.
47:24>> I'll talk no walk.
47:25>> Right.
47:26>> Yeah. Yeah.
47:26>> Because as soon as you commit to
47:27something, you are by definition
47:30standing out. You are telling everybody
47:33like, "Hey, I'm willing to lose your
47:36approval for this one thing." And I
47:38think social media has kind of just
47:40taken that. First of all, it's
47:42globalized it. And second of all, it's
47:44kind of put it on steroids because it's
47:45available 24/7. I mean, at least back in
47:48the 1840s, you could throw the your
47:51newspaper away and like go sit in a
47:53corner or something for for a couple
47:54days. Today, it's just it's everywhere.
47:56It's in front of you all the time. And
47:58his argument is, I mean, this does not
48:00exist without mass media, right? I mean,
48:02that's that's what you're saying. And
48:03so, he called this 180 years ago, and
48:05it's only gotten worse. I guess with
48:07that interlude in the middle where you
48:08said about you know the centralization
48:09of all the information whatever but even
48:11then I guess you could argue it was a
48:14homogenizing factor at that point.
48:16>> I think in the case of both of
48:17Kirkagard's main arguments a things have
48:19gotten worse and b
48:22they're more true now than they ever
48:24were. Right? Like it's on the one hand
48:25it's like the optionality today is more
48:28abundant than it's ever been. Right? And
48:30that Kirakagard would say obviously
48:33people are more anxious than they've
48:34ever been before. like by his definition
48:37of anxiety, this is exactly what you
48:39would expect in a world full of
48:41abundance and opportunity and freedom
48:43and infinite information, right? And
48:46then on the other hand, he would say
48:49obviously you would expect culture to
48:51get more homogeneous for people to
48:54become more susceptible to group think,
48:56not less. Like when you and I were kids,
48:59right, and the internet was coming
49:00online and everything, like the the big
49:01kind of utopian promise of of the
49:03internet was like everybody's gonna have
49:06access to everything. So everybody's
49:08going to think for themselves, right?
49:09Like you're going to be able to see all
49:10sides of every issue and so everybody's
49:12going to make their own decisions and
49:14it's going to be amazing. And I think
49:16Kirkagergard would actually make the
49:18point, no, no, no, the opposite's going
49:19to happen because the more
49:21interconnectivity people have with each
49:24other, the more this spectre of an
49:27imaginary public opinion hangs over each
49:29individual
49:30>> and we're just going to go to it looking
49:32for
49:32>> Yes. And the more
49:34>> the more people feel like they must
49:36default to that opinion. It becomes more
49:38of a liability to think for yourself
49:40under those conditions than less. our
49:42generation, you and I, we we opine all
49:45the time of like, oh man, remember
49:47before smartphones where you could just
49:48like be a [ __ ] idiot and nobody
49:50cared, you know? Like remember you could
49:51go get hammered, nobody take a picture
49:53or a video of you like and and make fun
49:55of you the next day. Like there was a
49:57freedom to it of not having that
49:59connectivity. I I just heard like young
50:02people don't really dance anymore
50:04because
50:05>> this I just Yeah. Because like you're
50:07going to get video, you're going to be
50:09on video if you dance somewhere and
50:11that's leveling. That's lovely. Perfect
50:12example of leveling. They don't drink as
50:14much anymore. They don't date as much
50:15anymore. They don't have sex as much
50:16anymore. They don't even ask each other
50:18out anymore. Jard would look at this and
50:20he would say like, "We are leveling the
50:21[ __ ] out of everybody right now because
50:24it is the more interconnected everything
50:26becomes, the the more of a liability it
50:29it is to stick your neck out for
50:30anything."
50:31>> Yeah. I don't know if you noticed this
50:32like towards the end of your travel
50:34years or whatever, but I everywhere I
50:36would go, but if you went to a big city
50:37somewhere that had been even somewhat
50:39capitalistic, I guess, you know, in its
50:41influence, everything was kind of
50:43starting to turn into the same. I think
50:45that the the whole travel boom you were
50:47talking about and the digital nomad
50:48thing that a lot of that was, oh, we're
50:50going to build an infrastructure around
50:51this and this is how you live this life.
50:53that that was a leveling thing even for
50:54that, you know, where where it once was
50:56a thing you did to assert your
50:58individuality, it became something that
51:00you actually became a part of the the
51:03public.
51:03>> It's in it's interesting. I hadn't
51:05thought about that, but I do think
51:06that's true. That's actually something
51:07that a couple friends of mine have
51:08noted. I don't travel nearly as much as
51:10I used to, but I have some friends in in
51:12the travel industry, and they they still
51:14travel all the time, and they've noted
51:15that they're like, "Every place is
51:17feeling the same. They they all have the
51:19same restaurants, the same hotel chains.
51:21They have the same amenities. You go to
51:24the same parties, and it's the same
51:26people everywhere, right? It's
51:27everybody's like taking their Instagram
51:29selfie and drinking their bougie martini
51:31and eating their gluten-free diet, and
51:34everything's becoming the same. Let's
51:35talk a little bit about some of those
51:36modern forces that have continued since
51:38Kurugard. I want to dig into some of
51:39these. Anyway, there's probably a ton
51:41out there, okay? But there's kind of
51:42three big ones that I've come up with
51:44and maybe there's others you can come
51:45you can name as well. But you know there
51:47used to be these rituals around going
51:51through phases of life even rights of
51:53passage if you look like traditional
51:54societies today or actually lots of
51:56societies up until recently had rights
51:58of passages right where it marked some
52:01end of one period in your life and and
52:03then a new period began. Okay so there
52:06was this guy Arnold Van Guinip I think
52:08that's how you say his name. He kind of
52:10identified these three stages of a right
52:12of passage that you would go through and
52:14it seemed to be pretty universal and
52:16like for whatever reason our minds and
52:18our development kind of gravitates
52:21towards these and if we don't have them
52:22something goes wrong. Okay. So the first
52:25one is separation from the old identity.
52:26You know, a lot of times it's from, you
52:28know, childhood to adulthood. There's
52:30some sort of right of passage that
52:32happens. Like in in traditional
52:34societies, there's usually some break
52:35like you're taken away from the group
52:36for a while and then you're taught the
52:38ways of the men or the women or, you
52:40know, whatever. So there's some sort
52:42sort of separation period, but then
52:44there's an in between phase too. So you
52:46don't just go right from I was this old
52:48thing into I am this new thing. There's
52:50this in between phase and then you do
52:52when you do re-enter back into the group
52:54then you're seen as a a new member of
52:56the group almost right your old identity
52:58is gone you have a new identity in this
53:01so him and some other people the other
53:03guy Victor Turner they argued that like
53:06doing away with those rights of passages
53:08or those rituals around you know
53:09transitions in our lives that's come at
53:12a great detriment to us there's no clear
53:15okay you were this thing now you need to
53:16be this thing and you have to commit to
53:18that new thing there was like almost a
53:20script for you. Maybe not a script, but
53:22there was just an expectation of it in
53:24some way. Maybe you had to figure it out
53:25on your own, but there was an
53:26expectation for you. Okay. This Victor
53:29Turner guy though, he argued that what
53:32modern culture has done has done away
53:34with the ritual, but we never did away
53:37with that in between phase. So, we get
53:39stuck in it. And he called it
53:40limonality. And this is this is a big
53:42word in anthropology. If you've ever
53:43taken any anthropology class, the word
53:45limonality or liinal phase will come up.
53:47And it just means some in between phase
53:49where you're not quite the old thing,
53:50you're not quite the new thing yet, you
53:52know. Yeah. Okay. Go off to university
53:54or college. Maybe that's kind of one
53:56sort of. Yeah. But it it's okay. So this
53:59is this is really mapping really well
54:01onto I think conversations of extended
54:04adolescence. Like if you go back to our
54:06our parents' generation or especially
54:07our grandparents generation, it's like
54:09by the time you were 20, you were
54:11married, you had a house, and you had a
54:12job and you probably had a kid on the
54:14way. Like and you were a full-blown
54:16adult. You looked like an adult. You
54:18sounded like an adult. You acted like an
54:19adult. These days, it's like people are
54:22behaving as though they're adolescence
54:24like well into their 20s, sometimes late
54:2620s, sometimes even early 30s. It is
54:28that liinal phase that you're talking
54:30about, right? Like they're they're stuck
54:31in that in between where they're like
54:33kind of their own person, but they're
54:34also like not committing to anything
54:37>> and not defining who they become next. I
54:39I mean I definitely had that anyway, you
54:42know, went to went to university, like I
54:43said, stretched that out as long as I
54:45could. Yeah. And then like grad school
54:47and I was kind of like, oh, just keep
54:48going here. Let's just keep going. And
54:50yeah, I I definitely had that. That is
54:52actually another thing I wanted to bring
54:53up. This idea of emerging adulthood
54:55though, this guy Jeffrey Arnett who
54:57coined this emerging adulthood uh term.
55:00This is back, I think probably the '
55:0260s, '7s is when this really started to
55:04happen uh in Western societies. Anyway,
55:06for sure. It's this period defined by
55:08exploration by instability in your life
55:11by focusing on yourself and uh that
55:14feeling being of being in between. And
55:16one of the markers of this phase if you
55:18go and ask someone like oh you know are
55:20are you an adult they won't say yes or
55:21no they'll say in some ways yes in some
55:23ways no which kind of that that liinal
55:26in between phase that you have. It was a
55:28result of cultural forces anyway. So
55:30from like the the 70s up until like the
55:33mid 90s, you know, median uh age at
55:36marriage was 21 in the 70s for women. It
55:39climbed to 25 in the 90s. Um I think
55:41it's up to it's up to almost 29 now in
55:4420 in the 2020s. 23 for men back in the
55:4770s, 27 in the '9s, it's 30 for men now
55:50for for age of of marriage. Six, seven,
55:52eight years for each gender. College
55:54enrollment was an interesting one. So
55:55that was only like 14% back in the 70s.
55:58It reached uh about 60% in the '90s kind
56:01of level has leveled off since then. So
56:03more people going to college, you need
56:05more education to participate in the
56:07workforce that extends that liinal phase
56:09of emerging adulthood. Age at first
56:11child birth when you have your first kid
56:13that's steadily climbed more women
56:15entering the workforce. All of these
56:17things kind of came together to produce
56:19this new it really wasn't a thing until
56:22the mid 20th century and beyond where we
56:24have this new phase where it's like you
56:25know this this liinal phase where you're
56:27not quite a child but not quite an adult
56:29anymore. Yeah. I feel like there's
56:30there's kind of two sides of this like
56:32there there is the structural economic
56:34side which is simply that the economy is
56:37more complex and well-developed than
56:40it's ever been. Right? So it it takes
56:41that much longer to arrive at a point
56:44where you are educated enough and
56:46skilled enough to to make that career or
56:48lifelong commitment. I have sympathy
56:50around that. That makes sense to me.
56:52>> Also women joining the workforce, right?
56:54They're joining that elongated process.
56:57But then there's kind of the the social
56:59and cultural side which is that we were
57:01exposed to so much more at such an
57:04earlier age. Like our grandparents
57:06generation, they probably were only
57:08aware of like half a dozen life paths
57:11that they could go down. Whereas we were
57:13told you can be anything.
57:14>> You can be anything. And we were
57:16probably aware of of dozens of life
57:18paths that we could go down. Like kids
57:19today are literally aware of hundreds
57:21and hundreds and hundreds of potential
57:22life paths. So the paradox of choice and
57:25the anxiety that comes with that excess
57:27of of life paths and opportunities, I
57:30think it weighs on people longer and and
57:32then of course they look for ways to
57:34live in bad faith. They look for ways to
57:36to sherk the responsibility of having to
57:38make a choice. And we have way more
57:41access to to distractions to avoid
57:43making a choice today too.
57:44>> No, exactly. The last kind of big
57:46cultural force is very tied in with this
57:48one as well. There was this guy Ziggmund
57:50Bowman. He wrote this book called Liquid
57:52Modernity back in like early 2000s and
57:55he explained some of that economic and
57:56cultural scaffolding.
57:58>> Sounds like an expensive drink at a
58:00shitty shitty nightclub.
58:01>> Liquid modernity like a bar.
58:03>> I'll have a I'll have two liquid
58:04modernities please. [laughter]
58:07>> There were like these economic forces
58:09when the economy became much more
58:11dynamic and required a more dynamic
58:13workforce. You know the the old saying
58:15about like oh people used to work for
58:17the the company for 30 their entire
58:19careers. you know, the 30-year career or
58:21in the coal mine or whatever, that just
58:23doesn't happen anymore. And not only
58:25does it not happen, but uh he says it's
58:28usually in your economic interest for
58:29you not to stay in one spot so long. And
58:32he said that that culture, that idea
58:34really spread out into the the wider
58:36culture around relationships or around
58:40whatever it is, careers or friendships
58:42or where you live. Commitment to
58:44something he said became an economic
58:45liability and people just started
58:46applying that to all parts of their
58:48lives. Like one example he gave was you
58:50know that I guess it wasn't really
58:52common for um businesses to have return
58:54policies before and then that became a a
58:56very common thing right then we apply
58:58that to like a relationship as soon as
58:59it starts you know not meeting our
59:02expectations
59:04take it back he kind of names it the the
59:05shift from marriage to cohabitation
59:09and he meant that in a broader sense not
59:11just marriage and cohabitation literally
59:13he meant that on on on that there was a
59:15big shift from marrying somebody before
59:18you cohabited and how you cohabitate
59:20before you marry, if you marry at all.
59:21But he said it was you could apply that
59:23to anything, the place you live, the job
59:25you're in. I think his big uh takeaway
59:28though was that where we went from like
59:30this industrialized, more centralized
59:32economy to a more decentralized one and
59:34dynamic, there was just a loss of trust
59:37across the board. A loss of trust in
59:40institutions, in others, and he said
59:42even in yourself too. when you don't
59:43trust anyone around you or even
59:46yourself, it is a lot harder to make
59:48commitments. It seems like a liability
59:50to make a commitment when there when
59:51you're in a low trust environment like
59:53that. I I I just had like a realization
59:55while you were describing that which is
59:57that one thing that's very different
59:58between say an industrial economy and a
1:00:02service economy is that in an industrial
1:00:04economy the skill sets that you develop
1:00:07don't really transfer. Right? So if
1:00:08you've spent 20 years being a coal
1:00:10miner, it's not like you can just pick
1:00:13up and go learn how to like refine oil
1:00:16next week. Whereas in the services
1:00:18economy, skills are highly transferable.
1:00:21If you are a a legal aid for a law firm,
1:00:24like you could probably go get a job at
1:00:26an insurance broker, you know, doing
1:00:28something else, you know, handling
1:00:30contracts and stuff. there's just so
1:00:33much more mobility across industries
1:00:36that then it does make sense to not stay
1:00:38in one place.
1:00:39>> And think about that too. If if you
1:00:40think about how somebody as a as a
1:00:43worker would approach that, they would
1:00:45say, "Oh, if this is the case where I do
1:00:48have all these transferable skills and
1:00:50this economic landscape is changing so
1:00:53quickly, it benefits me to be quote
1:00:55unquote resilient by kind of building a
1:00:57portfolio of jobs or careers or skills
1:01:01or whatever it is rather than committing
1:01:02to any one thing." So, there's a big
1:01:04incentive for that.
1:01:05>> Yeah. Yeah. And you probably maximize
1:01:07your earnings by moving around more
1:01:09rather than less.
1:01:10>> Yeah. I think especially like people in
1:01:11the tech industry, you know, there's
1:01:12kind of like that idea of the portfolio
1:01:13career.
1:01:14>> It maximizes, you know, your earnings,
1:01:17your potential earnings throughout your
1:01:18career. You are destabilizing your your
1:01:22personal life, your relationships, your
1:01:24maybe you're moving to different cities
1:01:26and your identity, right? Because if
1:01:28you've if you've worked in four
1:01:29different industries by the time you're
1:01:3030, it's like who the [ __ ] are you? I
1:01:32mean, do you really know who you are and
1:01:33what you stand for in that in that case?
1:01:35>> Those are kind of some of the three big
1:01:37cultural forces that we've seen over the
1:01:38last
1:01:40not quite 100 75 years or so, maybe
1:01:42more. There's a lot of incentives out
1:01:44there for you to not commit.
1:01:45>> A lot a lot of dizziness of freedom.
1:01:47>> A lot of dizziness. A lot of anxiety.
1:01:50Yeah.
1:01:50>> Yeah. For the rest of this episode, we
1:01:52are going to frame each chapter as one
1:01:55of the three stages of Kirkagard's
1:01:57framework of of making lifelong
1:01:59commitments and finding one's true path.
1:02:02So he had three stages. These were
1:02:05explained in two of his books. One is
1:02:07either or which he talks about the the
1:02:09first two stages and then fear and
1:02:10trembling which he talks about the
1:02:12third. And according to Kirkagard, you
1:02:14can't jump ahead. You you have to go
1:02:16through all three. You have to
1:02:18experience the downsides of each of the
1:02:20first two in order to find your way to
1:02:23the subsequent stage. So his first stage
1:02:25is called the aesthetic stage. And this
1:02:27is this is the person who's a drift.
1:02:29This is the person who is chasing every
1:02:31option, every opportunity, keeping every
1:02:34door open. It never commits, is not
1:02:36making decisions, is trying to avoid
1:02:38cornering themselves into one option.
1:02:40And Kirkagard had some some harsh words
1:02:44for these people. The second stage is
1:02:46the ethical stage. And the ethical stage
1:02:49is occurs when you realize that the
1:02:51aesthetic stage is leading nowhere. It
1:02:53is its own subtle form of prison. It is
1:02:56keeping you just constantly anxious and
1:02:59on the lookout for the next new shiny
1:03:01thing. The ethical stage is when you
1:03:03realize, okay, I need to make some
1:03:04commitments. I need to choose some
1:03:05things that matter to me more than
1:03:07others. And so, let me make those
1:03:08choices. Let me make those sacrifices.
1:03:10Now, to live in the ethical stage, you
1:03:12have to be very aware of those
1:03:13trade-offs and those costs that you're
1:03:15making. If you believe you're committing
1:03:17the things, but you don't really think
1:03:18you should have to sacrifice anything,
1:03:20Kirkagard would argue that that's not
1:03:22really a commitment. That's just
1:03:24delusion. So, the ethical is somebody
1:03:26who has taken on willingly certain
1:03:29sacrifices and compromises to dedicate
1:03:31themselves to something that they
1:03:33believe is important. But what's
1:03:34interesting about his ethical stage is
1:03:36that he kind of frames these these
1:03:39commitments as something that is is like
1:03:41calculated and very rational, right?
1:03:43There's like an ROI to each of these
1:03:46commitments and the person has kind of
1:03:47sat down and been like, "Okay, yeah, I
1:03:49think marrying this person will go well.
1:03:51Let me let me go ahead and go for it."
1:03:52Kirk Kaggard would argue is not really a
1:03:56full-fledged commitment. It is like part
1:03:59of a commitment but it is not the full
1:04:02experience that one person can get from
1:04:05giving their life to something or
1:04:08someone. And this brings us to his third
1:04:10stage which is the religious stage. And
1:04:13it's funny because I remember the first
1:04:14time I read Fear and Trembling and I
1:04:16realized that the whole book was about
1:04:17Abraham and Isaac. I was just like, "Oh
1:04:19god." I just had all these flashbacks of
1:04:21like my [ __ ] church groups and Bible
1:04:24study. I was like, "Really, dude? like
1:04:27you're going to make me sit through
1:04:28this. Actually, unbelievably powerful
1:04:29book. Incredibly profound. I I love I
1:04:33love that book and I was very surprised
1:04:35how much I loved it. I think Kirakagard
1:04:37chose to call this stage the religious
1:04:39stage simply because it is the only word
1:04:42that does justice to what the experience
1:04:44is. This is where you get into the idea
1:04:46of a leap of faith and just faith
1:04:48itself. Probably the best distinction
1:04:50between the ethical stage and the
1:04:51religious stage is that the ethical
1:04:53stage is a rational commitment to
1:04:56something. A religious stage is by
1:04:59definition an irrational level of
1:05:02commitment to something.
1:05:03>> Just commit to it become for the sake of
1:05:05committing to it. Yeah.
1:05:06>> And if it kills me, so be it. So just to
1:05:08recap really quickly, what we've
1:05:10established here is that Kirkagard
1:05:12argued that the self is built, it's not
1:05:14found, that your life path is carved out
1:05:18with a machete and not stumbled across.
1:05:22We talked about how anxiety is the
1:05:24dizziness that comes with freedom. That
1:05:26it is the unease of too many options,
1:05:30too many potentialities, too many
1:05:31possible selves that you could step
1:05:33into. Because of that anxiety, because
1:05:35of not wanting to close all the doors
1:05:37that we could potentially walk into, we
1:05:39find ways to outsource our
1:05:41decision-making. We find ways to live in
1:05:43bad faith, to sher the responsibility,
1:05:46to let other people and other things
1:05:48decide for us and then blame them when
1:05:50those decisions go wrong. Then we talked
1:05:52about how this problem is bigger than
1:05:55ever today. how Kirkagard identified
1:05:58these tendencies in the 1840s
1:06:00just because he thought there were too
1:06:02many magazines and newspapers out. Like
1:06:04imagine if he had access to to Tik Tok.
1:06:07Dude, I feel like Kiraagard would be the
1:06:10all-time best Twitter account. Like it
1:06:13would just be scathing and so [ __ ]
1:06:16insightful. We talked about some of the
1:06:17structural changes that have happened
1:06:19over the last h 100red years that have
1:06:21made this experience inevitable. But at
1:06:23the end of the day, it's impossible to
1:06:25form an identity, a self, and to feel
1:06:29peace with oneself without these
1:06:32lifelong commitments that we've made to
1:06:35a handful of things and a handful of
1:06:36people. So I think all this sets the
1:06:38stage really well of we understand
1:06:41Kirkagard's basic ideas, his frameworks,
1:06:44the introduction, the definition of
1:06:45anxiety, the inner tension between our
1:06:48potential and the reality of our
1:06:51limitations and why we feel so a drift.
1:06:54Why more potential, more optionality
1:06:56doesn't make us happier. It actually
1:06:57makes us more anxious. All of these
1:06:59factors, I think, set the stage for
1:07:02really digging into Kirkugard's first
1:07:05stage of commitment, which is the
1:07:06aesthetic stage. Now, in the next
1:07:08chapter, we're going to go deep into
1:07:09what the aesthetic stage is, how we all
1:07:12have to get through it, what the
1:07:13experience of living through it is like,
1:07:14and how we can get trapped by our own
1:07:17optionality and our own potential. We're
1:07:19going to talk about the many ways that
1:07:21we avoid having to make decisions for
1:07:23ourselves, that we avoid taking
1:07:25responsibility for the decisions that we
1:07:27do make, and the false impression that
1:07:31having more options is always a good
1:07:32thing. We're going to use as an example
1:07:34another historical figure who I think
1:07:36exemplifies the aesthetic stage
1:07:38perfectly. It is definitely somebody
1:07:41that everybody listening to this has
1:07:42probably heard of. Maybe the most famous
1:07:45Playboy
1:07:46[ __ ] boy [laughter]
1:07:48>> in world history
1:07:49>> of all time. Yeah.
1:07:50>> It is Kasanova himself.
1:07:52Most people are familiar with the name.
1:07:54They're familiar with the reputation.
1:07:56They are not familiar with his actual
1:07:58life and what he went through and
1:08:00tragically how he died. So we will get
1:08:03into all of that. We will get into the
1:08:06optionality trap, the paradox of choice,
1:08:08surviving the aesthetic stage, and
1:08:10finding your way to your life's first
1:08:12basic commitments to get out of that
1:08:14stage. Stay tuned. But real quick, a
1:08:17word from our sponsors. This episode is
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1:11:45>> [music]
1:11:45>> I find it interesting that the phrase
1:11:47finding yourself implies that there is
1:11:51something external that you have to go
1:11:53searching or or exploring for that like
1:11:56yourself with a capital S is like hiding
1:11:59under a rock or buried in a closet
1:12:02somewhere. And if you just like signed
1:12:05up for enough class pass gyms or uh went
1:12:09on enough hinge dates, you would
1:12:11magically find yourself.
1:12:13>> Yeah. [laughter]
1:12:15>> And sure enough, this is often the
1:12:16conventional wisdom, right? People tell
1:12:18you like get out there, explore, go to
1:12:20new places, meet new people, try new
1:12:22things. And like sure, there is some
1:12:25value in that, but I don't necessarily
1:12:28think that is exactly how you find
1:12:30yourself. In fact, I think Kirkagard
1:12:33would argue that that is a very
1:12:35efficient way of avoiding yourself. And
1:12:38so, in this chapter, we're going to talk
1:12:39about what happens when exploration goes
1:12:42too far, when novelty seeking prevents
1:12:45you from finding out who you are in your
1:12:48life rather than helping you. And we're
1:12:50going to start with the historical
1:12:51figure that
1:12:54took exploration and novelty seeking to
1:12:56the logical endpoint. You've probably
1:12:58heard of him. His name is Kasanova. Yes,
1:13:01that Kasanova. And while his story is
1:13:04exciting, it is maybe a little bit more
1:13:07tragic than you would suspect. So,
1:13:08Kasanova was born in 1725 in Venice. Uh,
1:13:12his parents were two actors. Um, his
1:13:15father, he never really knew, died when
1:13:17he was eight, was never around in the
1:13:19first place, and then his mom was
1:13:20touring Europe all the time, so she
1:13:22basically just left him with his
1:13:24grandmother, and he barely ever saw her.
1:13:27Now, at the time, Venice was kind of
1:13:30like, I don't know, like the Las Vegas
1:13:32or New York City of Europe. It was where
1:13:36all of the fun was happening. It was
1:13:38where carnival originated. It there was
1:13:40full of parties and mass and big feasts
1:13:43and festivals and celebrations. And so,
1:13:46young Kasanova grew up in this world, in
1:13:49this environment. It was very hedonistic
1:13:51culture at the time. He got a law
1:13:53degree. Then he went to seminary. Then
1:13:55he got expelled for sleeping with too
1:13:58many people. So then he tried to become
1:14:00a soldier, decided it was too boring,
1:14:02too structured. He tried to go back to
1:14:04the clergy, but he passed out drunk one
1:14:07too many times. He got kicked out again.
1:14:10Studied violin for a while, tried to
1:14:11join an orchestra, and then supposedly,
1:14:14as he claimed, he saved a rich noble's
1:14:16life. Um, and that noble became a patron
1:14:20of his, started giving him tons of
1:14:22money. Casanova immediately began
1:14:24spending all of his money. Spent it
1:14:27gambling, spent it going out chasing
1:14:29girls, uh, spent it traveling, buying
1:14:34expensive clothing, basically just
1:14:36burning through everything. Eventually,
1:14:38he gets kicked out of Venice. He travels
1:14:41around Europe for a while. It's the same
1:14:43pattern everywhere he goes. He shows up.
1:14:46He's incredibly charming. He's
1:14:47incredibly charismatic. He looks like a
1:14:49noble. He acts like a noble. He's
1:14:50extremely well-dressed. So, he
1:14:52ingratiates himself with the local
1:14:54aristocracy, seduces a bunch of guys'
1:14:57wives, uh, creates a scandal, gets
1:15:00kicked out, and then has to move on to
1:15:02the next little thief or kingdom where
1:15:04the whole pattern plays itself out
1:15:06again. Now, while all of this is
1:15:08happening, there's just like an endless
1:15:10array of fantastic stories,
1:15:14ridiculous stories. I mean, stuff that
1:15:17like if it didn't happen, you would just
1:15:20read and be like, "Yeah, that there's no
1:15:22way that happened." Like, at one point
1:15:24he got arrested by the Venice
1:15:25Inquisition um and put in Py prison in
1:15:29Venice. Uh nobody had ever escaped PMBB
1:15:32before he was there. He was sentenced to
1:15:34life imprisonment. He was the first
1:15:36person to ever escape from PMBB prison.
1:15:39He carved his It was like an Andy Drain
1:15:41from Shashank Redemption. He found a
1:15:43metal spike and like slowly chiseled his
1:15:45way out of the prison. Supposedly he's
1:15:48he claims that he slept with over 120
1:15:50different women. He contracted burial
1:15:53disease 11 different times. He met
1:15:55Voltater, Pope Clement I 13th, Katherine
1:15:58the Great, Benjamin Franklin, and
1:16:00Mozart. At various points, he was a spy,
1:16:02a diplomat, a mathematician, and a
1:16:04partial translator of Homer.
1:16:07Obviously, [laughter]
1:16:09Kasanova is perhaps an extreme example
1:16:12of what Kierkagard would call an estate.
1:16:15And an estate is somebody who lives in
1:16:18Kirkagard's first stage, the aesthetic
1:16:20stage. Now, estates are all about
1:16:23sensation, novelty, stimulation. They
1:16:28generally have a refusal to commit to
1:16:30too many things. They they like having
1:16:32their options open. They they like
1:16:34seeing if anything better comes along.
1:16:36And the danger of the aesthetic life is
1:16:38that it is so easy to justify to
1:16:41ourselves, right? We can convince
1:16:43ourselves that we are maximizing our
1:16:46potential, that we are maximizing our
1:16:49freedom, that we are having a great time
1:16:51and we're doing so many interesting
1:16:52things and we're learning so much and
1:16:54we're finding so many opportunities.
1:16:56It's like there always seems to be an
1:16:58explanation beneath the surface that we
1:17:00can point at to justify these kind of
1:17:03instinctive automatic behaviors. Now in
1:17:06in his book sickness unto death,
1:17:08Kierkagard points out that this sort of
1:17:11despair this kind of despair of
1:17:14optionality of freedom of indulgence. It
1:17:18is the most dangerous kind of despair
1:17:20because it largely goes unnoticed by the
1:17:23estate. Right? They are comfortable.
1:17:26They are entertained. They're surrounded
1:17:28by opportunities.
1:17:30But they feel completely empty. None of
1:17:33it seems to mean anything. None of it
1:17:35seems to matter. And so, as soon as you
1:17:37sit with that emptiness,
1:17:40you desperately look and crave some new
1:17:44form of stimulation or entertainment to
1:17:46fill that void for you. There is an
1:17:48essay, it's actually a speech that I
1:17:50absolutely love. You are well aware of
1:17:53this uh because we've posted it so many
1:17:55times over the years. Uh this is water
1:17:57by David Foster Wallace. I think he
1:17:59describes this perfectly. He he actually
1:18:02this is where I get the term the default
1:18:04state. He describes this as the default
1:18:06state. Our default state is always
1:18:09impulsive. It's self- serving. It is
1:18:12indulges. It seeks entertainment. It
1:18:14seeks novelty. It seeks stimulation. And
1:18:18a lot of Wallace's work was very
1:18:20preoccupied with the role of mass
1:18:23entertainment and the aesthetic life.
1:18:26You know, Infinite Jest and a lot of his
1:18:28essays really dig into kind of the
1:18:31addictive qualities of modern
1:18:33stimulation that comes with modern
1:18:36entertainment. And it's interesting
1:18:37because you know in last chapter we
1:18:39talked about how prophetic Kirkagard was
1:18:42particularly around media but I I don't
1:18:44think he foresaw the n the the impact
1:18:47that mass entertainment was going to
1:18:49have right like Netflix and uh social
1:18:54media and um you know having like
1:18:58literally 500 channels available to you
1:19:01247 like it it is the ability to
1:19:05distract yourself is available in every
1:19:07single moment. And so the gravitational
1:19:09pole of the aesthetic life, I think you
1:19:12could argue, is stronger now than it has
1:19:14ever been.
1:19:15>> Yeah. And easier to access. Absolutely.
1:19:17Yeah. Yeah. In every facet of life.
1:19:19>> Yeah.
1:19:19>> Yeah.
1:19:20>> But I want I do want to take a moment
1:19:21and I want to go through five
1:19:23predictions that Kira Kagard made that
1:19:25actually did turn out to be true and we
1:19:28actually have the modern psychological
1:19:29research to back it up these days. And I
1:19:33think by going through these one by one,
1:19:35it will help us get a better
1:19:37understanding of the water we we all
1:19:39swim in and
1:19:42hopefully how we can navigate this
1:19:45gravitational pole a little bit better
1:19:47going into the future. The first
1:19:48prediction he made is he said that more
1:19:51reflection without commitment just
1:19:53produces paralysis. It doesn't actually
1:19:55produce wisdom. like there's a certain
1:19:58inflection point that thinking about
1:20:00your choices more doesn't help you make
1:20:02them. It actually prevents you from
1:20:04making them. It's interesting because
1:20:06because I think at the time this was
1:20:08probably a pretty revolutionary idea. He
1:20:10actually in the present age he talks
1:20:12about how there's uh he kind of divides
1:20:15the world up into kind of two eras.
1:20:17There's like the revolutionary era and
1:20:19then there's the present age. Um, and he
1:20:21said that prior to being inundated with
1:20:24information, people just acted and if
1:20:28they wanted to see change in the world,
1:20:30they would just go do it. They would
1:20:32just make it happen. But he complained
1:20:35in the modern era, in the present age,
1:20:37which was the 1840s, he said people were
1:20:40so inundated with useless information
1:20:44and constant analysis and reflection
1:20:47that they were forgetting how to act in
1:20:48the world. that they were forgetting how
1:20:50to just throw themselves out there and
1:20:52make the change that they wanted to
1:20:53make.
1:20:53>> Yeah. It was endlessly possible to talk
1:20:57and not act. Like that was kind of his
1:21:00thing about the present age, right?
1:21:01Everybody's talking about this.
1:21:02Everybody's going up to the edge but
1:21:04never taking the plunge, right?
1:21:06>> And that was his whole thing is this
1:21:07endless possibility for that now,
1:21:09especially with theformational
1:21:10environment that uh he was seeing the
1:21:12the changes for and now what we see on
1:21:14steroids.
1:21:15>> Yeah.
1:21:15>> Also kind of like the paradox of choice,
1:21:17right? This is Barry Schwarz's work on
1:21:19the paradox of choice. He he wrote the
1:21:20book on this, but he did a whole this
1:21:21whole body of research around it, too.
1:21:23Basically showing that the more options
1:21:26you have, the less satisfied with any
1:21:28one of them you end up choosing because
1:21:30you're like, "Oh, there was this other
1:21:31one over there." So, I had to sit here
1:21:32and I had to think about all these other
1:21:34options in front of me. You know, the
1:21:36classic example, you go to the grocery
1:21:38store and buy toothpaste and there's a
1:21:39whole aisle full of toothpaste and like
1:21:41which one are you supposed to buy,
1:21:42right? And you're never satisfied with
1:21:43the one you buy. That's a simple
1:21:45example. When you have abundance in
1:21:47front of you, all these options in front
1:21:48of you, that plays out on on steroids
1:21:52itself, you're never satisfied with any
1:21:54one decision because you consider all
1:21:56the others, all the other lives you
1:21:58could have lived.
1:21:59>> Right. Right. In that realm,
1:22:01>> um Schwarz too, some of his later work,
1:22:04I I I love this concept and I think
1:22:06we've talked about it several times
1:22:07maybe before too, but in that same
1:22:09realm, you have the maximizers and the
1:22:11satisficers. So when given a set of
1:22:14options of any any kind of choice,
1:22:16there's kind of people tend to split
1:22:18into two different camps. Maximizers,
1:22:20they will try to overanalyze it just
1:22:22like what you're talking about, like
1:22:23analyze it to death and make sure
1:22:25they're getting the absolute best
1:22:27option. They're they're making the
1:22:28absolute best choice for them in that
1:22:30situation.
1:22:31>> Then you have the satisficers who they
1:22:32seek a good enough uh solution or a good
1:22:35enough option. What's interesting about
1:22:37this research too is that uh yeah, if
1:22:39you look at them objectively, right,
1:22:42maximizers tend to have like a better
1:22:44have better outcomes like if they they
1:22:46they pick the better product or they
1:22:48make more money doing something or a
1:22:49better investment, whatever it is, but
1:22:52they're less happy than the satisficers
1:22:54are. The satisficers like I picked good
1:22:56enough. Ah, could have went well,
1:22:58couldn't maybe not.
1:22:59>> Yeah.
1:22:59>> And they end up being happier over the
1:23:01long run.
1:23:02>> Also in relationships too, this happens.
1:23:04You're going to maximize. Think about
1:23:05that, right? Yeah.
1:23:06>> Get a maximizer in a longterm
1:23:07relationship and they're going to be
1:23:08miserable because they're just going to
1:23:10sit there and think, "Well, I'm
1:23:11>> they're going to think about all the
1:23:12other potential people they could have
1:23:14gone out with, but they didn't or or
1:23:16maybe they stopped talking to or
1:23:17whatever." Yeah.
1:23:18>> Research Schwarz and others bear this
1:23:20out, too. I mean, it's they're they're
1:23:22less satisfied with their relationships
1:23:23than satisficers are. So, yeah, Kierard
1:23:26was he was on the nose here. So this
1:23:28brings us to our second prediction which
1:23:30is that Kierkard argued that the
1:23:33benefits of optionality are in many ways
1:23:35an illusion. When we are given more
1:23:37options we it is easy to perceive the
1:23:39benefits of those options but we don't
1:23:41realize the costs that those extra
1:23:43options are going to weigh on ourselves
1:23:45once we are forced to choose something.
1:23:47He talked about this in either or is
1:23:49having spectacles with two lenses. Like
1:23:51for some reason, we are only able to see
1:23:54the upside of each additional option,
1:23:56whereas we're unable to see the downside
1:23:58of having to give up each additional
1:24:00option. So we continue to pursue
1:24:02optionality for its own sake. We just
1:24:05want an abundance of options in
1:24:07everything we do, no matter what,
1:24:09without considering the c the emotional
1:24:12and psychological costs that we're
1:24:13inviting onto ourselves.
1:24:14>> Yeah. It's almost like a bias, right?
1:24:16like we just have a bias towards
1:24:17optionality. Yeah.
1:24:19>> There's this one really interesting
1:24:20study um one of the authors was Dan
1:24:22Arielli actually MIT uh professor.
1:24:25>> Uh it was this door keeping open
1:24:27experiments I guess for lack of a better
1:24:29name but basically what they did is they
1:24:31had people come in. The details of the
1:24:34game don't really matter but basically
1:24:35you could open one of three doors. Okay.
1:24:37And there was a reward associated with
1:24:39each door. Okay. It changed every time
1:24:42you chose a door, but one of the doors
1:24:44clearly had a a better reward and stayed
1:24:48that way during the whole thing. Like
1:24:49they would change up the reward so it
1:24:51wasn't super obvious, but if you chose
1:24:53the door that had the highest reward,
1:24:55you should be able to figure it out
1:24:56after a while. The rational response
1:24:58here is literally to open that door over
1:25:01and over and over again. The little
1:25:03catch was is that if you didn't open
1:25:05certain doors after a certain number of
1:25:06polls, like they would go away. You
1:25:08would you would get no longer get the
1:25:09option to open that door. But again, the
1:25:12rational response was to find the the
1:25:14highest reward door and just hit that
1:25:16the whole time and you get the most
1:25:17points or money or whatever they were
1:25:18giving them, right? Didn't matter
1:25:20though. People like they were just
1:25:22scared of one of those doors
1:25:23disappearing after a little while.
1:25:25>> So, they would open doors with worse
1:25:27prizes just to just
1:25:28>> just to keep that
1:25:29>> just to have the opportunity to open the
1:25:31door again in the future.
1:25:32>> And then they did these follow-up
1:25:34experiments, too, where they would
1:25:35basically train them to like like look,
1:25:38it's this door, right? just open this
1:25:40door.
1:25:41>> Just open this door [laughter] and
1:25:42you're going to get the the maximum
1:25:43reward out of all of this. They still
1:25:44wouldn't do it. So, it is it's some kind
1:25:46of bias we have to just like, oh, we
1:25:49want more and more optionality. We'll
1:25:50get into why here in a little bit, but
1:25:52it's it's it's it's just like this
1:25:54hardwired bias we have towards keep your
1:25:57options open, you know, like the more
1:26:00the better, right?
1:26:01>> This brings us to prediction number
1:26:02three from Kira Kagard. Um, this is also
1:26:04from eitheror. Uh, in a life of endless
1:26:08abundance, everything becomes equally
1:26:10interesting and equally boring.
1:26:13This hits close to home for me. So, we
1:26:15talked earlier about how I lived as a
1:26:17digital nomad for six or seven years.
1:26:20One of the reasons I stopped, and this
1:26:22is going to sound insane, especially to
1:26:24people listening to this who have not
1:26:25traveled much, I eventually reached a
1:26:27point where countries started feeling
1:26:30the same,
1:26:32>> which is like completely illogical, but
1:26:34like I'd spend a month in uh like Peru
1:26:37and then I would go to Vietnam and it
1:26:40would feel the same, which is kind of
1:26:42defeats the entire purpose of traveling.
1:26:45But it's interesting. And I think what
1:26:46Kierkagard correctly observed is that
1:26:49when everything is novel in some
1:26:52different way
1:26:54that novelty stops meaning anything. No
1:26:57matter what country you go to, well,
1:26:58there's going to be a new different
1:26:59country coming up next. So, who cares?
1:27:02Like whatever is unique and distinctive
1:27:04about this country, it it kind of stops
1:27:06mattering and you end up just focusing
1:27:10on the experiences that are the same
1:27:12everywhere. The way I always thought of
1:27:14it is that novel experiences have a
1:27:16diminishing return to them. Right? If
1:27:18you've only been to one country, then
1:27:19going to that second country, it's going
1:27:21to be a hugely novel experience because
1:27:23everything is completely different. But
1:27:25if you've been to like 30 countries and
1:27:27you go to 31, that 31st country is just
1:27:31going to be like, eh, it's like a little
1:27:33bit different compared to my entire
1:27:37sample of 30 countries that I've been
1:27:39to. So it's like each additional novel
1:27:41experience you add the marginal novelty
1:27:44diminishes becomes less and less and
1:27:46less to the point where it's everything
1:27:48levels right every every experience
1:27:51every interaction every person you meet
1:27:53every date you go on feels like the same
1:27:56date it feels like the same interaction
1:27:58it feels like the same experience not
1:28:00because the novelty is not there it's
1:28:02because it the novelty has lost any
1:28:04meaning or significance
1:28:06>> because it's so it's so abundant or it's
1:28:09so cheap. Yeah. You almost get
1:28:11desensitized to it.
1:28:12>> It's it's another version of the hyonic
1:28:14treadmill, right? Like we usually think
1:28:16of the hyonic treadmill of like buying
1:28:17stuff, which is that that definitely
1:28:20happens. You know, it's usually in the
1:28:21context of uh you know, trying to keep
1:28:24up with the Joneses or whatever it is,
1:28:25but in this case, it's more you're just
1:28:29the novelty itself
1:28:31>> is what you're chasing and it ends up
1:28:32just not not delivering. That's what
1:28:35you're saying over time. Yeah. Yeah.
1:28:36Yeah.
1:28:37>> Yeah. Of course, there's all that
1:28:38research on the endic treadmill. The
1:28:40interesting thing though, too, you know,
1:28:41we we talk about you hear the the phrase
1:28:44thrown around a lot about like dopamine,
1:28:46you know, you're just
1:28:47>> dopamine detox or dop you're just you're
1:28:50in for a dopamine fix or whatever it is,
1:28:52right?
1:28:53>> And I think we've maybe made this point
1:28:55before too, but the thing is about
1:28:56dopamine is it's not it's not a reward
1:28:59signal. It's a it's a search signal.
1:29:01>> It's a pursuit signal.
1:29:02>> Pursuit signal. Yeah. And you can get
1:29:04addicted to that pursuit. But again,
1:29:06it's like you're saying, each time takes
1:29:08a little bit more and a little bit more
1:29:09and a little bit more. It's like a drug.
1:29:10I mean, it is a drug technically when
1:29:13you get down to it. Like every new
1:29:14experience
1:29:16is like, okay, now what's the next one?
1:29:18Right. That's what dopamine is. Where's
1:29:19the next one? Where's the next one?
1:29:20Where's And when that wears off, that's
1:29:22why you go searching again is because
1:29:24you're you're trying to look for that
1:29:26that payoff. Yeah.
1:29:28>> Which is never there.
1:29:29>> Yeah.
1:29:29>> Because dopamine isn't the reward
1:29:31signal. It's the search signal. It's the
1:29:33pursuit signal.
1:29:34>> Yeah. When we've talked about this in
1:29:35the past, we've talked about how the the
1:29:37concept of dopamine detox is a misnomer,
1:29:39right? Like it is when people like they
1:29:42raw dog a nine hour flight or they like
1:29:45go no phones for a week. I think what
1:29:47they're actually doing is they're
1:29:48they're just resetting their
1:29:52uh like their optionality baseline,
1:29:55right? It's or their novelty baseline,
1:29:57right? They're getting rid of they've
1:29:59been leveled because they've experienced
1:30:00too much novelty. And so when they
1:30:02remove novelty from their life, suddenly
1:30:04novel experiences start to feel
1:30:06significant again because it's each
1:30:08subsequent experience is comp is
1:30:09compared relative to your your recent
1:30:13set of experiences.
1:30:14>> Yeah, that's another way to put it to
1:30:15dopamine is a comparison molecule I
1:30:17guess too. And it really depends on what
1:30:19happened previous directly previously to
1:30:22what you just did or or achieved or got
1:30:24in some way. Well, next prediction, uh,
1:30:27and we talked about this a little bit in
1:30:28in chapter one, is that Kirkagard did
1:30:31not say this explicitly, at least not to
1:30:33my knowledge, but I'm sure this would
1:30:36not surprise him, that the most free
1:30:41generation in world history with the
1:30:43most access to the most stimulation and
1:30:46information would also be the most
1:30:48anxious, the most alone, and the most
1:30:50dissatisfied. I don't think this would
1:30:51surprise him at all. In fact, the entire
1:30:55basis of his philosophy very much
1:30:57predicts it.
1:30:58>> Yeah. The book of the concept of
1:30:59anxiety.
1:31:00>> The whole concept of anxiety is based on
1:31:02this. Yeah. This phenomenon. I talked
1:31:04about this in my my second book.
1:31:06Everything is [ __ ] It's funny
1:31:07actually like I had not read Kira Kagard
1:31:10before I wrote Everything is [ __ ] Um
1:31:13I actually wonder if I would have
1:31:15approached that that book a little bit
1:31:16differently if I had. That book really
1:31:18wrestles with this paradox. What I was
1:31:20trying to kind of get my brain around
1:31:22when I was writing that book is like why
1:31:24is it that the the better off people
1:31:26seem to be, the more anxious, lonely,
1:31:27and depressed they seem to become. And
1:31:29the research data, it's it's often
1:31:31called the Easterland paradox, which is
1:31:32that they find that uh the greatest
1:31:34rates of anxiety, depression,
1:31:36loneliness, suicide are tend to be in
1:31:39the wealthier countries. in that even if
1:31:41you go kind of within countries um you
1:31:45see the highest rates of mental health
1:31:46issues in the wealthiest neighborhoods,
1:31:49cities, counties. So a lot of that book
1:31:52was just trying to like I guess kind of
1:31:55independently get at what Kirkugard was
1:31:58talking about. But all that is to say is
1:32:00that there is a wealth of mental health
1:32:03data at this point really hammering home
1:32:07this fact. There is such a thing as too
1:32:09much optionality and too much
1:32:11opportunity and it seems to torture
1:32:13people at a certain point.
1:32:14>> Yeah, it does. And you know like the the
1:32:16surgeon general's report that came out I
1:32:18think it was 2023 about the loneliness
1:32:19epidemic.
1:32:21>> Um you know that 50% of US adults report
1:32:24being lonely. There's all these stats
1:32:26you know uh Americans gain 24 extra
1:32:30hours a month spent alone just between
1:32:322020 or 2003 and 2020. So, an extra 20
1:32:35some hours a week being spent alone.
1:32:38That's a lot.
1:32:38>> That is a lot.
1:32:39>> That's a lot. That's a part-time job.
1:32:40>> And that's before the pandemic.
1:32:42>> Before the pandemic, there's all these
1:32:43stats. We I'm sure we've heard of all
1:32:45these. It's been called the loneliness
1:32:47epidemic.
1:32:48>> Yeah. We've several times mentioned uh
1:32:51Robert Putnham's Bowling Alone, that
1:32:53book. It came out in the '9s, right?
1:32:54Like early 90s, I think even too. And it
1:32:56was looking at data from the previous 50
1:32:58years about how just Americans were
1:33:00spending less and less time together
1:33:03>> and institutions were decaying and all
1:33:05of that. And this is at the same time as
1:33:07we were becoming wealthier and more
1:33:10connected and
1:33:11>> had more options and more freedom more
1:33:13more uh freedom of like movement around
1:33:15the country too like you could change
1:33:16jobs much more easily. All of that
1:33:19>> that loneliness epidemic came along.
1:33:21There's one interesting thing and I
1:33:23think I brought this up in the
1:33:24friendship episode. You know, Derek
1:33:25Thompson, who's a journalist and
1:33:26podcaster, too, real smart guy.
1:33:29>> He's not so sure we could call you
1:33:30should call it a loneliness epidemic,
1:33:32though. The the phrase he uses for it is
1:33:34an aloneeness epidemic because people
1:33:37are choosing this.
1:33:38>> Yeah.
1:33:39>> People are complaining that they're
1:33:40lonely, but they're also choosing
1:33:42lifestyles that isolate themselves.
1:33:45We're selfisolating in a way. That's
1:33:47also interesting, too. That could be
1:33:49part of it is as you get wealthier, as
1:33:51you get more secure in a material sense,
1:33:55you're for whatever reason more likely
1:33:57to engage in these keeping my options
1:33:59open behaviors. You know what I mean?
1:34:01>> There's also a certain amount of
1:34:02friction to engaging with other people,
1:34:05right? Like it's you got to get in your
1:34:07car and drive their house and you know
1:34:09it's like am I going to know anybody
1:34:10there? Do I want to like make small
1:34:12talk? I'm tired. Like
1:34:14>> that was Derek Thompson's point too.
1:34:15He's like, you know, back in the 50s and
1:34:1760s, everybody got a car and moved to
1:34:18the suburbs and we were away from each
1:34:19other. And then television came along
1:34:22and we stopped going to, you know,
1:34:24downtown and going to the theaters and
1:34:25we stayed home. And then the smartphone
1:34:27came along and not only were we not
1:34:28watching TV with our families, we
1:34:30weren't even interacting with our
1:34:31families at all. So, it was just every
1:34:32step along the way, we got more and more
1:34:34isolated and chose it
1:34:36>> was his whole point, too. Yeah, that's
1:34:38another one of those trends that's uh I
1:34:40think just kind of like went right
1:34:41alongside this whole
1:34:43>> Yeah.
1:34:43>> optionality thing,
1:34:44>> you know. So on our old podcast, the
1:34:47subtle art podcast, um I interviewed
1:34:49Jonathan height and I remember I was
1:34:52kind of challenging him with some of the
1:34:54international data, right? Because his
1:34:56big argument is smartphones are causing
1:34:58all the mental health issues among young
1:35:00people. And that is true
1:35:03in the U. It seems to be true in the US,
1:35:06in the UK, and Australia and a few other
1:35:08places. But I was kind of pushing back
1:35:10on him of like well why aren't we seeing
1:35:12this in Italy or Germany or Sweden and
1:35:15like bunch of other places. One of the
1:35:17theories that I kind of threw at him
1:35:19just to see gauge his response is that
1:35:22there are more collectivist cultures
1:35:24where there are expectations to spend
1:35:27more time with family to live with
1:35:29family for a longer period of time um to
1:35:32spend more time with grandparents and
1:35:33grandchildren. There's something about
1:35:35those cultures that kind of inoculates
1:35:37people to the the the hazardous effects
1:35:40of um of social media and smartphones. I
1:35:44still find that that explanation very
1:35:46compelling. It's not necessarily that
1:35:48smartphones themselves [ __ ] us up, but
1:35:50it's like if you don't have the proper
1:35:52support system in place of of social
1:35:55connection, then you're susceptible to
1:35:57it. It's it's almost like a like an
1:35:59immuno deficiency or something except
1:36:01it's like a social immuno deficiency.
1:36:04Okay, last prediction and we also talked
1:36:06about this quite a bit at the the top of
1:36:07the show. U Kerkugard argued that
1:36:09without commitment, you never really
1:36:11become a self. Without consciously
1:36:14choosing the sacrifices you want to make
1:36:15in your life, making the difficult
1:36:17tradeoffs, sticking with something, even
1:36:20when it's not pleasant, even when it's
1:36:21not fun, you rob yourself of self-defin.
1:36:25you remove the ability to to know what
1:36:29you stand for um and and to find meaning
1:36:32in in your own personal life. I think
1:36:34this is something that we talked about.
1:36:35I mean we did a last year we did a whole
1:36:38episode on purpose for like 4 hours and
1:36:40I feel like this was the bulk of that
1:36:43episode is that purpose requires some
1:36:47degree of of struggle and sacrifice um
1:36:51to experience in your life. Um, to put
1:36:54it another way is is finding purpose and
1:36:56meaning is not a [ __ ] fiveday spa
1:36:58retreat. It is ugly and and messy and
1:37:02painful and uncomfortable and it it is
1:37:05the messiness and and discomfort that
1:37:07ultimately makes it meaningful in
1:37:09retrospect.
1:37:10>> Yeah. And and forms a self forms forms
1:37:12an identity for you. You form an
1:37:14identity around that. A much stronger
1:37:15identity around that. And we'll get into
1:37:17a lot of that research. That's going to
1:37:19be the whole next chapter. Got a little
1:37:20tease there. But there's a lot of
1:37:22theories and research behind that too
1:37:24that we'll we'll get into. We talked a
1:37:26little bit about how we have a bias
1:37:27towards optionality. I think that we are
1:37:30in a very early stage of a little bit of
1:37:32backlash towards abundance. You know,
1:37:34Jenzir is kind of going back to flip
1:37:36phones and digital detoxes and uh raw
1:37:39dogging flights and all this stuff. I'm
1:37:42starting to see it kind of percolate
1:37:44through the culture a little bit more.
1:37:45Like I'm I'm meeting a lot more people
1:37:47who are just kind of casually, you know,
1:37:49deleting social media for periods of
1:37:52time, going through digital fasts, um
1:37:54trying to actively kind of remove some
1:37:56of the optionality from their lives. I
1:37:58mean, you got off dating apps entirely.
1:38:01I've met a lot of people who have done
1:38:02that lately. Why do we cling to
1:38:04optionality? Why why does optionality
1:38:06just seem to be this this drug that we
1:38:08can't say no to?
1:38:09>> Well, okay, I can give you the the nerdy
1:38:11perspective. That's why I'm asking.
1:38:14>> Okay, we'll start with that. That's why
1:38:15you're in here.
1:38:16>> We'll start with that and I might
1:38:17[laughter] throw something back at you
1:38:18here. Okay, we've kind of been dancing
1:38:20around this a little bit. There's kind
1:38:21of an evolutionary mismatch going on,
1:38:23right? This world of abundance is not
1:38:26the world that our ancestors grew up in,
1:38:28not the world that our species evolved
1:38:30in, right? The the world that our
1:38:33species came to came of age in was one
1:38:36of scarcity. Right.
1:38:38>> Right. You didn't have optionality in
1:38:40those. And so in any situation in which
1:38:42you found yourself with multiple
1:38:43options, you better maximize that
1:38:45situation as much as possible purely out
1:38:48of survival needs,
1:38:49>> right?
1:38:50>> We grew up in these like small kin-based
1:38:52relationship groups for the most part.
1:38:55That's our our evolutionary adaptive
1:38:57period. That's when we as a species came
1:38:59about. And so there wasn't there weren't
1:39:01mega cities. We're in the middle of a
1:39:03city that's 12 to 14 million people,
1:39:04whatever it is, right right now. That is
1:39:06not
1:39:07>> our brains just aren't ready for that at
1:39:08all. I can't even I don't I can't even
1:39:10fathom the number 12 to 14 million right
1:39:12in my own mind
1:39:13>> modern stimuli the especially a lot of
1:39:16things that are in uh like the me mass
1:39:18media kind of they'll hijack this
1:39:20machinery that we have this old
1:39:22paleolithic brain machinery that we have
1:39:25one small example they showed men uh a
1:39:29brief exposure to 10 attractive faces 10
1:39:3110 women and then immediately gave them
1:39:35a questionnaire after that of like how
1:39:36satisfied are you with your relationship
1:39:38these were men who were all in committed
1:39:40relationships
1:39:41>> and they they had a measurable decrease
1:39:45after just seeing 10 attractive women's
1:39:47faces, right?
1:39:48>> That that's like 30 seconds on the
1:39:50internet. [laughter]
1:39:51>> Think about this. Think about like like
1:39:53now now throw in internet porn into
1:39:55right like that. Like my god, of course
1:39:57you're going to be
1:39:59>> thinking about other options when you
1:40:01have this level of access.
1:40:03>> Dating apps like you just mentioned too,
1:40:05swipe, swipe, swipe, right? Like there's
1:40:07just that evolutionary mismatch between
1:40:09the way our species evolved and the
1:40:12environment that we live in now is
1:40:13they're so divergent that our brains
1:40:16just can't even keep up. And this is
1:40:17what a lot of mass media and and and big
1:40:20tech will exploit.
1:40:22>> Sure.
1:40:22>> And again, we sign up for it, right?
1:40:24Like
1:40:24>> Yeah. I mean, we sign up for it.
1:40:27>> Yeah. It is they are hijacking very
1:40:30primitive Yeah. psychological functions
1:40:32within our minds that are that evolve
1:40:34there for extremely good reasons. And
1:40:36and the [ __ ] up thing is that we enjoy
1:40:38the hijacking.
1:40:39>> Yeah. Yeah. Like it wouldn't really be
1:40:41hijacking if we didn't enjoy it. So it's
1:40:44hard for us to be too upset. It it is
1:40:46interesting like I do think of of I mean
1:40:49Elon buying Twitter is a whole mess of a
1:40:53conversation but I do think one of the
1:40:55more interesting things that he pointed
1:40:58out um after he took over Twitter is
1:41:00that he wanted to optimize it for I
1:41:02think it was non-regretinducing
1:41:04minutes spent. Most social media
1:41:06platforms or most apps in general
1:41:08measure success based on how many
1:41:10minutes you spent on the app. He said
1:41:12that he wanted to optimize for
1:41:14non-regret inducing minutes, which is
1:41:17interesting because I think all of us
1:41:19have some degree of experience of
1:41:22engaging in apps or media or
1:41:26entertainment that like the next day
1:41:30we're like, why did I do that?
1:41:31>> Yes. Yeah.
1:41:32>> Like why did I why did I stay up till
1:41:343:00 a.m. playing video games? Like I
1:41:36didn't even like the game.
1:41:37>> Yeah. It's the same reason why you
1:41:39binged on sugar on candy or you know the
1:41:42night before. It's not because like your
1:41:44your your brain evolved to seek out
1:41:46candy by any means. It was because like
1:41:48fruit in our environment was very scarce
1:41:50and so whenever you came across fruit
1:41:52you would you would gorge on it. Yeah.
1:41:54Right. And so now that machinery is
1:41:57being hijacked
1:41:58>> and so you regret it the next day.
1:42:00[laughter]
1:42:01>> Right. Because it's been hijacked to
1:42:03such a degree that's just it's it's
1:42:05super supernatural, right? It's it's
1:42:07above and beyond what you would have
1:42:10encountered in any other uh environment
1:42:12prior to you know 100 years ago or even.
1:42:15Yeah. So
1:42:16>> that's that's one reason. Okay. Is this
1:42:18environmental mismatch that we have? Um
1:42:21>> optionality wasn't a big thing in our
1:42:23evolutionary past and now that it is
1:42:25we're like just
1:42:27we're we're stepping on the gas for it.
1:42:29>> There's this other uh idea though too
1:42:31and this list is not exhaustive. Um but
1:42:33I I found this interesting explanation
1:42:35for it called the additive bias.
1:42:37>> Okay.
1:42:37>> Okay.
1:42:38>> And this came I think the original um
1:42:41study was like a I think it was like a
1:42:43Lego study or something like that where
1:42:45um people were were trying to improve a
1:42:47design that they were given by these
1:42:49researchers. And the vast vast majority
1:42:52of people always tried to add something
1:42:55to this design when really they thought
1:42:57that the most optimal thing to do was to
1:42:59take away part of the of the contraption
1:43:02that they gave them, right?
1:43:04>> And they've replicated this in other
1:43:05domains as well. But if you take that
1:43:07and you think about it, well, when
1:43:09you're dissatisfied with your life,
1:43:10Mark, what's the first thing you usually
1:43:12think of?
1:43:13>> I need to go
1:43:13>> I need to go do something.
1:43:14>> I need to find something to do.
1:43:15>> I need to find something to add.
1:43:17>> Something I'm not doing today that I
1:43:18should do.
1:43:19>> I need a new city. I need a new group
1:43:21friend. I need a new partner. I need
1:43:23It's this additive bias that we have.
1:43:25And again, I think that does come a
1:43:26little bit from the our our evolutionary
1:43:28past where
1:43:30>> you probably did need to go get
1:43:31something because the immediia
1:43:33environment was scarce. But still so
1:43:36often, especially in an environment of
1:43:37abundance, what you probably need to do
1:43:39is subtract. You know, remember the the
1:43:41huge trend of minimalism for a long
1:43:43time. I mean, I was I was all in on it
1:43:45for a while even too, right? And I I
1:43:47don't know.
1:43:47>> There's something to it. There really is
1:43:49something to it. It's funny because I
1:43:50actually told you this morning before we
1:43:53we got on the mics. We did an episode on
1:43:55friendship last year and I talked quite
1:43:57a bit in that episode about my struggles
1:43:59with like finding making friends and and
1:44:01how I think part of it is my age, part
1:44:04of it my personality, part of it is Los
1:44:07Angeles and and my wife has been having
1:44:09a pretty hard time of it as well. And I
1:44:11was telling you this morning cuz we were
1:44:13catching up. I mean it's been a month.
1:44:15So, um, you know, the kind of the new
1:44:17thing for us this last month is that we
1:44:18we were saying yes to all these things
1:44:20that we didn't really want to do. We
1:44:21were, uh, there was like a bunch of
1:44:23people that we had been hanging out with
1:44:24and we're like, well, maybe we just need
1:44:25to see him a little bit more. Maybe we
1:44:27just need to put the time in. Maybe we
1:44:28just need more frequency of exposure and
1:44:30all this stuff. And she and I just kind
1:44:32of hit a breaking point this past month.
1:44:33We're like, you know, [ __ ] this [ __ ]
1:44:35Like, we're just not going to do things
1:44:37we don't want to do. And it's funny
1:44:39because for the last month, we've really
1:44:40only hung out with like three or four
1:44:42people. And but it's the three or four
1:44:44people we really like. And it's so
1:44:45funny. We're so much happier. It's
1:44:47really amazing actually how how much
1:44:50like expending resources on people that
1:44:52like you're kind of lukewarm about
1:44:54>> is is actually just like detracts quite
1:44:57a bit from
1:44:58>> I I there's a lot of the research too
1:44:59that bears that out. You need somewhere
1:45:00between like two and maybe 10 people at
1:45:02the most who you regularly interact with
1:45:05and have a good connection with. Yeah.
1:45:07>> Beyond that.
1:45:08>> Yeah. No,
1:45:09>> it's hard to know like when you are just
1:45:12arbitrarily enforcing like a standard or
1:45:14expectation on yourself or when you
1:45:16actually do need something. It's it's um
1:45:20there's a fine line.
1:45:21>> There's there's another thing I found
1:45:22too though which is kind of interesting
1:45:24about anticipated regret. Okay. So when
1:45:27we actually if you're given a number of
1:45:30options, okay, and you expect to and
1:45:33you're forced to make a decision, but
1:45:35you expect to find out how those other
1:45:38options would have turned out in some
1:45:39way, you're actually just really less
1:45:41likely to either be satisfied with the
1:45:43thing that you chose or even choose in
1:45:45the first place. I think part of this is
1:45:47definitely like modern society. It's a
1:45:48lot easier to find out, I didn't go to
1:45:51that party. Oh, and now but I'm going to
1:45:53find out what it was like and now I'm
1:45:55going to regret not going or going or
1:45:57whatever it is or at the other party I
1:45:58didn't go to. I'm going to find out what
1:45:59happened there. We can anticipate our
1:46:02our regrets probably a lot more
1:46:03accurately now because everything's
1:46:04recorded or everything's documented in
1:46:06some way or somebody's going to tell you
1:46:07you're going to find out somehow about
1:46:09how some option you didn't choose how
1:46:11that went.
1:46:12>> Yeah.
1:46:12>> That makes us kind of just withdraw
1:46:14altogether because we don't want to
1:46:15choose.
1:46:16>> Yeah. Well, this is FOMO, right? like
1:46:17it's I don't really want to go to the
1:46:19party, but I don't want to feel what
1:46:20it's going to feel like to not have gone
1:46:22to the party. And it was really cool, so
1:46:24I'm going to go even though I don't want
1:46:26to go, right? Like it's it's the
1:46:28condition of our age for sure.
1:46:30>> The last thing I want to note too is
1:46:32just kind of the um decline of cultural
1:46:36institutions.
1:46:38I already kind of mentioned the Robert
1:46:39Putnham work. you know, he talked about
1:46:40this, but decline in church attendance,
1:46:42decline in clubs, uh decline in just I
1:46:45mean just people getting out of the
1:46:46house really just in general. But
1:46:48institutionally speaking, um where there
1:46:51are fewer people going to churches,
1:46:53there's less union membership even too
1:46:55like in work uh just civic
1:46:58organizations, civic engagement is down.
1:47:00Robert Putnham's famous the title is
1:47:02bowling alone, right? Bowling leagues
1:47:04have also declined. People just aren't
1:47:06getting out of the house. We all know
1:47:07this, right? Those institutions though
1:47:09used to kind of like force you a little
1:47:11bit right into making commitments making
1:47:14commitments to other people to your
1:47:15communities to
1:47:18anything in your environment around you
1:47:20just engaging with it more.
1:47:21>> Yeah.
1:47:22>> The disappearance of those has
1:47:23definitely led to people just not
1:47:25committing to things. It it is just
1:47:28easier to stay home.
1:47:29>> Where I really feel the loss of
1:47:30institutions affects this a lot is that
1:47:34>> are you familiar with Seth Goden's the
1:47:36dip Yeah. concept. Right. So, uh, we'll
1:47:38put it on screen, but for for those of
1:47:40you listening, um, Seth Goden's The Dip,
1:47:43it it it actually applies to businesses
1:47:45like starting a new business or a new
1:47:47venture, it's this curve that initially
1:47:49goes up a decent amount and then it
1:47:52crashes and goes, you know, negative for
1:47:55a little while and that's the dip and
1:47:57then it it it you have to kind of
1:47:58sustain through that dip. And then if
1:48:00you sustain it shoots way up on the
1:48:02other side and and becomes like two or
1:48:04three times higher than that initial
1:48:07first kind of peak.
1:48:08>> Okay. He used it in the context of
1:48:10businesses which is that everybody's
1:48:11excited to start a business when they
1:48:12start and then it the dips once that
1:48:16excitement kind of wears off and you
1:48:17actually realize how [ __ ] hard this
1:48:19is going to be. That's when the dip sets
1:48:20in. And it's most people give up
1:48:23somewhere in that dip. Um, but if you
1:48:25can sustain through the dip, that's when
1:48:27you actually hit escape velocity and
1:48:29really experience a lot of success. I
1:48:32don't know how true this is. I'm kind of
1:48:33just winging this, but like I feel like
1:48:35there's a dip sort of curve on a lot of
1:48:38things in life, right? Like if you think
1:48:40about a new romantic relationship or a
1:48:44new friendship or a new community that
1:48:46you want to join, right? There's always
1:48:48this kind of new anticipation and
1:48:51excitement early on which that sustains
1:48:53you for through the first few weeks.
1:48:56Everything's new. Everything's novel.
1:48:57There's a lot of dopamine going on. But
1:49:00eventually that novelty wears off and
1:49:02you start bumping into the first hard
1:49:04moments, right? You have the first
1:49:06arguments, you have the first
1:49:07disagreements, you have the first uh
1:49:09situation where you're like, I don't
1:49:10really want to be here. And and that's
1:49:13the dip. And you have to like fight
1:49:16through that dip.
1:49:17to get to that second peak on the other
1:49:20side where you actually get the
1:49:23satisfaction of of having a deep
1:49:26commitment in your life of like having
1:49:27stuck with something over a long period
1:49:29of time. This is just how I think of
1:49:31these things. I think a lot of what
1:49:32institutions did for us is that they
1:49:35helped sustain us through that dip,
1:49:37right? like it's it's like, okay, we're
1:49:38going to put you in a new situation and
1:49:41it's it's going to be fun and exciting,
1:49:43but then it's going to be like kind of
1:49:44awkward for a while and you're going to
1:49:45have to like kind of stumble through,
1:49:47but because you signed up for this
1:49:50thing, you know, it's we're we're going
1:49:53to hold you accountable. We're going to
1:49:54keep you here and you're going to work
1:49:56through the the painful process, the
1:49:57pain period, and then you're going to
1:49:59get to the other side, and it's going to
1:50:00be you're going to start reaping the
1:50:01benefits of having committed,
1:50:03>> you know,
1:50:04>> I like that
1:50:04>> for a year or two years or three years
1:50:06or whatever. So without the institutions
1:50:07kind of binding us to these processes,
1:50:09it's so much easier to bail at the
1:50:11bottom of the dip and with infinite
1:50:14optionality, as soon as that initial
1:50:17peak runs out, you can immediately just
1:50:20go to the next peak, right? It's like,
1:50:22well, why am I going to sit through a
1:50:23dip with this person when I can just go
1:50:25meet a new person and it's going to be
1:50:26fun and exciting and sexy and
1:50:28interesting and whatever? And then you
1:50:30get three months into that and it stops
1:50:32being fun and you have your first fight
1:50:33and you're like, "Well, I think I'll
1:50:35just go find the next person and start
1:50:37all over again, right?" And so you have
1:50:39these people that are just kind of
1:50:41chronically chasing low initial peaks,
1:50:45never sustaining the dips, and so
1:50:47they're never actually building that
1:50:49long-term value or meaning uh in
1:50:53anything in their lives. I think dating
1:50:54is the obvious example, right? Like this
1:50:57is anybody who's been single in the last
1:51:0010 years has like experienced this to
1:51:02some some extent. I mean I've known
1:51:04people who like they can't even find a
1:51:06hobby because it's like as soon as they
1:51:08hit the dip in any new hobby they're
1:51:10like oh this sucks and they bail. Every
1:51:12time you you try something new there's
1:51:15going to be novelty and excitement early
1:51:17on but then when you actually realize
1:51:19how shitty you are at it and you you
1:51:21have to practice and like put the time
1:51:23in and try to get good. Most people
1:51:26don't sustain through that. They abandon
1:51:28it. They go find a new thing to try. You
1:51:30know, you see it, you could see it in
1:51:32careers. I I see this. I mean, I see
1:51:34this in applications all the you'll get
1:51:36sometimes I I'll get a a resume that
1:51:39comes in and it's like, you know, a guy
1:51:41has been four different industries over
1:51:43the last 10 years and has been entry
1:51:45level at all four of them. And I'm like,
1:51:48yeah, this person can't commit. Like,
1:51:50they're not in it for the long haul.
1:51:51They're in it till they get bored and
1:51:52then they're going to leave. Yeah.
1:51:54>> You know?
1:51:54>> Yeah. Yeah. And I think another thing
1:51:55those in institutions do too, one of the
1:51:58mechanisms that they help keep you in
1:52:01get you through that dip.
1:52:02>> Mhm.
1:52:02>> Is there's other people going through it
1:52:04with you.
1:52:04>> Yes.
1:52:05>> Right. You're bound to those other
1:52:06people. You know, that's why I think,
1:52:08you know, a lot of the whatever run
1:52:10clubs and,
1:52:11>> you know, kind of the this kind of thing
1:52:13we're trying to social engineer a lot of
1:52:15this community or these old
1:52:16institutions, you know, like churches
1:52:18aren't there anymore, so we're going to
1:52:19start a run club or, you know, something
1:52:20like that where we do have community.
1:52:22They're just not as sticky. Yeah.
1:52:24>> And and you're you're not going to get
1:52:26through that dip because it's you're you
1:52:27are treating it like a this is a trial
1:52:29period. Oh, here's the dip. I'm out.
1:52:30>> Yep. Right.
1:52:31>> It's the customer service mindset,
1:52:33right? It's like
1:52:34>> Yeah. Yeah. The return return policy.
1:52:35>> Yeah. It's like, oh, this isn't fun
1:52:36anymore. I want my money back. We talked
1:52:38about this on the friendship episode,
1:52:40too, that like I talked about like why
1:52:42stuff like that doesn't really work and
1:52:43it's because there's a lack of stakes
1:52:44involved.
1:52:45>> Yeah. And um and we're definitely going
1:52:48to come back to that in Kirkugard's
1:52:50religious phase
1:52:51>> because that is a key difference between
1:52:54say the ethical and the religious is
1:52:55that there's like a very meaningful set
1:52:57of stakes that are involved that like
1:53:00bind you to this this path in life
1:53:04almost almost to the point of like
1:53:06whether you want to be there or not. And
1:53:08in the friendship episode, I think it's
1:53:09like that's where like really deep
1:53:12relationships are built is when you
1:53:13share you were both invested in
1:53:15something extremely deeply and then can
1:53:17relate to each other on that investment.
1:53:19Um, but I think yeah, I think it's on
1:53:21the social side. It's just like
1:53:25I mean I've joined a million gyms. I've
1:53:27met a million people. They're all really
1:53:29nice. I've never hung out with any of
1:53:31them more than like two or three times.
1:53:33Like it just it's just like
1:53:36>> that's not quite there. Yeah, it's just
1:53:37it's more optionality.
1:53:39>> Yeah. I've been going to yoga for almost
1:53:41four years now and I like barely know
1:53:42anybody there. It's the same thing.
1:53:44Yeah.
1:53:44>> Yeah.
1:53:44>> You said, you know, dating being the
1:53:46obvious one.
1:53:47>> What would you tell maybe somebody who's
1:53:49about 41 and has never had a
1:53:51relationship for more than three years.
1:53:54[laughter]
1:53:55>> Asking for a friend.
1:53:55>> Asking for a friend. Yeah. Who's sitting
1:53:57in the same chair as me?
1:53:59>> Yeah.
1:54:00>> Um
1:54:00>> I I see what you're saying. I mean, I
1:54:02just You're absolutely right. That's
1:54:04every time this has happened. Sure. It's
1:54:06when I hit the dip and I'm like I'm out.
1:54:08>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:54:08>> Yeah. And you know there's all the you
1:54:10can there's the attachment stuff and
1:54:11there all you know I can blame my
1:54:13parents and I can do all this but at the
1:54:15end of the day
1:54:16>> right?
1:54:17>> Yeah.
1:54:17>> I would say three years is a is a good
1:54:19amount of time.
1:54:20>> Never more than two good years I would
1:54:21say. So [laughter] there there there
1:54:23there's that I've always said the most
1:54:26important moment in any relationship,
1:54:29any new relationship, is the first fight
1:54:32because that that first fight is going
1:54:34to tell you more about how long this is
1:54:37going to last than all of the good times
1:54:40combined. If you can fight well, if you
1:54:42can communicate, if you if you can
1:54:45repair, if you can forgive, it bodess
1:54:49really really well. Like if you if a
1:54:50fight makes you stronger as a couple,
1:54:53that is like a massive green flag. I
1:54:56think what happens is a lot of people
1:54:58they get in fights. It's not a very
1:55:00productive fight. The relationship does
1:55:03not get stronger, but they've been told
1:55:05their whole lives that relationships are
1:55:06hard and you have to work at it and you
1:55:07have to like keep trying and and so they
1:55:09stay in it for years with like even
1:55:11though it's not really the right person.
1:55:13>> It is really about that the quality of
1:55:17in and speed of repair
1:55:19>> after the breaches. If if there is no
1:55:22repair or the repair is extremely slow
1:55:24or it's only one person doing most of
1:55:26it, like those are all really bad signs.
1:55:29>> Yeah.
1:55:30>> Um but I don't get the sense that your
1:55:32issue is like novelty seeking. Like that
1:55:34was my issue. I was just like like she's
1:55:37fine, but what about her?
1:55:39>> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
1:55:41What do you think my issue is then,
1:55:42Mark? Drew, please tell me.
1:55:44>> I told you. I told you
1:55:46>> we we're turning this into a Drew
1:55:47therapy [laughter] session. I think
1:55:49there are some aesthetic elements to it
1:55:51for sure.
1:55:52>> I could see that, but I don't I don't
1:55:54see your issue necessarily being like
1:55:56you want to go [ __ ] 20 other girls. So
1:55:59that you're not that guy.
1:56:00>> Yeah.
1:56:01>> From what I know about you, you've
1:56:03definitely got an aspect of like go with
1:56:04the flow.
1:56:05>> Yeah.
1:56:06>> Let me try out a bunch of different
1:56:07things.
1:56:08>> Oh, this is fun. Like kind of that
1:56:10novelty.
1:56:11>> I have a lot of hobbies, too. a lot of
1:56:12hobbies, a lot of traveling, lot of just
1:56:15like fun, cool little side things, but
1:56:17they're all like side things. There's no
1:56:19there's nothing that's like
1:56:20>> Yep.
1:56:21>> This is what Drew Bernie was [ __ ]
1:56:22born to do.
1:56:23>> That's true.
1:56:24>> And it's funny cuz it's like that is
1:56:25what
1:56:27>> people sink their teeth into. Like that
1:56:29that is what really like binds you with
1:56:33somebody super strongly and allows you
1:56:35to know in in those relationships like
1:56:38this is what I'll compromise on. This is
1:56:39what I never compromise on. Right. Yep.
1:56:41So, it removes a lot of that ambiguity.
1:56:43Yeah.
1:56:43>> But, yeah, I don't I don't know if
1:56:45that's a dip issue.
1:56:46>> That's a good point. Yeah. For me, I see
1:56:49the pattern in a couple of different
1:56:51areas of my life because like uh even
1:56:54with career stuff. So, had this whole
1:56:57thing around, you know, like I said in
1:56:58university, I had the five-year the
1:56:59super senior year and all that. I loved
1:57:02university because of the variety of it.
1:57:04Yes. And especially like psychology. I I
1:57:06studied psychology. That was my major.
1:57:08Um, I think I'm one credit short of an
1:57:09anthropology minor. Like, I wouldn't
1:57:11have found it if I hadn't have taken
1:57:12psychology. I got to study chemistry,
1:57:15biology, neuroscience, uh, physics, like
1:57:19a history of like they give you a very
1:57:21wide, you know, stat stats. There's
1:57:22Native American studies. Like all of it
1:57:24I was fascinated with. Yeah. And I think
1:57:26that's great to a certain extent, but I
1:57:27kind of got hooked on that a little bit.
1:57:28Like I always say this, I'm fascinated
1:57:30by everything. Well, congratulations.
1:57:32Like, [laughter] you know,
1:57:35>> it it's great because I got that
1:57:36breadth,
1:57:37>> right? But I never really did kind of
1:57:39like, you know, I went into
1:57:40neuroscience. I got into neuroscience. I
1:57:42was like, well, academia, god, this I
1:57:44don't like this. And there were reasons
1:57:46for that. Sure, maybe some of those were
1:57:48uh a little bit um I don't know,
1:57:50motivated reasoning. But
1:57:52>> you know,
1:57:53>> there's the same thing in a lot of my
1:57:54relationships though too where I've kind
1:57:56of swung from more of like the more
1:57:59aesthetic side to the commitment side
1:58:02and then like give me back. And so
1:58:04again, it goes back and we'll get into
1:58:06this more in the next chapter, but it
1:58:07goes back to holding that tension.
1:58:08>> Yeah.
1:58:09>> Really bad at that.
1:58:10>> Yeah. Yeah.
1:58:11>> And I think part of that tension we're
1:58:12talking about that dip you go through,
1:58:14that's part of the tension, you know, of
1:58:16being pulled one way or the other.
1:58:18>> Yeah.
1:58:18>> And you got to navigate that tension to
1:58:20get to the other side of it. And I don't
1:58:22think I'm good at that.
1:58:23>> I I think most of us aren't.
1:58:24>> No. Yeah.
1:58:25>> Like it's hard. It's really hard these
1:58:27days. What you said earlier though too
1:58:28is like you just find a few areas of
1:58:30your life
1:58:32>> where you can navigate that tension and
1:58:33the rest of it might just not be very
1:58:35well balanced.
1:58:36>> Yeah. And I think some of that is is
1:58:38also like self-limitation. Um it's
1:58:42there's a chapter and everything is
1:58:44[ __ ] where I I write that like true
1:58:46freedom is self-limitation. It is it is
1:58:50putting guard rails around yourself
1:58:52because you understand
1:58:54I shouldn't go over there. if I go over
1:58:56there, I'm going to lose control of
1:58:57myself. Um, and and actually that loss
1:59:01of agency and that loss of control is
1:59:03actually a loss of freedom. Like it's
1:59:06there's a paradoxical relationship
1:59:08between freedom and self-limitation.
1:59:10Like keeping yourself in a lane that
1:59:12allows you to act freely, to become
1:59:16yourself without any doubts or
1:59:18distraction or anything. But it's hard.
1:59:21Like I I still struggle with this. I
1:59:23think it's something I've gotten much
1:59:24better at
1:59:26in the last five years.
1:59:28>> Yeah. Yeah. Outside looking in, I would
1:59:29I would agree with you.
1:59:30>> Yeah. Like it to me this is a very new
1:59:33thing. I think my marriage was kind of
1:59:35the first
1:59:36>> big wow that was profound. And then
1:59:40my relationship with my career really
1:59:43shifted a few years ago. Yeah. in in a
1:59:45way that it's I I would actually we'll
1:59:47talk about it when we get to the
1:59:48religious chapter, but like I would I
1:59:50would put it in that category and that
1:59:52it I feel like it chose me. Um I didn't
1:59:55choose it.
1:59:56>> We just went through the nerdy examples
1:59:57of why we why we um why we choose the
2:00:01life of optionality, but you lived a
2:00:03pretty aesthetic life for a long time.
2:00:05>> Yes.
2:00:05>> Why? Like besides all the nerdy stuff I
2:00:07tried to shoehorn in there, what was it
2:00:10for you that kept you hooked on that? I
2:00:13think it was a combination of two
2:00:15things. I think it was uh to put it
2:00:17really crudely ad ADHD and avoidance
2:00:22attachment.
2:00:23>> Yeah. Okay.
2:00:24>> Combined.
2:00:24>> And a lot of curiosity as well. Like I
2:00:26think
2:00:27>> the openness to experience. Again,
2:00:28you're very high on openness to
2:00:29experience.
2:00:30>> Yeah. And I think you and I are very
2:00:31similar in that like we love to learn.
2:00:33Yeah. So I I love learning. I love new
2:00:36like a new country, a new language, a
2:00:38new history. Like one of my favorite
2:00:40things to do is just like whenever I
2:00:41landed in a new country, I would just
2:00:43open up the country's Wikipedia.
2:00:44>> Oh, same. Yeah.
2:00:45>> And I would just go so deep. I would
2:00:47like spend five hours just
2:00:49>> digging through everything about that
2:00:52country's history, its people, its
2:00:53culture, its demographics, everything.
2:00:55>> So I I think it was a combination of all
2:00:57those things. But I mean, for me, I I
2:01:00really I love novelty. I love new
2:01:04experiences. Um and and I think my brain
2:01:08is kind of predisposed to seek them
2:01:10compulsively.
2:01:12On top of that, I had a lot of
2:01:14attachment issues, avoidance issues. Uh
2:01:16I was a commitment phobe. So very early,
2:01:19I I I be was very adept at building a
2:01:22lifestyle, right? Like I had a a
2:01:25nebulous quote unquote internet business
2:01:28that was really just like a smattering
2:01:30of websites and freelance work. So I was
2:01:33location independent. I could live
2:01:34anywhere in the world. I traveled all
2:01:36over the world. Um, I never really was
2:01:40willing to to settle down with a girl
2:01:42and like the the few women I I did end
2:01:45up up in a relationship with, like I I
2:01:48didn't stay faithful to them. I was just
2:01:50like I was bad at relationships, I
2:01:52really struggled to be in them. So, I
2:01:54set up a lifestyle for myself where I
2:01:55was always in a new place. I was always
2:01:57meeting new people. I was always dating
2:01:58new women. Uh, I was always learning new
2:02:01things. And for I would say three or
2:02:04four years that was really satisfying.
2:02:08It was just like I was young, you know,
2:02:10I was in my 20s. Like it was cool as
2:02:13[ __ ] It was tons of fun. Really learned
2:02:15a lot about myself, had a lot of great
2:02:17experiences. But there was an inflection
2:02:20point after a number of years where
2:02:22again that diminishing return started to
2:02:24kick in, right? where it's it's like,
2:02:26okay, the more places I travel, the less
2:02:30satisfied I seem to be with each
2:02:32subsequent place I travel. The more
2:02:34women I date, the less satisfied I seem
2:02:37to be with each subsequent woman I date.
2:02:39Um,
2:02:41the more businesses and websites I I
2:02:44start, the more frustrated and
2:02:48dissatisfied I seem to be with each one
2:02:50that I start. And so, it was a clear
2:02:52pattern that was playing out on multiple
2:02:53vectors in my life. And I realized that
2:02:55like I really need to start kind of
2:02:58narrowing here. And um and I think it
2:03:03happened first on the business side is
2:03:04just like
2:03:07my dating relationship blog started to
2:03:10take off. And that was like, okay, we
2:03:13something's working. I should just shut
2:03:14down everything else and focus on that.
2:03:17Um and I think eventually I just started
2:03:19kind of applying that across the
2:03:21different vectors um throughout my life.
2:03:24But like it was hard. It wasn't
2:03:26pleasant. Um
2:03:27>> Yeah. Cuz cuz most people would see that
2:03:28and they would say, "Oh, I just they
2:03:30would do the additive bias thing and
2:03:31just keep going."
2:03:32>> Yeah.
2:03:32>> You know what I mean? They they just
2:03:34they're like, "Oh, I was happy. This is
2:03:35when I was happy when I was doing all
2:03:37these crazy wild things. I just need to
2:03:38go find more crazy wild things." Yeah.
2:03:40What was it that you saw?
2:03:42>> Was it really just the business thing?
2:03:43Like I was like, "Oh, my business. when
2:03:44I focused on that and my love life.
2:03:47>> If you go back, I don't know if these
2:03:49articles are even still on the website,
2:03:50but there are a couple pieces back in
2:03:52like 2010, 2011 that I wrote
2:03:55>> uh about being a digital nomad and like
2:03:58I remember those. Yeah.
2:03:59>> And they're really melancholy. Like
2:04:01they're wondering
2:04:05and I remember having this experience. I
2:04:06was like I don't know. I was traveling
2:04:08like somewhere in Asia or something and
2:04:09I did this crazy thing. I was like white
2:04:11water rafting in Indonesia and I like I
2:04:15don't know like met some girl and spent
2:04:18a weekend with her. Couldn't even speak
2:04:19each other's languages and all this
2:04:21stuff. And I remember I flew home and I
2:04:23saw some of my friends from high school
2:04:25and we just hung out and had beers for
2:04:26two days. And I remember realizing I'm
2:04:29like I actually like this better
2:04:31>> than all the [ __ ] that I did.
2:04:33>> I've had some of those moments too.
2:04:34>> Yeah. And and I wrote I remember writing
2:04:36a piece about that and it really mind
2:04:38[ __ ] me cuz I I was just like I'm like
2:04:40wait a second I'm like I'm putting so
2:04:42much into finding these novel exciting
2:04:45experiences and then at the end of the
2:04:47end of the day it turns out I just like
2:04:49really miss my friends and so I I
2:04:51started noticing that. I mean it was a
2:04:53lot of things. The other thing too on
2:04:54the dating front there were probably two
2:04:57or three women that I met. So, speaking
2:05:00of the dip, right? Like when I was a
2:05:02nomad, I never stayed anywhere for more
2:05:04than like 3 to 6 months because 3 to 6
2:05:07months, that's when you start
2:05:08experiencing the dip. That's when you
2:05:09actually the novelty wears off, the
2:05:11excitement wears off, and you actually
2:05:13start getting really annoyed about all
2:05:15the [ __ ] in that particular country.
2:05:17>> It just so happens most tourist visas
2:05:19are three or six months, too. So,
2:05:20>> yeah, that too.
2:05:21>> That helps.
2:05:22>> That too. Um,
2:05:23>> hard out.
2:05:24>> So, I I I I was never anywhere long
2:05:26term. Um, and
2:05:30there were there were there were a
2:05:32couple women that I met that we had a
2:05:34really great thing going, like a really
2:05:36good thing going, and then I had to go.
2:05:39And, you know, the first time it
2:05:41happened, it's like, okay, well, that's
2:05:43sad, but okay. You know, life goes on.
2:05:45But then it happened again, and then it
2:05:47happened again. And each time I was
2:05:50like, am I a [ __ ] idiot? Like, what
2:05:52am I wasting here? Like, I could
2:05:54potentially actually be wasting a lot
2:05:56here.
2:05:57Um, and so I actually promised myself
2:05:59the next time I feel this, I'm going to
2:06:01stick around and like see where it goes.
2:06:02And then that's when I met my wife. So
2:06:05it's like that combined with the friend
2:06:06thing combined with the business thing.
2:06:08Like everything just kind of led back to
2:06:10the same principle, which was like
2:06:12narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow your
2:06:14options, narrow your focus, narrow what
2:06:17you care about, narrow what you're
2:06:18paying attention to. Um, and there's a
2:06:21reason why like subtle art, I mean,
2:06:23there's a reason that's the central
2:06:25message. is like find a few things you
2:06:27care you really give a [ __ ] about and
2:06:29just go all in on it because that that
2:06:31was like the antidote to everything I'd
2:06:34kind of been experiencing
2:06:36>> to aesthetic hell
2:06:37>> to aesthetic hell and and I think it
2:06:39turns out that it's like it was a little
2:06:41bit of a premonition of like where our
2:06:44culture was going. we're doing a 10th
2:06:45anniversary edition of the book and um
2:06:49>> you know so I just wrote I just went
2:06:50back and edited the original manuscript
2:06:53and it was interesting because the
2:06:54things that jumped out to me the most
2:06:57going back 10 years later um were the
2:07:00small sections about
2:07:03kind of the aesthetic social media
2:07:06smartphone
2:07:07culture. It's interesting because in the
2:07:10book they're not a significant part of
2:07:13the book. They're kind of just little
2:07:14aides and observations here and there.
2:07:17>> And at the time they they were not kind
2:07:19of the conventional wisdom or the
2:07:20accepted wisdom.
2:07:22>> And at the time I also just thought they
2:07:24were kind of clever,
2:07:26>> you know, things that I noticed that I
2:07:28hadn't really seen other people say
2:07:30coming back to in 2026 and looking like
2:07:33those those little sections jump off the
2:07:35page and it's like dude,
2:07:37>> like you had no [ __ ] idea where this
2:07:40was going. [laughter] It was going to
2:07:42get so much worse. Uh but we we really
2:07:45didn't realize. So I I do think that
2:07:47book was I was one of the early
2:07:50adopters, but it was like at the front
2:07:52tail people kind of experiencing getting
2:07:55thrown into this online aesthetic
2:07:57lifestyle.
2:07:58>> Yeah.
2:07:58>> And all of the
2:08:00hazards and downsides that come with it.
2:08:03>> Yeah. Yeah. I remember go I remember
2:08:05this transition in the the blogosphere
2:08:07from
2:08:08>> people telling you how to be a digital
2:08:10nomad and you know
2:08:12>> all the pictures and Instagram photos
2:08:14you know you're in front of a mountain
2:08:16with your arms up and all of that. I
2:08:17remember that transition to people
2:08:18saying here's some of the downsides too
2:08:20and it was probably 2016 17 18. Yeah in
2:08:23there is when that started I think.
2:08:25Yeah. I alluded to this in the the
2:08:27previous chapter a little bit too
2:08:29though, but I think one of the one of
2:08:32the things I'm hearing from you
2:08:34>> is that you kind of did this to the ext
2:08:39an extreme degree.
2:08:41>> Okay.
2:08:42>> There's a lot of people who do it to to
2:08:43the extreme degree that that don't get
2:08:45out of it though too. I think what you
2:08:46had with it though was some degree of
2:08:48like the introspection around it. I
2:08:50think that the what I'm hearing from you
2:08:51is the writing.
2:08:52>> Yes.
2:08:53>> What is what actually really helped you
2:08:55because you had to sit down and
2:08:56introspect about this kind of stuff.
2:08:58>> Yeah. It actually might have saved me
2:09:00>> probably.
2:09:00>> Yeah. Cuz I I do know people who never
2:09:02got out of it. And it's it's
2:09:04interesting. My wife and I, we actually
2:09:05had a conversation about this recently
2:09:07about some of those people who never got
2:09:08out and how now they're like in their
2:09:1140s. They're literally doing the same
2:09:13thing they did 20 years ago. Like their
2:09:14life has not changed at all.
2:09:17>> And and it's it's gotten kind of sad.
2:09:19Like it's it's hard to watch. Yeah. Um,
2:09:21one of the things that she and I were
2:09:22talking about is that a lot of this
2:09:25stuff,
2:09:27building community,
2:09:30like setting roots somewhere,
2:09:33developing routines, hobbies, rituals,
2:09:36right? Like these are all soft skills
2:09:39that nobody really tells you that you
2:09:40need to learn. But if you are bouncing
2:09:43around to a new place every six months
2:09:46or every year for 20 years, you'll
2:09:49you'll never develop those skills. And
2:09:51like I see that in these people now.
2:09:53It's like they never learned how to
2:09:55build a real community, build like
2:09:56lifelong friendships, build lifelong
2:10:00rituals. Um,
2:10:02and there's there's a certain
2:10:04groundedness or stability that comes
2:10:06with that that I think is extremely
2:10:08healthy for people, but nobody explains
2:10:10that to you. Nobody tells you it. And I
2:10:12think it's just because for most of
2:10:13human history, it was it was just
2:10:16implicit. Like it just happened. Nobody
2:10:18nobody had to think about it. We're the
2:10:20first generation in history that
2:10:21actually has the opportunity to [ __ ]
2:10:23that up
2:10:24>> and like ruin it for ourselves.
2:10:25>> So yeah, I look back and I'm actually
2:10:27like very grateful I got out when I did
2:10:30>> um and and force myself to kind of learn
2:10:33these things. But it's funny because I I
2:10:35actually do think some of my struggle um
2:10:39I guess in midlife around a lot of these
2:10:40questions around friendships, community,
2:10:43stability, consistency. Um I think part
2:10:46of it is is that I never got good at
2:10:48those
2:10:49>> skills. I never developed like that kind
2:10:51of connective tissue to to the world
2:10:53around me or or at least I'm like a late
2:10:55bloomer. Yeah.
2:10:56>> And like trying to figure it out.
2:10:58>> It hasn't really
2:11:00>> come naturally.
2:11:01>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Man, to bring this
2:11:03back to Kasanova, it's funny because I I
2:11:05actually read a biography of Kasanova
2:11:07when I was a nomad and I remember just
2:11:08being like, dude, so sick. This guy,
2:11:12this guy, holy [ __ ]
2:11:13>> really was the most interesting man.
2:11:14>> The most interesting man who ever lived.
2:11:17It was interesting kind of coming back
2:11:18to his story for this episode now in my
2:11:2040s because it is it's actually really
2:11:22sad. Like now I look at his story and
2:11:23I'm like that's a very lost person who
2:11:28had a lot of fun and excitement in his
2:11:30life but never was never happy. It was
2:11:32just a lot of exciting stuff.
2:11:35>> It was a collection of experiences.
2:11:37>> It was a collection of experiences. It
2:11:38wasn't a life. That's a great way to put
2:11:40it. And it's interesting how he died. So
2:11:42he basically burned every bridge around
2:11:46every court of Europe and ended up alone
2:11:50in a in a small castle I think in like
2:11:52present day Slovakia or something
2:11:54>> and he was completely ostracized from
2:11:59high society broke living in this castle
2:12:03he's surrounded by a bunch of kids and
2:12:05the kids would come around and he would
2:12:06tell them stories from his life and the
2:12:08kids always thought
2:12:10>> like this guy
2:12:11>> crazy old man the crazy old man. Like
2:12:13this is you'll never guess what he told
2:12:15us today.
2:12:16>> At the time he was like writing his
2:12:18memoirs. He wrote like 2,000 pages worth
2:12:21of memoirs or something.
2:12:22>> Um
2:12:24>> and it was funny cuz when he when he
2:12:25finally died, he died completely alone.
2:12:27Um nobody even knows where his grave is.
2:12:30Like it's it's very sad. No friends, no
2:12:33family, no partner, nothing. And his
2:12:37memoirs sat for decades. I think it was
2:12:40like 60 or 70 years. People just thought
2:12:43it was like a fabrication. It was like a
2:12:44hundred years later or something. Some
2:12:46historians happened to stumble across
2:12:48records of the crazy things that he did
2:12:53and then it turns out they went and
2:12:54found his memoirs and they started
2:12:56corroborating all these things and it
2:12:57turns out it was all true.
2:12:58>> Yeah.
2:12:58>> And like he did have this crazy insane
2:13:03wild life that wasn't really shared with
2:13:05anybody that wasn't remembered by
2:13:07anybody. I mean, it's like a fluke that
2:13:08history even went and verified that it
2:13:11actually happened. So, I think Kasanova
2:13:13is a perfect example of the aesthetic
2:13:15life because it is full of fireworks and
2:13:21sexy adventures,
2:13:24but ultimately it means nothing. It ends
2:13:26in nothing.
2:13:27>> Yeah. If I remember right, he spent the
2:13:30last decades of his life just writing
2:13:32about his the first half of his life.
2:13:35And he said something along the lines of
2:13:37like these memories are all I have left.
2:13:40Like the memories of the fun and the
2:13:42pleasure and all that are really all I
2:13:44have left. How sad is that?
2:13:45>> Decades of that.
2:13:47>> Yeah.
2:13:47>> It it reminds me the of the quote the
2:13:49famous Benjamin Franklin quote where he
2:13:51says that some people die and are not
2:13:52buried for another 50 years.
2:13:54>> It's definitely a case of that. This
2:13:56raises the question of like how do we
2:13:59exit the aesthetic life? How do we find
2:14:02those commitments, make those
2:14:03commitments? How do we avoid falling
2:14:06into the optionality trap,
2:14:09becoming enslaved by the paradox of
2:14:11choice, being seduced by constant
2:14:13novelties and freedoms. This leads us to
2:14:16what Kirkagard called the ethical life,
2:14:19the second stage of life's commitments,
2:14:22of finding your life path. And it turns
2:14:26out it's one of those classic it's not
2:14:29complicated,
2:14:31it's just really difficult
2:14:33>> type situations. [laughter]
2:14:35Yeah, [gasps] it's it's probably not
2:14:36that you don't know what you should do.
2:14:38It's that it's it's really hard to do it
2:14:41and it's not it's not pleasant. It's not
2:14:43fun. And we find ways to to avoid it uh
2:14:47at all costs because ultimately knowing
2:14:50that you're stuck doesn't necessarily
2:14:52make you unstuck. You have to find the
2:14:55actions that get you out of the
2:14:57situation that you're in.
2:14:58>> And this is what we will actually find
2:15:00in ne in the next chapter is that
2:15:03commitment is an action. It's not a
2:15:05belief. It's not an idea. It's not a
2:15:08little note you write down and send to
2:15:10somebody like it is it is ultimately the
2:15:14actions that you choose to make and the
2:15:15priorities that you choose to hold. And
2:15:18it turns out in our guide for this
2:15:20chapter will be a famous Harvard
2:15:22psychologist. My favorite psychologist
2:15:24um who actually only became a
2:15:27psychologist because a creative writing
2:15:29class happened to be full. So we will
2:15:32talk about his ideas, how profound and
2:15:35and life-changing they were for me. Um
2:15:37and hopefully they will be life-changing
2:15:39for you all as well. But first, a quick
2:15:42message from our sponsors. This episode
2:15:44is brought to you by Momentous. Now,
2:15:47I've taken creatine for years, but I'm
2:15:48going to be honest, my due diligence
2:15:50kind of stopped at reading the [music]
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2:18:38Welcome back to the solve podcast. Let's
2:18:39get back into it.
2:18:46In the 1930s, John Paulart was primarily
2:18:50a playwright and a novelist. He wasn't
2:18:52hadn't really spent much time doing
2:18:54philosophy or thinking about philosophy.
2:18:56But all of that changed when World War
2:18:58II broke out. In 1939, Sark got drafted
2:19:01into the French army. I believe he was
2:19:03like a radio tower operator. He was a
2:19:06pretty like slight guy. Wasn't exactly
2:19:09your like burly soldier type, but as we
2:19:11all know, the French got their ass
2:19:12kicked. The Nazis rolled in within
2:19:14weeks, captured most of the territory of
2:19:17the country, and John Pulsar was taken
2:19:19as a prisoner of war. Now, for the next
2:19:21two years, he spent time in I don't want
2:19:25to say it was the equivalent of a
2:19:26concentration camp, but it was not fun.
2:19:29He lived in a small isolated cell. It
2:19:32was probably like 6 ft by 8 ft. He was
2:19:35alone most of the day, and he had
2:19:36nothing to occupy him other than to
2:19:38journal ferociously. And as he was
2:19:40spending all that time alone in the
2:19:41prisoner of war camp, journaling out all
2:19:44of his thoughts obsessively throughout
2:19:46each day, he started to notice something
2:19:48about himself that kind of freaked him
2:19:51out, which was that he started to enjoy
2:19:53the fact that he didn't have to make any
2:19:55choices. Everything was planned for him.
2:19:57Everything he did each day he was told
2:20:00to do. He never had to put any sort of
2:20:02thought into any decisions. He was never
2:20:04having to choose between any two
2:20:06alternatives. And he realized that there
2:20:08was a certain level of comfort that came
2:20:11with this that shocked him and scared
2:20:14him a little bit. So he started
2:20:16journaling about the nature of choice
2:20:18itself. And he realized that choice is
2:20:22inherently frightening because when you
2:20:25choose something, you are cutting off or
2:20:28negating some other alternative. And as
2:20:31soon as you cut off some alternative,
2:20:33there's always this question of did I
2:20:34make the right choice? Am I going to
2:20:36regret this? And start realize that so
2:20:39many people go through life avoiding
2:20:42making choices for this exact reason.
2:20:45They are afraid of negating or cutting
2:20:48off the version of themselves that
2:20:50they're going to regret not pursuing.
2:20:52Now, all of these journals and ideas and
2:20:54thoughts eventually became Sart's
2:20:56philosophical magnum opus. It's called
2:20:59on being and nothingness. It is maybe
2:21:02the single hardest book I have forced
2:21:04myself to get through. I didn't finish
2:21:07it. I got about 400 pages in and just
2:21:09like [ __ ] threw in a towel. I was
2:21:11like, I can't take anymore. But in being
2:21:14in nothingness, Sart has this idea
2:21:16called bad faith, which is all of the
2:21:19mechanisms and inventions and narratives
2:21:23and stories that we tell ourselves to
2:21:26let us off the hook to not choose,
2:21:28right? It's like, "Oh, well, I didn't
2:21:30have a choice cuz my family wanted me to
2:21:32to do this." Or, "I didn't have a choice
2:21:34cuz all all of the people I was with
2:21:36were going over there, so I had to go
2:21:38over there, too." Or, "I didn't have a
2:21:40choice cuz it's the economy crashed and
2:21:42there's nothing I could do about that."
2:21:44Like, we are always seeking reasons and
2:21:47justifications for not choosing because
2:21:50by not choosing, we don't have to
2:21:52confront that anxiety that freedom
2:21:55avails to us. But here's where Sart
2:21:58turned everything on its head. In being
2:22:00in nothingness, he pointed out that the
2:22:04refusal to make a choice is still a
2:22:07choice. That we are all making choices
2:22:10every minute of every day, whether we
2:22:13realize we are or not. And that living
2:22:15in bad faith is not actually the removal
2:22:18of our own choices. It is simply the
2:22:21subversion of our own choices into our
2:22:24unconscious into instinct into impulse.
2:22:28And Sar believed that this realization
2:22:31that you were choosing in every moment
2:22:32was the single crux of which all agency
2:22:37and ability to live and commit hinged
2:22:40upon. And it's interesting because if
2:22:42you go back to Kurkagard, there's a very
2:22:44similar idea in his book either or. So
2:22:46he had this character named Judge
2:22:48William. The purpose of the character is
2:22:50to kind of argue against the aesthetic
2:22:52life and promote what Kirkagard called
2:22:54the ethical life. Now, the argument was
2:22:57not your like run-of-the-mill scolding
2:23:00from your grandmother of like you should
2:23:02settle down and find a wife and have a
2:23:04nice life for yourself. It was actually
2:23:06way more interesting than that, which is
2:23:08that Judge William argued that you
2:23:12should choose choice itself. Now, on the
2:23:15surface, that sounds a little confusing,
2:23:17but I think that is Kurkagard's way of
2:23:19saying take all of those choices that
2:23:21you are outsourcing and to your impulses
2:23:25and your unconscious and make them
2:23:26conscious. Make them explicit. Walk into
2:23:29them openeyed. Be aware of the
2:23:31trade-offs that are involved in each
2:23:33thing that you do each day. Because as
2:23:36Kierkagard argued, the self is not
2:23:39determined by the things that you are.
2:23:42It's determined by the things that you
2:23:44chose not to be. The things that you
2:23:45were willing to sacrifice that other
2:23:47people were not willing to sacrifice.
2:23:49That's actually what differentiates you
2:23:52both to yourself and to the world around
2:23:54you. If you look at the word decide
2:23:58itself, the etmological root in Latin,
2:24:00it comes from the the verb desadier,
2:24:02which means to cut. The word decide
2:24:05literally means to cut off alternatives,
2:24:08to refuse other possibilities. And
2:24:11Kierkagard argued that the ability to
2:24:14commit yourself to something to someone
2:24:17to negate all the other alternatives
2:24:20that this would actually make you a much
2:24:22happier, healthier, more whole person.
2:24:25And it turns out that modern research
2:24:27has really backed this up. And what's
2:24:30interesting is that a lot of the fear
2:24:32that we have around choosing, a lot of
2:24:35the anxiety that we have that comes with
2:24:37freedom,
2:24:39a lot of it's very irrational. Before
2:24:41the choice, there's all these fears of
2:24:43like, well, what if I choose the wrong
2:24:45one? What if I make a mistake? What if I
2:24:46regret not going down this other path?
2:24:50Whereas what we find is that after you
2:24:52have chosen,
2:24:54your feelings are quite different. They
2:24:56are similarly irrational but in a
2:24:58different direction. And so in this in
2:25:00in this chapter, it's probably useful to
2:25:03start out by going through what is the
2:25:05psychological process of choosing and
2:25:08committing? What does that feel like?
2:25:11How does that actually function within
2:25:12your mind and how do you end up coming
2:25:15to see it down the road after the fact?
2:25:18Now, as soon as we started working on
2:25:20this episode and on this chapter, my
2:25:23mind immediately went to a researcher
2:25:25that I'm a huge fan of who I think his
2:25:28work is very relevant and appropriate
2:25:32here, and that's Dan Gilbert, who is one
2:25:34of the pre-minent happiness researchers,
2:25:37positive psychologists out of Harvard.
2:25:39And Gilbert is a a super interesting guy
2:25:41because I think in a lot of ways,
2:25:44his life story kind of illustrates a lot
2:25:47of the points he makes about commitment
2:25:50and choice and choosing. So, quick bio.
2:25:54Dan Gilbert, he dropped out of high
2:25:56school at 15. He grew up near Chicago.
2:25:58It sounds like he was a bit of a hippie,
2:26:00a bit of a free spirit, a bit of an
2:26:02estate, if you will. He started
2:26:04hitchhiking around the country. He was
2:26:06reading a lot of Eastern philosophy. He
2:26:08was meditating. He was into all sorts of
2:26:10woo woo stuff. And he initially wanted
2:26:13to become a creative writer. So he
2:26:15settled around Denver with his
2:26:17girlfriend and his son. And he started
2:26:19writing science fiction on a typewriter.
2:26:21Now at the time he wanted to support his
2:26:23young family. So he went back to school
2:26:25and then he started going to community
2:26:27college. And when he arrived at the
2:26:30community college and wanted to sign up
2:26:31for creative writing courses, they were
2:26:34all full for that semester. And so he
2:26:36looked at the course listing and he
2:26:38asked himself, "What class will help me
2:26:41write science fiction better than
2:26:43anything else?" And he decided that
2:26:45psychology, that makes sense. Like if I
2:26:47want to be a better writer, I should
2:26:48probably understand a little bit about
2:26:49human psychology. So he took the
2:26:51psychology course. He loved it so much
2:26:54he just went all in on it. You could say
2:26:57he committed to it. Within a year, he
2:26:58had stopped writing fiction entirely and
2:27:00he was enrolled full-time at UC Denver.
2:27:02within 10 years he had a PhD from
2:27:04Princeton and within 20 years he was a
2:27:06tenure professor at Harvard doing some
2:27:08of the most popular research that people
2:27:11like you and I talk about today.
2:27:13>> Did you know any I didn't know any of
2:27:14this story beforehand. He's written you
2:27:16know stumbling on happiness his biggest
2:27:18book probably and and lots of other
2:27:20books and I've read all his research. I
2:27:22had no idea about this whole background
2:27:23of his. Well, it's funny actually. I do
2:27:25know one story about him, which is why I
2:27:27thought of him for this chapter, and
2:27:29we'll get to that story in a second. But
2:27:30yeah, I didn't know that he kind of came
2:27:33from this bohemian aesthetic life and
2:27:36then like found psychology, went all in
2:27:39on it. I mean, it's actually it's a
2:27:40beautiful representation of kind of what
2:27:42this whole episode is about. Like he
2:27:43found a thing that resonated, decided,
2:27:46right? He cut off the alternatives, went
2:27:50all in on it, and it paid off in a in a
2:27:52massive way. He's got this great quote,
2:27:54by the way, where he said, "Make a plan
2:27:55for your life and then be grateful when
2:27:57it doesn't go that way."
2:27:59>> He's full of those. Yeah,
2:28:01>> I love him. So, Gilbert is really famous
2:28:04for having a lot of kind of
2:28:06counterintuitive happiness research. He
2:28:08he has all sorts of findings that show
2:28:10that a lot of what we expect to make us
2:28:13happy doesn't make us happy. And a lot
2:28:15of the stuff that we expect to make us
2:28:17unhappy doesn't really make us unhappy
2:28:19and vice versa. In a lot of cases, the
2:28:21things that we remember as making us
2:28:22happy like actually didn't make us that
2:28:24happy at the time. And that basically
2:28:25our perception of our own happiness is
2:28:27very unreliable. It's quite relative
2:28:30given the circumstances. Now, this is
2:28:32going to be really important in a minute
2:28:34once we kind of come back to commitment.
2:28:36His foray into this line of research
2:28:39actually totally happened on accident
2:28:41back in the early 90s. He was having
2:28:43lunch with a colleague and it just so
2:28:46happened that both him and that
2:28:47colleague had endured like pretty awful
2:28:50years. They both had people close to
2:28:52them pass away. They had both had some
2:28:54pretty significant professional
2:28:56setbacks. They had had some problems in
2:28:58their personal lives. And they were
2:28:59sitting there talking about it but also
2:29:01kind of analyzing themselves as I guess
2:29:04psychologists do when they sit and have
2:29:06lunch for a long time. And they realized
2:29:08that both of them actually felt a lot
2:29:10better about their situations than they
2:29:12would have guessed beforehand. That they
2:29:14were handling everything much better
2:29:17than they would have predicted. And that
2:29:19looking back things were actually not as
2:29:22awful as they sounded initially. So this
2:29:26got them curious of like why don't we
2:29:28try to measure people's forecasting into
2:29:31what's going to make them happy and what
2:29:33actually makes them happy. And this
2:29:35kicked off a series of fascinating
2:29:37findings that Gilbert later kind of
2:29:40packaged together and labeled the
2:29:43psychological immune system. And the
2:29:45idea behind the psychological immune
2:29:46system is that the same way our body
2:29:49will fight off bacteria and a cold
2:29:52virus. Our psychology also seems to have
2:29:56a bit of an immune system to keep
2:29:59unhappiness and misery at bay. So it
2:30:02turns out that we will misremember
2:30:05things in our favor. That we will
2:30:07highlight things in our past that make
2:30:09us happier and subtly kind of forget the
2:30:13things that were unexciting or or are
2:30:16uninteresting. We will overestimate
2:30:18things in our future to generate a large
2:30:20sense of optimism and hope. Whereas like
2:30:22once we actually get the thing that
2:30:24we're excited about, it's
2:30:26>> it's never as good as you think.
2:30:28>> It's it's never as good as you think
2:30:29it's going to be. And so he identified
2:30:32all of these different ways that our
2:30:34mind is kind of irrational and
2:30:37inaccurate in terms of what it predicts
2:30:40and what it expects and it seems to
2:30:43consistently be irrational and
2:30:45inaccurate in the same direction which
2:30:48is to make us mildly happier. Our
2:30:50psychological immune system takes many
2:30:52different forms. It it comes in
2:30:55rationalizing post hawk justifications,
2:30:58reframing situations, finding silver
2:31:00linings to terrible things that have
2:31:02happened to us. It also involves a
2:31:03series of cognitive biases that we are
2:31:05just like not even aware of when they're
2:31:07happening. So my favorite story
2:31:09involving Dan Gilbert is actually about
2:31:11one of those biases. He had been with
2:31:13his girlfriend for like 15 years or
2:31:14something. They had never gotten
2:31:15married. and he was talking to a
2:31:17colleague about some of his recent
2:31:19research and he actually found that
2:31:21putting constraints on somebody made
2:31:24them more satisfied with their situation
2:31:27than removing the constraints. Right?
2:31:29It's it's kind of sart in the prisoner
2:31:31of war camp. It's like he found the more
2:31:33constraints you put on people the more
2:31:36satisfied they seem to be
2:31:39with that situation after the fact. His
2:31:42colleagues said, "Oh, that's really
2:31:43interesting. And that's like a very
2:31:45strong psychological argument for
2:31:46marriage. And Dan Gilbert sat there for
2:31:49a second. And up until that point, he
2:31:51had never really believed in the value
2:31:53of marriage. He saw it as kind of a
2:31:54pointless legal formality. And he sat
2:31:56there and he was like, "Oh shit." And he
2:31:59went home and immediately proposed to
2:32:00his girlfriend. And sure enough, he
2:32:02later said, "Getting married made me
2:32:04happier with my relationship." It's that
2:32:06barrier to exit that makes you more
2:32:09satisfied staying where you are. Now
2:32:11this is important for commitments
2:32:12because it turns out that there are a
2:32:14lot of aspects of our psychological
2:32:15immune system that are kind of geared
2:32:17towards nudging us to be satisfied with
2:32:20our decisions even if it wasn't the
2:32:23greatest decision in the world. Right?
2:32:25So the fear that the estate has which is
2:32:29like I can't make a choice. What if I
2:32:31make the wrong choice? What if I'm not
2:32:33happy? What if this other choice was the
2:32:35better choice?
2:32:36>> The dizziness of freedom.
2:32:37>> The dizziness of freedom. It turns out
2:32:41once you've made the choice, your mind
2:32:43will unconsciously start justifying that
2:32:46choice to yourself and finding reasons
2:32:48to be happy about it. And I think this
2:32:50is actually an important part of our
2:32:52psychological software. Evolutionarily
2:32:54speaking, optionality was very scarce
2:32:59throughout most of human history. And so
2:33:00we have a very strong bias towards
2:33:02maintaining optionality. But then it
2:33:05makes sense once you have kind of walked
2:33:06through that door and closed the other
2:33:08doors. It makes sense that you would
2:33:10have a bias towards justifying that
2:33:12decision and being happy with whatever
2:33:14resulted from it.
2:33:16>> Opposite opposite biases depending on
2:33:19when like that you were talking about
2:33:20that anxiety before the decision versus
2:33:23the different anxiety you might have
2:33:24after it. They're completely different
2:33:25mechanisms it seems like. Yeah.
2:33:27>> And I come back to the cold pool
2:33:28metaphor, right? It's like the fear of
2:33:32jumping in is is is only matched by the
2:33:34satisfaction once you're already in.
2:33:37Like nobody ever jumps into a cold pool
2:33:38on a hot summer day and is like, "Why
2:33:40did I do this? I made the wrong
2:33:42decision. I should have jumped into the
2:33:43the hot tub instead." Like it's no,
2:33:45you're like, "This is nice." The cold
2:33:48pool example, you can't jump out of the
2:33:51cold pool as if you've never done it
2:33:53before, right? So it's whereas that that
2:33:56door study I was talking about where you
2:33:57get the three doors always keeping those
2:33:59three options open. There's a difference
2:34:00there. There's a qualitative difference
2:34:01there too. Categorical difference there
2:34:03actually the reversible versus
2:34:04unreversible. And that's actually
2:34:06something they they see in the research
2:34:08is that the psychological immune system
2:34:10actually kicks in the strongest when you
2:34:12have a an irreversible decision. So you
2:34:14make a decision, you can't go back on
2:34:16it, you're probably going to be more
2:34:17satisfied with it just because you have
2:34:19no other option in that case. So kind of
2:34:22in the short term if you're making these
2:34:24decisions if you have these irreversible
2:34:26decisions that you need to make there is
2:34:27a little bit of an argument for like
2:34:29just make the decision just do it and
2:34:32your brain will kind of follow you
2:34:33there. I think in the modern world where
2:34:35there is it's more like the open door
2:34:36study or it's more like the door study
2:34:37where you can keep all these doors open
2:34:39if you want to. There might be a better
2:34:41door down the hall almost at all times.
2:34:44I think that's where a lot of us get
2:34:45stuck. We have the optionality to keep
2:34:47all those doors open.
2:34:48>> Yeah. Yeah,
2:34:48>> but the psychological immune system
2:34:50works best when there are these kind of
2:34:51like irreversible decisions or at least
2:34:52ones that we perceive as irreversible.
2:34:54>> This lends itself to to Dan Gilbert's
2:34:57point that like increasing constraints
2:35:01on your decision actually increases your
2:35:03satisfaction with that decision. Like
2:35:04the more irreversible you can make
2:35:06something, the more satisfied with it
2:35:09you you'll probably be. It's funny
2:35:12actually. I just saw this yesterday on
2:35:14social media. It was an interview with
2:35:16uh the sports journalist Stephen A.
2:35:18Smith. He was like, "I have a friend
2:35:20whose prenup I believe is the most
2:35:22perfect legal document ever written.
2:35:24It's a prenup of only one sentence." You
2:35:27want to guess what the one sentences?
2:35:29Whoever leaves gets nothing. [laughter]
2:35:34>> How's that for incentives and
2:35:35irreversibility?
2:35:36>> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter]
2:35:37There's been decisions that I've made
2:35:38where it was just like, "Oh, I got all
2:35:40these options in front of me." And and I
2:35:42felt that dizziness of freedom before
2:35:44and as soon as I made one, I just
2:35:46instantly almost felt better about it.
2:35:48When I finished my master's degree, I
2:35:49was like still like, I don't know what I
2:35:51want to do with my life type of thing.
2:35:52And I said, "Screw it. I'm going to go
2:35:53live in South America for a little
2:35:54while." And I was so anxious before
2:35:56that. I was like, I don't know what I
2:35:58want to do, blah blah blah. And as soon
2:35:59as I made that decision, I was like,
2:36:00there's there was clarity. I knew
2:36:02exactly what I need to do. I need to buy
2:36:03this ticket. I need to like sell all my
2:36:05stuff. funny to all of these things like
2:36:07just fell into place. I think that's
2:36:08part of it too is it gives you this
2:36:09clarity again almost no matter what it
2:36:11was. That honestly probably wasn't a
2:36:14great decision of mine to do. I probably
2:36:15should have just kept going with with on
2:36:17a a more stable career path at the time.
2:36:20But that said, I made the decision and
2:36:24it removed a lot of that uncertainty
2:36:26around it.
2:36:27>> You're alluding to something. This is
2:36:29actually a point I made in subtle art
2:36:30and it's something that I believe very
2:36:33strongly but it's it's very hard to
2:36:35communicate. I think people who are very
2:36:38aesthetic in in the way they live like
2:36:40it just they don't understand what you
2:36:42just described is an is a very subtle
2:36:44form of freedom in that when you cut off
2:36:48the alternatives it actually frees you
2:36:50to focus on the thing that you chose on
2:36:53>> right and that's actually a very
2:36:56powerful form of freedom. The example
2:36:58I've given a number of times is is when
2:37:00I got engaged to my wife. Like I fredded
2:37:02and worried about that for so many
2:37:04months. I I agonized over it. And then
2:37:06as soon as I proposed, it was like this
2:37:09burden was lifted off my shoulders. And
2:37:12the way I describe it is that it was
2:37:13like I had this like software running in
2:37:15the back of my head that was always
2:37:17like,
2:37:18"Where's the hot girl? Does she like me?
2:37:22Should I talk to her?" even when I had a
2:37:24girlfriend, like that was it was quietly
2:37:26still kind of operating because you're
2:37:27still kind of even if you're in a
2:37:29relationship, you're still kind of
2:37:30measuring your sexual market value, I
2:37:32guess. And as soon as I got engaged,
2:37:35it's like that software shut down and
2:37:37all of this RAM and bandwidth was was
2:37:39like freed up for me to focus on things
2:37:41I actually gave a [ __ ] about. And the
2:37:43experience was liberation. And I
2:37:45remember that like really [ __ ] with my
2:37:46head because as we talked about last
2:37:49chapter like I'd spent pretty much all
2:37:51my 20s living an aesthetic life and
2:37:54pursuing as much novelty and stimulation
2:37:57as possible. And so then the fact that
2:37:58like the most significant
2:38:02confining choice that I had ever made up
2:38:05until that point in my life I also
2:38:06experienced as the most liberating like
2:38:08really mind [ __ ] me.
2:38:10>> Yeah. What we think of as freedom that
2:38:11optionality. What you're saying is no,
2:38:13actually making a decision is freedom.
2:38:14You have the you have the choice. You
2:38:15have the freedom to make that decision
2:38:17to cut off all these other things.
2:38:19That's a very different way about of of
2:38:21thinking about freedom. I believe John
2:38:23Dwey had this concept of positive
2:38:26freedom and negative freedom. Positive
2:38:27freedom was optionality. It was freedom
2:38:29to do a lot of things. Whereas negative
2:38:32freedom was freedom from it was it was
2:38:34freedom from impediments. It was freedom
2:38:36from distraction. And I think when you
2:38:39make a choice, you are trading positive
2:38:42freedom for negative freedom. You're
2:38:44trading in lots of options of what you
2:38:46could do for the freedom to only focus
2:38:50on the thing you have chosen to do.
2:38:52>> In my example, I decided to go live in
2:38:54South America, right? And ran into a
2:38:57whole bunch of issues while I was down
2:38:58there. Like I was teaching English and
2:38:59that school I was working with was going
2:39:01bankrupt and I wasn't getting paid and
2:39:02all this. And I remember I was sitting
2:39:04at this hostel and uh there was this guy
2:39:07there. He's from Iceland, spoke like
2:39:08five languages. His name was Daniel. He
2:39:10lived all over the world. And I was
2:39:12talking with him about my situation. And
2:39:13I had I had decided to I need to move
2:39:15back. And I kind of fell into the whole
2:39:17bad faith thing. I was like, "Oh, I have
2:39:19to move back because I can't, you know,
2:39:21there's all these financial things
2:39:22around it and I'm homesick and oh, I
2:39:25need to get back to my career and all of
2:39:27these things." So, I told him, you know,
2:39:28I have to go back. And he says, "You
2:39:29don't have to go back." [laughter]
2:39:32And I'll remember that. He was very
2:39:34cleareyed about his life, too. like he
2:39:36he he kind of lived that bohemium life
2:39:38in a way, but he's like, I I choose this
2:39:39and I understand it uh in a way that I I
2:39:42think a lot of people didn't. My point
2:39:44there, though, too, is that even once
2:39:46you make that decision, though, it's
2:39:48it's not a one-time thing, right? Just
2:39:50like your marriage, your your decision
2:39:52to marry your wife, that that wasn't
2:39:54actually a one-time decision. It was in
2:39:56alignment with something that you valued
2:39:58for sure, but it wasn't just this
2:40:00one-time event that oh, all of a sudden
2:40:02now I'm just I don't have to worry about
2:40:03this ever again. the RAM thing you're
2:40:05talking about, all of that that that
2:40:07went away, sure, but you still have to
2:40:09make that decision and that commitment
2:40:10over and over. We we mentioned this
2:40:12before, commitment isn't the one-time
2:40:14decision. It's a mechanism for cutting
2:40:16off all of these other uh routes and for
2:40:18defining who you are.
2:40:20>> It's funny, I had a friend in my 20s, an
2:40:21older friend who was a bit of a mentor
2:40:24figure to me for a while. And it was
2:40:25really annoying, but it was also
2:40:27something that looking back I kind of
2:40:28appreciate, you know, cuz I could be
2:40:30like a whiny young person at times, be
2:40:32like, I can't do that. it's not fair,
2:40:34you know, all that sort of [ __ ] He was
2:40:36about 10 years older than me and I
2:40:37remember every time I ever said I can't
2:40:39do this, he would interrupt me and say,
2:40:41you can, you choose not to. And and I
2:40:44was just like, whatever, [snorts] dude.
2:40:46Like, shut up. You know, [laughter] but
2:40:48it's like he said it enough times that
2:40:50it started to sink in of like, okay,
2:40:53yeah, I I can stay in Chile if I want,
2:40:56right? Like, yeah, I don't have to go
2:40:57back to the US. You're refusing to pay
2:41:00the cost of choosing is what you're
2:41:01doing there. Sart made that point as
2:41:03well. It wasn't necessarily that you can
2:41:05do whatever you want. That's not what
2:41:06he's saying. You have the ability to
2:41:08choose how to respond to whatever
2:41:10situation you're in, whatever life
2:41:11throws at you. I can't choose to be 6'5,
2:41:14right? Like, but I can choose to
2:41:16interact with a world in a way that my
2:41:18height might not matter or whatever it
2:41:19is, right? I think that's an important
2:41:21thing. He acknowledged that. It wasn't
2:41:23just like, oh no, you know, your choices
2:41:25are limitless and you can choose
2:41:27whatever you want. Yes, you have to cut
2:41:28off these or whatever. He acknowledged
2:41:30there are limits that you have to work
2:41:31within.
2:41:32>> I think it's very analogous to the point
2:41:34Annie Duke made on the last episode. You
2:41:36know, she made the point she was like,
2:41:38"Look, you are always
2:41:40weighing options and kind of making
2:41:44decisions based on probabilities or or
2:41:46making decisions as as bets, right? That
2:41:48like something's going to work." She
2:41:50said, "That's how your brain works
2:41:51anyway. The question is is how aware of
2:41:54it are you?" Because most people who are
2:41:57not aware of it, they just go with their
2:41:58gut, right? They just do what the people
2:42:01around them are doing. They're they're
2:42:02just doing what they feel like is
2:42:03expected of them. And so the
2:42:05decision-making process is still
2:42:08happening, but it's happening under the
2:42:09surface. She called it under the hood.
2:42:11It's happening beneath the surface of
2:42:13the threshold of consciousness. It's
2:42:15similar with this of like the the
2:42:18willingness to limit yourself and and
2:42:20cut cut off the opportunities for
2:42:22yourself. You're always doing that
2:42:25anyway. You're always choosing things
2:42:26anyway. Living in bad faith is when you
2:42:29you intentionally keep it buried beneath
2:42:31the surface. Keep it unconscious for
2:42:33yourself. And when you keep it
2:42:35unconscious for yourself, you don't have
2:42:36control over it, right? You can't manage
2:42:38it or navigate it. It just becomes very
2:42:41impulsive and instinctual.
2:42:43>> Choosing how you react to your own
2:42:45emotions.
2:42:46>> Yes.
2:42:47>> I you could even go down to that level,
2:42:48I think, too. You could even argue
2:42:50you're choosing your emotions in many
2:42:52cases. Like that that gets hard. I think
2:42:55there's some some situations that you
2:42:58cannot choose, right? Like if somebody I
2:43:00love gets hit by a car in front of me,
2:43:01like obviously I cannot I'm not
2:43:04consciously I'm not choosing how I feel
2:43:05in that moment. But there are a lot of
2:43:07situations where you are actually
2:43:08choosing to be pissed or choosing to
2:43:12feel sorry for yourself. It comes down
2:43:13to how you are choosing to see it. like
2:43:16what is this the narrative that you are
2:43:19choosing to write around this situation.
2:43:21If most of what you're feeling is
2:43:23dictated by that narrative, then to a
2:43:24large degree, you are actually choosing
2:43:26that emotion in that moment.
2:43:28>> One more example I think I'll bring up
2:43:30is actually when I got the job with you
2:43:32and I' I've talked about this before a
2:43:34little bit. I kind of like come in and
2:43:35out of academia a little bit. I took a
2:43:37break and went to South America for a
2:43:38little while, came back to academia,
2:43:41got into a PhD program and all this. I
2:43:43never quite felt at home with that
2:43:45though, you know, and I always was like,
2:43:47I want to go do something more creative
2:43:49and like I love the internet and all of
2:43:50these things. I got the job offer with
2:43:52you and like immediately that was one of
2:43:54those things too where like my
2:43:55psychological immune system like kicked
2:43:57in because there was people all around
2:43:58me like are you crazy? What are you
2:44:00doing? You know, and I was like no,
2:44:01you're crazy like I'm fine. Right. That
2:44:03was an instance where my I think my
2:44:05psychological immune system had kicked
2:44:06in and helped me like accept that
2:44:08decision and give me some clarity around
2:44:09it. Can we talk about that feeling
2:44:12because I actually think that's really
2:44:13important when it comes to to
2:44:15commitment. It's probably what Gilbert
2:44:17felt when he took that first psychology
2:44:19course. And like I went to school, I
2:44:20studied international business and
2:44:22finance. I got a job in a bank. I
2:44:24[ __ ] hated like from the first hour.
2:44:27I hated my existence inside the bank. I
2:44:30used to pass the time by reading books
2:44:32cuz I just hated being there so much.
2:44:33And one of the books I read was Tim
2:44:35Ferrris's 4-hour work week. And I
2:44:36remember reading that and being like, I
2:44:38know how to make a website. I'm a pretty
2:44:40good writer. I'm pretty sure I could
2:44:43figure this out, right? Like, why don't
2:44:45I make a go at it? I remember I worked
2:44:48up the nerve to quit my job maybe a
2:44:50month later and I woke up. I the the
2:44:54first day at home, I started building a
2:44:56website. I had no idea what I was doing.
2:44:58It was a [ __ ] show. I mean, like the the
2:45:01first like 6 months was I mean, I was
2:45:04just flailing. nothing was working. Tech
2:45:07issues, like building sites that nobody
2:45:10visited, working for a month to sell
2:45:12something and like getting literally
2:45:14getting zero sales. But I remember the
2:45:16whole time I was doing it, I was like, I
2:45:18would rather be broke and do this than
2:45:21go back to the bank and have money. Like
2:45:23I remember just being like, I'm so
2:45:25there's something about this that I'm
2:45:27like, I'll be homeless. I don't care.
2:45:29I'm like perfectly fine doing this as
2:45:32long as I get to do this. I don't care
2:45:34how much money I make. I I'm never going
2:45:36back to to the corporate world ever
2:45:38again. And I also trusted that like
2:45:41eventually one day I'll figure it out.
2:45:42But like what is that feeling? Like
2:45:45we've kind of talked about this on the
2:45:46change episode that like we all have
2:45:48predispositions towards things and a lot
2:45:50of times we're not aware of what those
2:45:52predispositions are. It takes a lot of
2:45:54time and experience to like really
2:45:56understand yourself and understand like
2:45:58what's right for you. A lot of people
2:45:59who struggle to commit to something and
2:46:01like find their path, it's largely
2:46:03because they they haven't had many of
2:46:05those experiences where they've done
2:46:07something and they're like, "Oh, this is
2:46:08it. I don't care what anybody else says.
2:46:10I don't care if I go broke. Like, this
2:46:13is it." Part of it is just like
2:46:16exercising that decision muscle a little
2:46:19bit too. I want to go back to something
2:46:21here. I I mentioned it early at the top
2:46:23of the show that you have been a little
2:46:26more extreme in this domain than a lot
2:46:28of people. You were at your corporate
2:46:29job for what was it all of like six or
2:46:30eight weeks
2:46:31>> at most?
2:46:32>> Something like that. Okay. I went in and
2:46:33out of academia for like six or eight
2:46:35years. Okay. Like that's what I was
2:46:37doing. I think it was that's more common
2:46:38I think is people kind of like kind of
2:46:40coming in and out. Now I had this I
2:46:42always had this pole kind of in and out
2:46:43of it and and I knew I couldn't sit in
2:46:45there forever. You you figured that out
2:46:48early on. It took me a little bit longer
2:46:49which I think a lot of people it takes
2:46:51them a little bit longer. That feeling
2:46:53though that you're talking about, I
2:46:55think there were little like I had
2:46:57little little mini revelations along the
2:47:00way along the way. I was like, "Oh, this
2:47:02feels good." And then I kind of like
2:47:04slide back into it and like h pull
2:47:06myself back out. Eventually though, I
2:47:07think you do get to a point where like,
2:47:09"Well, [ __ ] it. I'm just doing it. It's
2:47:10unavoidable.
2:47:11>> It's unavoidable at that point." So,
2:47:12yeah. I think what I've observed is that
2:47:15people who have lived in bad faith for a
2:47:17long time, who have followed everybody
2:47:20else's rules, done what everybody else
2:47:22wants, done what everybody else expects
2:47:24of them, they've never gotten the reps,
2:47:28>> because I think probably what's what's
2:47:30true in the case of you and I is that
2:47:31throughout our lives, we we did things
2:47:34for no other reason than we enjoyed
2:47:35them. And so, we learned things about
2:47:37ourselves. Whereas if if you're somebody
2:47:39who like grew up in an environment where
2:47:41there's zero opportunity to do things
2:47:43because you enjoy them. I I'll use my
2:47:45wife as an example. So like she grew up
2:47:46extremely poor in Brazil. Like she
2:47:48couldn't go take a an art class cuz she
2:47:50felt like it. Like she had to get the
2:47:51[ __ ] out of poverty. So it was every
2:47:54decision in her life had nothing to do
2:47:58with what she actually wanted other than
2:48:01not being poor.
2:48:01>> Right. Survival. Yeah.
2:48:02>> Right. Until she was like 28. And so she
2:48:05went through a period where like she
2:48:07really struggled to know like what do I
2:48:09what do I actually enjoy? What do I
2:48:10actually care about? What do I actually
2:48:12want? I've observed this with over the
2:48:14years talking to readers and listeners
2:48:16that like people who grow up in that
2:48:18kind of situation where they've just
2:48:20always done what the people around them
2:48:22expect them to do, they've never even
2:48:24asked themselves what they want. They
2:48:25really struggle with this. Like they've
2:48:27never had that experience that you just
2:48:29described of like, oh, this is it. One
2:48:31of one of the things I I sometimes
2:48:32suggest to them is like try to go back
2:48:35ask yourself like what did you love when
2:48:37you were a kid
2:48:39that for some reason you kind of just
2:48:41dropped along the way and it was pro you
2:48:43probably dropped it because it wasn't
2:48:45cool. Maybe kids made fun of you. Maybe
2:48:47your parents told you it wasn't
2:48:49practical or maybe your teachers told
2:48:52you it was a waste of time. But like
2:48:55what got dropped along the way?
2:48:57Exercising that muscle is important and
2:48:59the sooner you can do it the better.
2:49:00There there's constraints on you.
2:49:02There's going to be constraints on you.
2:49:04Yet even as start would say you even
2:49:06have a choice within those even if
2:49:07you're very limited. Your wife's example
2:49:09even too. She found a way out. You know
2:49:10you always have a choice. They might be
2:49:12shitty choices but you always have that
2:49:14choice. And so exercising that early on
2:49:16I think that the psychological immune
2:49:17system helps us out with that. Um
2:49:19because you make a choice and and your
2:49:20brain's going to be like all right we're
2:49:21doing it. It will increase your feel
2:49:23good feelings about it. You'll be more
2:49:25focused on it. you'll work harder on it
2:49:28in the short run. Really, where the
2:49:30durability comes in is when you're
2:49:32making decisions that are aligned with
2:49:33your values and what you actually want
2:49:35about this. There's some research around
2:49:36this. It's called self- concordance. It
2:49:38is exactly what it sounds like is making
2:49:41these decisions and these commitments
2:49:42that are aligned with what you actually
2:49:46like truly want, what you you have to
2:49:47listen to that like you're saying, maybe
2:49:49it is something for your childhood or
2:49:50whatever you want. I'm not saying like
2:49:52go with your gut all the time. That's
2:49:53not what I'm saying necessarily. It's
2:49:54like actually figuring out what you want
2:49:56and making a commitment to that, cutting
2:49:59off all the other outside options. That
2:50:02actually is what leads to a longer sense
2:50:04of a longer, more durable sense of
2:50:06well-being around these things. You're
2:50:08you're much more likely to be persistent
2:50:10through a lot of these things. You're
2:50:11much more likely to have just better
2:50:13mental health and really be satisfied
2:50:16with those decisions. Your psychological
2:50:18immune system can can get you through
2:50:20the short run. So, my example with the
2:50:22chili thing, I was like, "Oh, yeah. I
2:50:23want like adventure and freedom and all
2:50:25of this." And that was good for a few
2:50:27months. That that only lasted me a few
2:50:29months though, right? It wasn't super
2:50:30durable. I needed something more and I
2:50:32wasn't quite sure, do I really want this
2:50:34freedom? I don't know. Do I want do I
2:50:35need more stability? I was kind of going
2:50:37back and forth between it. So, it wasn't
2:50:38like a really fully aligned decision or
2:50:41commitment that I made. I'm going to
2:50:42work with you or whatever. That was much
2:50:43more in line with this is what I want to
2:50:45do. And it was much more durable sense
2:50:47of well-being that I got out of that.
2:50:49That's the second step in this system. I
2:50:51think
2:50:51>> I'm gonna challenge that a little bit
2:50:52though, right? Because
2:50:54>> I would argue you had to go to Chile to
2:50:56find that out.
2:50:57>> Sure. Oh, yeah.
2:50:58>> I think this is kind of the irony of
2:51:00people who avoid choosing. By not
2:51:02choosing, you m you only maintain and
2:51:05increase that sense of uncertainty. If
2:51:07you choose and it doesn't work out, then
2:51:09good because now you know that's not the
2:51:12thing for you, right? Like that's
2:51:14information. It's valuable. You came
2:51:16back to the US. you you you're like,
2:51:17"Okay, I I did the South America thing.
2:51:19I did the travel to the live abroad
2:51:21thing. I know how that feels now. I that
2:51:25now that informs my future decisions."
2:51:27People might be listening to this and
2:51:28just thinking like, "Okay, well, I got
2:51:30to choose something like just out of a
2:51:31hat, you know?" It's like, "No, no, no.
2:51:33You should you should really think about
2:51:34like what matters to you kind of on a
2:51:36deep level and use that as a
2:51:37navigation." The the other piece of
2:51:39advice that I I often give around this
2:51:41is that I think for a lot of people it's
2:51:43actually it's easier for them to to
2:51:45start with what they don't want. Right?
2:51:48So instead of like say taking all the
2:51:50things they're doing in their life and
2:51:52like choosing one to to commit to or go
2:51:54deep on, maybe just start by picking the
2:51:57one or two things that you're currently
2:51:58spending time doing that like is not
2:52:00bringing a whole lot of value and like
2:52:01just cut those out first and then slowly
2:52:05prune until you kind of see what you're
2:52:07you end up with. You cut off the things
2:52:10you don't want to do. I get that. What
2:52:12happens though when you still regret it
2:52:14though? like if you do come to regret a
2:52:16decision you make or h how does regret
2:52:19work in this this system that we're
2:52:21building here?
2:52:22>> I'll give you my personal take and then
2:52:24you can you can give us the research.
2:52:26It's funny cuz I have so few regrets and
2:52:29it's exactly for what I said. It's like
2:52:31even the things that I did that turned
2:52:33out to be stupid, I learned that they
2:52:35were stupid and I learned not to do them
2:52:37again, right? And so like those bad
2:52:38decisions provided just as much value as
2:52:41some of my good decisions because they
2:52:44they taught me just as much. What I've
2:52:46noticed over the years and I I've like
2:52:49dude I've done a lot of stupid [ __ ] The
2:52:51only things I regret in the long run is
2:52:55how I've treated people.
2:52:56>> Oh, okay.
2:52:57>> I never regret a bad decision. Like I
2:52:59I've I have done so many stupid I've
2:53:01wasted
2:53:03>> so much money on like
2:53:05>> dumb decision like bad business
2:53:07ventures. Like I have made a fool of
2:53:09myself. I've embarrassed myself. I have
2:53:11[ __ ] shot myself in the foot in so
2:53:14many so many contacts, so many
2:53:16situations. The only things I regret are
2:53:19times that I've hurt somebody I really
2:53:21care about.
2:53:22>> Sure. Okay. Some people would would
2:53:24point to you and say, "Well, you're just
2:53:25not prone to regret, Mark. I guess
2:53:26that's you're just not a person who
2:53:27regrets things. I would argue no, that's
2:53:30not actually the case because in the
2:53:31research what they found is that what
2:53:33people end up regretting is the actions
2:53:36not taken. You have this tendency to
2:53:38just take action. It's exactly what they
2:53:40find in the research is that uh in the
2:53:41short run anyway, people kind of like
2:53:43they make a decision 50/50 they regret
2:53:45it or not, right? In the long run
2:53:46though, when they when people look back,
2:53:48they're like, I don't regret making that
2:53:50decision even though it turned out
2:53:51horribly. Like I don't regret making the
2:53:53decision. what they regret is not making
2:53:55a decision is is inaction. You know,
2:53:58Warren Buffett points this out too about
2:53:59a lot of the investments. He's like,
2:54:00"The ones I regret are the ones I didn't
2:54:01make." It's like, "If I lost money, I
2:54:03lost money, whatever, on the ones I
2:54:04made." But it's the ones I didn't make
2:54:06that I regret the most. And it's the
2:54:08same is true throughout life as well.
2:54:10So, I don't think you're actually not a
2:54:12regret. I thought that for a little
2:54:13while, but then I thought about it more
2:54:14and I was like, "No, he's not regret. He
2:54:16just I compulsively take action."
2:54:18>> He compulsively takes action. Yeah. I
2:54:20will say this, I do have like very like
2:54:22kind of subtle regrets, but it's always
2:54:24it is similar to that. It's around
2:54:25wasted time.
2:54:26>> Wasted time making a decision. Wasted
2:54:28time making the commitment. Yeah.
2:54:29>> Yeah. And in my case, it was it's never
2:54:32like not making a decision. I mean, I've
2:54:34known people who spend years, wasted
2:54:37years avoiding making a decision and
2:54:39then once they make the decision,
2:54:41they're like, "Oh my god, I can't
2:54:42believe I wasted so many years." And
2:54:44they feel really bad about it. For me,
2:54:45it's more like I pursued things that in
2:54:49hindsight were kind of dumb, not very
2:54:51aligned with my my values or my my
2:54:54long-term who I wanted to be. And so, I
2:54:56just kind of look back and I'm like,
2:54:59"All right, that was stupid." In my
2:55:01case, it's actually kind of the
2:55:02opposite. I think there's like maybe I
2:55:04took too much action on some things. I
2:55:07spent too much time pursuing things that
2:55:09were like kind of dumb and ultimately
2:55:11didn't add a whole lot to my life.
2:55:12>> That gets into the self- concordance
2:55:13thing, but
2:55:14>> yeah. So, it's it's like I look back at
2:55:16the amount of partying I did in my 20s
2:55:18and I'm like, "Okay, I'm glad I did like
2:55:2175% of it. There's about 25% I'm like,
2:55:25"Dude, stay home and work. Watch a movie
2:55:28or something." You know? I I took it too
2:55:30far. Yeah. This kind of reminds me a
2:55:32little bit too, you know, we had Annie
2:55:33Duke on last time and in her book, she
2:55:35has a book on quitting. One of the big
2:55:37points I got out of that is people wait
2:55:39too long to quit usually. And I would
2:55:41just generalize that people wait too
2:55:42long to make a decision period. I can
2:55:44definitely point to a lot of things in
2:55:46my life where I was like, I spent way
2:55:48too long considering this. They've shown
2:55:50studies around people trying to make big
2:55:52life decisions around work, school,
2:55:54relationships, right? And they measure
2:55:56how much they, you know, how much do you
2:55:58think this is uh going to affect you? Uh
2:56:01this is going to be a bad or a good
2:56:02decision at the time. And then they
2:56:03follow up with them months later and did
2:56:05you quit or not? The people who quit
2:56:07earlier report a lot more satisfaction
2:56:09than people who don't. So, it's like
2:56:11you're waiting too long to quit. And I
2:56:13would just say in general, you're
2:56:14waiting too long just to make a
2:56:15decision, period. I'm not prone to
2:56:17regret, but I do agree with you. I'm
2:56:18prone to action. I would rather just do
2:56:21something and then figure it out along
2:56:22the way. And as somebody who does that
2:56:24kind of compulsively, I can report from
2:56:26the other side that like there's never
2:56:27been a time where I'm like, I should
2:56:29have waited longer to do that. I cannot
2:56:31think of a single thing in my life that
2:56:34I'm like, I should have waited longer. I
2:56:35do things very quickly. I don't I I do
2:56:38not sit around and like agonize over
2:56:40many decisions in my life. I cannot
2:56:42think of a single one that I'm like,
2:56:44"Oh, I should have thought about that
2:56:45for another another month or another
2:56:47year." I I think you just get better at
2:56:48making decisions to the more you make
2:56:50obviously that like it's a volume game
2:56:51at a certain point. Here's the thing,
2:56:53though. Kirkagard's ethical life, his
2:56:55argument, you know, that Judge William
2:56:57character he made up, Judge Williams
2:56:59argument was not you're going to feel
2:57:01better about your decisions if you just
2:57:03make them, right? If you commit
2:57:04[clears throat] to something, you're
2:57:05going to feel better about that. was not
2:57:06his argument. His argument was that
2:57:10making commitments creates the self. It
2:57:13creates an identity for you, something
2:57:15solid and something like worth standing
2:57:17for is what commitments do for you. Yes,
2:57:20you'll feel better about it. Like that's
2:57:22a benefit. I think that's the kind of
2:57:24like the psychological sneakin that we
2:57:25have is that there is some well-being
2:57:27you're going to get from some of this,
2:57:29but ultimately what Kirkagard argued was
2:57:31the ethical life is not defined by
2:57:33feeling good about it. It's about
2:57:35creating a self. You can't create a self
2:57:37without commitments. And the research
2:57:38bear bears this out too. There's this
2:57:40guy James Marsha back in the 60s who
2:57:42kind of started this work on identity
2:57:44formation. And he operationalized like
2:57:47your identity formation along these two
2:57:50axes or these these two components
2:57:52really. One he called crisis which is
2:57:55really dramatic um because all that is
2:57:57is actually exploring. You're in
2:57:58exploration phase. That's your crisis
2:58:00phase he called it. And then commitment
2:58:02was the second phase too. So an
2:58:03investment in some part of your life in
2:58:05some firm decision in your life, right?
2:58:08And so if you take those two components,
2:58:10you can come up with kind of four
2:58:11different things. If you have, you know,
2:58:12low crisis versus high commitment or so
2:58:15on and so forth, right? Okay. So he
2:58:17comes up with these four identity
2:58:19statuses out of this. Okay? And I'll
2:58:21just run through them really quick here.
2:58:22So the the first one is what he calls
2:58:24diffusion. This is low crisis, low
2:58:26explor exploration, and low commitment.
2:58:29This is just somebody who's not thinking
2:58:30about their options and not really
2:58:31committing to anything, right? They're
2:58:33just it's very much go with the flow.
2:58:35You're not really engaged with life at
2:58:37all on any level. The next one though,
2:58:38he called foreclosure. That's low
2:58:41exploration and high commitment. So
2:58:43these are the people who definitely look
2:58:44around and it's like it's more like this
2:58:46is what I'm supposed to do and I'm going
2:58:47to commit hard to it. You know, I'm
2:58:49going to take the safe job and marry
2:58:51this certain person.
2:58:52>> Do what my parents told me.
2:58:53>> Do what my parents told me. So there's a
2:58:55very high level of commitment. So you
2:58:57might get some psychological immune
2:58:58system benefit from that but at the same
2:59:01time you haven't explored that deeply.
2:59:03So we talked about the self- concordance
2:59:04thing. You don't have the self-awareness
2:59:05around whether or not that was good for
2:59:07you. Right? The next one is moratorum.
2:59:10So this is where there's high
2:59:12exploration but low commitment. This is
2:59:13where the athlete lives. At least for
2:59:15like younger people in this phase they
2:59:18were a lot more likely to reach the next
2:59:20phase which he called achievement which
2:59:23is both a high exploration and a high
2:59:25commitment. So this is someone who's
2:59:26very deliberate, eyes wide open type of
2:59:28decision that they make. And they found
2:59:30through all this, you know, that the the
2:59:32people who do reach that achieved
2:59:33commitment status, they're the ones who
2:59:35have the highest well-being and
2:59:37everything we just talked about too, the
2:59:38psychological immune system kicks in.
2:59:40And then they also like, oh, I have this
2:59:41long-term sense of well-being and it's
2:59:43durable and I feel good about it. I have
2:59:45good mental health, good relationships,
2:59:46all of that. But also, they have a very
2:59:49strong sense of who they are, a strong
2:59:51sense of self. I think somebody hears
2:59:53that and somebody who might not have a
2:59:54real strong sense of themselves might
2:59:56not know what that means. Like what is a
2:59:58strong sense of self? What is a strong
3:00:00sense of self? I'm going to ask you that
3:00:01first. What do you think that that
3:00:02entails?
3:00:03>> I think it's it's a high degree of
3:00:07confidence in knowing,
3:00:09what you value,
3:00:12what you prefer, what you're good at,
3:00:14what you're bad at. And I would argue
3:00:15that some degree of self-exloration is
3:00:17necessary for that. You kind of need
3:00:19this exploration phase when you're young
3:00:21to put yourself in a bunch of novel
3:00:24situations to get that information. Like
3:00:26you have to go to Chile to find out that
3:00:27you don't want to live there long term
3:00:30because that teaches you something very
3:00:32important about yourself when you come
3:00:33back. And so that makes it easier to do
3:00:35future decisions. Now you're better able
3:00:37to close off alternatives because you
3:00:39know more about yourself.
3:00:40>> I think that's what the research bears
3:00:41out too. You you kind of just have a
3:00:44almost no matter where you are, where
3:00:45you go, you kind of feel the same in a
3:00:47way. We all kind of change who we are in
3:00:49different situations. I get that. But
3:00:50there's still like a sense of yourself
3:00:52that you have throughout those different
3:00:54situations. You know who you are, right?
3:00:56And if you don't have that sense of
3:00:58yourself, I think a lot of it is because
3:01:00you haven't really committed to
3:01:02something in your life, right? And you
3:01:04don't have that to fall back on. If we
3:01:06come back to my definition, which by the
3:01:07way, I just totally pulled out of my
3:01:09ass, but I feel pretty good about the
3:01:10high degree of confidence in one's
3:01:12values, preferences,
3:01:14talents, and and abilities. commitments
3:01:17solidify that, right? If I commit to
3:01:19this career and I spend all of my time
3:01:22doing this one thing, that is going to
3:01:24increase my confidence in in who I am,
3:01:26right? It's like I am a podcaster. I am
3:01:28an author, right? Like it's I've been
3:01:30doing this for 20 years. So, I have a
3:01:32high degree of confidence that that is
3:01:34who I am. Whereas like if I haven't
3:01:36really
3:01:37tried many things and if I haven't
3:01:39really had many jobs and I haven't done
3:01:42anything for more than a year that I'm
3:01:44going to have a very low degree of
3:01:45confidence in who I am because I haven't
3:01:47accumulated that evidence to to gain
3:01:50that self-standing. It's funny how this
3:01:52is tying into the confidence piece of
3:01:54like right we we did a whole confidence
3:01:56episode and one of the big takeaways
3:01:58from that is that actually confidence is
3:02:00it's not the input of performance it's
3:02:03the output of performance and it's it is
3:02:05uh built through accumulating evidence
3:02:07that you're capable of handling a
3:02:09situation and it's like a positive
3:02:11feedback loop it's like the more I'm
3:02:13able to make a decision and commit to
3:02:14something the more I learn about myself
3:02:17the more I learn about myself the better
3:02:19able I'm going to be to make commitments
3:02:21and decisions in the future. And so you
3:02:23kind of get this upward spiral of
3:02:25commitments and self-nowledge.
3:02:27And as we'll find in the next chapter or
3:02:29in the next stage, Kirkagar's next stage
3:02:31is that eventually you kind of hit
3:02:32escape velocity with that. And in in
3:02:34that you find a commitment that you are
3:02:38happy to take to your grave with you.
3:02:39This episode's called Finding Your Path
3:02:41in Life, but like it's kind of an airy
3:02:43fairy thing, but I think that is
3:02:45ultimately what people crave is that
3:02:48they want something that they feel
3:02:50confident. I can do this till I'm dead.
3:02:53Coming back to that that liberation.
3:02:55Like as soon as you hit that, like that
3:02:58is actually incredibly liberating. It's
3:02:59almost like a marriage to a vocation or
3:03:02a career or a place or whatever, like a
3:03:04hobby. Once you find that, you're like,
3:03:05"Cool, I never have to think about this
3:03:07again." But I think it's important to
3:03:09note that like the ethical stage, you're
3:03:11not quite there yet. This is almost like
3:03:13an intermediary stage. The aesthetic
3:03:15stage, you're chasing stimulation,
3:03:18you're chasing novelty, you're trying
3:03:21new things, you're exploring. The
3:03:23ethical stage is where you start coming
3:03:25in with that razor and you're like,
3:03:27"Nope, not that. Nope, not that. I'm
3:03:30going to try this. See how it goes."
3:03:32It's
3:03:32>> very intentional.
3:03:32>> It's very intentional. and and
3:03:34Kierkagard wrote about it in terms of
3:03:36like doing it openeyed, understanding
3:03:41the trade-offs that you're making, like
3:03:42if you commit to a partner or you commit
3:03:44to moving to a new city, you're
3:03:47committing to both the good and the bad
3:03:49things about that that experience.
3:03:51>> Is there something along the lines of
3:03:53holding the tension between those two?
3:03:55Like you're wideeyed about that. You're
3:03:56like, I I continue to choose this even
3:03:58though I got this thing over here. like
3:04:00you said, deciding to get married and
3:04:02like shutting down the RAM and whatever.
3:04:04There's still though an aspect of that
3:04:06where it's like I know I'm leaving this
3:04:08all behind. Yes, it's easier dayto-day
3:04:10because I have this commitment, but
3:04:11there's still an aspect of I know
3:04:13exactly what I'm what I'm doing here,
3:04:15what I'm leaving behind, what I'm giving
3:04:17up. I think that's the real weight of
3:04:19the ethical stage is is that it's not
3:04:22again it's not that you're going to feel
3:04:23better about this because sometimes
3:04:24you're not. There's actually going to be
3:04:26a lot of tension still in the ethical
3:04:28stage.
3:04:28There will be doubt, right? There'll be
3:04:30there'll be times where you're like,
3:04:32>> "Did I make the right decision?" Like,
3:04:33"Did I [ __ ] this up?"
3:04:35>> That's part of it, right? Like if you
3:04:37didn't have that, it wouldn't be a
3:04:38commitment.
3:04:39>> Ah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's a
3:04:41that's actually a signal to like you're
3:04:43fully eyes wide open about what you've
3:04:45given up. That's actually and and you
3:04:48have some doubts around it. Yeah.
3:04:50>> Let me go through really quick. You
3:04:51know, we we talked a bit about we gave
3:04:53examples of of the aesthetic life in
3:04:55different domains, right? So, the
3:04:57aesthetic who's dating, right? They're
3:05:00constantly swiping. They're constantly
3:05:02imagining that the next person's better,
3:05:04right? They're just cycling through lots
3:05:06and lots of first and second dates. A
3:05:08person in the ethical stage, they would
3:05:09approach dating and relationships as
3:05:12like, "No, I'm going to I'm going to
3:05:14give this person I'm going to commit
3:05:16myself to this person and see where this
3:05:17goes." Right? It's it is that cutting
3:05:19off of other options. Maybe you're not
3:05:22married yet. Maybe you're not like
3:05:24imagining that you're going to die with
3:05:25this person, but like you're at least
3:05:27making the decision of like seeing where
3:05:30this goes in career. You know, the
3:05:32aesthetic person in their career, they
3:05:34are changing their career every other
3:05:36year. They are going back to school,
3:05:39taking classes every couple years.
3:05:40They're moving to Costa Rica to become a
3:05:42surf instructor because they're burnt
3:05:43out. There's always something new.
3:05:46They're chasing kind of the next the
3:05:47next novelty, the next high. an ethical
3:05:49person has chosen a line of work and
3:05:52they're like, you know what, I'm going
3:05:53to at least pursue mastery at this
3:05:56because I need to become excellent at
3:05:58something. Maybe this isn't the perfect
3:06:00thing, but I like it, so I'm going to go
3:06:04for it. And there's going to be days
3:06:05that it sucks and there's going to be
3:06:06days that I wonder like what the hell
3:06:07I'm doing, but that's part of it. So,
3:06:10let's go for it. We talked about the
3:06:12aesthetic life in terms of choosing
3:06:14where you live. You know, an aesthetic
3:06:16person is always traveling, always
3:06:18moving, always changing cities, always
3:06:21in and out of town, going back, visiting
3:06:23family, going abroad, like seeing old
3:06:26friends, coming back. The ethical life
3:06:28is a little bit more rooted, right? It's
3:06:30like, okay, I it's probably best for me
3:06:33to be here, even if I don't always love
3:06:35it. Even though the city has problems,
3:06:37even though there are things I don't
3:06:38like, it's overall this aligns with my
3:06:41values and this aligns with the other
3:06:43areas of my life. So, I'm going to like
3:06:44make a good go at it and understand that
3:06:47the trade-offs that I'm taking on.
3:06:48>> Can I just say there in in recent years
3:06:51that's probably one of the more salient
3:06:54examples of my life uh like choosing
3:06:57where to live where I live in Colorado
3:06:58now I've left twice and I've come back
3:07:00twice. Okay. And then a couple years ago
3:07:02kind of you know when we started the
3:07:03podcast you were like hey if you want to
3:07:04move out to LA I don't know if I've ever
3:07:06really talked to you about this but I've
3:07:08I struggled with that quite a bit. I
3:07:10have a really good community there.
3:07:11We've talked about this before and I
3:07:14decided that's a big part of what I
3:07:16value. The thing about that one though
3:07:18is unlike a lot of the other decisions
3:07:21in my life. That one I made pretty eyes
3:07:23wide open. I was like, I know what I'm
3:07:25giving up. I I give up facetime with
3:07:27you. Probably some money I've left some
3:07:28money on the table for sure. I know you
3:07:30have like your executive meetings out
3:07:31here that I'm not a part of. That is a
3:07:33decision I've made eyes wide open. Now
3:07:35again though, it's the commitment isn't
3:07:38a one-time thing. I've had to like re-up
3:07:41that because there are times where I'm
3:07:42like ah you know if I if I did move
3:07:46there's that doubt there's that like h I
3:07:48know what I'm leaving on the table it's
3:07:49it there's a still a pull over there at
3:07:51the end of the day though I'm like okay
3:07:53what do I what do I value and it's like
3:07:54I realized like the how lucky I am on
3:07:57the on the social side of things and
3:07:59like my friend group and my community
3:08:00that I've built there and I'm like I
3:08:02>> I'm I'm choosing that. Yeah. I feel like
3:08:04this is very much a post-pandemic
3:08:07thing for a lot of people. Like remote
3:08:08work has become so common now. Props for
3:08:11making that decision because just in my
3:08:13life, like I have so many f everywhere
3:08:16I've lived in the last 6 years, it feels
3:08:18like half of my friends leave within 3
3:08:20or 4 years because everybody's just like
3:08:23constantly finding a quote unquote
3:08:24better place to go. It's really
3:08:27complicated
3:08:29building community, building long-term
3:08:31friendships. I've been one of these
3:08:32people, too. Like I have sat with groups
3:08:34of friends and we have literally spent
3:08:36an entire afternoon just trying to
3:08:38figure out where we should live. And it
3:08:41it's it's funny because that is a quote
3:08:43unquote problem that didn't even exist a
3:08:46generation ago. Like like my parents
3:08:48never never it never occurred to them
3:08:51like should we pick up and move to
3:08:53another city with the kids. Like never
3:08:55occurred to them because my dad's
3:08:57business was always in in Austin. And
3:08:59again, there's like a freedom and luxury
3:09:02of not having to make that decision, of
3:09:04not having that optionality that I think
3:09:07our generation because we have the
3:09:09optionality, we now are blessed with the
3:09:11anxiety of always wondering if we made
3:09:14the right decision.
3:09:15>> For a lot of people, too, if you're if
3:09:16you are considering, you're like, "Oh, I
3:09:18just need a new new city, a new
3:09:20whatever." I'm like, really think about
3:09:22that one. Really really think about that
3:09:23one. If you can't be happy where you are
3:09:25outside of like if you're in like I
3:09:26don't know a war torn area or you know
3:09:28abusive uh relationship that you need to
3:09:31get away from obviously get out of that.
3:09:32Otherwise if you're just like oh I don't
3:09:34know I don't I don't like this place.
3:09:36I'm not sure about that one.
3:09:37>> One of the things that I kind of landed
3:09:39on
3:09:41with with my wife and I as we've kind of
3:09:44agonized over this question at different
3:09:45times over the last 10 years is I've
3:09:47arrived on the heruristic of like there
3:09:49needs to be a better reason than
3:09:50happiness to leave. Right? We can't just
3:09:54go because it's like, oh well, this city
3:09:55sounds better. We have more things to do
3:09:57there, right? Like it there needs to be
3:09:59something coming back to that value
3:10:01alignment, that self- concordance, like
3:10:02there needs to be something deeper and
3:10:04more aligned than just like this will be
3:10:07more fun. So because the ethical life
3:10:09like you are making commitments making
3:10:12decisions openeyed like major life
3:10:14decisions with both of your eyes open
3:10:16understanding the trade-offs that you're
3:10:18making you are choosing to eliminate
3:10:22possible lives and possible versions of
3:10:23yourself. You are also in some cases you
3:10:25are choosing to let go old versions of
3:10:28your life and old versions of yourself.
3:10:30What doesn't get talked about nearly
3:10:32enough is that there is a component of
3:10:34grief and and sadness that comes with
3:10:37this, right? Like it is losing a version
3:10:39of yourself and and accepting that like
3:10:41that version of you is never going to
3:10:42exist. It's really hard. It's like
3:10:44letting a friendship go or or letting go
3:10:47of a a place that has a lot of
3:10:49sentimental value for you. Change gets
3:10:51marketed as this kind of pep rally like
3:10:54rah rah, you're awesome. Yeah. It's it's
3:10:57it's going to be this euphoric epiphany.
3:11:00And the reality is that change often
3:11:02requires you to cut off possible
3:11:05versions of yourself that are going to
3:11:07be incredibly difficult and and painful
3:11:09to cut off. And so there is a a grieving
3:11:12process that comes with that elimination
3:11:15of a a part of yourself. And I think
3:11:17it's important for people to give
3:11:18themselves space to grieve that version
3:11:20of themselves, to grieve that life that
3:11:23they are leaving behind that they're not
3:11:25going to be able to go back to. I felt
3:11:26this a lot actually when I stopped being
3:11:28a nomad. I didn't want to go back, but
3:11:30like I still grieved
3:11:33losing that lifestyle and knowing that
3:11:35like I'm never going to be 20 and like
3:11:39traveling around Asia for the first time
3:11:40again. That experience is is gone
3:11:42forever. I'm never going to feel it
3:11:44again. And and it is sad. It is hard.
3:11:47It's hard when you put it that way. It
3:11:49is like it is hard to sit with. And so
3:11:51people avoid sitting with it. Would it
3:11:52be even sadder to keep trying to relive
3:11:55that though? I think that's maybe a
3:11:57Kirkard's point, right? About the ae and
3:12:00>> I I Yeah, I I I would say yes.
3:12:02>> Yeah, because you're you're going to
3:12:04realize that you can't relive it and
3:12:05then you just keep doing that to
3:12:06yourself over and over again.
3:12:08>> That's why Kerkugard says that the
3:12:10astute lives in despair. Even though
3:12:13they're having fun, even though they're
3:12:15partying, even though their Instagram is
3:12:17really, really sexy,
3:12:19they are living in despair. It's all
3:12:21Kasanova had left to was to write about
3:12:23the past and try to relive it. And God,
3:12:26that's sad. Yeah.
3:12:26>> What we've learned this chapter is that
3:12:28commitment delivers a sense of meaning
3:12:30and a sense of self. Even if your
3:12:33decision is not the optimal decision,
3:12:35the psychological immune system will
3:12:36kick in and it will help you sit more
3:12:39comfortably with whatever decision that
3:12:40you made. And the regret research shows
3:12:42that it is far more difficult for us to
3:12:44accept the things we didn't do more than
3:12:47the things that we did do. Now, these
3:12:49initial decisions, they kind of get that
3:12:51feedback loop kicked off, right? It's
3:12:53like, okay, I'm going to make a
3:12:54decision. I'm going to learn something
3:12:56about myself. Whatever I learn about
3:12:58myself, it's going to make it easier to
3:13:01make further decisions and further
3:13:03commitments in my life, which then is
3:13:05going to teach me more about myself, and
3:13:06then it's going to be easier, and so on.
3:13:08As you start to get deeper into this
3:13:11feedback loop, that's where your
3:13:13identity starts to take shape. you have
3:13:15cut off enough alternatives in your life
3:13:18to start to see a kind of an outline of
3:13:21who you are, what you care about, what
3:13:24you're dedicating yourself to. A big
3:13:27piece of these decisions and commitments
3:13:29is is making sure that they feel aligned
3:13:32with each other and aligned with your
3:13:33values, that they're in concordance to
3:13:36give that self
3:13:38definition. You know, we did an ego
3:13:40episode ages ago, uh, where we talked
3:13:42about that that the goal is not to
3:13:44eliminate the ego. It's to develop a
3:13:46healthy ego. And part of a healthy ego
3:13:47is a internally consistent ego, an ego
3:13:51without contradiction within it. But as
3:13:53you go, as you make deeper and deeper
3:13:55commitments in your life, you'll be
3:13:56cutting off larger and larger
3:13:58alternative selves. You'll be cutting
3:13:59off larger past selves that you'll have
3:14:02to grieve and accept that you'll never
3:14:05get to live those lives. you'll never
3:14:06get to go back and be the 25-year-old
3:14:10again. And you have to come to terms
3:14:13with that. But if the grief is real,
3:14:15that means you did something right.
3:14:17Because paradoxically, the more you make
3:14:20these commitments, the more you narrow
3:14:23your self- definitionf. The more you
3:14:25actually experience it as a liberation,
3:14:27a liberation to care about the thing
3:14:30that you actually want to be in this
3:14:32life. And Kurkagard was such a
3:14:36melancholy and emo dude. He never framed
3:14:39this around happiness or well-being.
3:14:41That's a very 20th century
3:14:44concern. He always framed it around
3:14:46finding a real self, defining a real
3:14:48self for yourself, which honestly 50
3:14:51years before Freud, like that's a pretty
3:14:53radical
3:14:54goal to set set about for yourself.
3:14:57Having that strong self- definitionf,
3:14:58having that clear path for yourself,
3:15:03having that coherent narrative of both
3:15:06your past selves and your future selves.
3:15:08This is really the basis of being a
3:15:10psychologically healthy individual,
3:15:12being being somebody who is thriving and
3:15:14flourishing and feeling as though they
3:15:16are getting the most out of life. So
3:15:18everything we've talked about in this
3:15:19chapter has been about choosing well
3:15:22exploring your options, closing doors,
3:15:25letting your psychological machinery
3:15:27kind of do its work, building an
3:15:29identity, becoming satisfied with that
3:15:30identity, learning more about who you
3:15:32are so you can make further commitments.
3:15:34Now all of that is real and it's
3:15:35important, but for Kier Kagard that
3:15:38still wasn't enough. Like there's a
3:15:40whole another level to this that these
3:15:43kind of rational
3:15:45openeyed decisions still weren't really
3:15:48approaching or getting at because
3:15:50ultimately the ethical person is they're
3:15:52still choosing even if they've made a
3:15:54commitment. They're maintaining that
3:15:56commitment. They're re-upping their
3:15:58commitment. They're doubling down. Some
3:16:01cases they're backing out of commitments
3:16:03or changing commitments.
3:16:05They're sure they walk through a door
3:16:07and shut it, but they're kind of holding
3:16:09it shut and they're not sure if they
3:16:12maybe want to open it again. Kurkagard
3:16:14argued that there is a level of
3:16:15commitment that that effort disappears.
3:16:18That necessity of doubling down and
3:16:21re-upping commitments and re-oosing
3:16:23commitments that it does eventually go
3:16:26away, but it only goes away in these
3:16:28very special circumstances. And
3:16:30Kirkagard spent pretty much the final
3:16:33years of his life trying to explain how
3:16:35this happens. And what's interesting is
3:16:37that he couldn't explain how it happens
3:16:38without talking about it in religious
3:16:41terms. So next chapter, we're going to
3:16:43get into the religious life. But real
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3:19:17Welcome back to the solve podcast. Let's
3:19:19get back into it.
3:19:25So, this episode is about commitment,
3:19:28life path, but in a lot of ways it's
3:19:30kind of doubled as a Kirakagard episode,
3:19:33which I love. I mean, I'm a big fan, but
3:19:36it's interesting because my exposure to
3:19:38Kirkagard was a little bit awkward. It
3:19:41was actually funny after Subtle Art came
3:19:43out, I remember getting an email from a
3:19:45reader asking me if I had read
3:19:48Kirkagard. And I said no, and he was
3:19:50like blown away. He was like, "You have
3:19:53to read this guy because
3:19:55you're just going to love everything
3:19:56that he says." And then I still didn't
3:19:58read him. Uh, [laughter]
3:20:01I had a book club when I lived in New
3:20:03York with a couple good friends and um,
3:20:05it was a philosophy book club. The whole
3:20:06point of the book club was to like read
3:20:08really difficult books that we wouldn't
3:20:10read otherwise if we just tried to read
3:20:12them on our own. And one month we chose
3:20:15Kirkagard's Fear and Trembling. And it
3:20:17was my first exposure to to Kirkagard.
3:20:20really all I knew about him at the time
3:20:22was that he was a really sad emo dude
3:20:24who like fumbled his girl and uh and
3:20:28that he was super Christian. Those are
3:20:30kind of like the only two facts that I
3:20:31understood. And so we we got Fear and
3:20:34Trembling and I started reading it and
3:20:36Fear and Trembling is about the Abraham
3:20:38and Isaac story from Genesis in the
3:20:41Bible. And the story for people who are
3:20:43not familiar is that very early on in
3:20:45the Bible, uh, God calls on Abraham,
3:20:49who's kind of like the father of the
3:20:52three Abrahamic religions, to take his
3:20:55favorite son, which is Isaac, to the top
3:20:58of a mountain. And once he's on top of
3:21:00the mountain, he commands Abraham to
3:21:02sacrifice his son um in the name of God.
3:21:05And this is a test because Old Testament
3:21:08God is extremely insecure and needs to
3:21:11be reassured at all times that his his
3:21:14his adherence uh love him and believe in
3:21:17him. And then Abraham is about to go
3:21:20ahead and do it. He's about to like
3:21:22plunge a knife into his his son's chest
3:21:25when God interrupts and is like JK. Uh
3:21:29just just checking making sure you're
3:21:32like my number one dude. And of course,
3:21:35I grew up
3:21:37I grew up going to church in Bible study
3:21:39and Sunday school and I went to a
3:21:41Christian high school. We had theology
3:21:44class. So I was like very familiar with
3:21:45the Abraham stories. I thought they were
3:21:48absolutely ridiculous when I was young.
3:21:50I was like this is the most insecure
3:21:53[ __ ] gaslighting narcissistic
3:21:55[ __ ] Like what a shitty god. Why
3:21:58would he do this? And so I remember when
3:21:59I opened up Kiraagard and I started
3:22:01reading and I realized that the entire
3:22:04300page book was going to be about the
3:22:06Abraham and Isaac story. Yeah.
3:22:08>> I was like, "No [ __ ] way I'm doing
3:22:11this. No way I'm doing this. This is
3:22:13awful." If I didn't have those friends
3:22:15who were going to read the book
3:22:16>> and we were going to hold each other
3:22:18accountable, I would have stopped after
3:22:20page five.
3:22:20>> Yeah. Yeah.
3:22:21>> Slowly but surely, as I got through the
3:22:24book, Kirkagard won me over. And by the
3:22:27time I was halfway through, I was like,
3:22:30"Okay, this is like some serious
3:22:32profound shit." And while Kira Kagard
3:22:35was extremely religious and very
3:22:39Christian,
3:22:41fear and trembling and the religious
3:22:44stage of life, it can be read in a way
3:22:46that is quite secular. I think all of
3:22:48these concepts apply regardless of what
3:22:51religion you are, regardless of whether
3:22:53you even believe in any religion
3:22:55because they they point to a very
3:22:59deep and powerful psychological
3:23:02mechanism within us that I think is very
3:23:06powerful and profound and and I don't
3:23:08really see it talked about anywhere
3:23:11else.
3:23:13Definitely not in psychology. So a quick
3:23:15summary of fear and trembling.
3:23:17Kirkagard's framework was written across
3:23:19two different books. There's eitheror
3:23:22which is uh explains the difference
3:23:24between the aesthetic life and the
3:23:25ethical life. And then fear and
3:23:27trembling was written later as kind of
3:23:30the third stage. It was Kurkugard's
3:23:32argument that wait there's a whole
3:23:33another level to to this to commitment
3:23:37and that the ethical life is necessary
3:23:40but it's not sufficient to live a life
3:23:42that you feel is like well defined and
3:23:44and deep and meaningful. The reason that
3:23:47he chose the Abraham and Isaac story is
3:23:49because he uses it as a as a metaphor or
3:23:53an analogy for Abraham's faith in
3:23:57something. In this case it was God. that
3:23:59basically he had a degree of faith and a
3:24:02degree of commitment to something to
3:24:05such a level that it was completely
3:24:07absurd and irrational. And in the book,
3:24:10Kierkagard calls this the virtue of the
3:24:13absurd. And the idea is that the
3:24:16strongest commitments in our lives,
3:24:18we've committed to them so
3:24:21wholeheartedly
3:24:23to such a massive extent
3:24:26that they break into irrationality like
3:24:29you can't really explain them to
3:24:31somebody else. There's no reasoning or
3:24:35justification. And it's important that
3:24:37to differentiate this from the ethical
3:24:39stage and that the ethical stage you are
3:24:41making commitments but there's still
3:24:42like a there's a costbenefit analysis
3:24:44kind of going on behind the scenes.
3:24:46There's like a there's there's a
3:24:48questioning of like does this represent
3:24:50my values? Is this really who I want to
3:24:52be for the next 10 years?
3:24:53>> Yeah.
3:24:54>> And and those are important questions.
3:24:55Like Kira Kaggard's not negating the
3:24:57importance of those questions. He's just
3:24:59pointing out that there there is a
3:25:01another level of commitment that can
3:25:04only be taken on sheer faith. That
3:25:07there's not really any sort of
3:25:08explicable
3:25:11rational justification
3:25:13for somebody wanting to do that.
3:25:16>> They're just doing it for the sake of
3:25:17doing it.
3:25:18>> Yes.
3:25:18>> Right. And and whereas like in the
3:25:20ethical life, like we said, it's the
3:25:22mechanism. It's the actual mechanism of
3:25:24continuing to choose over and over
3:25:25again. You're saying this goes beyond
3:25:28that.
3:25:29>> Yes.
3:25:29>> Okay.
3:25:30>> So, I'm gonna actually kind of explain
3:25:31this in religious terms first because
3:25:33this is how it's initially explained in
3:25:35Fear and Trembling and then I'm going to
3:25:37try to apply it to kind of secular
3:25:39commitments. So, Kirkagar's argument and
3:25:43this is a religious argument is that
3:25:45blind faith in something is not faith.
3:25:47Right? Just kind of assuming something
3:25:50like just believing something because
3:25:52that's what your parents told you to
3:25:53believe. That's not faith. That's just
3:25:56living unconsciously. That's another
3:25:57form of the aesthetic life. Real faith
3:26:00is recognizing the absurdity, the
3:26:03irrationality, the complete
3:26:04impossibility of proving whether
3:26:06something's true or not and then still
3:26:08choosing to believe in spite of all of
3:26:10those things. Like that is what faith
3:26:13actually is. You had Arthur Brooks on
3:26:15the old podcast. He came on and he's
3:26:17religious. He's he's a devout Catholic.
3:26:20uh and you had a discussion with him
3:26:22about this and he called it the childish
3:26:24version of religion and faith which is
3:26:26just yeah just believe and don't
3:26:28question it and he said actually the
3:26:29much more durable much more uh kind of
3:26:33rock solid version of it is doubting and
3:26:36continuing to uh choose it anyway
3:26:38there's that's relig that to him that
3:26:40was a religious belief anyway
3:26:41>> just growing up in the church I think
3:26:43there you do see that more mature
3:26:45version of faith show up in in places
3:26:47like I I have vague recollections of
3:26:49certain people in my church is kind of
3:26:50talking about that that like you're
3:26:52supposed to doubt. That's what makes it
3:26:53faith. Uh if you don't doubt, that's not
3:26:56faith. That's just blind, you know, kind
3:26:58of stupidity. That doubt is actually
3:27:00part of the process. Um and it is part
3:27:03of what makes it so powerful and
3:27:04meaningful is like knowing that this
3:27:06makes no sense, but you're going to live
3:27:07by it anyway. Now, how to apply this to
3:27:10secular life? For me, the most kind of
3:27:12the clearest example of this that I can
3:27:14give is is back when I was in music
3:27:16school. It was very interesting because
3:27:18if you're going to go into music, and
3:27:20this this applies to any of the arts,
3:27:22right? Acting, art, whatever it is, it
3:27:26is so overwhelmingly likely that you are
3:27:30not going to make a full-time living
3:27:34doing that that it is something you have
3:27:36to really wrestle with. And I remember
3:27:37it was something I really wrestled with
3:27:39in music school and and most of my my
3:27:42fellow students wrestled. I mean, we
3:27:44would talk about it. We would kind of
3:27:46joke about it. Um there was a a joke
3:27:48that went around music school quite a
3:27:50bit, which is uh what's the difference
3:27:52between a professional musician and a
3:27:53pizza man? A pizza man can feed a family
3:27:56of four.
3:27:58[laughter]
3:28:00>> Okay. Okay. Uh so there's like a very
3:28:03intense awareness and coming back to it
3:28:06being an ethical commitment versus a
3:28:08religious commitment.
3:28:10>> I think music for me was very much an
3:28:11ethical commitment. It was something
3:28:13that I I enjoyed very deeply. I was very
3:28:17passionate about it. Um I got a lot of
3:28:20social validation from it, a lot of
3:28:22satisfaction from practicing and
3:28:24becoming better. But ultimately it was a
3:28:26costbenefit analysis in my life. And
3:28:29once I started hitting that dip and the
3:28:31dip in the arts is like very long and
3:28:34brutal, it made me start questioning why
3:28:37am I here? Am I going to make it? I'm
3:28:40not as good as that guy or that guy.
3:28:41Like there's only so many jobs, right?
3:28:44And so I dropped out. And most people do
3:28:46drop out. In fact, the the music school
3:28:48that I went to, the dropout rate, I
3:28:50believe, was like 87%. Something like
3:28:52that. I
3:28:52>> was going to say 90% probably. It's
3:28:55staggeringly high.
3:28:57So, I've kind of kept tabs on some of my
3:28:59classmates and and a few of them have
3:29:01made it and a few of them have developed
3:29:03careers in music, but you wouldn't from
3:29:05the outside, you wouldn't necessarily
3:29:06call them like successful, right? It's
3:29:08kind of your your wedding band musician,
3:29:10your high school music teacher, that
3:29:12sort of thing. Looking back, I think the
3:29:14thing that was really apparent is that
3:29:16the people who were going to make it in
3:29:18music felt like there was nothing they
3:29:20could do other than music. When I think
3:29:22about the people who did end up making
3:29:24it in the music industry,
3:29:26>> they were never the people in music
3:29:28school sitting around joking about a
3:29:30pizza man, you know, asking themselves
3:29:32like, is this going to go anywhere?
3:29:34>> It was unfathomable to them to do
3:29:37anything else. They couldn't imagine
3:29:38themselves
3:29:39>> whether it went somewhere or not,
3:29:40>> right?
3:29:41>> Right. Broke, rich, happy, sad,
3:29:44successful, unsuccessful, anonymous,
3:29:47famous. Like, I don't think it any of
3:29:49that registered with them whatsoever.
3:29:51They were just like, "This is what I do.
3:29:53I can't imagine not playing my
3:29:55instrument eight hours a day,
3:29:58so I'm going to play my my instrument
3:29:59eight hours a day." I remember we had a
3:30:01conversation in the office once. Steph,
3:30:04who works on the podcast, went to acting
3:30:06school, and she was saying the same
3:30:07thing about a lot of the the acting
3:30:09students there. You see this in
3:30:10entrepreneurship. There's a a famous
3:30:12line uh where Elon Musk was like giving
3:30:16a talk somewhere and there was a Q&A
3:30:18with the audience and somebody stood up
3:30:19in the audience and said asked Elon they
3:30:21said what words of encouragement would
3:30:23you get give to aspiring entrepreneurs
3:30:26and he said I would give none because if
3:30:28you need encouragement you shouldn't be
3:30:29an entrepreneur there's kind of this
3:30:31sense that entrepreneurship
3:30:34you don't choose to be an entrepreneur
3:30:36you are chosen by entrepreneurship like
3:30:39it is baked into you and you don't
3:30:42really feel like you have a choice but
3:30:44to do it.
3:30:44>> Yeah. Mark Andre makes that point too.
3:30:46Andre Horwit's famous, you know, venture
3:30:48capital firm. He says the the the people
3:30:51they look for when they're getting
3:30:52pitched is he can just tell at this
3:30:54point too. He's got so much um
3:30:56experience with this. You can tell it's
3:30:58these people, they can't do anything but
3:30:59this, right?
3:31:00>> They can't not be an entrepreneur. If
3:31:02like if they're not going to do this
3:31:03thing that they're presenting to me
3:31:04right in front of it, they're going to
3:31:05go find something else to do it no
3:31:06matter what. Yeah. But he says you can
3:31:08tell the people who come in and they're
3:31:09like I came up with this idea and I
3:31:11think it's a good idea and we're gonna
3:31:12make a bunch of money and yeah
3:31:14>> he's like you can tell.
3:31:15>> So purpose um you know my my AI app my
3:31:19co-founder Raj I remember when we were
3:31:21having lunch meetings early on to like
3:31:23decide if we were going to start the the
3:31:24company or not. So Raj is like a serial
3:31:28founder entrepreneur. He's had a number
3:31:30of successful businesses, a number of
3:31:31exits, and he was kind of approaching
3:31:34the conversation as if like, okay, this
3:31:36is my next business. We'll probably exit
3:31:38or sell it or I'll step out or whatever.
3:31:41We'll hire a CEO. And he was doing the
3:31:44responsible thing that every every
3:31:46co-founder pair, every group of
3:31:48co-founders should do, which is like
3:31:50talk about exit strategy. So, I remember
3:31:51we were sitting at lunch and he was
3:31:52like, "Well, let's talk about exit
3:31:54strategy." like what what is your like
3:31:56desired endgame for this for this
3:31:58business? And I like I looked at him. I
3:32:00was like, what do you mean? And he said
3:32:01like, well, where do you want this to
3:32:04end up? Like, do you want to exit 3
3:32:06years, 5 years, 10 years? Like, do you
3:32:07want it to be cash flow? Do you want to
3:32:09like outsource, you know, hire managers?
3:32:12And I just looked at him. I was like,
3:32:14dude, I'm going to die in this industry.
3:32:15So, I don't really care. like if you
3:32:19want to do something like if you want to
3:32:20get out after five years like we can
3:32:21figure that out but
3:32:24I'm in this for life. It's funny because
3:32:26he later told me he said one of the
3:32:28biggest reasons he decided to go into
3:32:30business with me is because of that
3:32:31answer. But it's something it's true.
3:32:33It's something I feel like very deep
3:32:35down at this point which is that I don't
3:32:39have a choice. Like this is
3:32:41>> this is my life. Like this is what we're
3:32:43doing right now. like this is my life's
3:32:45work and it always will be and I'm going
3:32:49to do this till I'm dead. There's a
3:32:51certain amount of peace that comes with
3:32:53that um with that certainty. There is an
3:32:57irrationality about it, right? like you
3:32:58could easily sit here and make all sorts
3:33:00of arguments of like well Mark you could
3:33:02you know go start multimedia company you
3:33:05could become a serial founder you could
3:33:06go into like venture capital you could
3:33:08like there's a lot of things that I
3:33:10could do and there was a period where I
3:33:13thought a lot about that and I worried a
3:33:15lot about that and I would say about
3:33:17like three or four years ago I I kind of
3:33:21arrived at this conclusion of like for
3:33:23whatever reason call it the universe
3:33:26call it God call it faith call it
3:33:28chance.
3:33:30I was put in this situation with this
3:33:33incredible opportunity and privilege of
3:33:35like
3:33:37speaking to millions of people, being
3:33:39listened to by millions of people. Uh I
3:33:42have a certain set of talents and
3:33:44abilities. Like it chose me, right? Like
3:33:46at a certain point it's like I didn't
3:33:48choose this anymore. This is just this
3:33:50is just who I am and this is what I'm
3:33:53destined to do. At that point it just
3:33:55becomes faith. like it's like there's an
3:33:58absurdity to it, I guess you could say.
3:34:00>> You know, you kind of mentioned this
3:34:01before, I guess, too, though, that
3:34:04>> uh you you kind of had to come to this
3:34:07though. It wasn't you didn't have this
3:34:09lightning bolt necessarily moment. Um or
3:34:12maybe you did at some point, but it at
3:34:14first it was music that and I think you
3:34:15held on to that even for a while.
3:34:17>> Yeah.
3:34:18>> Uh beyond even getting out of music
3:34:20school and everything, right?
3:34:21>> Yeah. Well, it's funny because initially
3:34:23when I started my online businesses
3:34:26>> Yeah.
3:34:26>> the idea was,
3:34:28>> oh, if I can make some money on the
3:34:29internet, then I'll have the financial
3:34:31security to go do the music
3:34:32>> time and Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
3:34:34>> So, it was it was completely like a
3:34:36horse trade, right? It was like I didn't
3:34:39>> all this online [ __ ] It was totally a
3:34:41means to an end.
3:34:43>> Uh, but as I got deeper into it, a I
3:34:46realized how [ __ ] hard it is. Like
3:34:48there is like nothing.
3:34:50>> Yeah.
3:34:51>> It takes a lot of time and effort.
3:34:53>> A lot of time. A lot of effort. A lot of
3:34:55skill building. A lot of like
3:34:57understanding. So many subs skills in
3:34:59and in different like areas of study.
3:35:01And then of course the more I did it,
3:35:03the more I liked it and the better I
3:35:05got.
3:35:05>> And then of course you reach this
3:35:06inflection point of like, okay, this is
3:35:08actually the thing I'm best at.
3:35:10>> And so it would be kind of stupid to
3:35:11like go and do music now. The success of
3:35:14the books like really kind of reignited
3:35:16this. like I, you know, I did the books
3:35:17in the late 2010s,
3:35:20bunch of money came in, I kind of burnt
3:35:22myself out. And so I was sitting in a
3:35:24position where I'm like, okay, I'm like,
3:35:26I can do whatever I want. I'm like I'm
3:35:28not I'm not even 40 yet. Got a ton of
3:35:31money in the bank.
3:35:33I' I've got infinite opportunities in
3:35:35front of me, right? Like what do I want
3:35:37to do? And it was funny because it was
3:35:39it felt like anything I started kind of
3:35:43playing with or leaning into it almost
3:35:46felt irresponsible. I don't think I
3:35:48really appreciated
3:35:50how
3:35:52special
3:35:54this situation we have is until like
3:35:58three or four years ago, right? Like how
3:36:00many people are ever put in a situation
3:36:04where millions of other people will
3:36:05listen to them
3:36:06>> and trust them. Mhm. Like that is such
3:36:08an honor and such a such a privilege to
3:36:12to have. So I started feeling a lot of
3:36:14responsibility
3:36:16towards owning that. And I think it's
3:36:18like that that responsibility piece like
3:36:20that's when it starts to feel like I'm
3:36:22not choosing it anymore. Like I'm being
3:36:24chosen by it. And then yeah around the
3:36:26same time I came to the realization of
3:36:28like this is just I'm gonna do this till
3:36:30I'm dead. and and that was freeing in
3:36:35the same way like getting engaged was
3:36:37freeing.
3:36:38>> Yeah. It's funny though like you went
3:36:39through the the relationship thing and
3:36:41getting married first and then the
3:36:43career thing even though the career you
3:36:45started that first and yeah the timing
3:36:47of that is kind of interesting to me. I
3:36:48don't know. I don't know.
3:36:49>> There's two points that Kirkagard makes
3:36:51about
3:36:53this level of commitment that
3:36:55differentiates it from the ethical
3:36:57commitment. One is the irrationality,
3:36:59right? The absurdity of it. Kirk Kaggard
3:37:01calls this the leap of faith. This is
3:37:02actually where the term leap of faith
3:37:04comes from is that you he he compared it
3:37:07to like um you know jumping off a cliff
3:37:09and just trusting that something's going
3:37:11to catch you even though that you have
3:37:13no evidence that anything is going to
3:37:14catch you like it takes that degree of
3:37:17faith and belief um to achieve this kind
3:37:20of level of commitment. The second thing
3:37:23that he talks about is he called it
3:37:26infinite res resignation which is that
3:37:29you have to be willing to commit to the
3:37:31thing
3:37:33knowing full well that it may not work.
3:37:37It may not go the way you want it to. It
3:37:39may fail absolutely miserably. And this
3:37:43is kind of the music school thing,
3:37:44right? It's like the people who can't
3:37:46not play music all day, right? like they
3:37:49totally understand that they might be
3:37:51end up teaching a bunch of fifth
3:37:52graders, you know, band in in some small
3:37:56town in Texas or whatever, but it's like
3:37:58they're okay with it. They're like, this
3:38:00is just what I do, right? So, the
3:38:02ethical is still kind of bargaining in a
3:38:04lot of ways. It's like, am I really
3:38:06going to get everything I want out of
3:38:08this? Is this really going to represent
3:38:09who I am? Whereas the the religious is
3:38:13like you feel like you have no choice,
3:38:14which is ironic because you kind of
3:38:17arrive back where you started. The
3:38:19aesthetic feels like they have no
3:38:20choice, but it's because they refuse to
3:38:22choose. They're afraid of choosing.
3:38:24There's an anxiety of choosing. The
3:38:26ethical has trained themselves to choose
3:38:29and has gotten good at choosing, but
3:38:32they're still evaluating every choice in
3:38:35terms of cost benefit and who they want
3:38:37to be. Once you get to religious, it's
3:38:39you found yourself in a commitment that
3:38:41like you are so deeply embedded in your
3:38:43your identity is so merged and imshed
3:38:46with that it no longer feels like a
3:38:49choice.
3:38:50>> Yeah.
3:38:50>> It just feels like who you are.
3:38:51>> It does remind me a little bit of that
3:38:53Bukowski quote when John Martin went to
3:38:56him with this measly deal like if you
3:38:58don't want to write I'll give you a few
3:39:00hundred bucks a month or whatever it was
3:39:01to live. And Bukowski wrote in his
3:39:04journal, I think it was, you know, I I
3:39:06have the choice. I can stay at the post
3:39:07office where he was working and be
3:39:09miserable the rest of my life or I can
3:39:11come out here and play it right or
3:39:12starve.
3:39:13>> Yeah.
3:39:13>> And I've chosen to starve.
3:39:14>> Yeah.
3:39:15>> Like
3:39:16>> that's like a religious level of
3:39:19dedication that he took. And he he just
3:39:20he understood. He's like, you know what,
3:39:23might not work out. I might starve
3:39:24literally.
3:39:25>> Yeah.
3:39:26>> Whatever.
3:39:26>> Which he has one of my favorite lines
3:39:29ever. I know it's one of your favorite
3:39:30lines, too. uh which is perfectly
3:39:33appropriate for this which he said find
3:39:35what you love and let it kill you.
3:39:36That's the level of that we're talking
3:39:39right. It's it's almost like choosing
3:39:42the vehicle towards your own death. You
3:39:44know, you you have to give your time to
3:39:46something. Like Sart would put it in
3:39:48these terms. He he would say you have to
3:39:50spend your time on something in every
3:39:52moment you are already sacrificing. The
3:39:54only question is what are you choosing
3:39:56to sacrifice for?
3:39:58And the religious level of commitment is
3:40:01is once you have found that thing in
3:40:03your life that you are willing to
3:40:05literally give your entire life to.
3:40:08I will give all of my time to this thing
3:40:11because why? Just because.
3:40:13>> Yeah. Yeah.
3:40:14>> That's just who I am.
3:40:14>> I saw a uh interview with um Mick Jagger
3:40:17recently um and you know he's he's
3:40:20getting old.
3:40:21>> Yeah. So he was doing a lot of
3:40:22reflection back on his life and he said
3:40:24you know people in this industry you
3:40:26have to have a big ego. he said
3:40:28>> um to be in this industry. I actually
3:40:30think what he meant though was this
3:40:31blinding faith in yourself
3:40:34>> or just in the fact that you're like
3:40:36this is what I'm here to do screw
3:40:38everybody else. He called it a big ego
3:40:39but I'm not sure if that's exactly what
3:40:40he meant about it. I think anytime you
3:40:44enter an industry like that, like you
3:40:46have to be delusional about yourself
3:40:49>> or you just have to not care. Yeah. Like
3:40:51genuinely not care like Bukowski, right?
3:40:53And it's funny because I think with
3:40:54music, a I did not have that ego. I did
3:40:57not have a delusional belief in my own
3:40:58abilities.
3:41:00>> Uh and B, I did care. I was like, I
3:41:02don't want to, dude, I don't want to be
3:41:03[ __ ] broke and, you know, playing
3:41:07dive bars when I'm 45. Like that sounds
3:41:09awful. I would rather have a real career
3:41:11and a real job. Whereas I think a lot of
3:41:13people in music like they're fine with
3:41:14that. Yeah. They're totally fine with
3:41:15that. Whereas with writing, I didn't
3:41:17care. I was like, "Cool. I mean, this is
3:41:19fun. I'll publish a bunch of stuff and
3:41:21it we'll see what happens."
3:41:23>> Yeah.
3:41:23>> Yeah.
3:41:23>> Yeah. And if we do want to explain kind
3:41:26of this from a secular way of instead of
3:41:29religious way, there's a lot of research
3:41:31around like having a a calling and a
3:41:33vocation, right? like finding your
3:41:35calling and finding your vocation or or
3:41:37at least choosing that I guess is
3:41:39probably a better term for it. There
3:41:41were these two researchers back in the
3:41:422000s, Dick and Duffy. They kind of did
3:41:44a lot of these uh initial studies around
3:41:46it.
3:41:46>> Dick and Duffy.
3:41:47>> Dick and Duffy.
3:41:49>> Shout out to Dick and Duffy. [laughter]
3:41:51>> 2009 maybe.
3:41:52>> What a researching duo. Man,
3:41:54>> they they define a calling as it's like
3:41:56this.
3:41:57>> They use a little bit of religious
3:41:59language. A transcendent summons towards
3:42:01purposeful work. Okay. So, it is that
3:42:04it's you're called towards it. Like you
3:42:06said, you're chosen by it almost. Is
3:42:07these people who have what they think of
3:42:09as a calling. Again, they feel like
3:42:11they're chosen by it. And it it's
3:42:14associated with a greater sense of
3:42:15self-concept, clarity. Like we've talked
3:42:17about, you have a more defined self
3:42:18around this higher well-being,
3:42:20professional commitment around it, life
3:42:21satisfaction, you're more persistent and
3:42:23resilient. Like all of those things come
3:42:25along with it, right? Just searching for
3:42:27it isn't enough obviously. And that's
3:42:29another thing they say, you know, there
3:42:30there's a lot of people who out there
3:42:32who do they search for the calling. Um
3:42:34just searching for it isn't enough. You
3:42:36do actually end up having to commit.
3:42:38You're like, well, okay, what if you
3:42:39don't have a calling in the first place,
3:42:41right? Then how are you supposed to if
3:42:43it chooses you and you can't find it?
3:42:46Really, what I I think I don't I don't
3:42:48think that the research really
3:42:49specifically says this, but if I'm
3:42:50reading between the lines, there is some
3:42:52degree of commit first.
3:42:54>> Yeah.
3:42:54>> And then you kind of develop the calling
3:42:56around it. very much what your story is
3:42:58telling too I think
3:42:59>> right
3:43:00>> um is that
3:43:01>> at a certain point I think you do feel
3:43:03like oh this is what I was put here for
3:43:06>> we're talking a lot about you know
3:43:07creative pursuits and this is people
3:43:09think of these things uh when they think
3:43:11of callings you know oh I want to be a
3:43:13writer or a musician or an artist of
3:43:15some kind or you know something that's
3:43:17creative in some way shape or form right
3:43:20I I had somebody come in and work on my
3:43:21furnace one time this guy he was an HVAC
3:43:24guy okay and He comes in and immediately
3:43:28I could just tell this guy was super
3:43:31super in to heating and air
3:43:33conditioning. Okay. I mean, I get to
3:43:36talking to the guy this guy and I'm like
3:43:37kind of just watching him and he just
3:43:39starts explaining things to me like he's
3:43:40teaching me right
3:43:42>> in that moment
3:43:43>> and I didn't ask him at all.
3:43:44>> Yeah.
3:43:45>> And then he I he just sits here and he
3:43:46starts talking to me about Hback stuff.
3:43:48Yeah.
3:43:48>> And I could just immediately tell him
3:43:49like this guy is super into what he does
3:43:51and then I I just start talking with him
3:43:53and I'm like how did you get into this
3:43:54and this and that? He's like, "Oh, I've
3:43:55just kind of always been interested in
3:43:56it and I really keep up on it. I go to
3:43:58classes on the weekends almost every
3:43:59weekend on HVAC." And I'm like, "Hold
3:44:00on. You spend your 9 to5 Monday through
3:44:03Friday
3:44:04>> doing this and then you go on the
3:44:05weekends and you keep doing this." I
3:44:08don't think it has to be these like pie
3:44:09in the sky, you know, pursuits that we
3:44:12have. If you have one of those, that's
3:44:13great. Don't get me wrong. But like I
3:44:14have an immense amount of respect and
3:44:16like admiration for that guy for finding
3:44:18what it was. And I think a lot of us see
3:44:19that in our lives, right? you see
3:44:21somebody out there who's like they're
3:44:23they love being a teacher or they love
3:44:25whatever it is, sewing, I don't know,
3:44:28you know, own a small business that
3:44:29makes a little bit of money for them and
3:44:30they're able to live that way, but
3:44:31they're super super into it and they're
3:44:33like, "This is what I'm here for." Um, I
3:44:35worked with I worked at a a bakery one
3:44:37time in a in a mall and one of the we
3:44:40got a new manager and she was so like
3:44:41her passion was decorating cakes and
3:44:43cookies like so far like she was like,
3:44:46"This is what I'm here to do."
3:44:47>> Just obsessed with it.
3:44:48>> Obsessed with it. Yeah.
3:44:53>> Again, it goes back to that like when
3:44:54you commit to something that like
3:44:56selfcoesales around it. And I think we
3:44:59have a lot of admiration and and respect
3:45:01for those people too. It doesn't have to
3:45:03be something wild and crazy at all.
3:45:05>> Absolutely. It reminds me there was a
3:45:07story uh in Cal Newport's book so good
3:45:09they can't ignore you which by the way
3:45:11great book around this because he he
3:45:13makes the point in that book that you
3:45:16don't find a a vocation that you're
3:45:19passionate about. What generally happens
3:45:21to most people is they find something
3:45:23that they have a talent for or they have
3:45:24a knack at. They get really good at it
3:45:27and it's that process of mastery that
3:45:30generates the passion and the sense of
3:45:33purpose around it. And so I remember in
3:45:35that book he uses the the example of
3:45:37there was a secretary at the university
3:45:39that he works at and he talked to her
3:45:41and she was like absolutely believed
3:45:44fullheartedly that being a secretary at
3:45:47a university was her life's calling that
3:45:49that was like why she was put on earth
3:45:52and he asked her like why she felt that
3:45:54way and she was like oh I'm like the
3:45:55connective tissue between so many
3:45:57departments and I'm like I I'm like the
3:46:00machinery in between all the different
3:46:01cogs and if I wasn't here then like
3:46:03there's so many important people that
3:46:05make very important decisions for tens
3:46:07of thousands of students like they
3:46:08wouldn't be able to make their decisions
3:46:09if I wasn't here handling these
3:46:11administrative tasks for them and like
3:46:13she felt that an extreme amount of
3:46:15purpose and and significance around a
3:46:19job that I think you know most young
3:46:21people wouldn't even look at twice. So
3:46:23there's a piece here we talked about
3:46:24this in the purpose episode but like
3:46:27there's a component here of feeling that
3:46:29there's there you have something to
3:46:31give. Um, and then I think there's also
3:46:33a component of of kind of natural
3:46:36talent, natural ability or something
3:46:37that is you are uniquely suited to do
3:46:40that most other people are not. There's
3:46:42a point I think we'll make this here in
3:46:43a little bit as well too, but can't just
3:46:45jump right into this as well. You kind
3:46:47of have to go through that ethical exper
3:46:49exploration that we talked about. You
3:46:51know, there's this research out there um
3:46:53back in the 2000s as well. Duffy was a
3:46:55part of this as well where like college
3:46:57students who like they sense they have
3:46:59they're like I I know I have a purpose.
3:47:01that just haven't found it yet.
3:47:02>> They were actually more undecided and
3:47:05less clear about kind of their
3:47:08vocational identity, about their
3:47:09identities really than people who were
3:47:11just weren't searching at all.
3:47:12Interesting. So, it was like they kind
3:47:13of they had that that open loop, all
3:47:15those open doors, but they hadn't
3:47:17committed to anything yet. So, it's kind
3:47:19of like this evidence that you have to
3:47:20you really do have to go through this
3:47:22stage and this exploration and this
3:47:24conscious choosing before you can really
3:47:26get to that more religious stage, I
3:47:28think.
3:47:29>> Okay. There's something really
3:47:30interesting about that because
3:47:32anecdotally,
3:47:33>> yeah,
3:47:34>> the most aesthetic people I know are
3:47:38always talking about their [ __ ]
3:47:39calling and their [ __ ] purpose. Like
3:47:41when I think about the most
3:47:43non-committal,
3:47:45impulsive, self-indulgent people I know,
3:47:49they're always justifying their behavior
3:47:50is like, "Oh, I just feel like this is
3:47:52this is part of my calling. This is my
3:47:54purpose as I'm supposed to
3:47:56>> I'm exploring this area." and meanwhile
3:47:58they're just they're just jumping from
3:48:00one thing to the next because they think
3:48:02the next thing is their calling. It's
3:48:04it's really interesting. Whereas like
3:48:05the people who are actually making
3:48:07commitments, they're just being very
3:48:09practical about it. They're like this,
3:48:11you know, I need to
3:48:13>> set roots somewhere. I need to
3:48:16find my lane, get really good at it,
3:48:18>> and they don't have to question who they
3:48:19are at that point.
3:48:20>> Right. Right. And then the calling
3:48:21emerges as a side effect of of that.
3:48:24Like I don't think there's an aesthetic
3:48:26person out there who like suddenly shows
3:48:29up in Costa Rica and is like, "Oh yeah,
3:48:30I was meant to be a surfer in in Costa
3:48:33Rica for the rest of my life." Like I
3:48:34don't think that ever happens.
3:48:36>> No. Again, the commitment isn't a
3:48:37one-time thing, right? It's a it's a
3:48:38mechanism,
3:48:39>> right? And it's a it's also there's a
3:48:41skill aspect.
3:48:42>> A skill to a skill you build. Yeah.
3:48:43>> Yeah. Like it is you have to develop the
3:48:46the skill set of cutting off
3:48:48alternatives. Get good at that.
3:48:51That process of cutting out alternatives
3:48:54slowly winnows down
3:48:57what you find worth doing with your life
3:48:59and then eventually you arrive on one,
3:49:02two, three things that you're like, "Oh,
3:49:04this is what I was here for." And it's
3:49:05that what I was here for is that is not
3:49:08like necessarily cosmically true. It is
3:49:10that's the feeling.
3:49:11>> That's what it feels like.
3:49:13>> It feels like it feels inevitable,
3:49:15right? It feels like you couldn't decide
3:49:17otherwise if even if you wanted to. Like
3:49:19at this point, like I feel like even if
3:49:21I wanted to go get a different job, I
3:49:25don't feel like I can't. Like it just
3:49:27it's so nonsensical to me at this point
3:49:31of like why why would I ever do that?
3:49:34>> Right. But you have all this evidence
3:49:35from before of making all those
3:49:37commitments and decisions and that's why
3:49:38you've come to that realization again.
3:49:41It's it's not oh it just dawned on me
3:49:43one day.
3:49:44>> Correct.
3:49:44>> It was a very it was a it was a process.
3:49:47It's like a multi-deade process,
3:49:48>> right? A lot of fits and starts and
3:49:50>> yeah,
3:49:51>> you know, we talked about constraints
3:49:52with Dan Gilbert's research. I do think
3:49:54there is something about
3:49:58kind of psychologically priming
3:50:00ourselves for some of these commitments.
3:50:02I think you can kind of construct your
3:50:04environment and situation in such a way
3:50:06that you you make these things more
3:50:07likely than not. I'll give you an
3:50:09example like Steven Presfield who we're
3:50:13both fans of and a friend of mine.
3:50:16>> He has this concept that's called going
3:50:18pro and it's it's it's a book any
3:50:22aspiring creative person like definitely
3:50:24recommend uh reading that reading going
3:50:28pro and then also reading the the war of
3:50:30art. I think they're both must readads
3:50:31for anybody who wants to be uh in a
3:50:33creative field. But his his concept of
3:50:36going pro is basically like people who
3:50:38aspire to to have a creative career,
3:50:41they tend to kind of waffle around and
3:50:43wait for inspiration and kind of wait
3:50:45for the world to recognize their genius
3:50:47and um and find like the right moment or
3:50:50the right thing to do. And what he
3:50:52points out is that he said you should
3:50:54just start treating yourself as a
3:50:56professional before you're a
3:50:57professional, right? So ask yourself
3:50:59like if I was a professional musician,
3:51:02what would my day be like? Well, I would
3:51:04probably wake up and I would have a
3:51:06whole practice regimen and in a
3:51:08rehearsal schedule and I would probably
3:51:11study theory at the same time every day
3:51:14and I would probably do like vocal
3:51:16lessons at the same time every day. Like
3:51:17I you would be extremely regimented with
3:51:19your schedule and your timing and you
3:51:21would you would treat it like a job uh
3:51:24in a way that I definitely never did
3:51:27when I was in music school and I think
3:51:28most creative people never do. And what
3:51:31Presfield recognized is that if you get
3:51:35people to act as though they've already
3:51:38made the commitment, then the commitment
3:51:40kind of follows suit. It's like what you
3:51:42said earlier. It's like the the the
3:51:44action. You don't commit to something by
3:51:47thinking about it. You act first and
3:51:48then your brain catches up later to
3:51:51justify it. Right. And so what Presfield
3:51:53is doing is he's basically giving people
3:51:55permission of like, okay, if you think
3:51:56you want to be a writer,
3:51:59set up a corner of your your apartment
3:52:01to be your writing studio, set up a
3:52:04schedule every week, write for four
3:52:06hours a day, show up, have your favorite
3:52:08pens, have your favorite paper, um
3:52:11download the the writing software that
3:52:12you would use, and then like play at
3:52:14Writer for a certain amount of time to
3:52:17see if it actually sticks. Um, I saw a
3:52:20video on YouTube where a guy was talking
3:52:22about he was like, you know, there are a
3:52:24lot of people who
3:52:27want the results of an athlete, but
3:52:29they're not willing to actually like
3:52:31live like an athlete. If you want elite
3:52:34fitness, then you have to live your life
3:52:36the way an athlete lives their life,
3:52:38right? It's every meal is planned weeks
3:52:40weeks in advance. Every training session
3:52:42is planned weeks in advance. You don't
3:52:45miss a day. You don't miss recovery.
3:52:47He's like, "People want to just kind of
3:52:48wander into a gym and work out really
3:52:50hard for an hour and be like, man, I
3:52:52wish I was like an athlete. Like, I wish
3:52:54I had a six-pack and was like fast, you
3:52:58know, like the guy was just explaining,
3:52:59he's like, it doesn't work that way,
3:53:01right? Like you have to there's you make
3:53:03the commitment first and then the the
3:53:05results follow. Does that make sense?"
3:53:07>> Absolutely. Uh the one of my favorite
3:53:10quotes too is from uh Chuck Close. He
3:53:12was a he's a portrait artist. He does
3:53:14these huge like mosaic portraits. Um and
3:53:17he was also disabled, but um he has this
3:53:20quote. He said, "Inspiration is for
3:53:21amateurs. The rest of us show up and get
3:53:23to work."
3:53:24>> Yeah.
3:53:25>> He said that all of his inspiration, all
3:53:27of the good ideas he ever had, all of
3:53:30the the commitments he ever made came
3:53:32through the work itself.
3:53:33>> Mhm.
3:53:33>> You know, he he sat down and you would
3:53:35get to work first. Yeah.
3:53:36>> And then you'll find the inspiration.
3:53:38Then you'll find the purpose. Then
3:53:39you'll find the reason and the
3:53:40commitment behind that.
3:53:42>> So yeah, that makes that makes a ton of
3:53:44sense. Like like Michael Phelps too. I
3:53:47remember him. I think he didn't miss a
3:53:49workout day for I can't remember how
3:53:51many years. Wow.
3:53:52>> Every single day for like I think it was
3:53:54like three years or more. It might have
3:53:56been more than that. I can't remember.
3:53:57Did not miss a single workout, you know.
3:53:58And everybody's like, "Oh, you know, but
3:54:00he's got these like huge limbs and he's
3:54:01like a freak of nature." It's like,
3:54:02"Yeah, he's a freak of nature cuz he
3:54:03showed up every single day
3:54:05>> even though he wasn't inspired to do
3:54:06that."
3:54:07>> Yeah.
3:54:07>> That's that's a level of religiosity if
3:54:09you want to talk about
3:54:11>> uh that. You know,
3:54:12>> I think you just made a really
3:54:13interesting connection there and that
3:54:15like once you take a commitment to a
3:54:17certain degree
3:54:20people use that term that like it's like
3:54:22they got religious about it, right? Like
3:54:23it's it's if somebody works out every
3:54:26single day for say seven years straight,
3:54:30you would describe that in religious
3:54:31terms. They are treating their workouts
3:54:34the way some people treat church, some
3:54:37people treat prayer. Like I imagine a
3:54:39lot of people I I was initially turned
3:54:42off by Kirkagard's kind of religious
3:54:44language around this. The more you sit
3:54:46with it and the more you dig into it,
3:54:48the more it actually starts making sense
3:54:50that it that it's like the same
3:54:52mechanisms in our brain that are kind of
3:54:53responsible for religious faith and
3:54:55religious belief are also responsible
3:54:58for the deepest most profound
3:55:00commitments of our life.
3:55:01>> Yeah. Yeah. We just have religious
3:55:02brains kind of. Yeah.
3:55:04>> Mhm. You know, we've talked about other
3:55:05areas of life too and we're really
3:55:06focusing on career paths or, you know,
3:55:08callings, whatever. There's other areas
3:55:11though you can apply this as well. You
3:55:12know, marriage being one of those is
3:55:13like that's a leap of faith, right? You
3:55:16don't know what that person's going to
3:55:17be like in 30 years, 50 years, 60 years.
3:55:19Yeah. That's a leap of faith, right?
3:55:21Maybe even the city you live in could be
3:55:22too. And you know, there's some people
3:55:24you you see this a lot with like New
3:55:26Yorkers, right? They're like, I I can't
3:55:27imagine living anywhere else. Some
3:55:29people were born there or moved there or
3:55:31whatever, and they're like, this city is
3:55:32part of me. I'm part of the city.
3:55:34>> Yeah,
3:55:34>> there's kind of a religious level of
3:55:35commitment there, too. With that,
3:55:37>> I I've actually got a great story around
3:55:38this. So, when I was when I wanted to
3:55:41propose to my my wife,
3:55:43>> like I mentioned earlier, I was very
3:55:45anxious about it, agonized over it for
3:55:47multiple months. It was also kind of
3:55:49that phase in the relationship where
3:55:51it's like, "All right, dude. Shit." Or
3:55:52get off the pot. Like, like, are you
3:55:54going to buy a ring or what? You know,
3:55:56at this point, you know, I had met her
3:55:57family and and everybody loved each
3:56:00other and she had met my family and
3:56:02everybody loved each other and pretty
3:56:04much every time I went home and saw my
3:56:05parents, they they'd be like, "So, when
3:56:07are you buying a buying a ring? Do we
3:56:09have a wedding to look forward to? Like,
3:56:10what's going on?" And I'd be like, "Uh,
3:56:12I don't know. I'll get back to you." And
3:56:14this went on for like six months. And
3:56:17then finally, I remember I was having
3:56:18dinner with my dad and my stepmother one
3:56:20night and they started getting on my
3:56:22case about like, "You bought a ring
3:56:24yet?" like when when are you gonna
3:56:27settle down? Like come on, she's a good
3:56:28one. You know, all that sort of thing.
3:56:30And I was like, "Yeah, I don't I'm
3:56:32thinking about it. I think I'm gonna do
3:56:34it. It's just like I don't know the
3:56:36right time and whatever." And then my
3:56:38stepmom looked at me and she's like,
3:56:39"What what are you waiting for? Like
3:56:41what what's the hold up here?" And and I
3:56:43and I looked at her and I was like, you
3:56:45know, I just
3:56:47how do I know she's the right one? I
3:56:50mean, it's the rest of my life. How do I
3:56:51know I'm gonna want to be with her for
3:56:54the rest of my life? And my stepmother
3:56:56looked at me like I was a [ __ ] idiot.
3:56:58And she was like, "Mark Manson, I've
3:57:01been with your father for 26 years and I
3:57:03still don't know if I want to spend the
3:57:04rest of my life with him. You just put
3:57:07the ring on the finger and you do it."
3:57:09[laughter]
3:57:10I was like,
3:57:12>> "All right, fair enough."
3:57:13>> A leap of faith. Fair enough. It is It's
3:57:14a leap of faith. And it's it is
3:57:16irrational by definition. It's
3:57:18irrational.
3:57:19>> It's completely irrational.
3:57:21two
3:57:22strangers coming together
3:57:25legally agreeing to share all of their
3:57:27assets to call themselves a family.
3:57:30There's nothing rational about it. Like
3:57:32there's it's it is it is very deeply
3:57:36irrational and absurd on some level, but
3:57:39that's what makes it profound. That's
3:57:40what makes it one of the most profound
3:57:43commitments that you can have in life,
3:57:46right? Is is the absurdity. It is the
3:57:48value as Kirkagard called it the value
3:57:51of the absurdity.
3:57:52>> And I think this is what people
3:57:55often I think it's a mistaken view. They
3:57:59say you know whatever 40 30 40 50% of
3:58:02marriages end in divorce and all this. I
3:58:04don't think that's a failure of the
3:58:05institution right it's a failure of
3:58:08somebody not
3:58:10>> seeing that with their eyes wide open
3:58:12that absurdity
3:58:13>> right
3:58:14>> and committing to it anyway. Everyone
3:58:15wants to blame marriage right? Oh,
3:58:17marriage it's it's it's a failed
3:58:19institution. It's too hard and it's not
3:58:20what humans were meant to do. Well,
3:58:22okay, sure. No, but
3:58:24>> there's also I think it's more of a
3:58:27failure on the individual's part not to
3:58:29acknowledge that absurdity, not to
3:58:31acknowledge the the commitment itself is
3:58:34something that is not a one-time thing.
3:58:36>> Well, and to come back to the infinite
3:58:37re resignation, just because there's a
3:58:4030 40% chance it fails doesn't mean it's
3:58:43a bad commitment,
3:58:44>> right? Yeah.
3:58:45>> Right. In fact, you would say that for
3:58:47it to be a good commitment, it you it
3:58:49should still be worth doing even if it
3:58:51had a 30 or 40% chance. It was
3:58:53interesting. I'm not to bring Elon back
3:58:56into this, but uh he happens to have a
3:58:58couple good quotes around commitment. I
3:59:00remember watching an interview of Elon a
3:59:03number of years ago and they were they
3:59:04were asking him about SpaceX and um and
3:59:07and I for people who are not familiar
3:59:09like SpaceX should have failed
3:59:12>> Yeah. like half a dozen different times
3:59:14and it really survived purely on the
3:59:17sheer will and ingenuity of him and and
3:59:20his core engineering team. So he was
3:59:22being interviewed about it and and the
3:59:24interviewer was saying they were kind of
3:59:26talking about like why it how it should
3:59:28have failed multiple times and how he
3:59:29stuck through it and he literally put
3:59:32all of his money into it. So it's like
3:59:34if it didn't work he would have been
3:59:36broke. And the interviewer asked him,
3:59:37they said, "What was what do you believe
3:59:39the chances like looking back, what do
3:59:41you think the chances were that SpaceX
3:59:43was going to succeed after the third
3:59:45rocket blew up?" And Elon said, he was
3:59:47like, "Honestly, probably like 5 to 10%
3:59:49chance." And then the interviewer said,
3:59:51"What percent chance
3:59:53do you think it would have had to be for
3:59:55you to walk away?" And Elon's answer was
3:59:59really interesting. He said, "There's no
4:00:02percent chance that I would have walked
4:00:04away." He said, "Even if it was a 100%
4:00:06chance going to fail, I believed it was
4:00:08worth doing."
4:00:10>> Which is a religious level of commitment
4:00:13to something.
4:00:14>> Yeah.
4:00:14>> Like say what you want, but it's a it's
4:00:16a religious level of commitment. He kind
4:00:18of went on to say too, he's like,
4:00:20>> I think we should actually try to do
4:00:23things that are still worth doing even
4:00:25if we know they're going to fail. Like
4:00:27his multiple marriages and [laughter]
4:00:29Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. That was the that was
4:00:31Yeah. Do I cheap shop? Yeah. Yeah, he's
4:00:34he Yeah, he's kind of asking for it. But
4:00:36uh but I I do think there's something
4:00:38very profound in that, right? It's like
4:00:40what is worth doing even if it's
4:00:42guaranteed to fail.
4:00:44>> Yeah. And and I I would again apply it
4:00:46to to like somewhere you live choosing a
4:00:48place as well. You could you could say
4:00:51that I mean you know where I live is not
4:00:53perfect and I know that and I kind of
4:00:55have committed to it either way. If
4:00:57there is any doubt that creeps in then I
4:00:59have to re-evaluate that and it's again
4:01:00it's a process and the commitment is a
4:01:03mechanism. It has come to a point where
4:01:05it's like oh yeah no I belong here
4:01:07>> that's I think people are looking for a
4:01:08sense of belonging for somewhere and I
4:01:10think it's the same thing as like a
4:01:12relationship or a job or whatever there
4:01:14is a level of you have to commit first.
4:01:16>> Yeah.
4:01:16>> There's a process to it as well.
4:01:19>> Then you get the sense of belonging.
4:01:20It's not you show up and oh I belong
4:01:21here. Yeah. Which I think a lot of
4:01:23aesthetic people are like, "Oh, they
4:01:24show up in a place and look at this all
4:01:25these exciting things and I belong here
4:01:27and then they find out, oh, there's all
4:01:28these shitty parts to it, too."
4:01:29>> Yeah. I think I think a ste mistake
4:01:32novelty and stimulation for belonging.
4:01:35It's funny. I remember I remember
4:01:36getting in an argument with a friend um
4:01:39about this. And he used to claim that
4:01:41certain places had better energy than
4:01:42others. And I mean, you know how I feel
4:01:46about energy, quote unquote. And so I'd
4:01:49be like, "Well, what is this energy
4:01:51like?
4:01:52you know, because he was speaking in
4:01:54like cosmological terms. He's like, you
4:01:55know, some countries just have better
4:01:57energy. And I'm like, okay, time out.
4:01:59You're like making a generalization
4:02:01about tens of millions of people. Like,
4:02:03what what the [ __ ] do you mean by
4:02:04energy? It's like, well, I get off the
4:02:06plane and I look out the window and I
4:02:07just feel it. I'm like, okay, what are
4:02:10you feeling specifically? It's like,
4:02:12well, it's just there's just an energy.
4:02:14I'm like, well, couldn't that energy
4:02:17just be you liking where you landed?
4:02:21like looking out the window being like
4:02:22this looks cool. Yeah, but it's not that
4:02:24simple. And I'm like, okay, well, what
4:02:25am I missing here? Right? And it's just
4:02:27like ascribing like temporary emotional
4:02:32feelings and vibes and making like grand
4:02:35universal claims based on those vibes.
4:02:37It's like, okay, I feel good in
4:02:39Thailand, therefore Thailand has good
4:02:41energy and everybody should go to
4:02:43Thailand. Like, it's that kind of
4:02:45simplicity and immaturity that that I I
4:02:48think just backfires on these people.
4:02:50Three months go by, they hit the dip in
4:02:52Thailand and they're like, "Oh, the
4:02:54energy changed.
4:02:56>> The energy in Vietnam is actually much
4:02:58better."
4:02:58>> Right. [laughter] Right. And you will be
4:03:00in that endless cycle forever.
4:03:02>> Forever. For [ __ ] ever.
4:03:03>> Yeah. If that's how you treat it. Yeah.
4:03:05>> Yeah.
4:03:05>> What did we learn, Drew Bernie?
4:03:08>> Oh boy. [laughter]
4:03:10>> This was a light and cheery episode.
4:03:12>> Yeah.
4:03:13>> Nothing like four hours of cure to uh
4:03:16[ __ ] melt your brain. I mean, he was
4:03:18intense and and I that's actually one of
4:03:20the lessons I got out of it is just the
4:03:22intensity of all of this. If if you
4:03:24don't feel some of that intensity, like
4:03:25he calls it the dizziness of freedom.
4:03:26Like he said, the the depth of your
4:03:28anxiety is kind of a reflection of the
4:03:29depth of how spiritual you are. Like
4:03:32that's how he put it. And I think that's
4:03:33one thing I took away from it is just
4:03:35this is an intense thing to go through
4:03:37and it should and it has to be that way.
4:03:39It has to be because it is some of the
4:03:41most fundamental
4:03:43base level
4:03:45feelings and perceptions we have about
4:03:46ourselves.
4:03:47>> Yeah. And I look back and like some of
4:03:48those decisions that I brought up, they
4:03:50were very very intense. And whether they
4:03:52ended good or bad, like it it gave me
4:03:54some sort of clarity like you talked
4:03:56about, you know, even if it didn't turn
4:03:57out well, it still gave you some sort of
4:03:59clarity around it, which is kind of what
4:04:01we're all going for. I'm not so sure I
4:04:03have
4:04:04I've I've met that like real religious
4:04:07to the bone
4:04:08>> kind of clarity [clears throat] yet, you
4:04:10know, where you have in a couple areas
4:04:11of your life.
4:04:12>> Yeah.
4:04:12>> It's definitely made me like consider
4:04:15like go go back to those times where I
4:04:17was making those commitments or those
4:04:19decisions
4:04:20>> really just decisions even if they
4:04:21weren't a commitment. The power in those
4:04:24moments, the freedom is really exercised
4:04:27through those decisions. Got to pay the
4:04:29consequences of all of it, right? And
4:04:31they're not limitless, don't get me
4:04:32wrong. But if I'm ever feeling lost or
4:04:35whatever, I I know that I need to go
4:04:37back to, oh, okay, there's some sort of
4:04:39decision I'm avoiding. There's some
4:04:40commitment that I'm avoiding. There's
4:04:42some way I'm living in bad faith. We
4:04:44talked about acting like I don't have
4:04:46the choice here. Yeah.
4:04:47>> When I actually do, that was this was a
4:04:49very very good reminder of that. And um
4:04:52and yeah, just to like lean into that
4:04:54intensity. The dizziness of freedom is
4:04:56is anxiety. Like like you said, it's
4:04:59Kirkugard kind of gave us the modern use
4:05:01of that word anxiety. Yeah.
4:05:02>> And we we see it as a bad thing, but
4:05:06actually there's a way to kind of turn
4:05:07it into some sort of like activation
4:05:09energy or whatever you want to call it
4:05:11>> that is not comfortable, but turning
4:05:13towards it is really really important in
4:05:16those moments. I am more convinced than
4:05:20ever that even though he wrote in the
4:05:231840s, this is the philosopher for the
4:05:2521st century. He called it the present
4:05:27age back then. It's the present age
4:05:29today. He's describing it word for word,
4:05:31right?
4:05:31>> It's I mean, talk about a guy calling
4:05:33his shot. Like, he is he had no idea. He
4:05:37had no idea where things were going to
4:05:39go and how preient a lot of these
4:05:42observations were going to end up
4:05:43becoming. You want to hear something
4:05:45funny I learned actually prepping for
4:05:46this episode that I didn't know? The
4:05:48name Kirkagard
4:05:50in Danish, the translation is churchyard
4:05:53or graveyard.
4:05:54>> Churchyard or graveyard.
4:05:56Really?
4:05:57>> Yeah. You know, it's like sometimes you
4:05:58meet somebody and their name is like
4:05:59literally who they are and uh Kirkagard
4:06:02is Yeah. It's churchyard or graveyard.
4:06:05Just like almost too perfect.
4:06:06>> He was a fascinating dude.
4:06:08>> Yeah. Okay. So, just a quick recap.
4:06:12We have three stages of commitment in
4:06:14life. You have the aesthetic stage which
4:06:17is our default state. It is the
4:06:20gravitational pole of our desire for
4:06:23sensory experience, stimulation,
4:06:24novelty, excitement. It is a a stage of
4:06:29life where we are living unconsciously.
4:06:31Our choices are being made unconsciously
4:06:33um or they being outsourced to the world
4:06:35around us. We are just giving in to our
4:06:37impulses and and the social pressures
4:06:39and obligations around us without much
4:06:41thought, without much uh clarity or
4:06:43reasoning. The aesthetic life just leads
4:06:46to a a place of pure indulgence. you you
4:06:49just end up on this hydonic treadmill of
4:06:51constantly chasing the next high and uh
4:06:55and ultimately it leads you to a very
4:06:57bad place as we saw with Kasanova.
4:06:59Eventually you have to learn to start
4:07:02making
4:07:04reason distinctions between the things
4:07:06you want in your life and the things you
4:07:08don't want in your life. You can't just
4:07:09chase novelty and stimulation endlessly.
4:07:12You have to decide that some things are
4:07:14actually worth not feeling good for. uh
4:07:17some things are actually worth
4:07:18sacrificing for, giving things up for.
4:07:20There are certain struggles and
4:07:22challenges that you are actually happy
4:07:23to have in your life. And this brings
4:07:25you into the ethical stage where you
4:07:27start making reason tradeoffs and strong
4:07:31decisions about who you want to be in
4:07:33this world and who you don't want to be
4:07:35in this world. And as you make these
4:07:37decisions, not all of them will be
4:07:39correct. Some of them will fail. Some of
4:07:41them will be painful. But all of them
4:07:43will teach you something. And you will
4:07:44learn something about yourself, about
4:07:47your values, about who you are, about
4:07:48what you care about. And slowly as you
4:07:50go through that process of making
4:07:52decisions, making decisions, making
4:07:53decisions, you gradually kind of winnow
4:07:55down your identity and self. And
4:07:58eventually you land on one or two or
4:08:01three things in your life that feel so
4:08:03profoundly important that you're willing
4:08:04to ride them to your grave. And this
4:08:06brings you to the religious stage that
4:08:08Kierkagard talked about that there there
4:08:11are things that you are so committed to
4:08:13that you cannot reasonably explain them.
4:08:16It is the absurdity of your commitment
4:08:18to them that actually makes them
4:08:21meaningful to you. Um and that they
4:08:23require a leap of faith, a belief
4:08:25without evidence um that they matter,
4:08:29that they're important, and that they
4:08:30are worth doing even though you can't
4:08:32prove it to anybody or even yourself.
4:08:34And it is that final state, that level
4:08:37of commitment
4:08:39that truly defines our whole self. In
4:08:41Kurkagard's framework, that is the a
4:08:44spiritual definition of self. This is
4:08:46not merely defining a self in in
4:08:49Freudian terms of mental stability and
4:08:52and battling neurosis. It is not
4:08:54defining a self in the positive
4:08:56psychology sense of like maximizing
4:08:59flourishing and well-being. Although
4:09:01those both of those things are true for
4:09:03Kirkagard, this is defining yourself in
4:09:05normal spiritual terms of like I
4:09:08existed. I did something significant and
4:09:12this is what I did. So that is finding
4:09:14your life path. As always, we have a
4:09:16free PDF guide available with all of our
4:09:19citations, references, more explanation,
4:09:21a lot of the studies uh that we talked
4:09:23about or glossed over. Um, you can go to
4:09:25solvepodcast.com/commmit
4:09:29to get that PDF guide. Please follow and
4:09:32subscribe wherever you're listening to
4:09:34this show. It helps us. And if you're
4:09:36able, leave a review or recommend it to
4:09:38a friend. Drew and I will be back next
4:09:41month with another topic. Anything you
4:09:44want to say before we go, Drew? H, go
4:09:47exercise your freedom and commit to
4:09:49things and choose wisely. Go forth and
4:09:53I'm good now.
4:09:54>> [laughter]
4:09:55>> I will say this. I did not choose this
4:09:57podcast. This podcast chose me.
4:09:59>> Oh, there you go.
4:10:14[music]

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