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You know, Drew, people listening to this, they could listen to any podcast.

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There's thousands of podcasts out there.

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There's probably podcasts with more clever intros, better theme songs, more attractive hosts.

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Actually, probably not more attractive.

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Probably not.

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Yeah.

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But they chose to be with us.

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This is part of their life path.

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And they are making a commitment to this episode with us.

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And so I just want you to know that I take that commitment very seriously.

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I'm not taking that lightly.

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Yeah.

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We're putting a label on it.

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What are we?

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What are we, audience?

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Yeah, what are we?

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Is this getting serious?

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Are we committed to each other now?

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I think we are.

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All right.

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Welcome, everybody, back to The Solve Podcast, the most thorough and comprehensive podcast in the world on life's most important topics.

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Now, if you're listening to this, my guess is that you are somebody with options, maybe a lot of options.

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You're probably smart.

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You're definitely curious.

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You've got interests.

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You've got potential.

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And people have been telling you all of this since you were 12 years old.

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And you've probably done the thing you were supposed to do with all that potential.

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You explored.

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You tried a bunch of stuff.

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You moved to a new city or two or 14.

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Maybe you've pivoted jobs or even entire careers.

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You've definitely read all the books about finding purpose.

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You've taken personality quizzes and attachment style tests.

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And maybe you've even paid a few people to tell you things about yourself that deep down you kind of already knew.

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Chances are you've left no stone unturned.

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You've explored all of your options and you've learned as much as you could about yourself along the way.

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And yet you still don't really know what the hell you're doing with your life.

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You're still swiping.

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You're still browsing, still keeping one foot out the door of every room that you walk into just in case a better door opens up down the hall.

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And somewhere underneath all of that freedom and flexibility, there's this quiet creeping suspicion that you're not actually going anywhere.

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This commitment-phobic problem that you're experiencing is quite real.

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It's everywhere.

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And a depressed Danish philosopher literally predicted it 180 years ago with terrifying accuracy.

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But more on him in a minute.

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A lot of people think that finding their path in life is a discovery problem.

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They think that if they just explore long enough...

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try enough things, meditate enough mornings, that eventually their divine path will reveal itself like a magic eye poster.

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You just need to stare a little longer to see the dolphin and the blurry dots.

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But that's exactly backwards.

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Yourself isn't sitting there inside of you waiting to be found like some artifact buried in the backyard.

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Yourself is built.

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And the thing that builds it is your willingness to shut some of those doors.

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Because as we'll see, the people who never commit to anything don't preserve their options.

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They actually prevent themselves from becoming their true selves.

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Here's a harsh truth to start us off.

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There is no predetermined life path for you to find.

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There is only the life path that you make.

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And every year you spend keeping all of the doors open is a year that you hold yourself back from carving the path that you want for yourself.

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In this episode of Solved, we're going to talk about commitment.

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We're going to talk about making difficult choices and dedicating yourself to something to find out who you are.

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We're going to talk about the philosopher who diagnosed our entire modern crisis of too many options and zero convictions over 180 years ago.

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And why nearly every single word he wrote rings even more true today than when he wrote it.

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We're going to talk about the three stages of commitment and what each one looks like across your career, your relationships, where you live.

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We'll talk about a specific type of dread that you experience when making decisions that define your life and the self-sabotaging strategies that you use to dodge it.

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We'll talk about why the freest and wealthiest generation in human history is also the most anxious, the most lonely, the most dissatisfied, and the least likely to have someone that they would call a close friend.

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We'll talk about the psychological mechanism your brain uses to make committed choices feel right, and the one condition that keeps it switched off entirely.

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We'll talk about how modern culture quietly engineered an entire decade of your life where commitment became optional.

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This and much, much more.

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We're going to argue that you feel lost because modern life has handed you so many options that you've mistaken the act of searching for the act of living.

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We're going to walk through exactly how committing to a single life path works, what it does to your brain, what it costs, because, well, it does cost something, and why the people who figure it out are not the ones who found the perfect option.

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They're the ones who found something imperfect and dedicated themselves to it anyway.

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Okay.

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Because once you understand that, it stops feeling like you're missing some crucial piece of self-knowledge that everyone else got handed.

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It stops feeling like you need another quiz, or another city, or another year of figuring it out.

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It starts to feel like something you can actually do, starting today.

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Like, right now.

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I'm the three-time New York Times best-selling author Mark Manson, and this is Drew Burney, my intrepid co-host, producer, lead researcher, and a man whose only commitment in life is to a Persian hairdresser in Westwood named Reza.

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And this is the solve podcast, the most comprehensive podcast in the world where every episode we aim to solve one serious problem in your life once and for all.

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Today, we are solving the problem of commitment, how to find your life path, how to choose it, and ultimately how to stay on it.

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So you and I, and probably everybody listening to this right now, has more wealth, more freedom, more opportunities, more options than any generation before them in their family.

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Yet, if you look at the data...

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You and I, and probably everybody listening to this, are more anxious, more lonely, and more dissatisfied than our grandparents or our great-grandparents were.

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And this creates a bit of a conundrum and a paradox.

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And I think the best person to address this, I think the historical thinker that just nailed this issue harder than anybody else, was Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher from the 19th century.

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Now, as somebody who loves philosophy, it's always interesting to go back and read old philosophers because sometimes they say things that are true and interesting, but like it feels less applicable today than it did back then.

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There are a lot of things, you know, that like Kant and Hume wrote and Descartes wrote that like...

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I don't know.

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It just doesn't seem like that big of a deal today or nearly as applicable.

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I think Kierkegaard is the rare philosopher that everything he wrote, I think, is more applicable and more of an issue today than at the time that he was writing.

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When you go back and read his work, it is almost prophetic in many ways of the world that was to come.

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A quick bio about Kierkegaard.

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So,

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He was the youngest of seven children.

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He was born to a very devout and religious family.

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And in his childhood, five of his six siblings and his mother all passed away before he reached adulthood.

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And so there's right away, you're just confronted with an immense amount of...

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guilt, trauma, pain, suffering.

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And on top of that, to make matters worse, apparently his father was extremely devout, very guilt-ridden, shame-ridden, and kind of took it out on the surviving family members.

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So right off the bat, Kierkegaard grows up with this kind of like morbid, pious upbringing where almost everybody he's ever loved has ended up dead or absolutely miserable.

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Perfect setup for a philosopher career.

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Anyway, but yeah, sorry.

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Go on, go on.

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Yeah, I mean, not to get off on too much of a tangent, but it is fascinating.

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Like some philosophers were incredibly happy people.

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Like if you read about Hume, like he just seemed like the fucking coolest guy.

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Kierkegaard is definitely one of the most miserable philosophers that I've certainly ever come across.

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Now, all of this tragedy and pain from his childhood is actually quite relevant because once he reached adulthood, he did propose to a woman that he was in love with, a young girl named Regine Olson.

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And actually, by his own account, the way he proposed is just fucking hilarious.

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So...

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So apparently she was singing and she was holding some sheet music in front of her.

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And apparently mid song, he grabbed the sheet music, slammed the book shut and looked at her and said, what do I care for music?

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It's you I want.

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I'm pretty emo.

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She didn't really say anything.

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She went along with it.

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And almost immediately, he was consumed by this deep, immense sense of dread.

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He believed that he was too sad and melancholic.

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He thought he was too tormented, that he was going to make her life miserable.

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He felt like he was too devoted to his career and that he was never going to make time for her.

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He basically spent the following months just, like, fervently.

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flagellating himself, telling himself that he did not deserve this relationship, he didn't deserve this marriage.

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Now, for those of you who have listened to some of our dating and relationships episodes, you will notice the pattern here of somebody who feels unworthy for love and affection self-sabotaging and finding justifications to reject love and affection from his life.

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So of course,

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he eventually tried to call it off.

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Now, Regine actually was in love with him, and so she tried to stop him and reassure him that she did want to be with him.

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She even at one point threatened to commit suicide if he left her, but that didn't slow Kierkegaard down.

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He broke off the engagement in 1841, returned the ring by mail, which I feel like is the 19th century equivalent of texting somebody to break up with them.

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And then he moved to Berlin.

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So he like...

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Literally got out of the country to not have to deal with her anymore.

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Now, what's interesting is that this event kind of came to define his entire psyche as an adult, his inability to live up to the most important commitment that he wanted to make with his life.

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All right.

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But before we get back into it, a quick word from the people who keep the lights on around here.

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Welcome back to The Solve Podcast.

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Let's get back into it.

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I don't think it's a coincidence that when you look at his philosophy, so much of it centers around commitments, the inability to make the sacrifices necessary for commitments, the inability to maintain commitments, and the importance of commitment in terms of developing a self or an identity.

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So both the inability to commit and the consequences of that inability to commit and the necessity of commitment for people.

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psychological health and well-being and happiness.

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This is the common thread that runs through pretty much all of his work.

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And his core claim at the time was that one's sense of self isn't found.

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It doesn't just happen to you.

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It is built through the commitments that you choose to make.

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Basically, the sacrifices that you choose to take on in your life for some greater good or some greater pursuit, that ultimately becomes how you define yourself and how you live with yourself over the long term.

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Now, this was...

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Incredibly profound because this predates Freud by like 60 years.

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And as we'll see later too, like the modern psychological research backs it up, that he was all in all correct.

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Now the reason we all struggle with these commitments, Kierkegaard argued, is that we all have a fundamental tension within ourselves, which is the tension between our potential and...

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our necessity.

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Basically, who we are and who we are kind of stuck being, but also what we could potentially become.

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This tension between the infinite and the finite, the infinite number of things that we can imagine ourselves as becoming versus the finite amount of things that we actually are, between freedom and stability.

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I can imagine an infinite amount

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Yet, I am only one self, and I only have so much time and energy.

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I only have one body.

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I only have so many hours in the day.

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So I am inherently limited by how much I can pursue.

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Now, Kierkegaard argued that a proper, healthy self...

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or a healthy identity is a person who is able to balance those two polarities within themselves, that they are able to see the possibilities of what they could become, but also be grounded in reality and understanding who they are and understanding that a lot of those possibilities are not practical or reasonable.

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And what he pointed out is that

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when we get lost in one of the two polarities, that's when we start to experience existential dread.

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Now, this is super, super important for the listener because Kierkegaard's idea of dread or despair is not just a feeling.

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It's not about being sad.

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It's about a lack of self.

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It's about a lack of self-definition and identity.

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So his argument was that if you are too confined in the finite, right, if you are...

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overly aware of your own limitations and you have too much structure around you and you have too many barriers preventing you from pursuing your potential, you'll feel stuck and you will forfeit your sense of self and identity.

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You'll outsource it to all of the barriers and stuff around you.

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On the flip side, if you are stuck in the infinite, if you were stuck in the constant potential, the constant potential,

208
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pursuit of some new novel self, then you will also experience a sense of despair because you will never know who you are.

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You will never have a clear self-definition.

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You will simply identify with whatever is the most interesting or exciting at any given moment.

211
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The idea of balance and this is what you're kind of getting at.

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It's actually very, very difficult.

213
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We talk about like work-life balance and then there's some like, you know, entrepreneur bros or whatever out there saying, no, you don't need that.

214
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You know, just go all in on this and whatever.

215
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Actually, it's very, very difficult to find balance.

216
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And I think this is the tension you're talking about.

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This is it really landed for me anyway when we were researching this episode.

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is the actual difficulty finding that balance between the infinite and the finite, between all the possible selves and the one that you actually need to be or are becoming.

219
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It's very, very difficult to find that balance.

220
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And that's the whole episode I think is going to be about this.

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But for me, this really landed, this point that he tries to make, sitting in that tension, that's going to be the most difficult part.

222
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And it's finding that balance and holding that tension.

223
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It's not just committing for commitment's sake or...

224
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staying open for autonomy's sake.

225
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There's a seductiveness to each polarity, right?

226
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Exactly.

227
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It is seductive to just say, oh, well, there's nothing I can do.

228
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Like it's, I, the world sucks.

229
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I have no opportunities.

230
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People around me are mean.

231
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They don't, they don't give me a chance.

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There's a seductiveness to that because then you don't have to take on the responsibility of your own agency.

233
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Similarly, there's a seductiveness to

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having infinite possibility and always imagining new possible selves and new things that you could pursue because there's there's kind of a dopamine treadmill to that you get to dream about all the benefits without ever actually having to make a sacrifice or make a commitment to anything

235
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And I think this is one of the most important takeaways of Kierkegaard, and I think what made him so much more insightful than a lot of people who have spoken about these issues since, is that Kierkegaard recognized that you could be busy, you could have a really full, interesting life, you could be having tons of fun, you could have tons of friends, tons of interests and hobbies, and you could be full of despair.

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Because all of that fun is actually a distraction from the fact that you don't know who you are.

237
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You know, Aristotle talked about the golden mean and how, you know, this is very much Aristotle's framework.

238
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And as we've learned on the show, Aristotle's always right.

239
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Kierkegaard makes the same point, which is that this tension is never solved.

240
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It's only managed.

241
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It's essentially you just get good at finding the balance between understanding who you are and your limitations and accepting them.

242
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And then also imagining new potentials for yourself or new things for you to pursue or new options.

243
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This is actually very similar to we did a change episode earlier.

244
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a few months ago.

245
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And in that, we talked about how the self is actually, there's kind of three different parts of the self.

246
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And there is a base layer, a personality layer that is largely unchangeable.

247
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And the best you can do with that part of yourself is simply understand it and gain awareness and accept it.

248
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Whereas there's

249
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kind of a behavioral component of yourself, which is always changeable and always has new potential.

250
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And so the best thing you can do for that is to get really, really good at adopting behavioral change.

251
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Now, the other point of this is that when you do commit to something, that infinite potential side of yourself doesn't turn off.

252
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It's always still going in the background.

253
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You still have to feel the pull of everything that you could be

254
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but you have to consistently choose not to pursue it.

255
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Like that is what the commitment is.

256
00:20:18.926 --> 00:20:20.307
You're saying it's not like a one-time thing.

257
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It's like a general mechanism for continually choosing that.

258
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Commitments are not done once.

259
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They are done on a regular basis.

260
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And it's funny because this maps really well to a lot of marriage advice that I've heard over the years.

261
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You don't just

262
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make the commitment once and then you live happily ever after.

263
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It's like a marriage or a long-term relationship is something that you have to continually choose over.

264
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Both people have to continually choose over and over and over again.

265
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Because if you're with somebody for a long enough period of time, there's always going to be opportunities for you to grow apart, to find other interests, to distract yourself, to hook up with somebody else, to become attracted to somebody else.

266
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It is this

267
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regular discipline of like coming back and choosing the same thing repeatedly over a long period of time.

268
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Right.

269
00:21:09.888 --> 00:21:11.669
And that's where the balance again is found.

270
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It's not, Oh, I could know I'm going to just go explore all the other options or I'm just stuck in this.

271
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So I'm here anyway.

272
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It's that continual choosing that continual holding of the tension.

273
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When I was going back through this, it made me think about the self-help industry, kind of conventional woo-woo self-help.

274
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I really feel like what they're doing is they are taking people who are in despair because they feel like they have no agency and no potential and no infinite options.

275
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And they are training those people to be in despair with infinite potential and infinite options.

276
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Yeah.

277
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Yeah.

278
00:21:45.738 --> 00:21:47.139
Again, the balance is the hard part.

279
00:21:47.159 --> 00:21:47.399
Right.

280
00:21:47.419 --> 00:21:48.239
It really is.

281
00:21:48.259 --> 00:21:52.760
So you take people who have never had to make a commitment in their life because all their commitments were forced upon them.

282
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And so they're in despair.

283
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And then you just train them to never make a commitment in their life and just think about all the amazing shit that they could become while not actually ever moving towards anything or sacrificing for anything.

284
00:22:05.943 --> 00:22:10.164
Yeah, and that's where you get, oh, cut off all these people, screw them, go this way.

285
00:22:10.204 --> 00:22:16.926
Yeah, it's like as soon as everything is problematic and traumatic and you just keep chasing the next high.

286
00:22:17.266 --> 00:22:25.769
Another of many reasons that I think Kierkegaard is the philosopher that best describes the 21st century, he was the person who originally popularized the word anxiety.

287
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His description of anxiety is really interesting because it actually...

288
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It has little to do with fear.

289
00:22:31.951 --> 00:22:46.724
He called it, quote, the dizziness of too much freedom, which is basically that when you have so many options and there are so many potential outcomes, you actually feel uneasy by being forced to experience any single one of them.

290
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Because as soon as you experience one of them, you are shutting off the opportunity to experience all the others.

291
00:22:51.789 --> 00:22:52.610
It kind of creates this...

292
00:22:53.210 --> 00:23:00.874
this panicked stasis of not wanting to do anything, but also feeling bad because you have so many opportunities in front of you.

293
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You should do something, but you don't want to do something because then that shuts off all the other opportunities.

294
00:23:05.157 --> 00:23:08.019
And so you just, you just feel stuck and worried.

295
00:23:08.239 --> 00:23:11.340
The metaphor he uses is like standing on the edge of a cliff, right?

296
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And looking down and you're like, oh my God, that's the anxiety he's talking about kind of right.

297
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It's this vertigo you get.

298
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It's not the fall.

299
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Really, it's not the space there and it's not all inside your mind.

300
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It's kind of the interaction between the two, the dizziness of freedom, what he's talking about, the anxiety like that.

301
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And he makes this really cool point.

302
00:23:29.254 --> 00:23:34.519
He's like, you know, a rock, if it's just sitting there, the rock sitting next to you doesn't have that anxiety, right?

303
00:23:34.779 --> 00:23:39.924
It's only that you have the freedom to move in that situation that gives you that anxiety.

304
00:23:40.344 --> 00:23:41.945
So it's only being an aware person.

305
00:23:42.686 --> 00:23:49.791
being, having self-awareness and having the freedom to choose to do something that causes that anxiety.

306
00:23:50.211 --> 00:23:56.296
And so he even says like the depth of your anxiety is actually like proportional to the depth of your potential spirituality.

307
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Even the more anxious you are, the more you realize like, Oh God, there's all this possibility in front of me.

308
00:24:01.239 --> 00:24:01.459
Right.

309
00:24:01.579 --> 00:24:08.302
And the more possibility, the more anxious you become because you're forced to make even harder decisions every single day.

310
00:24:08.382 --> 00:24:08.962
Right, right.

311
00:24:09.002 --> 00:24:12.043
Total reframe of the whole like how we think about anxiety, I think.

312
00:24:12.083 --> 00:24:14.164
And I thought that was a really cool metaphor that he uses.

313
00:24:14.344 --> 00:24:17.725
A metaphor that I'm going to use probably multiple times in this episode.

314
00:24:18.065 --> 00:24:21.927
To me, it's just the best way I can describe the experience of committing in the face of...

315
00:24:22.967 --> 00:24:49.233
intense anxiety is that it's it's like jumping into a cold pool the worst part is actually standing on the outside looking at it and thinking about it just fucking do it like yeah and you're thinking about all these reasons to not do it all these other you know like oh i could go get get in the hot tub oh that's exactly what he's saying yeah but then once you jump in there's this initial shock and then you're like oh my god this is so nice why why was i so worried about this and actually i don't want to get out

316
00:24:50.213 --> 00:24:51.715
Because it's so nice and refreshing.

317
00:24:51.755 --> 00:24:52.035
Okay.

318
00:24:52.055 --> 00:24:53.617
That's a better metaphor than jumping off a cliff.

319
00:24:53.637 --> 00:24:55.819
So yeah, let's go with that one.

320
00:24:55.899 --> 00:24:57.241
I'll send Kierkegaard my notes.

321
00:24:57.321 --> 00:24:57.701
Okay.

322
00:24:57.721 --> 00:24:57.921
Yeah.

323
00:24:59.377 --> 00:25:03.141
An important point he makes, though, too, I think, is that anxiety isn't fear necessarily.

324
00:25:03.421 --> 00:25:04.302
Like he talked about fear.

325
00:25:04.342 --> 00:25:05.243
Fear has an object.

326
00:25:05.783 --> 00:25:10.067
I'm afraid of that big, scary wolf out in the woods or the dog coming to bite me, whatever.

327
00:25:10.268 --> 00:25:11.389
There's an object of fear.

328
00:25:11.609 --> 00:25:13.751
Where anxiety, there's possibility itself.

329
00:25:14.031 --> 00:25:16.834
The way he's using the word anxiety, there's no real object to it.

330
00:25:17.334 --> 00:25:18.656
It's just a sense that we have.

331
00:25:19.296 --> 00:25:21.658
And I think it's probably kind of a default state of ours, right?

332
00:25:21.718 --> 00:25:23.100
Like that is our default state.

333
00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:23.260
Right.

334
00:25:23.540 --> 00:25:25.941
Did it become that way when we had all these possibilities?

335
00:25:26.041 --> 00:25:28.162
I think it became that way when we had all these possibilities.

336
00:25:28.222 --> 00:25:28.382
Okay.

337
00:25:28.402 --> 00:25:29.902
We're going to get to that in a little bit.

338
00:25:29.962 --> 00:25:30.222
Okay.

339
00:25:30.242 --> 00:25:34.784
Because he actually talked about that with the fucking printing press, much less social media.

340
00:25:34.864 --> 00:25:37.765
And we talked about this a little bit on our anxiety episode.

341
00:25:38.025 --> 00:25:40.386
There's like a clear cause and effect of fear, right?

342
00:25:40.426 --> 00:25:43.027
It's like, there's a lion over there.

343
00:25:43.147 --> 00:25:44.187
It's growling at me.

344
00:25:44.427 --> 00:25:45.047
I'm scared.

345
00:25:45.447 --> 00:25:52.270
Anxiety is sitting by yourself in a savannah, imagining that there might be a lion at some point in the future.

346
00:25:52.290 --> 00:25:52.390
Yeah.

347
00:25:53.398 --> 00:25:55.999
And then feeling uncomfortable about it.

348
00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:56.499
Right, right.

349
00:25:56.539 --> 00:25:57.760
There's nothing realized, yeah.

350
00:25:57.780 --> 00:25:58.680
There's nothing realized.

351
00:25:58.760 --> 00:26:00.421
It's simply, it's fear of potential.

352
00:26:00.841 --> 00:26:07.704
The profound connection that Kierkegaard made was that that potential is inherently scary.

353
00:26:08.284 --> 00:26:13.226
And I think the other brilliant insight he had is that that scariness is not the same thing as fear.

354
00:26:13.506 --> 00:26:19.989
Fear always has an explanation, whereas anxiety is often just like, I don't know, I just fucking, I'm terrified.

355
00:26:20.209 --> 00:26:21.589
And I have no idea why.

356
00:26:21.689 --> 00:26:22.950
I'm just sitting here on my phone like,

357
00:26:23.290 --> 00:26:43.021
freaking out you mentioned the pool metaphor the cold pool metaphor do you have any specific examples of that i i know you do i would say every every relationship i've ever committed to i i've felt some degree of that like there's just been an intense level of resistance kind of in the immediate moments prior

358
00:26:43.781 --> 00:26:44.442
to the commitment.

359
00:26:44.702 --> 00:26:48.485
I would include getting engaged with my wife in that as well.

360
00:26:49.086 --> 00:26:53.209
Interestingly, not the marriage itself, because I think it's the engagement was kind of that big leap.

361
00:26:53.429 --> 00:27:06.240
This episode is going to be very near and dear to my heart because I really was this guy who kept all of his options open and was actually extremely good at creating optionality everywhere in his life.

362
00:27:07.101 --> 00:27:10.864
And I felt it backfire throughout a lot of my 20s.

363
00:27:11.044 --> 00:27:11.825
Like I felt...

364
00:27:12.994 --> 00:27:14.175
the dissatisfaction.

365
00:27:14.335 --> 00:27:23.524
Like it was the more I traveled and the more experiences I had and the more people I dated and the more opportunities I created for myself, the more dissatisfied I became.

366
00:27:23.644 --> 00:27:29.670
And I had not read Kierkegaard at that point, but I quickly started to realize that I'm like, no, I think this is actually the problem.

367
00:27:29.710 --> 00:27:31.492
It is the optionality that is

368
00:27:32.740 --> 00:27:34.341
making me dissatisfied with everything.

369
00:27:34.481 --> 00:27:41.627
I need to learn how to like settle down and in pick something, pick a place, pick a person, pick a career.

370
00:27:41.647 --> 00:27:48.752
And, and I would say all three of those decisions were like three of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.

371
00:27:48.952 --> 00:27:50.212
Mm hmm.

372
00:27:50.353 --> 00:27:58.455
I'm going to maybe I'm jumping ahead of here, too, but I'm going to make the prediction as well that you went kind of extreme in those areas as well.

373
00:27:59.056 --> 00:28:06.418
And I think you got a much clearer idea of that where somebody like me, it's been a lot more subtle of a problem, which is actually more insidious.

374
00:28:07.179 --> 00:28:09.319
So that's a little I'll just I'll leave it at that.

375
00:28:09.840 --> 00:28:11.360
How about I could see that?

376
00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:12.060
You see what I'm saying?

377
00:28:12.080 --> 00:28:12.601
I could see that.

378
00:28:12.701 --> 00:28:15.242
I mean, my personality is just all gas, no brake.

379
00:28:15.302 --> 00:28:15.442
So

380
00:28:16.422 --> 00:28:21.666
The, the benefit of that is that if I've made a bad decision, I find out sooner.

381
00:28:22.847 --> 00:28:25.329
You had the benefit to the other side of it that you were paying attention.

382
00:28:25.349 --> 00:28:27.451
I think a lot of people will go extreme and not pay attention.

383
00:28:27.851 --> 00:28:28.471
So there's that.

384
00:28:28.552 --> 00:28:29.392
And I've known those people.

385
00:28:29.432 --> 00:28:30.173
Yeah, for sure.

386
00:28:30.333 --> 00:28:30.673
For sure.

387
00:28:30.713 --> 00:28:32.415
We will probably talk about some of those people.

388
00:28:32.615 --> 00:28:32.855
Yeah.

389
00:28:33.115 --> 00:28:40.421
Whereas like I'm saying on the other side where I've been a lot more subtle about it and not as, not quite as extreme and it's harder to pinpoint sometimes.

390
00:28:40.461 --> 00:28:40.621
Yeah.

391
00:28:40.821 --> 00:28:47.584
I feel like the digital nomad lifestyle has gone through some interesting phases over the last 20 years.

392
00:28:47.604 --> 00:28:51.206
You know, back in the two thousands, when I started, it was unheard of.

393
00:28:51.286 --> 00:28:53.227
It was like a very radical lifestyle.

394
00:28:53.327 --> 00:28:56.628
It was like my, my family thought I was crazy.

395
00:28:57.069 --> 00:28:58.429
My friends thought I was crazy.

396
00:28:58.449 --> 00:29:02.051
Like, I mean, people literally thought I was like trafficking drugs or something.

397
00:29:02.071 --> 00:29:03.732
Cause they didn't understand that you could just.

398
00:29:04.843 --> 00:29:07.685
work from a laptop in Argentina and like make a living.

399
00:29:07.805 --> 00:29:12.529
I think once you got to the 2010s, it became very cool and fashionable and aspirational.

400
00:29:13.069 --> 00:29:15.451
And I think that really peaked during the pandemic.

401
00:29:15.951 --> 00:29:21.835
And I feel like there's slowly a bit of a backlash that it's beginning to happen.

402
00:29:22.095 --> 00:29:23.596
And what I have noticed is that

403
00:29:24.657 --> 00:29:37.223
Most of the people, including myself, who live that way, we all kind of ran into all this stuff that Kierkegaard's talking about, is that it's like, it's fun for a few years, but then at a certain point, the optionality starts torturing you.

404
00:29:37.543 --> 00:29:49.029
And it really, like, really torturing you, because it is, you start agonizing over what are objectively very dumb decisions that do not deserve to be agonized over.

405
00:29:49.249 --> 00:29:51.270
And so a lot of us just got off.

406
00:29:52.280 --> 00:29:55.221
got off the roller coaster and like pick the place and settle down.

407
00:29:55.301 --> 00:29:59.243
And, and everybody I know who, who has done that is much happier for it.

408
00:29:59.263 --> 00:30:04.765
It's one of those, like, I'm glad I live that way, but I'm also glad I stopped the people I know who are still doing it.

409
00:30:04.865 --> 00:30:09.527
I think there's like a certain threshold that once you're past it, like you kind of don't come back.

410
00:30:09.727 --> 00:30:11.628
And I think everything that we've talked about.

411
00:30:12.108 --> 00:30:17.576
you know, this balance between the infinite and the finite and possibility and necessity.

412
00:30:17.796 --> 00:30:27.911
It's a skill, like learning how to pick something and sacrifice for it and own that sacrifice, even on the days that you wake up and you fucking hate it.

413
00:30:28.812 --> 00:30:34.013
You know, like there are days I wake up and my wife drives me fucking crazy, but you stick with it.

414
00:30:34.074 --> 00:30:36.894
Like knowing how to stick with things through that.

415
00:30:37.194 --> 00:30:38.435
I do believe it's a skill.

416
00:30:38.795 --> 00:30:40.575
And I think it's a soft skill.

417
00:30:40.615 --> 00:30:42.976
It's a very intangible kind of emotional skill.

418
00:30:43.856 --> 00:30:45.837
And if you have not developed that,

419
00:30:46.834 --> 00:30:52.755
By a certain age, you're really setting yourself up for a lot of struggle later on in life.

420
00:30:52.996 --> 00:30:56.076
To Kierkegaard's point, that is what a self is made out of.

421
00:30:56.116 --> 00:31:00.757
A healthy ego is a narrative of self that stretches long into the past and the future.

422
00:31:01.078 --> 00:31:03.378
That is what keeps us happy and stable.

423
00:31:04.138 --> 00:31:10.440
And if you're never able to commit to anything, then you're not really going to be able to write that narrative of your past very well.

424
00:31:11.180 --> 00:31:14.765
And you're also not going to be able to have a clear narrative of your future.

425
00:31:14.905 --> 00:31:17.649
And so at a certain point, you're just adrift.

426
00:31:18.450 --> 00:31:21.554
And I think a lot of people today are just adrift.

427
00:31:22.034 --> 00:31:25.579
So this feeling of being adrift, having too many options...

428
00:31:26.696 --> 00:31:30.997
This is very indicative of what Kierkegaard considered the aesthetic stage of life.

429
00:31:31.518 --> 00:31:37.960
And he actually had three stages that he identified that people have to go through to find their commitments, to find their life's path.

430
00:31:38.300 --> 00:31:40.100
Now, that first stage is the aesthetic stage.

431
00:31:40.381 --> 00:31:42.641
The second stage is called the ethical stage.

432
00:31:43.001 --> 00:31:45.362
And then the third stage is the religious stage.

433
00:31:45.582 --> 00:31:49.043
And we're going to construct the entire podcast around Kierkegaard's three stages.

434
00:31:49.624 --> 00:31:53.045
And we're going to go really deep on what each stage requires.

435
00:31:53.865 --> 00:32:03.010
how you fall into it, how you get out of it, how you transition to the next stage, so that you can end up in a place where you feel like you have some powerful, meaningful life commitments.

436
00:32:03.511 --> 00:32:03.651
Yeah.

437
00:32:03.711 --> 00:32:07.873
And let me just say, the religious stage doesn't necessarily mean you have to be religious.

438
00:32:08.053 --> 00:32:08.814
Yes.

439
00:32:09.394 --> 00:32:10.134
Yeah.

440
00:32:10.295 --> 00:32:14.137
Kierkegaard used the word religious, not literally.

441
00:32:14.357 --> 00:32:16.038
It is metaphorically.

442
00:32:16.507 --> 00:32:21.031
There was this guy, the Walter Kaufman in the 70s, who kind of followed up with Kierkegaard.

443
00:32:21.351 --> 00:32:26.895
He was like, OK, Kierkegaard, he's got this cool framework around all of this and not making commitments and making commitments and all this.

444
00:32:27.015 --> 00:32:29.598
He wrote this whole book on like how we go about doing that.

445
00:32:29.618 --> 00:32:31.299
So like common ways we go about doing that.

446
00:32:31.479 --> 00:32:37.905
The one section that I found was really interesting were these 10 ways he came up with that we avoid commitments in our life.

447
00:32:37.985 --> 00:32:40.487
He called this tendency like decidophobia.

448
00:32:41.027 --> 00:32:41.308
Okay.

449
00:32:41.668 --> 00:32:42.449
He coined this term.

450
00:32:42.669 --> 00:32:47.013
It's another type of dread or it's the same type of dread I think that Kierkegaard was talking about.

451
00:32:47.033 --> 00:32:53.739
And it's the dread that comes with making decisions that shape your own life when your eyes are wide open.

452
00:32:53.979 --> 00:32:55.220
So holding that tension.

453
00:32:55.640 --> 00:32:55.901
Right.

454
00:32:56.241 --> 00:32:58.303
We don't like that tension like we've already said.

455
00:32:58.563 --> 00:32:59.704
So he came up with these 10 ways.

456
00:32:59.724 --> 00:33:04.646
I don't think I'll go through all of them here, but there's a few that I've just found really interesting that I want to highlight.

457
00:33:04.926 --> 00:33:06.327
One of those being drifting.

458
00:33:06.427 --> 00:33:07.107
What do you call drifting?

459
00:33:07.127 --> 00:33:09.228
There's kind of two versions of this, okay?

460
00:33:09.469 --> 00:33:11.029
One is where you go through life.

461
00:33:11.189 --> 00:33:12.790
You go along with just the existing order.

462
00:33:13.070 --> 00:33:15.552
What society tells you, what your parents tell you, what the school tells you.

463
00:33:15.592 --> 00:33:16.332
Go with the flow.

464
00:33:16.772 --> 00:33:17.412
That's drifting.

465
00:33:17.633 --> 00:33:18.773
You don't have to make a decision there.

466
00:33:18.793 --> 00:33:19.754
You don't have to make a commitment.

467
00:33:19.834 --> 00:33:21.034
Somebody else has made it for you.

468
00:33:21.234 --> 00:33:22.375
You don't have to sit with that tension.

469
00:33:22.615 --> 00:33:23.816
And that's how you avoid it anyway.

470
00:33:23.836 --> 00:33:24.376
Yeah.

471
00:33:24.516 --> 00:33:30.540
the other is you just reject all structure so we've kind of already now there's people who like we said we already know these people who just reject

472
00:33:31.530 --> 00:33:31.970
everything.

473
00:33:31.990 --> 00:33:33.971
And they're like, no, I'm not going to live anything like this.

474
00:33:34.031 --> 00:33:36.472
And so again, you don't have to make the decision.

475
00:33:36.592 --> 00:33:39.353
You don't have to make the commitment to anything there either.

476
00:33:39.533 --> 00:33:50.338
The interesting thing about that though, and Kaufman notes this, is that that often turns into a hunger for commitment after, like you said, most people will see like, oh God, this isn't working anymore.

477
00:33:50.858 --> 00:33:55.080
And so they'll swing really hard the other way and go for a commitment rather than just drifting along.

478
00:33:55.300 --> 00:33:56.581
Another one he points out is marriage.

479
00:33:56.921 --> 00:33:59.564
Now, there's a caveat here.

480
00:33:59.764 --> 00:34:10.133
He calls this kind of like the big one or the primary one that people will get into a marriage just to like not feel alone anymore or to just resolve that area of their life.

481
00:34:10.373 --> 00:34:11.114
I know a lot of people like this.

482
00:34:11.174 --> 00:34:15.097
I've had several friends who've gotten divorced and they're like, I got married because I thought that was the thing you just do.

483
00:34:15.518 --> 00:34:15.718
Right.

484
00:34:15.738 --> 00:34:18.180
And they're like, I just wanted that part of my life taken care of.

485
00:34:18.861 --> 00:34:20.362
Obviously, that's a bad reason to get married.

486
00:34:20.542 --> 00:34:22.165
Kaufman isn't saying everyone does that.

487
00:34:22.265 --> 00:34:29.417
He's saying there's actually, you know, marriage can be a very life-enlarging thing for you, too, as long as you do it with your eyes wide open, right?

488
00:34:29.477 --> 00:34:30.759
As long as you know why you're getting into it.

489
00:34:30.999 --> 00:34:33.704
The other one I wanted to point out, too, he says the way we avoid...

490
00:34:35.058 --> 00:34:37.419
really hard decisions, religion, okay?

491
00:34:37.519 --> 00:34:41.819
I'm not gonna shit on religion here because there's a caveat to this one as well.

492
00:34:42.380 --> 00:34:48.361
But he says that religion, it really, it reduces decisions you have to make by just supplying all the rules for you, right?

493
00:34:48.421 --> 00:34:53.282
Here's the book, here's the commandments, here's the 10 things you can and can't eat or whatever it is.

494
00:34:53.562 --> 00:34:58.963
The problem he has with it is that most believers have never really questioned it to begin with, right?

495
00:34:59.503 --> 00:35:01.984
They were just born into a system and they just accepted that.

496
00:35:02.584 --> 00:35:18.152
He was totally a fan of like, if you're in a religion because you've chosen it and you've doubted things, you've went through all the stages of really exploring it and identifying with it eventually and accepting that and holding that tension, like this could be...

497
00:35:18.852 --> 00:35:21.194
Complete bullshit, I don't know, but I'm going to choose to believe it anyway.

498
00:35:21.415 --> 00:35:24.237
Again, he's not shitting on marriage or religion or anything like that.

499
00:35:24.638 --> 00:35:30.924
His main point throughout this whole thing was, you're making these decisions with your eyes wide open and holding that tension.

500
00:35:31.204 --> 00:35:33.427
One of mine is like, I'll stack the deck.

501
00:35:33.707 --> 00:35:37.190
Like, I'll come into something and be like, well, I'm going to...

502
00:35:38.230 --> 00:35:45.317
get into a relationship that I'm not super invested in anyway, you know, just because it'll end and it's fine and I'll be okay with it.

503
00:35:45.437 --> 00:35:46.919
That's not really a decision at the end.

504
00:35:46.939 --> 00:35:49.041
That's not a commitment at the end of the day, right?

505
00:35:49.462 --> 00:35:54.306
Like that's one I use anyway, sometimes, or, you know, it used to be that way with jobs with me too.

506
00:35:54.326 --> 00:35:55.668
It's like, ah, this is fine job.

507
00:35:55.688 --> 00:35:56.369
I'll take it for now.

508
00:35:56.389 --> 00:35:57.590
It doesn't matter if I lose it or not.

509
00:35:57.830 --> 00:35:59.271
It's hard because I think

510
00:36:00.556 --> 00:36:06.559
Not every decision deserves like a full-throated commitment.

511
00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:07.220
That's a good point.

512
00:36:07.540 --> 00:36:17.765
And I think if we approached every decision as a full-throated commitment, we would exhaust ourselves and we would actually drive ourselves a little bit crazy.

513
00:36:18.145 --> 00:36:19.946
These are like heuristics, right?

514
00:36:20.026 --> 00:36:27.130
Of like you're outsourcing a certain percentage of decisions with kind of the understanding of like, okay, maybe it's not going to be perfect, but-

515
00:36:28.427 --> 00:36:32.190
I'm not going to have time to think about all this stuff or deal with all this stuff.

516
00:36:32.210 --> 00:36:34.272
So it seems to work for other people.

517
00:36:34.352 --> 00:36:35.333
I might as well do it too.

518
00:36:35.353 --> 00:36:37.554
I do think some of that is inevitable.

519
00:36:37.714 --> 00:36:47.902
I think ultimately, and we'll get to this later on, ultimately, like we all need at least a handful of things in our lives that we do feel fully committed to.

520
00:36:49.467 --> 00:36:54.109
with our eyes open, as Kaufman would put it, as though we have opted into it.

521
00:36:54.429 --> 00:36:58.851
I do think it's that perception of agency and choice that matters so much.

522
00:36:59.031 --> 00:37:05.754
We all have commitments that we don't really feel like we chose, and so we don't identify with them that much.

523
00:37:06.554 --> 00:37:12.137
But when you do feel like you chose a commitment, then it becomes part of who you are.

524
00:37:12.177 --> 00:37:17.459
You develop a pride, a sense of self around it, and then it really starts to matter, and it adds a lot of meaning.

525
00:37:17.747 --> 00:37:20.132
There's one point, too, that Kaufman makes in this book.

526
00:37:20.412 --> 00:37:23.157
Sometimes it doesn't always look like decidophobia either, right?

527
00:37:23.378 --> 00:37:26.043
You can take the marriages and go, oh, yeah, you're getting married because you love this person.

528
00:37:26.083 --> 00:37:26.664
That's what it looks like.

529
00:37:26.684 --> 00:37:26.864
Okay.

530
00:37:28.083 --> 00:37:32.006
One decision in my life that I made, though, I don't think I've ever told you about this.

531
00:37:32.126 --> 00:37:34.688
I was actually accepted into an occupational therapy program.

532
00:37:35.128 --> 00:37:35.368
Really?

533
00:37:35.608 --> 00:37:41.252
So this was my whole, I don't even know where to start, honestly.

534
00:37:41.512 --> 00:37:42.953
Buckle up, everybody.

535
00:37:43.013 --> 00:37:43.653
No, no, no.

536
00:37:43.794 --> 00:37:44.774
Drew's life story.

537
00:37:44.854 --> 00:37:45.355
Here we go.

538
00:37:45.535 --> 00:37:46.335
It won't be that bad.

539
00:37:46.355 --> 00:37:46.535
No.

540
00:37:48.156 --> 00:37:49.938
I took a fifth year in college.

541
00:37:49.998 --> 00:37:51.038
I had a super senior year.

542
00:37:51.058 --> 00:37:51.979
That's what we called it back then.

543
00:37:51.999 --> 00:37:52.099
Yeah.

544
00:37:52.319 --> 00:37:57.162
ostensibly because there was one class I needed to take and it wasn't offered until the next semester.

545
00:37:57.182 --> 00:37:58.503
So I was like, I'll just take the whole year.

546
00:37:58.563 --> 00:38:00.424
And like, yeah, but, and I loved college too.

547
00:38:00.444 --> 00:38:07.928
So I was just doing that, but I went through that and then I still didn't know what I wanted to do at the end of that, that five years of education and exploring.

548
00:38:08.149 --> 00:38:12.871
So I was like, oh, I had a friend whose dad was an occupational therapist and I really liked him and he let me shadow him and stuff like that.

549
00:38:12.891 --> 00:38:15.233
And so I got accepted to this occupational therapy program.

550
00:38:16.680 --> 00:38:18.341
Was fully planning on going.

551
00:38:18.502 --> 00:38:26.028
And then the lab that I was working in as an undergrad, they offered me a full-time position, but it was only a one-year contract because they only had funding for one year.

552
00:38:26.048 --> 00:38:28.350
And I was like, oh, great, I can do that instead.

553
00:38:28.390 --> 00:38:30.111
And it's only a year and then I can go decide again.

554
00:38:30.132 --> 00:38:31.513
So I kept putting it off like that.

555
00:38:32.073 --> 00:38:37.298
It seemed rational and reasonable at the time from the outside that it was a fine decision, but...

556
00:38:37.858 --> 00:38:41.279
Honestly, what I would, it was just decidophobia is what it was, you know?

557
00:38:41.319 --> 00:38:45.060
So it doesn't always have to look like, like, oh, I'm just avoiding this decision.

558
00:38:45.541 --> 00:38:48.121
In that case, it really didn't look like I was, I had all these reasons for it.

559
00:38:48.141 --> 00:38:50.702
It's like, oh no, I actually, I want to go into this field instead.

560
00:38:50.942 --> 00:38:53.923
And there's this position that opened up and how lucky am I?

561
00:38:54.023 --> 00:38:58.205
And I've been working with these people and I know them and I know it's, you know, stable and all of this.

562
00:38:58.245 --> 00:38:58.425
So.

563
00:38:58.625 --> 00:39:06.692
I feel like the side of phobia is kind of like a more practical way of describing what Jean-Paul Sartre called bad faith, living in bad faith.

564
00:39:06.712 --> 00:39:14.999
Like, so in Sartre's framework, you know, we are all making choices in every moment of every day of what we pay attention to, what we pursue, what we care about.

565
00:39:15.940 --> 00:39:25.763
And that responsibility that comes with all those choices is incredibly burdensome because it's like, who knows if you're choosing the right thing.

566
00:39:25.803 --> 00:39:29.744
And it basically implies that every problem in your life is your responsibility.

567
00:39:29.885 --> 00:39:34.166
So people find ways to avoid that and start called it living in bad faith.

568
00:39:34.186 --> 00:39:39.988
But he basically was like outsourcing your responsibility to other people or other things.

569
00:39:40.008 --> 00:39:40.688
Yeah.

570
00:39:40.788 --> 00:39:47.315
And I feel like Kaufman's decidophobia framework is kind of like a bullet list of all those ways that we tend to do that.

571
00:39:47.356 --> 00:39:53.482
We look for situations like that of like kicking the can down the road or just following along what our friends are doing.

572
00:39:53.643 --> 00:39:59.729
It's easier than having to think about it for yourself or just getting married because that's what you're supposed to do or just, you know, believing the things that.

573
00:40:00.310 --> 00:40:03.751
The church you grew up in believes it because that's just easier to do.

574
00:40:03.931 --> 00:40:06.292
As we'll see, we're going to get into the Kierkegaard's framework.

575
00:40:06.712 --> 00:40:29.618
The process here is first learning to open your eyes and question what you're deciding and then recognizing that you don't necessarily have to make that decision and then coming back later and making that decision with full consciousness, owning the decision, owning the sacrifices that are required of the decision, and then accepting it as kind of part of your identity or who you are.

576
00:40:29.858 --> 00:40:35.867
There's an amusing sub-genre of Kierkegaard that deals with the press in the media.

577
00:40:35.987 --> 00:40:36.187
Yeah.

578
00:40:36.668 --> 00:40:44.579
And I actually think it's incredibly timely for the world that we live in today, but it's also just kind of funny.

579
00:40:44.839 --> 00:40:45.320
Back in 1845...

580
00:40:47.162 --> 00:40:53.648
There was a literary reviewer who talked a little bit of shit about Kierkegaard in a local tabloid.

581
00:40:54.288 --> 00:40:59.573
And Kierkegaard, of course, just being a bundle of sunshine and joy, didn't take it very well.

582
00:40:59.793 --> 00:41:02.215
He got very, very butthurt about it.

583
00:41:02.415 --> 00:41:05.738
And so he decided to kind of like poke the bear a little bit.

584
00:41:05.838 --> 00:41:13.645
And he wrote some disparaging things about the publication and the author and made fun of his ideas and his work a little bit.

585
00:41:14.385 --> 00:41:14.566
And...

586
00:41:15.086 --> 00:41:24.468
In Kierkegaard's mind, he was stoking an intellectual feud with another intellectual and that they were going to argue ideas to ideas.

587
00:41:25.109 --> 00:41:29.010
What he didn't realize is that most people don't care about ideas.

588
00:41:29.730 --> 00:41:32.591
They just enjoy reading about somebody shitting on somebody else.

589
00:41:32.671 --> 00:41:41.633
And so what ended up happening is that this publication just started roasting Kierkegaard brutally over multiple months.

590
00:41:41.653 --> 00:41:42.273
Yeah.

591
00:41:42.453 --> 00:41:48.076
And like getting into his personal life, making fun of what he looked like, how he walked.

592
00:41:48.576 --> 00:41:59.141
They dug up the stories about Regine and just tortured him about how stupid he was and how he was like too afraid to marry this girl and how he's all alone and everything.

593
00:41:59.182 --> 00:42:09.847
Like just absolutely roasted him to the point that people would actually stop on the street and point at Kierkegaard and laugh at him and be like, oh, are you the guy in the magazine?

594
00:42:09.927 --> 00:42:10.607
Oh, my God.

595
00:42:12.328 --> 00:42:16.418
So obviously Kierkegaard didn't enjoy this very much.

596
00:42:16.678 --> 00:42:21.189
I don't think anybody would enjoy it, but especially a guy like him didn't really take to it.

597
00:42:22.478 --> 00:42:26.841
What's interesting, though, is that Kierkegaard was astoundingly brilliant.

598
00:42:26.941 --> 00:42:36.267
And so what this inspired in him is some of the greatest philosophy and writing about media and journalism that has ever been put to page.

599
00:42:37.148 --> 00:42:44.213
He basically took all of his personal grievances and turned it into philosophical works that critiqued Marxism.

600
00:42:44.473 --> 00:42:55.837
Just the whole profession of journalism, the whole apparatus of media and what the effect of widespread media and the printing press was having on society at large.

601
00:42:56.117 --> 00:43:08.941
So Kierkegaard's argument, he made this argument in his essay called The Present Age, is he said that it created an environment where people are able to disseminate opinions without any accountability for those opinions.

602
00:43:09.261 --> 00:43:09.842
Sounds familiar.

603
00:43:09.862 --> 00:43:10.883
Sounds familiar, right?

604
00:43:11.584 --> 00:43:21.834
So he said basically any jackass can just go, you know, pay 10 cents, get a bunch of pamphlets printed, start putting them on street corners and say whatever the hell they want about anybody.

605
00:43:22.154 --> 00:43:25.918
In a lot of cases, these people were publishing anonymously.

606
00:43:26.278 --> 00:43:27.499
There were no repercussions.

607
00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:28.761
There was no fact checking.

608
00:43:28.801 --> 00:43:29.541
There was no like...

609
00:43:30.602 --> 00:43:33.344
I think back then there were probably no libel or slander lawsuits.

610
00:43:33.764 --> 00:43:38.668
So it's just like rampant disinformation going everywhere, all over the place, all at once.

611
00:43:38.968 --> 00:43:47.454
The second thing is that he noted that this media environment created this kind of nebulous sense of, quote unquote, the public opinion.

612
00:43:47.994 --> 00:43:51.297
Now, he brilliantly broke down the fact that...

613
00:43:51.777 --> 00:43:54.620
public opinion is like not really a thing, right?

614
00:43:54.640 --> 00:44:04.311
Like it's the public, everybody, it's thousands or millions of individuals who all have their own opinions and all have like very nuanced perspectives on all sorts of different issues.

615
00:44:04.831 --> 00:44:10.217
But when taken in aggregate, it just seems like this one massive blob of

616
00:44:11.118 --> 00:44:11.518
sentiment.

617
00:44:11.819 --> 00:44:13.280
It's like an abstraction almost.

618
00:44:13.380 --> 00:44:13.660
It is.

619
00:44:13.680 --> 00:44:15.121
And it's not, there's nothing real to it.

620
00:44:15.141 --> 00:44:16.222
There's a hundred percent.

621
00:44:16.262 --> 00:44:16.362
Okay.

622
00:44:16.422 --> 00:44:16.682
Okay.

623
00:44:16.822 --> 00:44:24.848
And what he noted is that this kind of our inability to conceptualize public opinion or recognize that it's a bit of a mirage.

624
00:44:24.868 --> 00:44:25.829
It doesn't really exist.

625
00:44:26.389 --> 00:44:30.152
He said that journalists will leverage this to their benefit, right?

626
00:44:30.192 --> 00:44:30.633
So they will

627
00:44:31.353 --> 00:44:35.394
publish a bunch of stuff, talking a bunch of shit about Drew Bernie, right?

628
00:44:35.634 --> 00:44:40.736
They'll come back a month later and they'll say, well, public opinion is that Drew Bernie is like a really terrible person, right?

629
00:44:40.776 --> 00:44:43.617
And so they will seed public opinion by what they publish.

630
00:44:43.897 --> 00:44:47.178
And then they'll come back later and say, well, this is what the public thinks.

631
00:44:47.198 --> 00:44:48.358
So we're just reporting on it.

632
00:44:48.658 --> 00:44:50.799
And this is something, I mean, you still see this today, right?

633
00:44:51.019 --> 00:44:55.420
And he noticed how pernicious this is and how it breeds kind of a certain amount of...

634
00:44:55.920 --> 00:44:58.982
distrust in others and within society.

635
00:44:59.262 --> 00:45:09.588
And obviously he was kind of on the butt end of the joke of that, but it really concerned him, the social direction that this would take culture and intellectual discourse.

636
00:45:10.620 --> 00:45:15.343
One of my favorite quotes by any philosopher ever is Kierkegaard.

637
00:45:16.003 --> 00:45:17.163
I love this quote so much.

638
00:45:17.604 --> 00:45:25.628
He said, if I had a daughter and she became a prostitute, I would spend every day of my life trying to save her, trying to correct her ways.

639
00:45:26.348 --> 00:45:31.871
If I had a son and he became a journalist, I would disown him on the spot and never speak to him again.

640
00:45:31.931 --> 00:45:32.111
Okay.

641
00:45:33.752 --> 00:45:34.132
Wow.

642
00:45:34.312 --> 00:45:34.673
Okay.

643
00:45:34.693 --> 00:45:34.793
Yeah.

644
00:45:34.813 --> 00:45:38.575
That gives you a sense of kind of where Kierkegaard put the mainstream media.

645
00:45:38.795 --> 00:45:54.624
The reason this matters, and this is extremely appropriate today, is that he said that it created this social, this kind of widespread media in this like phantom public opinion that everybody is trying to live up to, even though like it doesn't really exist.

646
00:45:55.544 --> 00:46:12.813
It creates this effect on each individual, which he called leveling, which is that it creates an incentive to not stand out in any distinctive way, to kind of bring all of your impulses and desires back to the baseline medium of the public opinion, right?

647
00:46:13.234 --> 00:46:19.517
Like he noticed that people generally outsource their decision-making and they outsource how they see things.

648
00:46:20.037 --> 00:46:20.477
And so if

649
00:46:21.818 --> 00:46:25.939
The handful of newspapers and magazines are telling them that everybody thinks this way.

650
00:46:26.820 --> 00:46:29.361
They will kind of default to thinking that way as well.

651
00:46:29.421 --> 00:46:41.525
And so what it does is it takes all the kind of spiky, unique individuality of each of each person and it levels them all out so that they have the same opinions about all the same things at the same time.

652
00:46:42.947 --> 00:46:43.568
about everybody.

653
00:46:44.048 --> 00:46:50.634
This prevents an ability to commit because by definition, to commit to something, you have to be willing to suffer for it.

654
00:46:50.774 --> 00:46:52.455
You have to be willing to stand out.

655
00:46:52.536 --> 00:46:55.899
You have to be willing to do something that most other people are not willing to do.

656
00:46:56.799 --> 00:47:02.504
And so if you are constantly being incentivized by this like magical public opinion to temper people,

657
00:47:03.441 --> 00:47:11.504
like the more extreme aspects of yourself, then you'll never feel at liberty to make any of those commitments because everything you want to do is what everybody else wants to do.

658
00:47:11.784 --> 00:47:19.607
He has a great quote from the present age where he says, a public, contrary to an individual, is an abstraction.

659
00:47:19.907 --> 00:47:24.228
It's a group of spectators who observe and gossip but never make a commitment.

660
00:47:24.428 --> 00:47:25.369
I'll talk, no walk.

661
00:47:25.669 --> 00:47:25.949
Right.

662
00:47:26.029 --> 00:47:26.389
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

663
00:47:26.409 --> 00:47:31.111
Because as soon as you commit to something, you are, by definition, standing out.

664
00:47:32.216 --> 00:47:37.839
You are telling everybody like, hey, I'm willing to lose your approval for this one thing.

665
00:47:38.239 --> 00:47:41.341
And I think social media has kind of just taken that.

666
00:47:41.882 --> 00:47:43.082
First of all, it's globalized it.

667
00:47:43.122 --> 00:47:47.025
And second of all, it's kind of put it on steroids because it's available 24-7.

668
00:47:47.065 --> 00:47:55.189
I mean, at least back in the 1840s, you could throw your newspaper away and like go sit in a corner or something for a couple days.

669
00:47:55.329 --> 00:47:56.890
Today, it's just it's everywhere.

670
00:47:56.930 --> 00:47:58.011
It's in front of you all the time.

671
00:47:58.571 --> 00:48:01.892
And his argument is, I mean, this does not exist without mass media, right?

672
00:48:01.912 --> 00:48:03.252
I mean, that's what you're saying.

673
00:48:03.312 --> 00:48:06.853
And so he called this 180 years ago, and it's only gotten worse.

674
00:48:07.213 --> 00:48:10.954
I guess with that interlude in the middle where you said about, you know, the centralization of all the information, whatever.

675
00:48:10.994 --> 00:48:15.875
But even then, I guess you could argue there was a homogenizing factor at that point.

676
00:48:16.115 --> 00:48:21.176
I think in the case of both of Kierkegaard's main arguments, A, things have gotten worse, and B,

677
00:48:22.689 --> 00:48:24.690
they're more true now than they ever were, right?

678
00:48:24.730 --> 00:48:30.614
Like it's on the one hand, it's like the optionality today is more abundant than it's ever been, right?

679
00:48:30.734 --> 00:48:35.558
And that Kierkegaard would say, obviously people are more anxious than they've ever been before.

680
00:48:36.098 --> 00:48:45.804
Like by his definition of anxiety, this is exactly what you would expect in a world full of abundance and opportunity and freedom and infinite information, right?

681
00:48:46.205 --> 00:48:47.265
And then on the other hand,

682
00:48:48.315 --> 00:48:57.161
he would say, obviously, you would expect culture to get more homogenous for people to become more susceptible to groupthink, not less.

683
00:48:57.642 --> 00:49:04.427
Like, when you and I were kids, right, and the internet was coming online and everything, like, the big kind of utopian promise of the internet was, like,

684
00:49:05.307 --> 00:49:07.149
everybody's going to have access to everything.

685
00:49:07.189 --> 00:49:09.531
So everybody's going to think for themselves, right?

686
00:49:09.591 --> 00:49:12.053
Like you're going to be able to see all sides of every issue.

687
00:49:12.093 --> 00:49:15.195
And so everybody's going to make their own decisions and it's going to be amazing.

688
00:49:15.816 --> 00:49:30.048
And I think Kierkegaard would actually make the point, no, no, no, the opposite's going to happen because the more interconnectivity people have with each other, the more this specter of an imaginary public opinion hangs over each individual.

689
00:49:30.068 --> 00:49:30.168
Yeah.

690
00:49:30.488 --> 00:49:32.449
And we're just going to go to it looking for.

691
00:49:32.710 --> 00:49:33.010
Yes.

692
00:49:33.190 --> 00:49:33.710
And the more.

693
00:49:33.730 --> 00:49:34.291
What thinker.

694
00:49:34.671 --> 00:49:37.493
The more people feel like they must default to that opinion.

695
00:49:37.793 --> 00:49:42.036
It becomes more of a liability to think for yourself under those conditions than less.

696
00:49:42.356 --> 00:49:46.119
Our generation, you and I, we, we opine all the time.

697
00:49:46.139 --> 00:49:52.543
Like, oh man, remember before smartphones where you could just like be a fucking idiot and nobody cared, you know, like maybe you could go get hammered.

698
00:49:52.583 --> 00:49:56.566
Nobody take a picture or a video of you like, and, and make fun of you the next day.

699
00:49:56.786 --> 00:49:59.948
Like there was a freedom to it of not having that connectivity.

700
00:50:00.128 --> 00:50:04.505
I just heard, like, young people don't really dance anymore because...

701
00:50:05.437 --> 00:50:06.138
This, I just heard.

702
00:50:06.158 --> 00:50:06.498
Camerophones?

703
00:50:06.518 --> 00:50:08.359
Yeah, because like you're going to get videoed.

704
00:50:08.839 --> 00:50:11.001
You're going to be on video if you're going to dance somewhere.

705
00:50:11.061 --> 00:50:11.581
That's leveling.

706
00:50:11.601 --> 00:50:12.182
That's leveling.

707
00:50:12.242 --> 00:50:13.423
It's a perfect example of leveling.

708
00:50:13.643 --> 00:50:14.804
They don't drink as much anymore.

709
00:50:14.824 --> 00:50:15.964
They don't date as much anymore.

710
00:50:16.004 --> 00:50:17.245
They don't have sex as much anymore.

711
00:50:17.285 --> 00:50:18.906
They don't even ask each other out anymore.

712
00:50:18.926 --> 00:50:31.055
Hjerkrugard would look at this and he would say like, we're leveling the fuck out of everybody right now because it is the more interconnected everything becomes, the more of a liability it is to stick your neck out for anything.

713
00:50:31.195 --> 00:50:36.278
Yeah, I don't know if you notice this towards the end of your travel years or whatever, but everywhere I would go.

714
00:50:36.538 --> 00:50:45.003
But if you went to a big city somewhere that had been even somewhat capitalistic, I guess, you know, in its influence, everything was kind of starting to turn into the same.

715
00:50:45.023 --> 00:50:52.847
I think the whole travel boom you were talking about in the digital nomad thing, a lot of that was, oh, we're going to build an infrastructure around this, and this is how you live this life.

716
00:50:53.348 --> 00:50:56.009
That was a leveling thing even for that, you know, where everything...

717
00:50:56.149 --> 00:51:03.593
where it once was a thing you did to assert your individuality, it became something that you actually became a part of the public.

718
00:51:03.953 --> 00:51:04.733
It's interesting.

719
00:51:04.873 --> 00:51:06.694
I hadn't thought about that, but I do think that's true.

720
00:51:06.714 --> 00:51:08.996
That's actually something that a couple of friends of mine have noted.

721
00:51:09.316 --> 00:51:15.259
I don't travel nearly as much as I used to, but I have some friends in the travel industry and they still travel all the time.

722
00:51:15.279 --> 00:51:17.800
And they've noted that they're like, every place is feeling the same.

723
00:51:18.560 --> 00:51:21.042
They all have the same restaurants, the same hotel chains.

724
00:51:21.062 --> 00:51:21.542
They

725
00:51:21.682 --> 00:51:22.804
They have the same amenities.

726
00:51:23.765 --> 00:51:27.391
You go to the same parties and it's the same people everywhere, right?

727
00:51:27.431 --> 00:51:34.962
It's everybody's like taking their Instagram selfie and drinking their bougie martini and eating their gluten-free diet and everything's becoming the same.

728
00:51:35.345 --> 00:51:38.986
Let's talk a little bit about some of those modern forces that have continued since Kierkegaard.

729
00:51:39.006 --> 00:51:40.466
I want to dig into some of these anyway.

730
00:51:40.587 --> 00:51:42.167
There's probably a ton out there, okay?

731
00:51:42.187 --> 00:51:46.688
But there's kind of three big ones that I've come up with, and maybe there's others you can name as well.

732
00:51:46.748 --> 00:51:52.110
But there used to be these rituals around going through phases of life.

733
00:51:52.690 --> 00:51:55.411
Even rites of passage, if you look at traditional societies today, or

734
00:51:55.951 --> 00:51:59.413
Actually, lots of societies up until recently had rites of passages, right?

735
00:51:59.793 --> 00:52:04.935
Where it marked some end of one period in your life and then a new period began.

736
00:52:05.495 --> 00:52:05.695
Okay.

737
00:52:05.735 --> 00:52:07.996
So there was this guy, Arnold Van Ginnip.

738
00:52:08.517 --> 00:52:09.657
I think that's how you say his name.

739
00:52:10.298 --> 00:52:14.840
He kind of identified these three stages of a rite of passage that you would go through.

740
00:52:14.860 --> 00:52:16.400
And it seemed to be pretty universal.

741
00:52:16.620 --> 00:52:19.682
And like, for whatever reason, our minds and our development...

742
00:52:20.382 --> 00:52:21.823
kind of gravitates towards these.

743
00:52:21.843 --> 00:52:23.845
And if we don't have them, something goes wrong.

744
00:52:24.205 --> 00:52:24.505
Okay.

745
00:52:24.525 --> 00:52:26.907
So the first one is separation from the old identity.

746
00:52:26.927 --> 00:52:30.210
You know, a lot of times it was from, you know, childhood to adulthood.

747
00:52:30.350 --> 00:52:32.291
There's some sort of rite of passage that happens.

748
00:52:32.491 --> 00:52:41.278
Like in, in traditional societies, there's usually some break, like you're taken away from the group for a while, and then you're taught the ways of the men or the women or, you know, whatever.

749
00:52:41.538 --> 00:52:43.839
So there's some sort of separation period.

750
00:52:44.099 --> 00:52:46.099
But then there's an in-between phase too.

751
00:52:46.419 --> 00:52:50.420
So you don't just go right from I was this old thing into I am this new thing.

752
00:52:50.560 --> 00:52:51.881
There's this in-between phase.

753
00:52:52.101 --> 00:52:58.102
And then when you do reenter back into the group, then you're seen as a new member of the group almost, right?

754
00:52:58.142 --> 00:52:59.102
Your old identity is gone.

755
00:52:59.122 --> 00:53:00.383
You have a new identity in this.

756
00:53:01.263 --> 00:53:13.190
So him and some other people, the other guy, Victor Turner, they argued that like doing away with those rites of passages or those rituals around transitions in our lives, that's coming at a great detriment to us.

757
00:53:13.751 --> 00:53:17.313
There's no clear, okay, you were this thing, now you need to be this thing.

758
00:53:17.353 --> 00:53:19.294
And you have to commit to that new thing.

759
00:53:19.594 --> 00:53:21.355
There was like almost a script for you.

760
00:53:21.855 --> 00:53:24.097
Maybe not a script, but there was just an expectation of it.

761
00:53:24.457 --> 00:53:24.878
in some way.

762
00:53:24.918 --> 00:53:27.781
Maybe you had to figure it out on your own, but there was an expectation for you.

763
00:53:27.801 --> 00:53:28.541
Okay?

764
00:53:28.882 --> 00:53:31.404
This Victor Turner guy, though, he argued that...

765
00:53:32.364 --> 00:53:38.325
What modern culture has done is done away with the ritual, but we never did away with that in-between phase.

766
00:53:38.885 --> 00:53:39.866
So we get stuck in it.

767
00:53:40.126 --> 00:53:41.266
And he called it liminality.

768
00:53:41.546 --> 00:53:43.326
And this is a big word in anthropology.

769
00:53:43.366 --> 00:53:47.347
If you've ever taken any anthropology class, the word liminality or liminal phase will come up.

770
00:53:47.807 --> 00:53:52.128
And it just means some in-between phase where you're not quite the old thing, you're not quite the new thing yet.

771
00:53:52.308 --> 00:53:54.589
You know, yeah, okay, go off to university or college.

772
00:53:54.629 --> 00:53:55.609
Maybe that's kind of one...

773
00:53:56.589 --> 00:53:57.090
sort of.

774
00:53:57.510 --> 00:53:58.831
Yeah, but it's okay.

775
00:53:58.871 --> 00:54:04.755
So this is really mapping really well onto, I think, conversations of extended adolescence.

776
00:54:05.075 --> 00:54:14.702
Like if you go back to our parents' generation or especially our grandparents' generation, it's like by the time you were 20, you were married, you had a house and you had a job and you probably had a kid on the way.

777
00:54:15.462 --> 00:54:17.144
And you were a full-blown adult.

778
00:54:17.184 --> 00:54:18.024
You looked like an adult.

779
00:54:18.044 --> 00:54:19.005
You sounded like an adult.

780
00:54:19.085 --> 00:54:20.046
You acted like an adult.

781
00:54:20.146 --> 00:54:21.407
These days, it's like people are

782
00:54:22.227 --> 00:54:28.129
behaving as though they're adolescents, like well into their twenties, sometimes late twenties, sometimes even early thirties.

783
00:54:28.409 --> 00:54:30.690
It is that liminal phase that you're talking about, right?

784
00:54:30.770 --> 00:54:39.153
Like they're, they're stuck in that in between where they're like kind of their own person, but they're also like not committing to anything and not defining who they become next.

785
00:54:39.453 --> 00:54:40.914
I mean, I definitely had that.

786
00:54:41.294 --> 00:54:41.634
Me too.

787
00:54:41.654 --> 00:54:45.396
Anyway, you know, went to university, like I said, stretched that out as long as I could.

788
00:54:45.416 --> 00:54:45.716
Yeah.

789
00:54:45.956 --> 00:54:48.837
And then like grad school and I was kind of like, oh, just keep going here.

790
00:54:48.917 --> 00:54:49.697
Let's just keep going.

791
00:54:49.737 --> 00:54:51.778
And yeah, I definitely had that.

792
00:54:51.958 --> 00:54:55.880
That is actually another thing I wanted to bring up, this idea of emerging adulthood, though.

793
00:54:56.200 --> 00:55:06.989
This guy, Jeffrey Arnett, who coined this emerging adulthood term, this is back, I think, probably the 60s, 70s is when this really started to happen in Western societies anyway, for sure.

794
00:55:07.169 --> 00:55:13.515
It's this period defined by exploration, by instability in your life, by focusing on yourself and understanding.

795
00:55:13.835 --> 00:55:16.396
that feeling of being in between.

796
00:55:16.756 --> 00:55:20.918
And one of the markers of this phase, if you go and ask someone like, oh, you know, are you an adult?

797
00:55:20.998 --> 00:55:21.919
They won't say yes or no.

798
00:55:21.939 --> 00:55:27.621
They'll say in some ways, yes, in some ways, no, which kind of that liminal in between phase that you have.

799
00:55:27.841 --> 00:55:30.082
It was a result of cultural forces anyway.

800
00:55:30.542 --> 00:55:40.046
So from like the 70s up until like the mid 90s, you know, median age of marriage was 21 in the 70s for women and climbed to 25 in the 90s.

801
00:55:41.507 --> 00:55:46.368
I think it's up to almost 29 now in the 2020s.

802
00:55:46.428 --> 00:55:48.329
23 for men back in the 70s.

803
00:55:48.469 --> 00:55:52.230
27 in the 90s is 30 for men now for age of marriage.

804
00:55:52.390 --> 00:55:53.610
Six, seven, eight years for each gender.

805
00:55:54.350 --> 00:55:55.811
College enrollment was an interesting one.

806
00:55:55.831 --> 00:55:58.511
So that was only like 14% back in the 70s.

807
00:55:58.591 --> 00:56:03.232
It reached about 60% in the 90s kind of level, has leveled off since then.

808
00:56:03.532 --> 00:56:07.513
So more people going to college, need more education to participate in the workforce.

809
00:56:07.573 --> 00:56:09.394
That extends that liminal phase.

810
00:56:09.954 --> 00:56:16.957
of emerging adulthood, age at first childbirth, when you have your first kid, that's steadily climbed, more women entering the workforce.

811
00:56:17.077 --> 00:56:29.802
All of these things kind of came together to produce this new, it really wasn't a thing until the mid 20th century and beyond where we have this new phase where it's like, you know, this, this, the liminal phase where you're not quite a child, but not quite an adult anymore.

812
00:56:30.022 --> 00:56:32.084
Yeah, I feel like there's kind of two sides of this.

813
00:56:32.164 --> 00:56:40.873
Like there is the structural economic side, which is simply that the economy is more complex and well-developed than it's ever been, right?

814
00:56:40.893 --> 00:56:49.282
So it takes that much longer to arrive at a point where you are educated enough and skilled enough to make that career or lifelong commitment.

815
00:56:49.482 --> 00:56:50.883
I have sympathy around that.

816
00:56:50.963 --> 00:56:51.944
That makes sense to me.

817
00:56:52.942 --> 00:56:54.622
Also, women joining the workforce, right?

818
00:56:54.722 --> 00:56:57.383
They're joining that elongated process.

819
00:56:57.543 --> 00:57:05.485
But then there's kind of the social and cultural side, which is that we were exposed to so much more at such an earlier age.

820
00:57:05.745 --> 00:57:12.826
Like our grandparents' generation, they probably were only aware of like half a dozen life paths that they could go down.

821
00:57:13.146 --> 00:57:14.826
Whereas we were told, you can be anything.

822
00:57:14.846 --> 00:57:15.607
You can be anything.

823
00:57:15.627 --> 00:57:18.967
And we were probably aware of dozens of life paths that we could go down.

824
00:57:23.409 --> 00:57:31.900
So the paradox of choice and the anxiety that comes with that excess of life paths and opportunities, I think it weighs on people longer.

825
00:57:32.261 --> 00:57:35.425
And then, of course, they look for ways to live in bad faith.

826
00:57:35.465 --> 00:57:39.070
They look for ways to shirk the responsibility of having to make a choice.

827
00:57:39.371 --> 00:57:39.751
And we have...

828
00:57:40.712 --> 00:57:44.334
way more access to distractions to avoid making a choice today, too.

829
00:57:44.414 --> 00:57:45.034
Oh, exactly.

830
00:57:45.214 --> 00:57:49.295
The last kind of big cultural force is very tied in with this one as well.

831
00:57:49.315 --> 00:57:50.996
There was this guy, Zygmunt Bauman.

832
00:57:51.656 --> 00:57:55.018
He wrote this book called Liquid Modernity back in like early 2000s.

833
00:57:55.278 --> 00:57:57.939
And he explained some of that economic and cultural scaffolding.

834
00:57:58.139 --> 00:58:01.300
Sounds like an expensive drink at a shitty nightclub.

835
00:58:01.320 --> 00:58:03.161
Liquid modernity.

836
00:58:03.441 --> 00:58:05.842
I'll have two liquid modernities, please.

837
00:58:07.641 --> 00:58:14.467
There were like these economic forces when the economy became much more dynamic and required a more dynamic workforce.

838
00:58:14.827 --> 00:58:18.811
You know, the old saying about like, oh, people used to work for the company for 30.

839
00:58:18.871 --> 00:58:22.975
There are entire careers, you know, the 30 year career or in the coal mine or whatever.

840
00:58:22.995 --> 00:58:24.776
That just doesn't happen anymore.

841
00:58:25.117 --> 00:58:32.183
And not only does it not happen, but he says it's usually in your economic interest for you not to stay in one spot so long.

842
00:58:32.403 --> 00:58:43.432
And he said that that culture, that idea really spread out into the wider culture around relationships or around whatever it is, careers or friendships or where you live.

843
00:58:43.632 --> 00:58:46.134
Commitment to something, he said, became an economic liability.

844
00:58:46.194 --> 00:58:48.656
And people just started applying that to all parts of their lives.

845
00:58:49.076 --> 00:58:54.921
Like one example he gave was, you know, that I guess it wasn't really common for businesses that have return policies before.

846
00:58:55.081 --> 00:58:57.162
And then that became a very common thing.

847
00:58:57.182 --> 00:58:57.402
Right.

848
00:58:57.543 --> 00:59:00.025
Then we apply that to like a relationship as soon as it starts happening.

849
00:59:00.685 --> 00:59:04.526
you know, not meeting our expectations, take it back.

850
00:59:04.726 --> 00:59:08.147
He kind of names it the shift from marriage to cohabitation.

851
00:59:09.147 --> 00:59:12.888
And he meant that in a broader sense, not just marriage and cohabitation.

852
00:59:12.948 --> 00:59:14.829
Literally, he meant that on that.

853
00:59:15.209 --> 00:59:21.451
There was a big shift from marrying somebody before you cohabitated, now you cohabitate before you marry, if you marry at all.

854
00:59:21.911 --> 00:59:25.392
But he said you can apply that to anything, the place you live, the job you're in.

855
00:59:25.892 --> 00:59:43.079
I think his big takeaway, though, was that where we went from like this industrialized, more centralized economy to a more decentralized one and dynamic, there was just a loss of trust across the board, a loss of trust in institutions, in others, and he said even in yourself, too.

856
00:59:43.379 --> 00:59:44.159
When you don't trust trust,

857
00:59:45.283 --> 00:59:48.824
anyone around you or even yourself, it is a lot harder to make commitments.

858
00:59:49.144 --> 00:59:53.206
It seems like a liability to make a commitment when you're in a low trust environment like that.

859
00:59:53.886 --> 01:00:05.510
I just had like a realization while you were describing that, which is that one thing that's very different between say an industrial economy and a service economy is that in an industrial economy, what's the difference between

860
01:00:05.670 --> 01:00:08.452
The skill sets that you develop don't really transfer, right?

861
01:00:08.512 --> 01:00:16.696
So if you've spent 20 years being a coal miner, it's not like you can just pick up and go learn how to like refine oil next week.

862
01:00:17.296 --> 01:00:21.398
Whereas in the services economy, skills are highly transferable.

863
01:00:21.579 --> 01:00:27.242
If you are a legal aid for a law firm, like you could probably go get a job at an insurance broker.

864
01:00:27.262 --> 01:00:27.362
Yeah.

865
01:00:28.222 --> 01:00:31.764
you know, doing something else, you know, handling contracts and stuff.

866
01:00:31.784 --> 01:00:39.148
There's just so much more mobility across industries that then it does make sense to not stay in one place for too long.

867
01:00:39.248 --> 01:00:40.109
And think about that too.

868
01:00:40.349 --> 01:00:50.415
If you think about how somebody as a worker would approach that, they would say, oh, if this is the case where I do have all these transferable skills and the

869
01:00:50.915 --> 01:01:03.954
this economic landscape is changing so quickly, it benefits me to be quote unquote resilient by kind of building a portfolio of jobs or careers or skills or whatever it is, rather than committing to any one thing.

870
01:01:04.155 --> 01:01:05.657
So there's a big incentive for that.

871
01:01:05.797 --> 01:01:09.938
Yeah, and you probably maximize your earnings by moving around more rather than less.

872
01:01:10.078 --> 01:01:14.240
Yeah, I think especially like people in the tech industry, you know, there's kind of like that idea of the portfolio career.

873
01:01:14.440 --> 01:01:18.921
It maximizes, you know, your earnings, your potential earnings throughout your career.

874
01:01:19.101 --> 01:01:21.442
You are destabilizing your...

875
01:01:22.242 --> 01:01:27.507
your personal life, your relationships, maybe you're moving to different cities, and your identity, right?

876
01:01:27.567 --> 01:01:32.071
Because if you've worked in four different industries by the time you're 30, it's like, who the fuck are you?

877
01:01:32.091 --> 01:01:35.675
I mean, do you really know who you are and what you stand for in that case?

878
01:01:35.875 --> 01:01:38.918
Those are kind of some of the three big cultural forces that we've seen over the last...

879
01:01:40.458 --> 01:01:42.619
not quite a hundred, 75 years or so, maybe more.

880
01:01:42.759 --> 01:01:45.660
There's a lot of incentives out there for you to not commit.

881
01:01:46.100 --> 01:01:47.700
A lot of dizziness of freedom.

882
01:01:47.720 --> 01:01:49.081
A lot of dizziness.

883
01:01:49.101 --> 01:01:50.081
A lot of anxiety.

884
01:01:50.101 --> 01:01:50.661
Yeah.

885
01:01:50.901 --> 01:02:00.064
For the rest of this episode, we are going to frame each chapter as one of the three stages of Kierkegaard's framework of making lifelong commitments.

886
01:02:00.684 --> 01:02:02.366
and finding one's true path.

887
01:02:02.486 --> 01:02:04.108
So he had three stages.

888
01:02:04.568 --> 01:02:07.050
These were explained in two of his books.

889
01:02:07.150 --> 01:02:12.155
One is either or, which he talks about the first two stages, and then fear and trembling, which he talks about the third.

890
01:02:12.536 --> 01:02:15.078
And according to Kierkegaard, you can't jump ahead.

891
01:02:15.598 --> 01:02:17.080
You have to go through all three.

892
01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:24.567
You have to experience the downsides of each of the first two in order to find your way to the subsequent stages.

893
01:02:24.667 --> 01:02:27.130
So his first stage is called the aesthetic stage.

894
01:02:27.230 --> 01:02:29.292
And this is the person who's adrift.

895
01:02:29.673 --> 01:02:34.658
This is the person who is chasing every option, every opportunity, keeping every door open.

896
01:02:34.678 --> 01:02:40.105
It never commits, is not making decisions, is trying to avoid cornering themselves into one option.

897
01:02:40.745 --> 01:02:42.027
And Kierkegaard had some...

898
01:02:43.248 --> 01:02:45.609
Some harsh words for these people.

899
01:02:45.809 --> 01:02:47.610
The second stage is the ethical stage.

900
01:02:48.070 --> 01:02:52.992
And the ethical stage occurs when you realize that the aesthetic stage is leading nowhere.

901
01:02:53.232 --> 01:02:56.093
It is its own subtle form of prison.

902
01:02:56.393 --> 01:03:01.555
It is keeping you just constantly anxious and on the lookout for the next new shiny thing.

903
01:03:01.735 --> 01:03:04.978
The ethical stage is when you realize, okay, I need to make some commitments.

904
01:03:05.018 --> 01:03:07.500
I need to choose some things that matter to me more than others.

905
01:03:07.900 --> 01:03:09.201
And so let me make those choices.

906
01:03:09.221 --> 01:03:10.582
Let me make those sacrifices.

907
01:03:10.822 --> 01:03:15.466
Now, to live in the ethical stage, you have to be very aware of those trade-offs and those costs that you're making.

908
01:03:15.806 --> 01:03:23.072
If you believe you're committing the things, but you don't really think you should have to sacrifice anything, Kierkegaard would argue that that's not really a commitment.

909
01:03:23.372 --> 01:03:24.653
That's just delusion.

910
01:03:24.673 --> 01:03:25.394
Yeah.

911
01:03:25.514 --> 01:03:33.819
So the ethical is somebody who has taken on willingly certain sacrifices and compromises to dedicate themselves to something that they believe is important.

912
01:03:34.099 --> 01:03:43.825
But what's interesting about his ethical stage is that he kind of frames these commitments as something that is calculated and very rational.

913
01:03:43.905 --> 01:03:51.150
There's an ROI to each of these commitments, and the person has kind of sat down and been like, okay, yeah, I think marrying this person will go well.

914
01:03:51.190 --> 01:03:52.690
Let me go ahead and go for it.

915
01:03:53.051 --> 01:03:54.712
Kierkegaard would argue is not...

916
01:03:55.352 --> 01:03:58.133
really a full-fledged commitment.

917
01:03:58.373 --> 01:04:08.397
It is like part of a commitment, but it is not the full experience that one person can get from giving their life to something or someone.

918
01:04:09.317 --> 01:04:12.838
And this brings us to his third stage, which is the religious stage.

919
01:04:13.158 --> 01:04:18.520
And it's funny because I remember the first time I read Fear and Trembling and I realized that the whole book was about Abraham and Isaac.

920
01:04:18.540 --> 01:04:19.641
I was just like, oh God.

921
01:04:19.901 --> 01:04:22.322
I just had all these flashbacks of like my fucking...

922
01:04:23.122 --> 01:04:24.983
church groups and Bible study.

923
01:04:25.003 --> 01:04:31.667
I was like, really, dude, like you're going to make me sit through this actually unbelievably powerful book, incredibly profound.

924
01:04:32.687 --> 01:04:34.188
I love, I love that book.

925
01:04:34.568 --> 01:04:36.269
And I was very surprised how much I loved it.

926
01:04:36.509 --> 01:04:42.193
I think Kierkegaard chose to call this stage, the religious stage simply because it is the only word that

927
01:04:42.973 --> 01:04:45.035
does justice to what the experience is.

928
01:04:45.355 --> 01:04:48.678
This is where you get into the idea of a leap of faith and just faith itself.

929
01:04:48.978 --> 01:04:56.764
Probably the best distinction between the ethical stage and the religious stage is that the ethical stage is a rational commitment to something.

930
01:04:57.264 --> 01:05:03.169
A religious stage is, by definition, an irrational level of commitment to something.

931
01:05:03.329 --> 01:05:05.630
You just commit to it for the sake of committing to it.

932
01:05:05.890 --> 01:05:06.110
Yeah.

933
01:05:06.390 --> 01:05:08.111
And if it kills me, so be it.

934
01:05:08.271 --> 01:05:14.174
So just to recap really quickly, what we've established here is that Kierkegaard argued that the self is built.

935
01:05:14.474 --> 01:05:20.417
It's not found that your life path is carved out with a machete and not.

936
01:05:21.297 --> 01:05:22.057
stumbled across.

937
01:05:22.438 --> 01:05:33.762
We talked about how anxiety is the dizziness that comes with freedom, that it is the unease of too many options, too many potentialities, too many possible selves that you could step into.

938
01:05:34.043 --> 01:05:41.886
Because of that anxiety, because of not wanting to close all the doors that we could potentially walk into, we find ways to outsource our decision-making.

939
01:05:42.026 --> 01:05:46.528
We find ways to live in bad faith, to shirk the responsibility, to

940
01:05:46.968 --> 01:05:51.270
Let other people and other things decide for us and then blame them when those decisions go wrong.

941
01:05:51.450 --> 01:05:55.932
Then we talked about how this problem is bigger than ever today.

942
01:05:56.393 --> 01:06:03.796
How Kierkegaard identified these tendencies in the 1840s just because he thought there are too many magazines and newspapers out.

943
01:06:04.116 --> 01:06:06.657
Like, imagine if he had access to TikTok.

944
01:06:07.018 --> 01:06:08.999
Dude, I feel like Kierkegaard would be...

945
01:06:10.239 --> 01:06:12.281
the all-time best Twitter account.

946
01:06:12.701 --> 01:06:16.584
It would just be scathing and so fucking insightful.

947
01:06:16.964 --> 01:06:22.809
We talked about some of the structural changes that have happened over the last hundred years that have made this experience inevitable.

948
01:06:23.309 --> 01:06:30.534
But at the end of the day, it's impossible to form an identity, a self, and to feel peace with oneself

949
01:06:31.595 --> 01:06:37.038
without these lifelong commitments that we've made to a handful of things and a handful of people.

950
01:06:37.579 --> 01:06:57.371
So I think all this sets the stage really well of we understand Kierkegaard's basic ideas, his frameworks, the introduction, the definition of anxiety, the inner tension between our potential and the reality of our limitations, and why we feel so adrift, why more potential, more optionality doesn't make us happier.

951
01:06:57.411 --> 01:06:58.612
It actually makes us more anxious.

952
01:06:58.952 --> 01:07:07.478
All of these factors, I think, set the stage for really digging into Kierkegaard's first stage of commitment, which is the aesthetic stage.

953
01:07:07.678 --> 01:07:18.745
Now, in the next chapter, we're going to go deep into what the aesthetic stage is, how we all have to get through it, what the experience of living through it is like, and how we can get trapped by our own optionality and our own potential.

954
01:07:18.765 --> 01:07:21.587
We're going to talk about the many ways that we...

955
01:07:22.287 --> 01:07:32.975
avoid having to make decisions for ourselves, that we avoid taking responsibility for the decisions that we do make, and the false impression that having more options is always a good thing.

956
01:07:33.175 --> 01:07:39.139
We're going to use as an example another historical figure who I think exemplifies the aesthetic stage perfectly.

957
01:07:39.159 --> 01:07:43.502
It is definitely somebody that everybody listening to this has probably heard of.

958
01:07:43.662 --> 01:07:45.944
Maybe the most famous Playboy character.

959
01:07:46.895 --> 01:07:49.757
fuck boy in world history time.

960
01:07:49.777 --> 01:07:51.599
Yeah, it is Casanova himself.

961
01:07:52.900 --> 01:07:54.381
Most people are familiar with the name.

962
01:07:54.581 --> 01:07:55.842
They're familiar with the reputation.

963
01:07:56.023 --> 01:08:02.148
They are not familiar with his actual life and what he went through and tragically how he died.

964
01:08:02.708 --> 01:08:04.289
So we will get into all of that.

965
01:08:04.750 --> 01:08:11.175
We will get into the optionality trap, the paradox of choice, surviving the aesthetic stage and finding your

966
01:08:15.939 --> 01:08:16.419
Stay tuned.

967
01:08:16.759 --> 01:08:18.680
But real quick, a word from our sponsors.

968
01:08:19.100 --> 01:08:21.621
This episode is brought to you by Brain.fm.

969
01:08:22.121 --> 01:08:24.942
So as you guys know, I'm pretty open about having ADHD.

970
01:08:24.982 --> 01:08:28.963
And for years, I thought my focus problem was something that I could out-discipline.

971
01:08:29.203 --> 01:08:30.863
You know, I just had to try harder.

972
01:08:30.903 --> 01:08:32.344
I just had to focus more.

973
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I had to cut more distractions.

974
01:08:34.144 --> 01:08:36.085
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975
01:08:36.385 --> 01:08:40.306
I tried every bullshit protocol that I ever found on the internet.

976
01:08:40.686 --> 01:08:42.827
Anything, like you imagine it, I've tried it.

977
01:08:43.027 --> 01:08:44.047
And none of it worked.

978
01:08:44.327 --> 01:08:48.971
See, it turns out that my brain just needed more stimulation than willpower could supply.

979
01:08:49.192 --> 01:08:52.475
And most focus tools, they are built for a brain that just needs quiet.

980
01:08:52.815 --> 01:08:55.197
But mine's never been quiet a day in its life.

981
01:08:55.638 --> 01:09:01.383
If you feed it too little, it will go looking for something else to chew on, usually six tabs that I never decided to open.

982
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983
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984
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985
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986
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987
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And they built a dedicated ADHD mode on the idea that different brains need different music to focus.

988
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Real focus music for a brain that needs more stimulation, not less.

989
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This barely existed before.

990
01:09:31.570 --> 01:09:39.436
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991
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Now, I've used it for years.

992
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I've used the deep work playlist when I'm writing, the creativity one when I'm structuring an episode.

993
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And if you know anything about me...

994
01:09:48.263 --> 01:09:50.644
You know I don't like to promote crap that I don't actually use.

995
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996
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The music doesn't check the paperwork.

997
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998
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999
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1000
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1001
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1002
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1003
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1004
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That's Manson.deals slash Brain.fm.

1005
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Brain FM.

1006
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This episode is brought to you by Surfshark.

1007
01:10:21.836 --> 01:10:22.537
Closing doors.

1008
01:10:22.957 --> 01:10:24.898
That's basically been the whole episode, right?

1009
01:10:25.258 --> 01:10:28.639
You become somebody by shutting a few options and committing to what's left.

1010
01:10:29.079 --> 01:10:34.101
But there's a set of doors in your life that you never chose to open and you can't just close them with willpower.

1011
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Get four extra months of Surfshark by going to surfshark.com slash solved pod and use the code solved pod at checkout or scan the QR code on your screen.

1021
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That's surfshark.com slash solved pod code solved pod.

1022
01:11:36.013 --> 01:11:38.535
You can also find the link in the top line of the description.

1023
01:11:39.096 --> 01:11:39.356
All right.

1024
01:11:39.456 --> 01:11:39.997
Welcome back.

1025
01:11:45.778 --> 01:11:55.020
I find it interesting that the phrase finding yourself implies that there is something external that you have to go searching or exploring for.

1026
01:11:55.040 --> 01:12:02.922
That like yourself with a capital S is like hiding under a rack or buried in a closet somewhere.

1027
01:12:03.482 --> 01:12:12.864
And if you just like signed up for enough class pass gyms or went on enough hinge dates, you would magically find yourself.

1028
01:12:13.264 --> 01:12:13.504
Yeah.

1029
01:12:15.332 --> 01:12:17.713
And sure enough, this is often the conventional wisdom, right?

1030
01:12:17.733 --> 01:12:22.954
People tell you, like, get out there, explore, go to new places, meet new people, try new things.

1031
01:12:23.134 --> 01:12:26.275
And like, sure, there is some value in that.

1032
01:12:26.836 --> 01:12:31.137
But I don't necessarily think that is exactly how you find yourself.

1033
01:12:31.277 --> 01:12:37.379
In fact, I think Kierkegaard would argue that that is a very efficient way of avoiding yourself.

1034
01:12:37.679 --> 01:12:38.119
Right.

1035
01:12:38.339 --> 01:12:49.587
And so in this chapter, we're going to talk about what happens when exploration goes too far, when novelty seeking prevents you from finding out who you are in your life rather than helping you.

1036
01:12:50.148 --> 01:12:57.373
And we're going to start with the historical figure that took exploration and novelty seeking to the logical endpoint.

1037
01:12:58.073 --> 01:12:59.054
You've probably heard of him.

1038
01:12:59.334 --> 01:13:00.835
His name is Casanova.

1039
01:13:01.075 --> 01:13:02.797
Yes, that Casanova.

1040
01:13:03.690 --> 01:13:08.272
And while his story is exciting, it is maybe a little bit more tragic than you would suspect.

1041
01:13:08.712 --> 01:13:12.094
So Casanova was born in 1725 in Venice.

1042
01:13:12.194 --> 01:13:13.914
His parents were two actors.

1043
01:13:15.455 --> 01:13:19.617
His father, he never really knew, died when he was eight, was never around in the first place.

1044
01:13:19.657 --> 01:13:21.758
And then his mom was touring Europe all the time.

1045
01:13:21.798 --> 01:13:27.020
So she basically just left him with his grandmother and he barely ever saw her.

1046
01:13:27.844 --> 01:13:34.667
Now, at the time, Venice was kind of like, I don't know, like the Las Vegas or New York City of Europe.

1047
01:13:34.787 --> 01:13:37.749
It was where all of the fun was happening.

1048
01:13:37.769 --> 01:13:39.750
It was where carnival originated.

1049
01:13:40.290 --> 01:13:45.112
It was full of parties and mass and big feasts and festivals and celebrations.

1050
01:13:45.813 --> 01:13:49.835
And so young Casanova grew up in this world, in this environment.

1051
01:13:49.855 --> 01:13:52.576
It was very hedonistic culture at the time.

1052
01:13:52.998 --> 01:13:58.799
He got a law degree, then he went to seminary, then he got expelled for sleeping with too many people.

1053
01:13:59.239 --> 01:14:03.420
So then he tried to become a soldier, decided it was too boring, too structured.

1054
01:14:04.121 --> 01:14:09.442
He tried to go back to the clergy, but he passed out drunk one too many times and got kicked out again.

1055
01:14:10.142 --> 01:14:17.644
Studied violin for a while, tried to join an orchestra, and then supposedly, as he claimed, he saved a rich noble's life.

1056
01:14:18.104 --> 01:14:22.445
And that noble became a patron of his, started giving him tons of money.

1057
01:14:23.105 --> 01:14:37.607
Casanova immediately began spending all of his money, spent it gambling, spent it going out chasing girls, spent it traveling, buying expensive clothing, basically just burning through everything.

1058
01:14:38.208 --> 01:14:39.828
Eventually, he gets kicked out of Venice.

1059
01:14:40.428 --> 01:14:42.829
He travels around Europe for a while.

1060
01:14:43.089 --> 01:14:44.869
It's the same pattern everywhere he goes.

1061
01:14:45.449 --> 01:14:46.089
He shows up.

1062
01:14:46.209 --> 01:14:47.330
He's incredibly charming.

1063
01:14:47.350 --> 01:14:48.630
He's incredibly charismatic.

1064
01:14:48.670 --> 01:14:49.630
He looks like a noble.

1065
01:14:49.670 --> 01:14:50.490
He acts like a noble.

1066
01:14:50.510 --> 01:14:51.650
He's extremely well-dressed.

1067
01:14:52.190 --> 01:15:06.233
So he ingratiates himself with the local aristocracy, seduces a bunch of guys' wives, creates a scandal, gets kicked out, and then has to move on to the next little fiefdom or kingdom where the whole pattern plays itself out again.

1068
01:15:06.708 --> 01:15:15.470
Now, while all of this is happening, there's just like an endless array of fantastic stories, ridiculous stories.

1069
01:15:15.610 --> 01:15:23.092
I mean, stuff that like, if it didn't happen, you would just read and be like, yeah, there's no way that happened.

1070
01:15:23.513 --> 01:15:29.834
Like at one point he got arrested by the Venice Inquisition and put in Piambi prison in Venice.

1071
01:15:30.535 --> 01:15:32.455
Nobody had ever escaped Piambi before.

1072
01:15:32.915 --> 01:15:33.455
He was there.

1073
01:15:33.495 --> 01:15:35.196
He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

1074
01:15:36.016 --> 01:15:39.178
He was the first person to ever escape from Pionby Prison.

1075
01:15:39.498 --> 01:15:42.660
He carved his—he was like an Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption.

1076
01:15:42.700 --> 01:15:46.983
He found a metal spike and, like, slowly chiseled his way out of the prison.

1077
01:15:47.423 --> 01:15:51.506
Supposedly, he claims that he slept with over 120 different women.

1078
01:15:51.926 --> 01:15:54.468
He contracted venereal disease 11 different times.

1079
01:15:54.908 --> 01:16:00.552
He met Voltaire, Pope Clement XIII, Catherine the Great, Benjamin Franklin, and Mozart—

1080
01:16:01.032 --> 01:16:06.156
At various points, he was a spy, a diplomat, a mathematician, and a partial translator of Homer.

1081
01:16:07.517 --> 01:16:09.259
Obviously.

1082
01:16:09.719 --> 01:16:15.263
Casanova is perhaps an extreme example of what Kierkegaard would call an esthete.

1083
01:16:15.624 --> 01:16:20.728
An esthete is somebody who lives in Kierkegaard's first stage, the aesthetic stage.

1084
01:16:21.100 --> 01:16:27.246
Now, esthetes are all about sensation, novelty, stimulation.

1085
01:16:27.867 --> 01:16:31.271
They generally have a refusal to commit to too many things.

1086
01:16:31.671 --> 01:16:33.413
They like having their options open.

1087
01:16:33.853 --> 01:16:36.516
They like seeing if anything better comes along.

1088
01:16:36.876 --> 01:16:41.701
And the danger of the aesthetic life is that it is so easy to justify to ourselves.

1089
01:16:42.622 --> 01:16:56.095
We can convince ourselves that we are maximizing our potential, that we are maximizing our freedom, that we are having a great time and we're doing so many interesting things and we're learning so much and we're finding so many opportunities.

1090
01:16:56.615 --> 01:17:05.704
There always seems to be an explanation beneath the surface that we can point at to justify these kind of instinctive automatic behaviors.

1091
01:17:06.288 --> 01:17:24.893
Now, in his book, Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard points out that this sort of despair, this kind of despair of optionality, of freedom, of indulgence, it is the most dangerous kind of despair because it largely goes unnoticed by the estate, right?

1092
01:17:25.313 --> 01:17:26.134
They are comfortable.

1093
01:17:26.494 --> 01:17:27.414
They are entertained.

1094
01:17:27.954 --> 01:17:29.835
They're surrounded by opportunities.

1095
01:17:30.715 --> 01:17:32.296
But they feel completely empty.

1096
01:17:32.896 --> 01:17:34.617
None of it seems to mean anything.

1097
01:17:34.777 --> 01:17:35.978
None of it seems to matter.

1098
01:17:36.398 --> 01:17:47.325
And so as soon as you sit with that emptiness, you desperately look and crave some new form of stimulation or entertainment to fill that void for you.

1099
01:17:47.935 --> 01:17:51.496
There is an essay, it's actually a speech that I absolutely love.

1100
01:17:51.857 --> 01:17:56.338
You are well aware of this because we've posted it so many times over the years.

1101
01:17:57.259 --> 01:17:58.939
This is Water by David Foster Wallace.

1102
01:17:59.420 --> 01:18:00.980
I think he describes this perfectly.

1103
01:18:01.621 --> 01:18:04.902
He actually, this is where I get the term, the default state.

1104
01:18:05.062 --> 01:18:06.783
He describes this as the default state.

1105
01:18:07.363 --> 01:18:09.604
Our default state is always impulsive.

1106
01:18:10.024 --> 01:18:10.784
It's self-serving.

1107
01:18:11.244 --> 01:18:14.466
It is, indulges, it seeks entertainment.

1108
01:18:14.606 --> 01:18:15.686
It seeks novelty.

1109
01:18:15.926 --> 01:18:17.267
It seeks stimulation.

1110
01:18:17.987 --> 01:18:26.410
And a lot of Wallace's work was very preoccupied with the role of mass entertainment and the aesthetic life.

1111
01:18:26.890 --> 01:18:36.634
You know, Infinite Jest and a lot of his essays really dig into kind of the addictive qualities of modern stimulation that comes with modern entertainment.

1112
01:18:37.174 --> 01:18:43.337
And it's interesting because, you know, in last chapter, we talked about how prophetic Kierkegaard was, particularly around media.

1113
01:18:44.292 --> 01:18:50.394
But I don't think he foresaw the impact that mass entertainment was gonna have, right?

1114
01:18:50.434 --> 01:19:01.817
Like Netflix and social media and having like literally 500 channels available to you 24 seven.

1115
01:19:01.937 --> 01:19:06.058
Like it is the ability to distract yourself

1116
01:19:06.818 --> 01:19:08.459
is available in every single moment.

1117
01:19:08.539 --> 01:19:14.602
And so the gravitational pull of the aesthetic life, I think you could argue, is stronger now than it has ever been.

1118
01:19:14.622 --> 01:19:16.563
Yeah, and easier to access.

1119
01:19:16.663 --> 01:19:17.364
Absolutely, yeah.

1120
01:19:17.584 --> 01:19:17.804
Yeah.

1121
01:19:18.124 --> 01:19:19.125
In every facet of life.

1122
01:19:19.265 --> 01:19:19.485
Yeah.

1123
01:19:19.525 --> 01:19:19.745
Yeah.

1124
01:19:20.265 --> 01:19:27.269
But I do want to take a moment, and I want to go through five predictions that Kierkegaard made that actually did turn out to be true.

1125
01:19:28.010 --> 01:19:31.872
And we actually have the modern psychological research to back it up these days.

1126
01:19:32.552 --> 01:19:34.793
And I think by going through these one-by-one

1127
01:19:35.894 --> 01:19:48.178
It will help us get a better understanding of the water we all swim in and hopefully how we can navigate this gravitational pull a little bit better going into the future.

1128
01:19:48.398 --> 01:19:55.000
The first prediction he made is he said that more reflection without commitment just produces paralysis.

1129
01:19:55.300 --> 01:19:56.540
It doesn't actually produce wisdom.

1130
01:19:57.041 --> 01:20:03.142
Like there's a certain inflection point that thinking about your choices more doesn't help you make them.

1131
01:20:03.242 --> 01:20:04.763
It actually prevents you from making them.

1132
01:20:05.043 --> 01:20:09.845
It's interesting because I think at the time this was probably a pretty revolutionary idea.

1133
01:20:10.366 --> 01:20:17.229
He actually, in the present age, he talks about how there's, he kind of divides the world up into kind of two eras.

1134
01:20:17.409 --> 01:20:20.551
There's like the revolutionary era and then there's the present age.

1135
01:20:21.591 --> 01:20:26.855
And he said that prior to being inundated with information, people just acted.

1136
01:20:27.795 --> 01:20:31.878
And if they wanted to see change in the world, they would just go do it.

1137
01:20:32.058 --> 01:20:33.159
They would just make it happen.

1138
01:20:33.619 --> 01:20:42.025
But he complained in the modern era, in the present age, which was the 1840s, he said people were so inundated with information.

1139
01:20:42.325 --> 01:20:56.585
useless information and constant analysis and reflection that they were forgetting how to act in the world that they were forgetting how to just throw themselves out there and make the change that they wanted to make yeah it was endlessly possible to talk

1140
01:20:57.746 --> 01:21:01.487
And not act like that was kind of his thing about the present age, right?

1141
01:21:01.527 --> 01:21:02.607
Everybody's talking about this.

1142
01:21:02.627 --> 01:21:05.588
Everybody's going up to the edge, but never taking the plunge.

1143
01:21:05.708 --> 01:21:05.948
Right.

1144
01:21:06.068 --> 01:21:13.050
And that was his whole thing is this endless possibility for that now, especially with the informational environment that he was seeing the changes for.

1145
01:21:13.110 --> 01:21:15.071
And now what we see on steroids.

1146
01:21:15.251 --> 01:21:15.471
Yeah.

1147
01:21:15.851 --> 01:21:17.893
Also kind of like the paradox of choice, right?

1148
01:21:17.913 --> 01:21:20.094
This is Barry Schwartz's work on the paradox of choice.

1149
01:21:20.134 --> 01:21:22.956
He wrote the book on this, but he did a whole, this whole body of research around it too.

1150
01:21:23.397 --> 01:21:31.903
Basically showing that the more options you have, the less satisfied with any one of them you end up choosing because you're like, oh, there was this other one over there.

1151
01:21:32.223 --> 01:21:34.325
So I had to sit here and I had to think about all these things

1152
01:21:34.565 --> 01:21:37.087
Other options in front of me, you know, it's the classic example.

1153
01:21:37.107 --> 01:21:42.391
You go to a grocery store and buy toothpaste and there's a whole aisle full of toothpaste and like, which one are you supposed to buy?

1154
01:21:42.451 --> 01:21:42.671
Right.

1155
01:21:42.691 --> 01:21:44.212
And you're never satisfied with the one you buy.

1156
01:21:44.232 --> 01:21:45.613
That's a simple example.

1157
01:21:46.133 --> 01:21:52.518
When you have abundance in front of you, all these options in front of you that plays out on on steroids itself.

1158
01:21:52.758 --> 01:21:57.441
You're never satisfied with any one decision because you consider all the others wrong.

1159
01:21:57.902 --> 01:22:00.885
all the other lives you could have lived in that realm.

1160
01:22:02.086 --> 01:22:07.833
Schwartz too, some of his later work, I love this concept, and I think we've talked about it several times maybe before too,

1161
01:22:09.214 --> 01:22:12.576
In that same realm, you have the maximizers and the satisficers.

1162
01:22:12.836 --> 01:22:19.139
So when given a set of options of any kind of choice, people tend to split into two different camps.

1163
01:22:19.359 --> 01:22:27.944
Maximizers, they will try to overanalyze it, just like what you're talking about, like analyze it to death and make sure they're getting the absolute best option.

1164
01:22:28.004 --> 01:22:30.565
They're making the absolute best choice for them in that situation.

1165
01:22:31.145 --> 01:22:36.328
Then you have the satisficers who they seek a good enough solution or a good enough option.

1166
01:22:37.183 --> 01:22:45.266
What's interesting about this research too is that, yeah, if you look at them objectively, right, maximizers tend to have better outcomes.

1167
01:22:45.706 --> 01:22:54.609
Like if they pick the better product or they make more money doing something or a better investment, whatever it is, but they're less happy than the satisficers are.

1168
01:22:54.850 --> 01:22:56.810
The satisficers are like, I picked good enough.

1169
01:22:57.130 --> 01:22:59.111
I could have went well, could have maybe not.

1170
01:22:59.971 --> 01:23:01.672
And they end up being happier over the long run.

1171
01:23:02.272 --> 01:23:03.893
Also in relationships too, this happens.

1172
01:23:04.193 --> 01:23:04.973
You got to maximize it.

1173
01:23:04.993 --> 01:23:05.993
Think about that, right?

1174
01:23:06.133 --> 01:23:06.314
Yeah.

1175
01:23:06.354 --> 01:23:11.215
Get a maximizer in a long-term relationship and they're going to be miserable because they're just going to sit there and think, well, I'm...

1176
01:23:11.335 --> 01:23:15.396
They're going to think about all the other potential people they could have gone out with, but they didn't.

1177
01:23:15.656 --> 01:23:15.976
Exactly.

1178
01:23:16.096 --> 01:23:18.076
Or maybe they stopped talking to or whatever.

1179
01:23:18.096 --> 01:23:18.296
Yeah.

1180
01:23:18.497 --> 01:23:20.717
Research, Schwartz and others, bear this out too.

1181
01:23:20.797 --> 01:23:24.658
I mean, they're less satisfied with their relationships than satisfacers are.

1182
01:23:24.798 --> 01:23:26.358
So yeah, Kierkegaard was...

1183
01:23:26.999 --> 01:23:27.759
He was on the nose here.

1184
01:23:28.419 --> 01:23:32.180
So this brings us to our second prediction, which is that Kierkegaard argued that

1185
01:23:33.488 --> 01:23:36.509
The benefits of optionality are in many ways an illusion.

1186
01:23:36.649 --> 01:23:47.531
When we are given more options, it is easy to perceive the benefits of those options, but we don't realize the costs that those extra options are going to weigh on ourselves once we are forced to choose something.

1187
01:23:47.971 --> 01:23:51.192
He talked about this in either or as having spectacles with two lenses.

1188
01:23:51.252 --> 01:24:00.374
Like for some reason, we are only able to see the upside of each additional option, whereas we're unable to see the downside of having to give up each additional option.

1189
01:24:03.815 --> 01:24:04.556
for its own sake.

1190
01:24:04.896 --> 01:24:14.685
We just want an abundance of options in everything we do, no matter what, without considering the emotional and psychological costs that we're inviting onto ourselves.

1191
01:24:14.865 --> 01:24:16.727
Yeah, it's almost like a bias, right?

1192
01:24:16.787 --> 01:24:18.588
Like we just have a bias towards optionality.

1193
01:24:18.788 --> 01:24:19.049
Yeah.

1194
01:24:19.069 --> 01:24:20.810
There's this one really interesting study.

1195
01:24:21.050 --> 01:24:24.593
One of the authors was Dan Ariely, actually MIT professor.

1196
01:24:25.574 --> 01:24:29.777
It was this door keeping open experiments, I guess, for lack of a better name.

1197
01:24:29.817 --> 01:24:32.439
But basically what they did is they had people come in.

1198
01:24:33.580 --> 01:24:37.383
The details of the game don't really matter, but basically you could open one of three doors.

1199
01:24:37.703 --> 01:24:37.924
Okay.

1200
01:24:37.944 --> 01:24:40.706
And there was a reward associated with each door.

1201
01:24:40.726 --> 01:24:40.826
Okay.

1202
01:24:41.166 --> 01:24:41.386
Okay.

1203
01:24:41.586 --> 01:24:49.413
It changed every time you chose a door, but one of the doors clearly had a better reward and stayed that way during the whole thing.

1204
01:24:49.453 --> 01:24:50.934
Like they would change up the reward.

1205
01:24:51.294 --> 01:24:57.219
So it wasn't super obvious, but if you chose the door that had the highest reward, you should be able to figure it out after a while.

1206
01:24:57.559 --> 01:25:02.183
The rational response here is literally to open that door over and over and over again.

1207
01:25:02.973 --> 01:25:08.277
The little catch was is that if you didn't open certain doors after a certain number of pulls, like they would go away.

1208
01:25:08.297 --> 01:25:10.579
You would you would get no longer get the option to open that door.

1209
01:25:11.020 --> 01:25:19.146
But again, the rational response was to find the highest reward door and just hit that the whole time and you get the most points or money or whatever they were giving them.

1210
01:25:19.166 --> 01:25:19.286
Right.

1211
01:25:19.306 --> 01:25:19.427
Right.

1212
01:25:20.233 --> 01:25:20.793
Didn't matter though.

1213
01:25:20.813 --> 01:25:24.956
People, like they were just scared of one of those doors disappearing after a little while.

1214
01:25:25.216 --> 01:25:32.460
So they would open doors with worse prizes just to have the opportunity to open the door again in the future.

1215
01:25:32.780 --> 01:25:36.322
And then they did these follow-up experiments too where they would basically train them

1216
01:25:37.222 --> 01:26:00.826
to like like look it's this door right just open this door open this door and you're gonna get the maximum reward out of all of this they still wouldn't do it so it is it's some kind of bias we have to just like oh we want more and more optionality we'll get into why here in a little bit but it's it's it's it's just like this hardwired bias we have towards keep your options open you know yeah the more the better right

1217
01:26:01.357 --> 01:26:03.699
This brings us to prediction number three from Kierkegaard.

1218
01:26:04.259 --> 01:26:05.520
This is also from either or.

1219
01:26:06.560 --> 01:26:11.924
In a life of endless abundance, everything becomes equally interesting and equally boring.

1220
01:26:13.245 --> 01:26:14.726
This hits close to home for me.

1221
01:26:15.066 --> 01:26:16.307
So we talked earlier about

1222
01:26:17.047 --> 01:26:19.629
how I lived as a digital nomad for six or seven years.

1223
01:26:20.369 --> 01:26:31.256
One of the reasons I stopped, and this is going to sound insane, especially to people listening to this who have not traveled much, I eventually reached a point where countries started feeling the same.

1224
01:26:31.896 --> 01:26:32.217
Yeah.

1225
01:26:32.237 --> 01:26:33.918
Which is like completely illogical.

1226
01:26:33.978 --> 01:26:44.745
But like I'd spend a month in like Peru and then I would go to Vietnam and it would feel the same, which is kind of defeats the entire purpose of traveling.

1227
01:26:44.765 --> 01:26:45.405
Yeah.

1228
01:26:45.565 --> 01:26:46.286
But it's interesting.

1229
01:26:46.306 --> 01:26:53.133
I think what Kierkegaard correctly observed is that when everything is novel in some different way—

1230
01:26:54.962 --> 01:26:56.562
that novelty stops meaning anything.

1231
01:26:56.982 --> 01:27:01.123
No matter what country you go to, well, there's going to be a new different country coming up next.

1232
01:27:01.163 --> 01:27:02.424
So who cares?

1233
01:27:02.784 --> 01:27:07.284
Like whatever is unique and distinctive about this country, it kind of stops mattering.

1234
01:27:07.865 --> 01:27:12.566
And you end up just focusing on the experiences that are the same everywhere.

1235
01:27:12.966 --> 01:27:18.147
The way I always thought of it is that novel experiences have a diminishing return to them, right?

1236
01:27:18.407 --> 01:27:24.508
If you've only been to one country, then going to that second country, it's going to be a hugely novel experience because everything is completely different.

1237
01:27:25.088 --> 01:27:39.391
But if you've been to like 30 countries and you go to 31, that 31st country is just going to be like, eh, it's like a little bit different compared to my entire sample of 30 countries that I've been to.

1238
01:27:39.411 --> 01:27:49.534
So it's like each additional novel experience you add, the marginal novelty diminishes, becomes less and less and less to the point where it's everything levels, right?

1239
01:27:55.415 --> 01:27:56.716
feels like the same date.

1240
01:27:57.176 --> 01:27:58.617
It feels like the same interaction.

1241
01:27:58.637 --> 01:27:59.998
It feels like the same experience.

1242
01:28:00.738 --> 01:28:02.439
Not because the novelty is not there.

1243
01:28:02.719 --> 01:28:06.181
It's because the novelty has lost any meaning or significance.

1244
01:28:06.541 --> 01:28:10.043
Because it's so abundant or it's so cheap.

1245
01:28:10.503 --> 01:28:12.724
Yeah, you almost get desensitized to it.

1246
01:28:12.844 --> 01:28:15.205
It's another version of the hedonic treadmill, right?

1247
01:28:15.505 --> 01:28:20.788
Like we usually think of the hedonic treadmill of like buying stuff, which that definitely happens.

1248
01:28:20.828 --> 01:28:22.269
It's usually in the context of

1249
01:28:23.229 --> 01:28:47.895
uh you know trying to keep up with the joneses or whatever it is but in this case it's more you're just the novelty itself is what you're chasing and it ends up just not not delivering yeah that's what you're saying over time yeah yeah yeah yeah and of course there's all that research on the hedonic treadmill the interesting thing though too you know we we talk about you hear the the phrase thrown around a lot about like dopamine you know you're just detox dopamine

1250
01:28:53.256 --> 01:28:59.681
And I think we've maybe made this point before too, but the thing is about dopamine is it's not a reward signal.

1251
01:28:59.801 --> 01:29:01.402
It's a search signal.

1252
01:29:01.422 --> 01:29:02.383
It's a pursuit signal.

1253
01:29:02.403 --> 01:29:03.284
Pursuit signal.

1254
01:29:03.604 --> 01:29:05.185
And you can get addicted to that pursuit.

1255
01:29:05.765 --> 01:29:09.908
But again, it's like you're saying, each time takes a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more.

1256
01:29:09.948 --> 01:29:10.689
It's like a drug.

1257
01:29:10.909 --> 01:29:11.109
Right.

1258
01:29:11.149 --> 01:29:11.770
It is a drug.

1259
01:29:11.950 --> 01:29:12.230
Right.

1260
01:29:12.250 --> 01:29:13.651
Technically, when you get down to it.

1261
01:29:13.851 --> 01:29:15.272
Like every new experience...

1262
01:29:16.333 --> 01:29:18.514
It's like, okay, now what's the next one, right?

1263
01:29:18.574 --> 01:29:19.535
That's what dopamine is.

1264
01:29:19.555 --> 01:29:20.215
Where's the next one?

1265
01:29:20.255 --> 01:29:21.076
Where's the next one?

1266
01:29:21.096 --> 01:29:29.100
And when that wears off, that's why you go searching again is because you're trying to look for that payoff, which is never there.

1267
01:29:29.441 --> 01:29:29.641
Yeah.

1268
01:29:29.741 --> 01:29:31.782
Because dopamine isn't the reward signal.

1269
01:29:31.802 --> 01:29:31.902
Yeah.

1270
01:29:32.162 --> 01:29:33.063
It's the search signal.

1271
01:29:33.103 --> 01:29:34.183
It's the pursuit signal.

1272
01:29:34.223 --> 01:29:34.463
Yeah.

1273
01:29:34.903 --> 01:29:40.066
When we've talked about this in the past, we've talked about how the concept of dopamine detox is a misnomer, right?

1274
01:29:40.226 --> 01:29:46.709
Like it is when people like they raw dog a nine hour flight or they like go no phones for a week.

1275
01:29:46.970 --> 01:29:50.351
I think what they're actually doing is they're they're just resetting their.

1276
01:29:53.153 --> 01:29:55.334
like their optionality baseline, right?

1277
01:29:55.535 --> 01:29:57.956
It's, or their novelty baseline, right?

1278
01:29:57.976 --> 01:30:01.699
They're getting rid of, they've been leveled because they've experienced too much novelty.

1279
01:30:01.739 --> 01:30:07.503
And so when they remove novelty from their life, suddenly novel experiences start to feel significant again because it's,

1280
01:30:07.883 --> 01:30:13.906
Each subsequent experience is compared relative to your recent set of experiences.

1281
01:30:14.027 --> 01:30:15.407
Yeah, that's another way to put it too.

1282
01:30:15.427 --> 01:30:17.869
Dopamine is a comparison molecule, I guess, too.

1283
01:30:17.949 --> 01:30:25.233
And it really depends on what happened directly previously to what you just did or achieved or got in some way.

1284
01:30:25.393 --> 01:30:33.717
Well, next prediction, and we talked about this a little bit in chapter one, is that Kierkegaard did not say this explicitly, at least not to my knowledge, but...

1285
01:30:34.818 --> 01:30:50.827
I'm sure this would not surprise him that the most free generation in world history with the most access to the most stimulation and information would also be the most anxious, the most alone, and the most dissatisfied.

1286
01:30:51.167 --> 01:30:52.948
I don't think this would surprise him at all.

1287
01:30:53.108 --> 01:30:58.271
In fact, the entire basis of his philosophy very much predicts it.

1288
01:30:58.611 --> 01:31:00.132
The book of the concept of anxiety.

1289
01:31:00.152 --> 01:31:02.694
The whole concept of anxiety is based on this.

1290
01:31:02.714 --> 01:31:02.974
Yeah.

1291
01:31:02.994 --> 01:31:03.715
This phenomenon.

1292
01:31:03.895 --> 01:31:07.177
I talked about this in my second book, Everything is Fucked.

1293
01:31:07.297 --> 01:31:08.178
It's funny, actually.

1294
01:31:08.198 --> 01:31:12.001
Like, I had not read Kierkegaard before I wrote Everything is Fucked.

1295
01:31:13.982 --> 01:31:17.163
I actually wonder if I would have approached that book a little bit differently if I had.

1296
01:31:17.763 --> 01:31:19.804
That book really wrestles with this paradox.

1297
01:31:20.084 --> 01:31:28.707
What I was trying to kind of get my brain around when I was writing that book is like, why is it that the better off people seem to be, the more anxious, lonely, and depressed they seem to become?

1298
01:31:29.307 --> 01:31:41.971
In the research data, it's often called the Easterland Paradox, which is that they find that the greatest rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness, suicide tend to be in the wealthier countries, and that even if you go kind of...

1299
01:31:42.791 --> 01:31:51.297
Within countries, you see the highest rates of mental health issues in the wealthiest neighborhoods, cities, counties.

1300
01:31:52.298 --> 01:31:58.703
So a lot of that book was just trying to, like, I guess kind of independently get at what Kierkegaard was talking about.

1301
01:31:59.143 --> 01:32:04.367
But all that is to say is that there is a wealth of mental health data at this point.

1302
01:32:05.633 --> 01:32:08.016
really hammering home this fact.

1303
01:32:08.116 --> 01:32:12.182
There is such a thing as too much optionality and too much opportunity.

1304
01:32:12.502 --> 01:32:14.785
And it seems to torture people at a certain point.

1305
01:32:14.885 --> 01:32:15.426
Yeah, it does.

1306
01:32:15.486 --> 01:32:20.072
And you know, like the Surgeon General's report that came out, I think it was 2023 about the loneliness epidemic.

1307
01:32:20.092 --> 01:32:20.252
Yeah.

1308
01:32:21.193 --> 01:32:25.636
Um, you know, the 50% of us adults report being lonely.

1309
01:32:25.816 --> 01:32:34.440
There's all these stats, you know, uh, Americans gained 24 extra hours a month spent alone just between 2020 or 2003 and 2020.

1310
01:32:34.460 --> 01:32:37.962
So an extra 20 some hours a week being spent alone.

1311
01:32:37.982 --> 01:32:38.523
That's a lot.

1312
01:32:38.683 --> 01:32:39.223
That is a lot.

1313
01:32:39.363 --> 01:32:40.384
That's a part-time job.

1314
01:32:40.424 --> 01:32:42.104
And that's before the pandemic.

1315
01:32:42.204 --> 01:32:42.845
Before the pandemic.

1316
01:32:42.865 --> 01:32:43.025
Yeah.

1317
01:32:43.245 --> 01:32:43.926
There's all these stats.

1318
01:32:44.587 --> 01:32:45.988
I'm sure we've heard of all of these.

1319
01:32:46.048 --> 01:32:47.710
It's been called a loneliness epidemic.

1320
01:32:47.950 --> 01:32:48.170
Yeah.

1321
01:32:48.651 --> 01:32:53.296
We several times have mentioned Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone, that book.

1322
01:32:53.316 --> 01:32:54.257
It came out in the 90s.

1323
01:32:54.497 --> 01:32:54.797
Right.

1324
01:32:54.937 --> 01:32:56.339
Like early 90s, I think even too.

1325
01:32:56.379 --> 01:33:02.265
And it was looking at data from the previous 50 years about how just Americans were spending less time together.

1326
01:33:02.285 --> 01:33:02.906
Less time together.

1327
01:33:03.506 --> 01:33:06.207
And institutions were decaying and all of that.

1328
01:33:06.567 --> 01:33:15.889
And this is at the same time as we were becoming wealthier and more connected and had more options and more freedom, more more freedom of like movement around the country, too.

1329
01:33:15.909 --> 01:33:18.130
Like you could change jobs much more easily.

1330
01:33:18.190 --> 01:33:18.610
All of that.

1331
01:33:19.671 --> 01:33:21.091
That loneliness epidemic came along.

1332
01:33:21.331 --> 01:33:22.731
There's one interesting thing.

1333
01:33:22.811 --> 01:33:24.792
And I think I brought this up in the friendship episode.

1334
01:33:24.812 --> 01:33:27.253
You know, Derek Thompson, who's a journalist and podcaster, too.

1335
01:33:27.273 --> 01:33:28.333
Real smart guy.

1336
01:33:29.479 --> 01:33:32.522
He's not so sure you should call it a loneliness epidemic, though.

1337
01:33:33.383 --> 01:33:38.548
The phrase he uses for it is an aloneness epidemic because people are choosing this.

1338
01:33:38.948 --> 01:33:39.148
Yeah.

1339
01:33:39.428 --> 01:33:46.995
People are complaining that they're lonely, but they're also choosing lifestyles that isolate themselves or self-isolating in a way.

1340
01:33:47.596 --> 01:33:48.537
That's also interesting, too.

1341
01:33:48.577 --> 01:33:54.522
That could be part of it is as you get wealthier, as you get more secure in a material sense, you're...

1342
01:33:55.263 --> 01:34:00.467
You're, for whatever reason, more likely to engage in these keeping my options open behaviors.

1343
01:34:00.667 --> 01:34:01.168
You know what I mean?

1344
01:34:01.388 --> 01:34:05.291
There's also a certain amount of friction to engaging with other people, right?

1345
01:34:05.311 --> 01:34:10.875
Like it's, you gotta get in your car and drive their house and, you know, it's like, am I going to know anybody there?

1346
01:34:10.895 --> 01:34:12.697
I don't want to like make small talk.

1347
01:34:12.857 --> 01:34:13.738
I'm tired.

1348
01:34:13.818 --> 01:34:14.038
Like,

1349
01:34:14.238 --> 01:34:15.739
That was Derek Thompson's point too.

1350
01:34:15.779 --> 01:34:20.022
He's like, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, everybody got a car, moved to the suburbs and we were away from each other.

1351
01:34:20.162 --> 01:34:26.006
And then television came along and we stopped going to, you know, downtown and going to the theaters and we stayed home.

1352
01:34:26.026 --> 01:34:27.487
And then the smartphone came along.

1353
01:34:27.887 --> 01:34:31.890
And not only were we not watching TV with our families, we weren't even interacting with our families at all.

1354
01:34:31.950 --> 01:34:35.873
So it was just every step along the way, we got more and more isolated and chose it.

1355
01:34:36.591 --> 01:34:37.731
Was his whole point, too.

1356
01:34:37.891 --> 01:34:44.574
Yeah, that's another one of those trends that's, I think, just kind of like went right alongside this whole optionality thing.

1357
01:34:44.854 --> 01:34:50.516
You know, so on our old podcast, the Subtle Art podcast, I interviewed Jonathan Haidt.

1358
01:34:50.816 --> 01:34:55.598
And I remember I was kind of challenging him with some of the international data, right?

1359
01:34:55.618 --> 01:35:00.199
Because his big argument is smartphones are causing all the mental health issues among young people.

1360
01:35:00.239 --> 01:35:02.240
And that is true.

1361
01:35:03.715 --> 01:35:09.513
in the U.S. it seems to be true in the U.S., in the U.K., in Australia, and a few other places, but I was kind of

1362
01:35:10.399 --> 01:35:16.925
pushing back on him of like, well, why aren't we seeing this in Italy or Germany or Sweden, like a bunch of other places?

1363
01:35:17.165 --> 01:35:34.380
One of the theories that I kind of threw at him just to gauge his response is that there are more collectivist cultures where there are expectations to spend more time with family, to live with family for a longer period of time, to spend more time with grandparents and grandchildren.

1364
01:35:34.940 --> 01:35:43.682
There's something about those cultures that kind of inoculates people to the hazardous effects of social media and smartphones.

1365
01:35:44.122 --> 01:35:46.903
I still find that explanation very compelling.

1366
01:35:47.283 --> 01:35:57.886
It's not necessarily that smartphones themselves fuck us up, but it's like if you don't have the proper support system in place of social connection, then you're susceptible to it.

1367
01:35:58.026 --> 01:36:03.787
It's almost like an immunodeficiency or something, except it's like a social immunodeficiency.

1368
01:36:04.107 --> 01:36:08.071
Okay, last prediction, and we also talked about this quite a bit at the top of the show.

1369
01:36:08.091 --> 01:36:11.895
Kierkegaard argued that without commitment, you never really become a self.

1370
01:36:12.116 --> 01:36:23.768
Without consciously choosing the sacrifices you want to make in your life, making the difficult trade-offs, sticking with something even when it's not pleasant, even when it's not fun, you rob yourself from a self.

1371
01:36:23.928 --> 01:36:44.230
of self-definition you remove the ability to to know what you stand for um and and to find meaning in in your own personal life i think this is something that we talked about i mean we did a last year we did a whole episode on purpose for like four hours and i feel like this was the bulk of that episode

1372
01:36:44.690 --> 01:36:53.379
Is that purpose requires some degree of struggle and sacrifice to experience in your life.

1373
01:36:53.859 --> 01:36:59.005
To put it another way, is finding purpose and meaning is not a fucking five-day spa retreat.

1374
01:36:59.525 --> 01:37:03.727
It is ugly and messy and painful and uncomfortable.

1375
01:37:03.867 --> 01:37:10.229
And it is the messiness and discomfort that ultimately makes it meaningful in retrospect.

1376
01:37:10.290 --> 01:37:10.550
Yeah.

1377
01:37:10.730 --> 01:37:13.511
And forms a self, forms an identity for you.

1378
01:37:13.651 --> 01:37:16.712
You form an identity around that, a much stronger identity around that.

1379
01:37:16.892 --> 01:37:18.913
And we'll get into a lot of that research.

1380
01:37:18.953 --> 01:37:20.314
That's going to be the whole next chapter.

1381
01:37:20.454 --> 01:37:20.654
Yeah.

1382
01:37:20.674 --> 01:37:21.314
A little tease there.

1383
01:37:21.334 --> 01:37:25.716
But there's a lot of theories and research behind that too that we'll get into.

1384
01:37:25.736 --> 01:37:25.836
Yeah.

1385
01:37:26.222 --> 01:37:28.824
We talked a little bit about how we have a bias towards optionality.

1386
01:37:29.325 --> 01:37:33.988
I think that we are in a very early stage of a little bit of backlash towards abundance.

1387
01:37:34.389 --> 01:37:41.474
You know, Gen Z is kind of going back to flip phones and digital detoxes and raw dogging flights and all this stuff.

1388
01:37:42.495 --> 01:37:45.576
I'm starting to see it kind of percolate through the culture a little bit more.

1389
01:37:45.656 --> 01:37:57.801
Like I'm meeting a lot more people who are just kind of casually, you know, deleting social media for periods of time, going through digital fasts, trying to actively kind of remove some of the optionality from their lives.

1390
01:37:57.821 --> 01:38:00.622
I mean, you got off dating apps entirely.

1391
01:38:01.122 --> 01:38:03.163
I've met a lot of people who have done that lately.

1392
01:38:03.623 --> 01:38:05.323
Why do we cling to optionality?

1393
01:38:05.423 --> 01:38:09.645
Why does optionality just seem to be this drug that we can't say no to?

1394
01:38:09.969 --> 01:38:10.369
Well, okay.

1395
01:38:10.389 --> 01:38:12.890
I can give you the nerdy perspective.

1396
01:38:12.910 --> 01:38:13.691
That's why I'm asking.

1397
01:38:13.791 --> 01:38:14.071
Okay.

1398
01:38:14.411 --> 01:38:15.211
We'll start with that.

1399
01:38:15.251 --> 01:38:16.092
That's why you're here.

1400
01:38:16.112 --> 01:38:18.313
We'll start with that and I might throw something back at you here.

1401
01:38:18.333 --> 01:38:18.573
Okay.

1402
01:38:19.393 --> 01:38:20.774
We've kind of been dancing around this a little bit.

1403
01:38:20.794 --> 01:38:23.935
There's kind of an evolutionary mismatch going on, right?

1404
01:38:24.455 --> 01:38:31.678
This world of abundance is not the world that our ancestors grew up in, not the world that our species evolved in, right?

1405
01:38:31.798 --> 01:38:34.840
The world that our species came of age in is...

1406
01:38:35.820 --> 01:38:38.322
was one of scarcity, right?

1407
01:38:38.502 --> 01:38:40.203
You didn't have optionality in those.

1408
01:38:40.243 --> 01:38:49.948
And so in any situation in which you found yourself with multiple options, you better maximize that situation as much as possible, purely out of survival needs, right?

1409
01:38:50.669 --> 01:38:55.491
We grew up in these like small kin-based relationship groups for the most part.

1410
01:38:55.511 --> 01:38:57.433
That's our evolutionary adaptive period.

1411
01:38:57.453 --> 01:38:59.674
That's when we as a species came about.

1412
01:39:00.421 --> 01:39:02.262
And so there weren't mega cities.

1413
01:39:02.282 --> 01:39:05.404
We're in the middle of a city that's 12 to 14 million people, whatever it is, right?

1414
01:39:05.604 --> 01:39:05.824
Right.

1415
01:39:05.864 --> 01:39:06.164
Right now.

1416
01:39:06.224 --> 01:39:09.046
That is not... Our brains just aren't ready for that at all.

1417
01:39:09.066 --> 01:39:09.466
We can't even...

1418
01:39:09.546 --> 01:39:12.168
I can't even fathom the number 12 to 14 million, right?

1419
01:39:12.208 --> 01:39:12.448
Yeah.

1420
01:39:12.608 --> 01:39:13.188
In my own mind.

1421
01:39:13.969 --> 01:39:24.375
Modern stimuli, especially a lot of things that are in mass media, kind of hijack this machinery that we have, this old paleolithic brain machinery that we have.

1422
01:39:25.675 --> 01:39:50.324
one small example it showed men uh a brief exposure to 10 attractive faces 10 10 women and then immediately gave them a questionnaire after that of like how satisfied are you with your relationship these were men who are all uncommitted relationships and they they had a measurable decrease after just seeing 10 attractive women's faces right that's like 30 seconds on the internet

1423
01:39:53.039 --> 01:39:55.504
Now throw in internet porn into that, right?

1424
01:39:55.584 --> 01:39:56.105
Right, yeah, yeah.

1425
01:39:56.185 --> 01:39:58.149
Like, my God, of course you're going to be

1426
01:39:59.417 --> 01:40:02.499
thinking about other options when you have this level of access.

1427
01:40:03.339 --> 01:40:06.881
Dating apps, like you just mentioned too, swipe, swipe, swipe, right?

1428
01:40:07.101 --> 01:40:13.305
There's just that evolutionary mismatch between the way our species evolved and the environment that we live in now.

1429
01:40:13.405 --> 01:40:17.067
They're so divergent that our brains just can't even keep up.

1430
01:40:17.087 --> 01:40:22.490
And this is what a lot of mass media and big tech will exploit.

1431
01:40:22.631 --> 01:40:24.372
And again, we sign up for it, right?

1432
01:40:24.512 --> 01:40:26.413
Yeah, I mean- We sign up for it.

1433
01:40:27.078 --> 01:40:36.181
Yeah, they are hijacking very primitive psychological functions within our minds that evolve there for extremely good reasons.

1434
01:40:36.841 --> 01:40:39.522
And the fucked up thing is that we enjoy the hijacking.

1435
01:40:39.622 --> 01:40:39.822
Yeah.

1436
01:40:39.962 --> 01:40:40.142
Yeah.

1437
01:40:40.242 --> 01:40:42.563
Like, it wouldn't really be hijacking if we didn't enjoy it.

1438
01:40:43.003 --> 01:40:45.924
So it's hard for us to be too upset.

1439
01:40:46.224 --> 01:40:54.067
It is interesting, like, I do think of, I mean, Elon buying Twitter is a whole mess of a conversation.

1440
01:40:54.127 --> 01:40:54.327
But...

1441
01:40:55.087 --> 01:41:05.678
I do think one of the more interesting things that he pointed out after he took over Twitter is that he wanted to optimize it for, I think it was non-regret inducing minutes spent.

1442
01:41:06.199 --> 01:41:11.564
Most social media platforms or most apps in general measure success based on how many minutes you spent on the app.

1443
01:41:12.205 --> 01:41:16.449
He said that he wanted to optimize for non-regret inducing minutes.

1444
01:41:17.190 --> 01:41:31.557
Which is interesting because I think all of us have some degree of experience of engaging in apps or media or entertainment that like the next day we're like, why did I do that?

1445
01:41:31.777 --> 01:41:31.977
Yes.

1446
01:41:32.278 --> 01:41:32.498
Yeah.

1447
01:41:32.518 --> 01:41:35.599
Like, why did I stay up till 3 a.m. playing video games?

1448
01:41:35.799 --> 01:41:37.000
Like, I didn't even like the game.

1449
01:41:37.460 --> 01:41:37.640
Yeah.

1450
01:41:37.940 --> 01:41:42.722
It's the same reason why you binged on sugar, on candy here the night before.

1451
01:41:43.082 --> 01:41:47.423
It's not because like your brain evolved to seek out candy by any means.

1452
01:41:47.443 --> 01:41:50.404
It was because like fruit in our environment was very scarce.

1453
01:41:50.544 --> 01:41:54.065
And so whenever you came across fruit, you would gorge on it.

1454
01:41:54.085 --> 01:41:54.425
Yeah.

1455
01:41:54.485 --> 01:41:54.726
Right?

1456
01:41:55.166 --> 01:41:55.726
And so now-

1457
01:41:56.485 --> 01:41:58.287
that machinery is being hijacked.

1458
01:41:58.987 --> 01:42:01.990
And so you regret it the next day, right?

1459
01:42:02.430 --> 01:42:04.052
Because it's been hijacked to such a degree.

1460
01:42:04.072 --> 01:42:07.295
That's just, it's, it's super, super natural, right?

1461
01:42:07.375 --> 01:42:14.781
It's, it's above and beyond what you would have encountered in any other, uh, environment prior to, you know, a hundred years ago or even.

1462
01:42:15.142 --> 01:42:15.262
Yeah.

1463
01:42:15.282 --> 01:42:17.123
So that's, that's one reason.

1464
01:42:17.444 --> 01:42:17.644
Okay.

1465
01:42:17.664 --> 01:42:19.706
It's this environmental mismatch that we have.

1466
01:42:20.406 --> 01:42:20.566
Um,

1467
01:42:21.307 --> 01:42:24.189
Optionality wasn't a big thing in our evolutionary past.

1468
01:42:24.209 --> 01:42:28.791
And now that it is, we're stepping on the gas for it.

1469
01:42:29.351 --> 01:42:31.012
There's this other idea, though, too.

1470
01:42:31.032 --> 01:42:32.273
And this list is not exhaustive.

1471
01:42:32.853 --> 01:42:37.055
But I found this interesting explanation for it called the additive bias.

1472
01:42:37.355 --> 01:42:37.615
Okay.

1473
01:42:37.655 --> 01:42:37.996
Okay.

1474
01:42:38.896 --> 01:42:50.022
And this came, I think the original study was like a, I think it was like a Lego study or something like that, where people were trying to improve a design that they were given by these researchers.

1475
01:42:50.042 --> 01:42:50.502
Yeah.

1476
01:42:50.902 --> 01:43:03.136
And the vast, vast majority of people always tried to add something to this design when really they thought that the most optimal thing to do was to take away part of the contraption that they gave them.

1477
01:43:03.296 --> 01:43:03.537
Right.

1478
01:43:04.398 --> 01:43:06.400
And they've replicated this in other domains as well.

1479
01:43:06.480 --> 01:43:08.362
But if you take that and you think about it, well...

1480
01:43:09.263 --> 01:43:13.024
When you're dissatisfied with your life, Mark, what's the first thing you usually think of?

1481
01:43:13.064 --> 01:43:13.585
I need to go.

1482
01:43:13.765 --> 01:43:14.585
I need to go do something.

1483
01:43:14.605 --> 01:43:15.585
I need to find something to do.

1484
01:43:15.605 --> 01:43:17.066
You need to find something to add in my life.

1485
01:43:17.086 --> 01:43:18.826
Something I'm not doing today that I should do.

1486
01:43:18.846 --> 01:43:19.226
I need a new job.

1487
01:43:19.246 --> 01:43:19.647
I need a new city.

1488
01:43:19.687 --> 01:43:21.367
I need a new group friend.

1489
01:43:21.387 --> 01:43:22.328
I need a new partner.

1490
01:43:22.348 --> 01:43:22.968
I need...

1491
01:43:23.068 --> 01:43:25.028
It's this additive bias that we have.

1492
01:43:25.489 --> 01:43:35.052
And again, I think that does come a little bit from our evolutionary past where you probably did need to go get something because the immediate environment was scarce, but still...

1493
01:43:36.122 --> 01:43:40.185
So often, especially in an environment of abundance, what you probably need to do is subtract.

1494
01:43:40.205 --> 01:43:43.548
You know, remember the huge trend of minimalism for a long time.

1495
01:43:43.588 --> 01:43:45.970
I mean, I was all in on it for a while, even too.

1496
01:43:46.270 --> 01:43:46.510
Right.

1497
01:43:46.590 --> 01:43:47.671
And I don't know.

1498
01:43:47.691 --> 01:43:48.472
There's something to it.

1499
01:43:48.692 --> 01:43:49.593
There really is something to it.

1500
01:43:49.693 --> 01:43:56.358
It's funny because I actually told you this morning before we got on the mics, we did an episode on friendship last year.

1501
01:43:56.418 --> 01:44:02.843
And I talked quite a bit in that episode about my struggles with finding, making friends and how I think part of it is...

1502
01:44:04.144 --> 01:44:05.885
my age, part of it's my personality.

1503
01:44:05.925 --> 01:44:07.546
Part of it is Los Angeles.

1504
01:44:07.747 --> 01:44:10.629
And, and my wife has been having a pretty hard time of it as well.

1505
01:44:10.809 --> 01:44:13.631
And I was telling you this morning, cause we were catching up.

1506
01:44:13.711 --> 01:44:15.072
I mean, it's been a month.

1507
01:44:15.313 --> 01:44:21.097
So, um, you know, the kind of the new thing for us this last month is that we, we were saying yes to all these things that we didn't really want to do.

1508
01:44:21.117 --> 01:44:21.457
We were, um,

1509
01:44:22.458 --> 01:44:24.560
And there was like a bunch of people that we had been hanging out with.

1510
01:44:24.580 --> 01:44:26.703
We're like, well, maybe we just need to see him a little bit more.

1511
01:44:26.743 --> 01:44:28.104
Maybe we just need to put time in.

1512
01:44:28.164 --> 01:44:30.827
Maybe we just need more frequency of exposure and all this stuff.

1513
01:44:31.367 --> 01:44:33.570
And she and I just kind of hit a breaking point this past month.

1514
01:44:33.590 --> 01:44:35.011
We're like, you know, fuck this shit.

1515
01:44:35.071 --> 01:44:38.294
Like, we're just not going to do things we don't want to do.

1516
01:44:39.015 --> 01:44:42.956
And it's funny because for the last month, we've really only hung out with like three or four people.

1517
01:44:43.116 --> 01:44:44.956
But it's the three or four people we really like.

1518
01:44:45.276 --> 01:44:45.976
And it's so funny.

1519
01:44:45.996 --> 01:44:46.776
We're so much happier.

1520
01:44:47.076 --> 01:44:48.477
It's really amazing, actually.

1521
01:44:48.697 --> 01:44:49.017
Yeah.

1522
01:44:49.197 --> 01:44:57.838
How much like expending resources on people that like you're kind of lukewarm about is actually just like detracts quite a bit.

1523
01:44:58.538 --> 01:45:00.059
There's a lot of the research too that bears that out.

1524
01:45:00.079 --> 01:45:06.700
You need somewhere between like two and maybe 10 people at the most who you regularly interact with and have a good connection with.

1525
01:45:06.900 --> 01:45:07.140
Yeah.

1526
01:45:07.200 --> 01:45:07.740
Beyond that.

1527
01:45:08.700 --> 01:45:09.161
Yeah, no.

1528
01:45:09.601 --> 01:45:18.352
It's hard to know like when you are just arbitrarily enforcing like a standard expectation on yourself or when you actually do need something.

1529
01:45:18.672 --> 01:45:21.235
It's it's there's a fine line.

1530
01:45:21.500 --> 01:45:26.002
There's another thing I found too, though, which is kind of interesting about anticipated regret.

1531
01:45:26.462 --> 01:45:45.869
Okay, so when we actually, if you're given a number of options, okay, and you expect to, and you're forced to make a decision, but you expect to find out how those other options would have turned out in some way, you're actually just really less likely to either be satisfied with the thing that you chose or even choose in the first place.

1532
01:45:46.269 --> 01:45:48.630
I think part of this is definitely like modern society.

1533
01:45:48.650 --> 01:45:49.791
It's a lot easier to find out

1534
01:45:50.531 --> 01:45:51.551
I didn't go to that party.

1535
01:45:52.152 --> 01:45:55.353
Oh, but I'm going to find out what it was like.

1536
01:45:55.373 --> 01:46:00.335
And now I'm going to regret not going or going or whatever it is, or at the other party I didn't go to, I'm going to find out what happened there.

1537
01:46:00.935 --> 01:46:11.779
We can anticipate our regrets probably a lot more accurately now because everything's recorded or everything's documented in some way, or somebody's going to tell you, you're going to find out somehow about how some option you didn't choose, how that went.

1538
01:46:12.099 --> 01:46:12.280
Yeah.

1539
01:46:12.500 --> 01:46:15.861
That makes us kind of just withdraw altogether because we don't want to choose.

1540
01:46:16.161 --> 01:46:17.442
Yeah, well, this is FOMO, right?

1541
01:46:17.522 --> 01:46:23.564
Like, it's, I don't really want to go to the party, but I don't want to feel what it's going to feel like to not have gone to the party, and it was really cool.

1542
01:46:23.664 --> 01:46:27.366
So, I'm going to go, even though I don't want to go, right?

1543
01:46:27.406 --> 01:46:30.027
Like, it's the condition of our age, for sure.

1544
01:46:30.428 --> 01:46:37.111
The last thing I want to note, too, is just kind of the decline of cultural institutions.

1545
01:46:38.091 --> 01:46:39.891
I already kind of mentioned the Robert Utnam work.

1546
01:46:40.051 --> 01:46:47.733
You know, he talked about this, but decline in church attendance, decline in clubs, decline in just, I mean, just people getting out of the house really just in general.

1547
01:46:47.753 --> 01:47:00.336
But institutionally speaking, where there are fewer people going to churches, there's less union membership even too, like in work, just civic organizations, civic engagement is down.

1548
01:47:00.696 --> 01:47:03.517
Robert Utnam's famous, the title is bowling alone, right?

1549
01:47:03.637 --> 01:47:06.978
Bowling leagues have also declined and people just aren't getting out of the house.

1550
01:47:07.018 --> 01:47:07.798
We all know this, right?

1551
01:47:08.659 --> 01:47:21.273
Those institutions, though, used to kind of like force you a little bit, right, into making commitments, like you've met the best other people to your communities to anything in your environment around you just engaging with it more.

1552
01:47:21.513 --> 01:47:21.693
Yeah.

1553
01:47:22.094 --> 01:47:29.122
The disappearance of those has definitely led to people just not committing to things because it is just easier to stay home.

1554
01:47:29.547 --> 01:47:37.090
Where I really feel the loss of institutions affects this a lot is that, are you familiar with Seth Godin's The Dip concept?

1555
01:47:37.150 --> 01:47:37.310
Yeah.

1556
01:47:37.330 --> 01:47:37.491
Right?

1557
01:47:37.511 --> 01:47:47.515
So we'll put it on screen, but for those of you listening, Seth Godin's The Dip, it actually applies to businesses, like starting a new business or a new venture.

1558
01:47:47.615 --> 01:47:53.758
It's this curve that initially goes up a decent amount, and then it crashes and goes down.

1559
01:47:54.438 --> 01:47:56.840
you know, negative for a little while, and that's the dip.

1560
01:47:56.960 --> 01:47:59.721
And then you have to kind of sustain through that dip.

1561
01:47:59.761 --> 01:48:08.067
And then if you sustain, it shoots way up on the other side and it becomes like two or three times higher than that initial first kind of peak.

1562
01:48:08.207 --> 01:48:08.427
Okay.

1563
01:48:08.767 --> 01:48:13.070
He used it in the context of businesses, which is that everybody's excited to start a business when they start.

1564
01:48:13.650 --> 01:48:20.975
And then the dips, once that excitement kind of wears off and you actually realize how fucking hard this is going to be, that's when the dip sets in.

1565
01:48:21.115 --> 01:48:24.037
And it's most people give up somewhere in that dip.

1566
01:48:24.777 --> 01:48:31.321
Um, but if you can sustain through the dip, that's when you actually hit escape velocity and really experience a lot of success.

1567
01:48:32.081 --> 01:48:33.162
I don't know how true this is.

1568
01:48:33.302 --> 01:48:40.346
I'm kind of just winging this, but like, I feel like there's a dip sort of curve on a lot of things in life, right?

1569
01:48:40.366 --> 01:48:47.390
Like if you think about a new romantic relationship or a new friendship or a new community that you want to join, right?

1570
01:48:47.750 --> 01:48:55.297
There's always this kind of new anticipation and excitement early on, which that sustains you through the first few weeks.

1571
01:48:55.997 --> 01:48:56.698
Everything's new.

1572
01:48:56.818 --> 01:48:57.639
Everything's novel.

1573
01:48:57.699 --> 01:48:59.140
There's a lot of dopamine going on.

1574
01:49:00.141 --> 01:49:05.105
But eventually that novelty wears off and you start bumping into the first hard moments.

1575
01:49:05.465 --> 01:49:06.566
You have the first arguments.

1576
01:49:06.606 --> 01:49:07.767
You have the first disagreements.

1577
01:49:08.428 --> 01:49:11.591
You have the first situation where you're like, I don't really want to be here.

1578
01:49:12.531 --> 01:49:13.692
And that's the dip.

1579
01:49:14.093 --> 01:49:14.953
And you have to like...

1580
01:49:15.714 --> 01:49:29.567
Fight through that dip to get to that second peak on the other side where you actually get the satisfaction of having a deep commitment in your life, of like having stuck with something over a long period of time.

1581
01:49:30.268 --> 01:49:31.769
This is just how I think of these things.

1582
01:49:31.869 --> 01:49:36.613
I think a lot of what institutions did for us is that they helped sustain us through that dip.

1583
01:49:36.633 --> 01:49:36.734
Yeah.

1584
01:49:37.314 --> 01:49:37.514
Right.

1585
01:49:37.534 --> 01:49:47.062
Like it's, it's like, okay, we're going to put you in a new situation and it's, it's going to be fun and exciting, but then it's going to be like kind of awkward for a while and you're going to have to like kind of stumble through.

1586
01:49:47.743 --> 01:49:53.948
But because you signed up for this thing, you know, it's, we're, we're going to hold you accountable.

1587
01:49:53.968 --> 01:49:58.471
We're going to keep you here and you're going to work through the painful process, the pain period.

1588
01:49:58.572 --> 01:50:06.278
And then you're going to get to the other side and it's going to be, you're going to start reaping the benefits of having committed, you know, for a year or two years or three years or whatever.

1589
01:50:06.298 --> 01:50:06.398
Yeah.

1590
01:50:06.538 --> 01:50:11.761
So without the institutions kind of binding us to these processes, it's so much easier to bail at the bottom of the dip.

1591
01:50:12.541 --> 01:50:21.786
And with infinite optionality, as soon as that initial peak runs out, you can immediately just go to the next peak, right?

1592
01:50:21.806 --> 01:50:29.750
It's like, well, why am I going to sit through a dip with this person when I can just go meet a new person and it's going to be fun and exciting and sexy and interesting and whatever?

1593
01:50:30.450 --> 01:50:38.052
And then you get three months into that and it stops being fun and you have your first fight and you're like, well, I think I'll just go find the next person and start all over again.

1594
01:50:38.132 --> 01:50:38.352
Right.

1595
01:50:38.892 --> 01:50:46.633
And so you have these people that are just kind of chronically chasing low initial peaks, never sustaining the dips.

1596
01:50:46.893 --> 01:50:53.835
And so they're never actually building that long term value or meaning in anything in their lives.

1597
01:50:53.995 --> 01:50:56.676
I think dating is the obvious example, right?

1598
01:50:56.716 --> 01:51:03.159
Like this is anybody who's been single in the last 10 years has like experienced this to some extent.

1599
01:51:03.779 --> 01:51:12.123
I mean, I've known people who like they can't even find a hobby because it's like as soon as they hit the dip in any new hobby, they're like, oh, this sucks and they bail.

1600
01:51:12.543 --> 01:51:17.550
Every time you try something new, there's going to be novelty and excitement early on.

1601
01:51:17.930 --> 01:51:24.579
But then when you actually realize how shitty you are at it, then you have to practice and put the time in and try to get good.

1602
01:51:25.700 --> 01:51:27.242
Most people don't sustain through that.

1603
01:51:28.163 --> 01:51:28.863
They abandon it.

1604
01:51:28.903 --> 01:51:30.204
They go find a new thing to try.

1605
01:51:30.224 --> 01:51:32.685
You know, you see it, you could see it in careers.

1606
01:51:33.746 --> 01:51:35.626
I see this, I mean, I see this in applications.

1607
01:51:35.646 --> 01:51:46.711
I'll let you get, sometimes I'll get a resume that comes in and it's like, you know, a guy has been four different industries over the last 10 years and has been entry level at all four of them.

1608
01:51:46.852 --> 01:51:49.513
And I'm like, yeah, this person can't commit.

1609
01:51:49.773 --> 01:51:51.334
Like they're not in it for the long haul.

1610
01:51:51.374 --> 01:51:53.495
They're in it till they get bored and then they're going to leave.

1611
01:51:53.755 --> 01:51:53.995
Yeah.

1612
01:51:54.035 --> 01:51:54.295
You know?

1613
01:51:54.475 --> 01:51:54.595
Yeah.

1614
01:51:54.615 --> 01:52:04.528
And I think another thing those institutions do too, one of the mechanisms that they help keep you in, get you through that dip is there's other people going through it with you.

1615
01:52:04.669 --> 01:52:04.909
Yes.

1616
01:52:05.390 --> 01:52:05.630
Right?

1617
01:52:05.650 --> 01:52:05.810
Yeah.

1618
01:52:05.830 --> 01:52:06.952
You're bound to those other people.

1619
01:52:08.073 --> 01:52:11.237
That's why I think a lot of the, whatever, running clubs and...

1620
01:52:12.058 --> 01:52:22.386
Kind of this kind of thing we're trying to social engineer a lot of this community or these old institutions, like churches aren't there anymore, so we're going to start a run club or something like that where we do have community.

1621
01:52:22.647 --> 01:52:23.547
They're just not as sticky.

1622
01:52:23.747 --> 01:52:25.028
Yeah.

1623
01:52:25.048 --> 01:52:29.572
And you're not going to get through that dip because you are treating it like this is a trial period.

1624
01:52:29.632 --> 01:52:30.112
Yes.

1625
01:52:30.173 --> 01:52:30.593
I'm out.

1626
01:52:30.873 --> 01:52:31.053
Yep.

1627
01:52:31.193 --> 01:52:31.474
Right.

1628
01:52:31.654 --> 01:52:33.535
It's the customer service mindset, right?

1629
01:52:33.555 --> 01:52:33.655
Yeah.

1630
01:52:33.675 --> 01:52:34.476
It's like- Yeah, yeah.

1631
01:52:34.496 --> 01:52:35.437
The return policy.

1632
01:52:35.457 --> 01:52:35.777
Yeah, yeah.

1633
01:52:35.817 --> 01:52:37.138
It's like, oh, this isn't fun anymore.

1634
01:52:37.158 --> 01:52:37.899
I want my money back.

1635
01:52:37.919 --> 01:52:38.099
Yeah.

1636
01:52:38.380 --> 01:52:45.265
We talked about this on the friendship episode too, that like I talked about like why stuff like that doesn't really work and it's because there's a lack of stakes involved.

1637
01:52:45.285 --> 01:52:46.306
Yeah, yeah.

1638
01:52:47.207 --> 01:52:51.030
And we're definitely gonna come back to that in Kierkegaard's religious phase.

1639
01:52:51.050 --> 01:52:51.150
Yeah.

1640
01:52:51.591 --> 01:52:58.317
Because that is a key difference between say the ethical and the religious is that there's like a very meaningful set of stakes

1641
01:52:58.917 --> 01:53:07.279
that are involved that like bind you to this, this path in life, almost, almost to the point of like, whether you want to be there or not.

1642
01:53:07.439 --> 01:53:18.922
And in the friendship episode, I think it's like, that's where like really deep relationships are built is when you share, you were both invested in something extremely deeply and then can relate to each other on that investment.

1643
01:53:19.922 --> 01:53:22.563
But I think, yeah, I think it's on the social side.

1644
01:53:22.603 --> 01:53:23.343
It's just like,

1645
01:53:25.168 --> 01:53:26.528
I mean, I've joined a million gyms.

1646
01:53:26.989 --> 01:53:28.009
I've met a million people.

1647
01:53:28.749 --> 01:53:29.729
They're all really nice.

1648
01:53:30.269 --> 01:53:33.150
I've never hung out with any of them more than like two or three times.

1649
01:53:33.170 --> 01:53:35.871
Like it just, it's just like, meh.

1650
01:53:36.011 --> 01:53:36.951
It's not quite there, yeah.

1651
01:53:37.011 --> 01:53:39.532
Yeah, it's just, it's more optionality.

1652
01:53:39.612 --> 01:53:39.812
Yeah.

1653
01:53:40.272 --> 01:53:43.213
I've been going to yoga for almost four years now and I like barely know anybody there.

1654
01:53:43.273 --> 01:53:44.213
It's the same thing, yeah.

1655
01:53:44.393 --> 01:53:44.633
Yeah.

1656
01:53:44.994 --> 01:53:47.154
You said, you know, dating being the obvious one.

1657
01:53:47.754 --> 01:53:53.356
What would you tell maybe somebody who's about 41 and has never had a relationship for more than three years?

1658
01:53:55.160 --> 01:53:55.780
Asking for a friend.

1659
01:53:55.800 --> 01:53:56.581
Asking for a friend.

1660
01:53:57.021 --> 01:53:57.281
Yeah.

1661
01:53:57.501 --> 01:53:58.661
Who's sitting in the same chair as me.

1662
01:53:59.301 --> 01:54:01.202
Yeah.

1663
01:54:01.282 --> 01:54:01.902
I see what you're saying.

1664
01:54:01.942 --> 01:54:04.023
I mean, you're absolutely right.

1665
01:54:04.043 --> 01:54:05.864
That's every time this has happened.

1666
01:54:05.904 --> 01:54:06.124
Sure.

1667
01:54:06.204 --> 01:54:08.065
It's when I hit the dip and I'm like, I'm out.

1668
01:54:08.225 --> 01:54:08.525
Yeah.

1669
01:54:08.545 --> 01:54:08.685
Yeah.

1670
01:54:08.705 --> 01:54:08.925
Yeah.

1671
01:54:09.085 --> 01:54:09.885
And, you know, there's all that.

1672
01:54:09.965 --> 01:54:10.245
You can.

1673
01:54:10.605 --> 01:54:14.727
There's the attachment stuff and there's all, you know, I could blame my parents and I can do all of this.

1674
01:54:14.767 --> 01:54:15.967
But at the end of the day.

1675
01:54:16.547 --> 01:54:16.768
Right.

1676
01:54:16.908 --> 01:54:17.168
Yeah.

1677
01:54:17.608 --> 01:54:19.629
I would say three years is a good amount of time.

1678
01:54:20.169 --> 01:54:22.009
Never more than two good years, I would say.

1679
01:54:22.269 --> 01:54:23.530
So there's that.

1680
01:54:24.996 --> 01:54:32.219
I've always said the most important moment in any relationship, any new relationship, is the first fight.

1681
01:54:32.980 --> 01:54:40.543
Because that first fight is gonna tell you more about how long this is gonna last than all of the good times combined.

1682
01:54:40.723 --> 01:54:42.064
If you can fight well,

1683
01:54:42.664 --> 01:54:50.150
If you can communicate, if you can repair, if you can forgive, it bodes really, really well.

1684
01:54:50.170 --> 01:54:55.174
Like if a fight makes you stronger as a couple, that is like a massive green flag.

1685
01:54:55.775 --> 01:54:59.638
I think what happens is a lot of people, they get in fights.

1686
01:54:59.838 --> 01:55:01.159
It's not a very productive fight.

1687
01:55:02.220 --> 01:55:03.742
The relationship does not get stronger.

1688
01:55:03.762 --> 01:55:04.222
Yeah.

1689
01:55:04.362 --> 01:55:08.643
but they've been told their whole lives that relationships are hard and you have to work at it and you have to like keep trying.

1690
01:55:08.683 --> 01:55:12.784
And then, and so they stay in it for years with like, even though it's not really the right person.

1691
01:55:13.724 --> 01:55:20.365
It is really about that, the quality of, of, and speed of repair after the breaches.

1692
01:55:21.165 --> 01:55:29.527
If, if there is no repair or the repair is extremely slow or it's only one person doing most of it, like those are all really bad signs.

1693
01:55:29.687 --> 01:55:29.907
Yeah.

1694
01:55:30.727 --> 01:55:33.908
But I don't get the sense that your issue is like novelty seeking, right?

1695
01:55:34.478 --> 01:55:35.479
Like that was my issue.

1696
01:55:35.499 --> 01:55:39.303
I was just like, she's fine, but what about her?

1697
01:55:39.323 --> 01:55:40.585
Yeah, yeah.

1698
01:55:41.085 --> 01:55:43.168
What do you think my issue is then, Mark?

1699
01:55:43.208 --> 01:55:43.829
Please tell me.

1700
01:55:44.449 --> 01:55:45.430
I told you.

1701
01:55:45.490 --> 01:55:46.031
I told you.

1702
01:55:46.071 --> 01:55:48.193
We're turning this into a Drew therapy session.

1703
01:55:48.954 --> 01:55:52.078
I think there are some aesthetic elements to it for sure.

1704
01:55:52.418 --> 01:55:58.586
I could see that, but I don't see your issue necessarily being like, you want to go fuck 20 other girls.

1705
01:55:58.646 --> 01:55:59.106
Yeah, no.

1706
01:55:59.687 --> 01:56:00.368
You're not that guy.

1707
01:56:00.508 --> 01:56:00.748
Yeah.

1708
01:56:01.189 --> 01:56:05.274
From what I know about you, you've definitely got an aspect of like, go with the flow.

1709
01:56:05.574 --> 01:56:05.794
Yeah.

1710
01:56:06.235 --> 01:56:08.037
Let me try out a bunch of different things.

1711
01:56:08.698 --> 01:56:09.399
Oh, this is fun.

1712
01:56:09.419 --> 01:56:10.921
Kind of that novelty thing.

1713
01:56:11.390 --> 01:56:12.391
I have a lot of hobbies too.

1714
01:56:12.591 --> 01:56:19.437
A lot of hobbies, a lot of traveling, a lot of just like fun, cool little side things, but they're all like side things.

1715
01:56:19.517 --> 01:56:23.360
There's nothing that's like, this is what Drew Bernie was fucking born to do.

1716
01:56:23.380 --> 01:56:23.780
That's true.

1717
01:56:24.020 --> 01:56:25.942
And it's funny because it's like, that is what,

1718
01:56:27.961 --> 01:56:29.323
people sink their teeth into.

1719
01:56:29.463 --> 01:56:39.313
Like that is what really like binds you with somebody super strongly and allows you to know in those relationships, like this is what I'll compromise on.

1720
01:56:39.333 --> 01:56:41.095
This is what I never compromise on, right?

1721
01:56:41.215 --> 01:56:41.415
Yep.

1722
01:56:41.856 --> 01:56:43.397
So it removes a lot of that ambiguity.

1723
01:56:43.558 --> 01:56:43.758
Yeah.

1724
01:56:43.898 --> 01:56:46.561
But yeah, I don't know if that's a dip issue.

1725
01:56:46.881 --> 01:56:47.501
That's a good point.

1726
01:56:47.621 --> 01:56:47.841
Yeah.

1727
01:56:48.341 --> 01:56:56.004
For me, I see the pattern in a couple of different areas of my life because like even with career stuff.

1728
01:56:56.024 --> 01:57:01.045
So I had this whole thing around, you know, like I said, when university had the five year, the super senior year and all that.

1729
01:57:01.585 --> 01:57:04.286
I loved university because of the variety of it.

1730
01:57:04.526 --> 01:57:04.686
Yes.

1731
01:57:04.906 --> 01:57:06.127
And especially like psychology.

1732
01:57:06.267 --> 01:57:07.147
I studied psychology.

1733
01:57:07.167 --> 01:57:07.848
That was my major.

1734
01:57:08.628 --> 01:57:10.769
I think I'm one credit short of an anthropology minor.

1735
01:57:10.809 --> 01:57:13.470
Like I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't taken psychology.

1736
01:57:13.630 --> 01:57:20.133
I got to study chemistry, biology, neuroscience, physics, like history.

1737
01:57:20.334 --> 01:57:22.655
They give you a very wide stats.

1738
01:57:22.695 --> 01:57:23.735
There's Native American studies.

1739
01:57:23.755 --> 01:57:25.216
Like all of it I was fascinated with.

1740
01:57:25.656 --> 01:57:28.858
And I think that's great to a certain extent, but I kind of got hooked on that a little bit.

1741
01:57:28.978 --> 01:57:29.878
Like I always say this.

1742
01:57:29.898 --> 01:57:30.959
I'm fascinated by everything.

1743
01:57:31.019 --> 01:57:32.259
Well, congratulations.

1744
01:57:32.319 --> 01:57:33.460
Like, you know.

1745
01:57:33.540 --> 01:57:33.940
Yeah.

1746
01:57:35.601 --> 01:57:36.802
it's great because I got that breadth.

1747
01:57:37.102 --> 01:57:37.322
Right.

1748
01:57:37.462 --> 01:57:41.285
But I never really did kind of like, you know, I went into neuroscience.

1749
01:57:41.305 --> 01:57:41.985
I got into neuroscience.

1750
01:57:42.005 --> 01:57:44.787
I was like, well, academia, God, this, I don't like this.

1751
01:57:44.967 --> 01:57:45.208
Right.

1752
01:57:45.328 --> 01:57:46.348
There were reasons for that.

1753
01:57:46.388 --> 01:57:46.648
Sure.

1754
01:57:46.869 --> 01:57:52.713
Maybe some of those were a little bit, I don't know, motivated reasoning, but you know,

1755
01:57:53.513 --> 01:58:02.020
There's the same thing in a lot of my relationships, though, too, where I've kind of swung from more of like the more aesthetic side to the commitment side.

1756
01:58:02.861 --> 01:58:04.182
And then I'm like, oh, give me back.

1757
01:58:04.322 --> 01:58:08.445
And so, again, it goes back and we'll get into this more in the next chapter, but it goes back to holding that tension.

1758
01:58:08.665 --> 01:58:08.866
Yeah.

1759
01:58:09.086 --> 01:58:09.947
Really bad at that.

1760
01:58:10.087 --> 01:58:10.387
Yeah.

1761
01:58:10.407 --> 01:58:10.547
Yeah.

1762
01:58:11.208 --> 01:58:17.913
And I think part of that tension we're talking about, that dip you go through, that's part of the tension, you know, being pulled one way or the other.

1763
01:58:17.933 --> 01:58:18.493
Yeah.

1764
01:58:18.714 --> 01:58:21.296
And you got to navigate that tension to get to the other side.

1765
01:58:21.696 --> 01:58:22.637
And I don't think I'm good at that.

1766
01:58:23.365 --> 01:58:24.526
I think most of us aren't.

1767
01:58:24.586 --> 01:58:24.986
No, yeah.

1768
01:58:25.026 --> 01:58:25.966
Yeah, like it's hard.

1769
01:58:26.166 --> 01:58:27.427
It's really hard these days.

1770
01:58:27.667 --> 01:58:36.610
What you said earlier though too is like you just find a few areas of your life where you can navigate that tension and the rest of it might just not be very well balanced.

1771
01:58:36.890 --> 01:58:40.692
Yeah, and I think some of that is also like self-limitation.

1772
01:58:42.052 --> 01:58:48.294
It's, there's a chapter and everything is fucked where I write that like true freedom is self-limitation.

1773
01:58:48.314 --> 01:58:49.095
It is self-limitation.

1774
01:58:50.035 --> 01:58:55.457
putting guardrails around yourself because you understand I shouldn't go over there.

1775
01:58:55.517 --> 01:58:57.838
If I go over there, I'm going to lose control of myself.

1776
01:58:59.239 --> 01:59:04.841
And and actually that loss of agency and that loss of control is actually a loss of freedom.

1777
01:59:04.962 --> 01:59:19.748
Like it's there's a paradoxical relationship between freedom and self-limitation, like keeping yourself in a lane that allows you to act freely to become yourself without any doubts or distraction or anything.

1778
01:59:20.471 --> 01:59:20.992
But it's hard.

1779
01:59:21.192 --> 01:59:22.853
I still struggle with this.

1780
01:59:23.314 --> 01:59:28.318
I think it's something I've gotten much better at in the last five years.

1781
01:59:28.338 --> 01:59:28.959
Yeah.

1782
01:59:29.019 --> 01:59:30.561
Outside looking in, I would agree with you.

1783
01:59:30.641 --> 01:59:31.321
Yeah.

1784
01:59:31.642 --> 01:59:33.663
To me, this is a very new thing.

1785
01:59:33.904 --> 01:59:37.407
I think my marriage was kind of the first big wow.

1786
01:59:37.887 --> 01:59:38.748
That was profound.

1787
01:59:38.908 --> 01:59:45.635
And then my relationship with my career really shifted a few years ago in a way that it's

1788
01:59:46.645 --> 01:59:53.628
I would actually, we'll talk about it when we get to the religious chapter, but like I would, I would put it in that category and that it, I feel like it chose me.

1789
01:59:54.308 --> 01:59:55.708
Um, I didn't choose it.

1790
01:59:56.149 --> 02:00:04.552
I just went through the nerdy examples of why we, why we, um, why we choose the life of optionality, but you lived a pretty aesthetic life for a long time.

1791
02:00:04.992 --> 02:00:05.292
Yes.

1792
02:00:05.412 --> 02:00:05.692
Why?

1793
02:00:05.932 --> 02:00:13.335
Like besides all the nerdy stuff I tried to shoehorn in there, what was it for you that kept you hooked on that?

1794
02:00:13.695 --> 02:00:15.536
I think it was a combination of two things.

1795
02:00:15.656 --> 02:00:24.460
I think it was, to put it really frugly, ADHD and avoidance attachment combined.

1796
02:00:24.980 --> 02:00:26.381
And a lot of curiosity as well.

1797
02:00:27.181 --> 02:00:28.341
The openness to experience.

1798
02:00:28.381 --> 02:00:29.482
Again, you're very high on openness.

1799
02:00:29.702 --> 02:00:30.142
to experience it.

1800
02:00:30.162 --> 02:00:31.983
Yeah, and I think you and I are very similar in that.

1801
02:00:32.023 --> 02:00:33.263
Like, we love to learn.

1802
02:00:33.343 --> 02:00:33.543
Yeah.

1803
02:00:33.683 --> 02:00:35.304
So, I love learning.

1804
02:00:35.444 --> 02:00:39.405
I love a new country, a new language, a new history.

1805
02:00:39.445 --> 02:00:44.726
Like, one of my favorite things to do is just like, whenever I landed in a new country, I would just open up the country's Wikipedia.

1806
02:00:44.826 --> 02:00:45.386
Oh, same, yeah.

1807
02:00:45.546 --> 02:00:46.607
And I would just go so deep.

1808
02:00:46.627 --> 02:00:46.827
Yeah.

1809
02:00:46.867 --> 02:00:55.009
I would like spend five hours just digging through everything about that country's history, its people, its culture, its demographics, everything.

1810
02:00:55.973 --> 02:00:57.995
So I think it was a combination of all those things.

1811
02:00:58.035 --> 02:01:03.442
But I mean, for me, I really, I love novelty.

1812
02:01:03.562 --> 02:01:05.244
I love new experiences.

1813
02:01:07.727 --> 02:01:11.210
And I think my brain is kind of predisposed to seek them compulsively.

1814
02:01:12.142 --> 02:01:16.085
On top of that, I had a lot of attachment issues, avoidance issues.

1815
02:01:16.785 --> 02:01:17.786
I was a commitment phobe.

1816
02:01:17.846 --> 02:01:27.814
So very early, I was very adept at building a lifestyle, right, like I had a nebulous, quote unquote, internet business.

1817
02:01:28.474 --> 02:01:32.518
That was really just like a smattering of websites and freelance work.

1818
02:01:32.738 --> 02:01:34.119
So I was location independent.

1819
02:01:34.159 --> 02:01:35.541
I could live anywhere in the world.

1820
02:01:35.641 --> 02:01:36.822
I traveled all over the world.

1821
02:01:38.524 --> 02:01:42.587
I never really was willing to settle down with a girl.

1822
02:01:42.627 --> 02:01:46.851
And like the few women I did end up in a relationship with, like...

1823
02:01:47.772 --> 02:01:49.912
I didn't stay faithful to them.

1824
02:01:49.952 --> 02:01:51.813
I was just like, I was bad at relationships.

1825
02:01:52.133 --> 02:01:53.533
I really struggled to be in them.

1826
02:01:53.893 --> 02:01:56.834
So I set up a lifestyle for myself where I was always in a new place.

1827
02:01:56.874 --> 02:01:58.094
I was always meeting new people.

1828
02:01:58.194 --> 02:01:59.334
I was always dating new women.

1829
02:02:00.234 --> 02:02:01.794
I was always learning new things.

1830
02:02:02.174 --> 02:02:07.955
And for, I would say, three or four years, that was really satisfying.

1831
02:02:08.176 --> 02:02:11.436
It was just like, I was young, you know, I was in my 20s.

1832
02:02:11.456 --> 02:02:13.376
Like, it was cool as fuck.

1833
02:02:13.636 --> 02:02:16.237
It was tons of fun, really learned a lot about myself.

1834
02:02:17.057 --> 02:02:18.317
had a lot of great experiences.

1835
02:02:18.417 --> 02:02:33.602
But there was an inflection point after a number of years where, again, that diminishing return started to kick in, right, where it's like, okay, the more places I travel, the less satisfied I seem to be with each subsequent place I travel.

1836
02:02:34.348 --> 02:02:40.109
The more women I date, the less satisfied I seem to be with each subsequent woman I date.

1837
02:02:41.550 --> 02:02:50.692
The more businesses and websites I start, the more frustrated and dissatisfied I seem to be with each one that I start.

1838
02:02:50.732 --> 02:02:54.773
And so it was a clear pattern that was playing out on multiple vectors in my life.

1839
02:02:54.833 --> 02:02:59.874
And I realized that, like, I really need to start kind of narrowing here.

1840
02:03:00.735 --> 02:03:01.275
And yeah.

1841
02:03:02.596 --> 02:03:05.132
And I think it happened first on the business side is just like,

1842
02:03:07.665 --> 02:03:14.190
my dating relationship blog started to take off and that was like, okay, we had, something's working.

1843
02:03:14.290 --> 02:03:16.551
I should just shut down everything else and focus on that.

1844
02:03:17.772 --> 02:03:25.518
Um, and I think eventually I just started kind of applying that across the different vectors, um, throughout my life, but like it was hard.

1845
02:03:25.658 --> 02:03:26.519
It wasn't pleasant.

1846
02:03:26.999 --> 02:03:32.323
Um, because, because most people would see that and they would say, Oh, I just, they would do the additive bias thing and just keep going.

1847
02:03:32.668 --> 02:03:32.928
Yeah.

1848
02:03:32.988 --> 02:03:33.468
You know what I mean?

1849
02:03:33.588 --> 02:03:35.329
They, they just, they're like, Oh, I was happy.

1850
02:03:35.609 --> 02:03:37.950
This is when I was happy when I was doing all these crazy wild things.

1851
02:03:37.970 --> 02:03:39.931
I just need to go find more crazy wild things.

1852
02:03:40.111 --> 02:03:40.311
Yeah.

1853
02:03:40.411 --> 02:03:41.351
What was it that you saw?

1854
02:03:42.212 --> 02:03:43.332
Was it really just the business thing?

1855
02:03:43.352 --> 02:03:44.413
Like I was like, Oh, my business.

1856
02:03:44.473 --> 02:03:57.818
I, when I focused on that, if you go back, I don't know if these articles are even still on the website, but there are a couple of pieces back in like 2010, 2011, that we wrote about being a digital nomad and like,

1857
02:03:58.218 --> 02:03:58.998
Oh yeah, I remember those.

1858
02:03:59.018 --> 02:03:59.198
Yeah.

1859
02:03:59.318 --> 02:04:00.679
And they're really melancholy.

1860
02:04:00.919 --> 02:04:01.979
Like they're wanderlust.

1861
02:04:02.239 --> 02:04:02.939
Yeah.

1862
02:04:02.979 --> 02:04:03.439
Yeah.

1863
02:04:03.559 --> 02:04:04.880
I remember they're very melancholy.

1864
02:04:05.160 --> 02:04:06.600
And I remember having this experience.

1865
02:04:06.620 --> 02:04:09.521
I was like, I don't know, I was traveling like somewhere in Asia or something.

1866
02:04:09.601 --> 02:04:10.881
And I did this crazy thing.

1867
02:04:10.921 --> 02:04:13.662
I was like whitewater rafting in Indonesia.

1868
02:04:13.682 --> 02:04:19.103
And I like, I don't know, like met some girl and spent a weekend with her.

1869
02:04:19.203 --> 02:04:21.543
Couldn't even speak each other's languages and all this stuff.

1870
02:04:22.324 --> 02:04:27.185
And I remember I flew home and I saw some of my friends from high school and we just hung out and had beers for two days.

1871
02:04:28.285 --> 02:04:32.989
And I remember realizing, I'm like, I actually like this better than all the shit that I did.

1872
02:04:33.009 --> 02:04:34.230
I've had some of those moments too.

1873
02:04:34.270 --> 02:04:34.990
Yeah.

1874
02:04:35.091 --> 02:04:36.812
And I wrote, I remember writing a piece about that.

1875
02:04:37.192 --> 02:04:40.875
It really mind fucked me because I was just like, I'm like, wait a second.

1876
02:04:40.975 --> 02:04:46.519
I'm like, I'm putting so much into finding these novel, exciting experiences.

1877
02:04:46.579 --> 02:04:50.422
And then at the end of the end of the day, it turns out I just like really miss my friends.

1878
02:04:51.183 --> 02:04:52.684
And so I started noticing that.

1879
02:04:52.744 --> 02:04:53.805
I mean, it was a lot of things.

1880
02:04:53.905 --> 02:04:59.568
The other thing too, on the dating front, there were probably two or three women that I met.

1881
02:04:59.648 --> 02:05:00.929
So speaking of the dip, right?

1882
02:05:00.949 --> 02:05:08.853
Like when I was a nomad, I never stayed anywhere for more than like three to six months because three to six months, that's when you start experiencing the dip.

1883
02:05:09.173 --> 02:05:17.178
That's when you actually, the novelty wears off, the excitement wears off, and you actually start getting really annoyed about all the shit in that particular country.

1884
02:05:17.198 --> 02:05:20.360
It just so happens most tourist visas are three or six months too, so...

1885
02:05:20.940 --> 02:05:29.111
yes that too that helps that too you got a hard out so I I was never anywhere long term um and and

1886
02:05:30.793 --> 02:05:37.197
There were a couple women that I met that we had a really great thing going, like a really good thing going.

1887
02:05:38.058 --> 02:05:38.759
And then I'd go.

1888
02:05:39.419 --> 02:05:43.202
And, you know, the first time it happened, it's like, okay, well, that's sad.

1889
02:05:43.742 --> 02:05:45.203
But okay, you know, life goes on.

1890
02:05:45.923 --> 02:05:46.804
But then it happened again.

1891
02:05:47.104 --> 02:05:48.065
And then it happened again.

1892
02:05:48.445 --> 02:05:51.647
And each time I was like, am I a fucking idiot?

1893
02:05:51.768 --> 02:05:51.968
Like...

1894
02:05:52.628 --> 02:05:53.751
what am I wasting here?

1895
02:05:53.811 --> 02:05:56.556
Like I could potentially actually be wasting a lot here.

1896
02:05:58.360 --> 02:06:02.969
And so I actually promised myself the next time I feel this, I'm going to stick around and like see where it goes.

1897
02:06:03.029 --> 02:06:04.232
And then that's when I met my wife.

1898
02:06:04.951 --> 02:06:19.641
So it's like that combined with the friend thing, combined with the business thing, like everything just kind of led back to the same principle, which was like narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow your options, narrow your focus, narrow what you care about, narrow what you're paying attention to.

1899
02:06:20.922 --> 02:06:22.923
And there's a reason why like subtle art.

1900
02:06:23.464 --> 02:06:26.046
I mean, there's a reason that's the central message is like.

1901
02:06:26.832 --> 02:06:36.830
find a few things you really give a fuck about and just go all in on it because that was like the antidote to everything I'd kind of been experiencing to aesthetic hell.

1902
02:06:36.850 --> 02:06:36.950
Yeah.

1903
02:06:37.429 --> 02:06:38.089
It was Static Hell.

1904
02:06:38.169 --> 02:06:44.932
And I think it turns out that it was a little bit of a premonition of where our culture was going.

1905
02:06:45.152 --> 02:06:48.033
We're doing a 10th anniversary edition of the book.

1906
02:06:49.313 --> 02:06:53.195
So I just went back and edited the original manuscript.

1907
02:06:53.275 --> 02:07:01.558
And it was interesting because the things that jumped out to me the most going back 10 years later were the small sections about

1908
02:07:03.484 --> 02:07:08.286
kind of the aesthetic social media smartphone culture.

1909
02:07:09.407 --> 02:07:13.789
It's interesting because in the book, they're not a significant part of the book.

1910
02:07:13.829 --> 02:07:16.691
They're kind of just little asides and observations here and there.

1911
02:07:17.111 --> 02:07:21.453
And at the time, they were not kind of the conventional wisdom or the accepted wisdom.

1912
02:07:23.074 --> 02:07:25.455
And at the time, I also just thought they were kind of clever people.

1913
02:07:26.876 --> 02:07:35.965
you know, things that I noticed that I hadn't really seen other people say coming back in 2026 and looking like those, those little sections jump off the page.

1914
02:07:36.145 --> 02:07:41.170
And it's like, dude, like you had no fucking idea where this was going.

1915
02:07:41.470 --> 02:07:43.011
It was going to get so much worse.

1916
02:07:44.493 --> 02:07:46.234
But we really didn't realize.

1917
02:07:46.254 --> 02:07:48.857
So I do think that book was, I was one of the

1918
02:07:50.219 --> 02:07:57.852
early adopters, but it was like at the front tail, people kind of experiencing, getting thrown into this online aesthetic lifestyle.

1919
02:07:57.932 --> 02:07:58.153
Yeah.

1920
02:07:58.634 --> 02:07:59.255
And all of the

1921
02:08:00.922 --> 02:08:25.491
hazards and downsides that come with it yeah yeah i remember going i remember this transition in the blogosphere from people telling you how to be a digital nomad and you know all the pictures and instagram photos you know you're in front of a mountain with your arms up and all of that i remember that transition to people saying here's some of the downsides too and it was probably 2016 17 18 yeah and there's when that started i think yeah

1922
02:08:26.231 --> 02:08:40.445
I alluded to this in the previous chapter a little bit too, though, but I think one of the things I'm hearing from you is that you kind of did this to an extreme degree.

1923
02:08:40.465 --> 02:08:40.745
Mm-hmm.

1924
02:08:40.765 --> 02:08:40.865
Okay?

1925
02:08:41.005 --> 02:08:41.286
Okay.

1926
02:08:42.118 --> 02:08:45.942
There's a lot of people who do it to the extreme degree that don't get out of it, though, too.

1927
02:08:46.383 --> 02:08:49.887
I think what you had with it, though, was some degree of the introspection around it.

1928
02:08:49.927 --> 02:08:52.370
I think what I'm hearing from you is the writing.

1929
02:08:52.891 --> 02:08:53.531
Yes.

1930
02:08:53.651 --> 02:08:55.013
Is what actually really helped you.

1931
02:08:55.033 --> 02:08:55.674
Yeah.

1932
02:08:55.714 --> 02:08:58.337
Because you had to sit down and introspect about this kind of stuff.

1933
02:08:58.457 --> 02:08:59.658
Yeah, it actually might've saved me.

1934
02:08:59.878 --> 02:09:00.379
Probably.

1935
02:09:00.559 --> 02:09:00.819
Yeah.

1936
02:09:00.899 --> 02:09:02.901
Cause I do know people who never got out of it.

1937
02:09:03.081 --> 02:09:04.562
And it's, it's interesting.

1938
02:09:04.962 --> 02:09:11.688
My wife and I, we actually had a conversation about this recently about some of those people who never got out and how now they're like in their 40s.

1939
02:09:11.988 --> 02:09:14.270
They're literally doing the same thing they did 20 years ago.

1940
02:09:14.530 --> 02:09:16.371
Like their life has not changed at all.

1941
02:09:17.152 --> 02:09:19.173
And it's gotten kind of sad.

1942
02:09:19.254 --> 02:09:20.515
Like it's hard to watch.

1943
02:09:21.295 --> 02:09:26.119
One of the things that she and I were talking about is that a lot of this stuff,

1944
02:09:27.883 --> 02:09:36.671
building community, like setting roots somewhere, developing routines, hobbies, rituals, right?

1945
02:09:36.711 --> 02:09:41.436
Like these are all soft skills that nobody really tells you that you need to learn.

1946
02:09:41.616 --> 02:09:42.376
But if you are...

1947
02:09:43.117 --> 02:09:50.601
bouncing around to a new place every six months or every year for 20 years, you'll never develop those skills.

1948
02:09:51.261 --> 02:09:52.982
And I see that in these people now.

1949
02:09:53.022 --> 02:10:00.405
It's like they never learned how to build a real community, build lifelong friendships, build lifelong rituals.

1950
02:10:02.646 --> 02:10:09.530
And there's a certain groundedness or stability that comes with that that I think is extremely healthy for people.

1951
02:10:10.030 --> 02:10:11.091
But nobody explains that to you.

1952
02:10:11.131 --> 02:10:11.812
Nobody tells you.

1953
02:10:12.513 --> 02:10:16.597
And I think it's just because for most of the human history, it was just implicit.

1954
02:10:16.638 --> 02:10:18.179
Like, it just happened.

1955
02:10:18.339 --> 02:10:19.561
Nobody had to think about it.

1956
02:10:19.581 --> 02:10:23.645
We're the first generation in history that actually has the opportunity to fuck that up.

1957
02:10:23.665 --> 02:10:24.026
Yeah.

1958
02:10:24.166 --> 02:10:25.527
And, like, ruin it for ourselves.

1959
02:10:26.048 --> 02:10:29.912
So, yeah, I look back and I'm actually, like, very grateful I got out when I did that.

1960
02:10:32.134 --> 02:10:34.115
and force myself to kind of learn these things.

1961
02:10:34.155 --> 02:10:50.465
But it's funny because I actually do think some of my struggle, I guess, in midlife around a lot of these questions, around friendships, community, stability, consistency, I think part of it is is that I never got good at those skills.

1962
02:10:50.485 --> 02:10:57.489
I never developed that kind of connective tissue to the world around me, or at least I'm like a late bloomer and trying to figure it out.

1963
02:10:58.369 --> 02:10:59.170
It hasn't really...

1964
02:11:00.250 --> 02:11:00.910
come naturally.

1965
02:11:00.950 --> 02:11:01.670
Yeah, yeah.

1966
02:11:01.870 --> 02:11:02.270
Okay.

1967
02:11:02.590 --> 02:11:10.912
To bring this back to Casanova, it's funny because I actually read a biography of Casanova when I was a nomad and I remember just being like, dude, so sick.

1968
02:11:11.092 --> 02:11:13.392
This guy, this guy, holy shit.

1969
02:11:13.432 --> 02:11:15.093
Really was the most interesting man in the world.

1970
02:11:15.113 --> 02:11:16.833
The most interesting man who ever lived.

1971
02:11:17.373 --> 02:11:22.414
It was interesting kind of coming back to his story for this episode now in my 40s because it's actually really sad.

1972
02:11:22.454 --> 02:11:26.675
Like now I look at his story and I'm like, that's a very lost person who...

1973
02:11:27.995 --> 02:11:32.319
had a lot of fun and excitement in his life, but never, was never happy.

1974
02:11:32.680 --> 02:11:35.422
It was just a lot of exciting stuff.

1975
02:11:35.663 --> 02:11:37.104
It was a collection of experiences.

1976
02:11:37.124 --> 02:11:38.525
It was a collection of experiences.

1977
02:11:38.545 --> 02:11:39.306
It wasn't a life.

1978
02:11:39.466 --> 02:11:40.627
That's a great way to put it.

1979
02:11:40.888 --> 02:11:42.609
And it's interesting how he died.

1980
02:11:42.669 --> 02:11:47.634
So he basically burned every bridge around every court of Europe

1981
02:11:48.715 --> 02:11:55.140
And ended up alone in a small castle, I think in like present-day Slovakia or something.

1982
02:11:55.160 --> 02:12:03.105
And he was completely ostracized from high society, broke, living in this castle.

1983
02:12:03.125 --> 02:12:04.406
He's surrounded by a bunch of kids.

1984
02:12:05.226 --> 02:12:08.329
And the kids would come around and he would tell them stories from his life.

1985
02:12:08.569 --> 02:12:09.730
And the kids always thought,

1986
02:12:10.490 --> 02:12:11.311
like this guy.

1987
02:12:11.331 --> 02:12:12.733
The crazy old man.

1988
02:12:12.753 --> 02:12:13.694
The crazy old man.

1989
02:12:14.174 --> 02:12:15.936
You'll never guess what he told us today.

1990
02:12:16.737 --> 02:12:18.879
At the time, he was like writing his memoirs.

1991
02:12:19.320 --> 02:12:22.103
He wrote like 2,000 pages worth of memoirs or something.

1992
02:12:24.265 --> 02:12:27.268
And it was funny because when he finally died, he died completely alone.

1993
02:12:28.610 --> 02:12:30.051
Nobody even knows where his grave is.

1994
02:12:30.311 --> 02:12:30.892
Like it's

1995
02:12:31.773 --> 02:12:32.313
It's very sad.

1996
02:12:32.374 --> 02:12:35.136
No friends, no family, no partner, nothing.

1997
02:12:36.137 --> 02:12:39.860
And his memoirs sat for decades.

1998
02:12:39.920 --> 02:12:41.882
I think it was like 60 or 70 years.

1999
02:12:42.502 --> 02:12:44.183
People just thought it was like a fabrication.

2000
02:12:44.224 --> 02:12:45.945
It was like 100 years later or something.

2001
02:12:46.145 --> 02:12:52.110
Some historians happened to stumble across records of the crazy things that he did.

2002
02:12:53.291 --> 02:12:57.054
And then it turns out they went and found his memoirs and they started corroborating all these things.

2003
02:12:57.074 --> 02:12:58.075
And it turns out it was all true.

2004
02:12:58.095 --> 02:12:58.375
Yeah.

2005
02:12:58.695 --> 02:13:05.580
And like he did have this crazy, insane, wild life that wasn't really shared with anybody.

2006
02:13:06.000 --> 02:13:07.321
That wasn't remembered by anybody.

2007
02:13:07.341 --> 02:13:11.945
I mean, it's like a fluke that history even went and verified that it actually happened.

2008
02:13:12.065 --> 02:13:22.252
So I think Casanova is a perfect example of the aesthetic life because it is full of fireworks and sexy adventures, right?

2009
02:13:24.133 --> 02:13:25.423
but ultimately it means nothing.

2010
02:13:25.987 --> 02:13:26.753
It ends in nothing.

2011
02:13:27.832 --> 02:13:28.132
Yeah.

2012
02:13:28.852 --> 02:13:34.694
If I remember right, he spent the last decades of his life just writing about the first half of his life.

2013
02:13:35.515 --> 02:13:40.877
And he said something along the lines of like, these memories are all I have left.

2014
02:13:40.957 --> 02:13:44.918
Like the memories of the fun and the pleasure and all that are really all I have left.

2015
02:13:45.178 --> 02:13:45.858
How sad is that?

2016
02:13:45.878 --> 02:13:46.899
Decades of that.

2017
02:13:47.039 --> 02:13:47.259
Yeah.

2018
02:13:47.699 --> 02:13:53.701
It reminds me of the quote, the famous Benjamin Franklin quote, where he says that some people die and are not buried for another 50 years.

2019
02:13:54.481 --> 02:13:55.582
It's definitely a case of that.

2020
02:13:56.522 --> 02:14:00.610
This raises the question of like, how do we exit the aesthetic life?

2021
02:14:00.811 --> 02:14:03.877
How do we find those commitments, make those commitments?

2022
02:14:04.418 --> 02:14:07.785
How do we avoid falling into the optionality trap?

2023
02:14:09.412 --> 02:14:14.935
becoming enslaved by the paradox of choice, being seduced by constant novelties and freedoms.

2024
02:14:15.815 --> 02:14:24.019
This leads us to what Kierkegaard called the ethical life, the second stage of life's commitments, of finding your life path.

2025
02:14:25.039 --> 02:14:28.381
And it turns out it's one of those classic...

2026
02:14:29.121 --> 02:14:30.222
It's not complicated.

2027
02:14:31.183 --> 02:14:33.925
It's just really difficult type situations.

2028
02:14:34.266 --> 02:14:35.967
Yeah.

2029
02:14:36.247 --> 02:14:38.709
It's probably not that you don't know what you should do.

2030
02:14:38.930 --> 02:14:40.831
It's that it's really hard to do it.

2031
02:14:41.412 --> 02:14:42.993
And it's not pleasant.

2032
02:14:43.033 --> 02:14:43.714
It's not fun.

2033
02:14:44.314 --> 02:14:48.178
And we find ways to avoid it at all costs.

2034
02:14:48.832 --> 02:14:53.574
Because ultimately, knowing that you're stuck doesn't necessarily make you unstuck.

2035
02:14:53.934 --> 02:14:58.316
You have to find the actions that get you out of the situation that you're in.

2036
02:14:58.836 --> 02:15:04.379
And this is what we will actually find in the next chapter, is that commitment is an action.

2037
02:15:04.819 --> 02:15:06.119
It's not a belief.

2038
02:15:06.179 --> 02:15:07.740
It's not an idea.

2039
02:15:07.800 --> 02:15:11.061
It's not a little note you write down and send to somebody.

2040
02:15:11.121 --> 02:15:11.562
Like, it is...

2041
02:15:12.622 --> 02:15:17.227
It is ultimately the actions that you choose to make and the priorities that you choose to hold.

2042
02:15:17.988 --> 02:15:30.681
And it turns out in our guide for this chapter will be a famous Harvard psychologist, my favorite psychologist, who actually only became a psychologist because a creative writing class happened to be full.

2043
02:15:30.701 --> 02:15:30.761
So,

2044
02:15:31.522 --> 02:15:36.710
So we will talk about his ideas, how profound and life-changing they were for me.

2045
02:15:37.691 --> 02:15:40.816
And hopefully they will be life-changing for you all as well.

2046
02:15:41.316 --> 02:15:43.680
But first, a quick message from our sponsors.

2047
02:15:44.260 --> 02:15:46.283
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2049
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2070
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2071
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Welcome back to the Solve Podcast.

2088
02:18:39.671 --> 02:18:40.512
Let's get back into it.

2089
02:18:46.303 --> 02:18:51.705
In the 1930s, Jean-Paul Sartre was primarily a playwright and a novelist.

2090
02:18:52.125 --> 02:18:59.088
He hadn't really spent much time doing philosophy or thinking about philosophy, but all of that changed when World War II broke out.

2091
02:18:59.328 --> 02:19:02.490
In 1939, Sartre got drafted into the French Army.

2092
02:19:03.030 --> 02:19:05.451
I believe he was a radio tower operator.

2093
02:19:05.811 --> 02:19:10.913
He was a pretty slight guy, wasn't exactly your burly soldier type.

2094
02:19:11.073 --> 02:19:13.194
But as we all know, the French got their ass kicked.

2095
02:19:13.294 --> 02:19:20.619
The Nazis rolled in within weeks, captured most of the territory of the country, and Jean-Paul Sartre was taken as a prisoner of war.

2096
02:19:20.839 --> 02:19:23.861
Now, for the next two years, he spent time in...

2097
02:19:25.162 --> 02:19:29.265
I don't want to say it was the equivalent of a concentration camp, but it was not fun.

2098
02:19:29.425 --> 02:19:31.706
He lived in a small, isolated cell.

2099
02:19:31.806 --> 02:19:32.707
It was probably like...

2100
02:19:33.327 --> 02:19:34.507
six feet by eight feet.

2101
02:19:34.768 --> 02:19:39.769
He was alone most of the day, and he had nothing to occupy him other than to journal ferociously.

2102
02:19:39.969 --> 02:19:55.855
And as he was spending all that time alone in the prisoner of war camp, journaling out all of his thoughts obsessively throughout each day, he started to notice something about himself that kind of freaked him out, which was that he started to enjoy the fact that he didn't have to make any choices.

2103
02:19:56.415 --> 02:19:57.796
Everything was planned for him.

2104
02:19:57.876 --> 02:20:00.397
Everything he did each day he was told to do.

2105
02:20:00.757 --> 02:20:03.998
He never had to put any sort of thought into any decisions.

2106
02:20:04.458 --> 02:20:06.899
He was never having to choose between any two alternatives.

2107
02:20:07.779 --> 02:20:15.022
And he realized that there was a certain level of comfort that came with this that shocked him and scared him a little bit.

2108
02:20:15.322 --> 02:20:19.067
So he started journaling about the nature of choice itself.

2109
02:20:19.328 --> 02:20:29.842
And he realized that choice is inherently frightening because when you choose something, you are cutting off or negating some other alternative.

2110
02:20:30.683 --> 02:20:35.711
And as soon as you cut off some alternative, there's always this question of, did I make the right choice?

2111
02:20:35.751 --> 02:20:36.772
Am I going to regret this?

2112
02:20:37.293 --> 02:20:44.644
And start realize that so many people go through life avoiding making choices for this exact reason.

2113
02:20:45.445 --> 02:20:51.831
They are afraid of negating or cutting off the version of themselves that they're going to regret not pursuing.

2114
02:20:52.211 --> 02:20:58.217
Now, all of these journals and ideas and thoughts eventually became Sartre's philosophical magnum opus.

2115
02:20:58.717 --> 02:21:00.259
It's called On Being the Nothingness.

2116
02:21:00.499 --> 02:21:00.819
It is...

2117
02:21:01.640 --> 02:21:05.982
Maybe the single hardest book I have forced myself to get through.

2118
02:21:06.402 --> 02:21:07.463
I didn't finish it.

2119
02:21:07.483 --> 02:21:10.504
I got about 400 pages in and just like fucking threw in the towel.

2120
02:21:10.985 --> 02:21:13.226
I was like, I can't take anymore.

2121
02:21:13.626 --> 02:21:25.772
But in being in nothingness, Sartre has this idea called bad faith, which is all of the mechanisms and inventions and narratives and stories that we tell ourselves to make

2122
02:21:26.392 --> 02:21:28.893
led us off the hook to not choose, right?

2123
02:21:28.973 --> 02:21:33.394
It's like, oh, well, I didn't have a choice because my family wanted me to do this.

2124
02:21:33.995 --> 02:21:39.016
Or I didn't have a choice because all of the people I was with were going over there, so I had to go over there too.

2125
02:21:39.296 --> 02:21:43.998
Or I didn't have a choice because it's the economy crashed and there's nothing I could do about that.

2126
02:21:44.038 --> 02:21:53.241
Like, we are always seeking reasons and justifications for not choosing because by not choosing, we don't have to confront that anxiety

2127
02:21:54.041 --> 02:21:55.883
that freedom avails to us.

2128
02:21:56.323 --> 02:21:59.547
But here's where Sartre turned everything on its head.

2129
02:22:00.127 --> 02:22:07.294
In Being a Nothingness, he pointed out that the refusal to make a choice is still a choice.

2130
02:22:08.167 --> 02:22:14.629
that we are all making choices every minute of every day, whether we realize we are or not.

2131
02:22:14.929 --> 02:22:19.710
And that living in bad faith is not actually the removal of our own choices.

2132
02:22:19.930 --> 02:22:27.892
It is simply the subversion of our own choices into our unconscious, into instinct, into impulse.

2133
02:22:28.332 --> 02:22:34.494
And Sartre believed that this realization that you were choosing in every moment was the single crux

2134
02:22:35.734 --> 02:22:41.077
of which all agency and ability to live and commit hinged upon.

2135
02:22:41.417 --> 02:22:46.379
And it's interesting because if you go back to Kierkegaard, there's a very similar idea in his book, Either Or.

2136
02:22:46.519 --> 02:22:48.320
So he had this character named Judge William.

2137
02:22:48.580 --> 02:22:55.463
The purpose of the character is to kind of argue against the aesthetic life and promote what Kierkegaard called the ethical life.

2138
02:22:56.023 --> 02:23:05.452
Now, the argument was not your run-of-the-mill scolding from your grandmother of like, you should settle down and find a wife and have a nice life for yourself.

2139
02:23:06.173 --> 02:23:10.096
It was actually way more interesting than that, which is that Judge William...

2140
02:23:11.197 --> 02:23:14.379
argued that you should choose choice itself.

2141
02:23:14.779 --> 02:23:35.493
Now on the surface, that sounds a little confusing, but I think that is Kierkegaard's way of saying, take all of those choices that you are outsourcing and to your impulses and your unconscious and make them conscious, make them explicit, walk into them open-eyed, be aware of the trade-offs that are involved in each thing that you do each day.

2142
02:23:35.793 --> 02:23:38.455
Because as Kierkegaard argued, the self is not

2143
02:23:39.235 --> 02:23:42.059
determined by the things that you are.

2144
02:23:42.560 --> 02:23:44.823
It's determined by the things that you chose not to be.

2145
02:23:45.144 --> 02:23:49.190
The things that you were willing to sacrifice that other people were not willing to sacrifice.

2146
02:23:49.350 --> 02:23:53.116
That's actually what differentiates you both to yourself and yourself.

2147
02:23:54.197 --> 02:23:55.238
to the world around you.

2148
02:23:55.599 --> 02:24:03.447
If you look at the word decide itself, the etymological root in Latin, it comes from the verb decidere, which means to cut.

2149
02:24:03.807 --> 02:24:10.394
The word decide literally means to cut off alternatives, to refuse other possibilities.

2150
02:24:11.055 --> 02:24:12.416
And Kierkegaard argued that

2151
02:24:13.500 --> 02:24:24.489
the ability to commit yourself to something, to someone, to negate all the other alternatives, that this would actually make you a much happier, healthier, more whole person.

2152
02:24:25.330 --> 02:24:28.792
And it turns out that modern research has really backed this up.

2153
02:24:29.393 --> 02:24:37.740
And what's interesting is that a lot of the fear that we have around choosing, a lot of the anxiety that we have that comes with freedom is,

2154
02:24:39.117 --> 02:24:40.558
A lot of it's very irrational.

2155
02:24:41.059 --> 02:24:45.263
Before the choice, there's all these fears of like, well, what if I choose the wrong one?

2156
02:24:45.323 --> 02:24:46.284
What if I make a mistake?

2157
02:24:46.304 --> 02:24:49.227
What if I regret not going down this other path?

2158
02:24:50.068 --> 02:24:52.591
Whereas what we find is that after you have chosen

2159
02:24:54.293 --> 02:24:55.754
your feelings are quite different.

2160
02:24:56.074 --> 02:24:59.075
They are similarly irrational, but in a different direction.

2161
02:24:59.815 --> 02:25:08.559
And so in this chapter, it's probably useful to start out by going through what is the psychological process of choosing and committing?

2162
02:25:09.099 --> 02:25:10.440
What does that feel like?

2163
02:25:11.020 --> 02:25:13.301
How does that actually function within your mind?

2164
02:25:13.481 --> 02:25:18.763
And how do you end up coming to see it down the road after the fact?

2165
02:25:19.123 --> 02:25:32.469
Now, as soon as we started working on this episode and on this chapter, my mind immediately went to a researcher that I'm a huge fan of, who I think his work is very relevant and appropriate here.

2166
02:25:32.509 --> 02:25:39.132
And that's Dan Gilbert, who is one of the preeminent happiness researchers, positive psychologists out of Harvard.

2167
02:25:39.472 --> 02:25:43.334
And Gilbert is a super interesting guy because I think in a lot of ways he's

2168
02:25:44.834 --> 02:25:51.927
His life story kind of illustrates a lot of the points he makes about commitment and choice and choosing.

2169
02:25:52.917 --> 02:25:57.040
So quick bio, Dan Gilbert, he dropped out of high school at 15.

2170
02:25:57.260 --> 02:25:58.441
He grew up near Chicago.

2171
02:25:58.461 --> 02:26:03.624
It sounds like he was a bit of a hippie, a bit of a free spirit, a bit of an estate, if you will.

2172
02:26:03.984 --> 02:26:05.806
He started hitchhiking around the country.

2173
02:26:05.906 --> 02:26:08.047
He was reading a lot of Eastern philosophy.

2174
02:26:08.067 --> 02:26:09.268
He was meditating.

2175
02:26:09.328 --> 02:26:10.929
He was into all sorts of woo-woo stuff.

2176
02:26:11.670 --> 02:26:14.652
And he initially wanted to become a creative writer.

2177
02:26:14.672 --> 02:26:15.132
Yeah.

2178
02:26:15.172 --> 02:26:21.635
So he settled around Denver with his girlfriend and his son, and he started writing science fiction on a typewriter.

2179
02:26:21.915 --> 02:26:27.497
Now, at the time, he wanted to support his young family, so he went back to school, and then he started going to community college.

2180
02:26:28.158 --> 02:26:35.701
And when he arrived at the community college and wanted to sign up for creative writing courses, they were all full for that semester.

2181
02:26:35.741 --> 02:26:43.524
And so he looked at the course listing and he asked himself, what class will help me write science fiction better than anything else?

2182
02:26:43.884 --> 02:26:44.645
And he decided that

2183
02:26:45.245 --> 02:26:45.845
psychology.

2184
02:26:46.225 --> 02:26:46.885
That makes sense.

2185
02:26:46.945 --> 02:26:50.626
Like, if I want to be a better writer, I should probably understand a little bit about human psychology.

2186
02:26:51.126 --> 02:26:52.487
So he took the psychology course.

2187
02:26:52.787 --> 02:26:56.308
He loved it so much, he just went all in on it.

2188
02:26:56.748 --> 02:26:57.928
You could say he committed to it.

2189
02:26:58.228 --> 02:27:02.709
Within a year, he had stopped writing fiction entirely, and he was enrolled full-time at UC Denver.

2190
02:27:02.909 --> 02:27:08.950
Within 10 years, he had a PhD from Princeton, and within 20 years, he was a tenured professor at Harvard, doing some of the

2191
02:27:11.291 --> 02:27:13.093
that people like you and I talk about today.

2192
02:27:13.113 --> 02:27:13.814
Did you know any...

2193
02:27:13.954 --> 02:27:15.595
I didn't know any of this story beforehand.

2194
02:27:15.736 --> 02:27:20.540
He's written, you know, Stumbling on Happiness, his biggest book probably, and lots of other books.

2195
02:27:20.621 --> 02:27:21.942
And I've read all of his research.

2196
02:27:22.042 --> 02:27:24.064
I had no idea about this whole background of his.

2197
02:27:24.364 --> 02:27:25.265
Well, it's funny, actually.

2198
02:27:25.345 --> 02:27:29.049
I do know one story about him, which is why I thought of him for this chapter.

2199
02:27:29.109 --> 02:27:30.551
And we'll get to that story in a second.

2200
02:27:30.611 --> 02:27:32.332
But yeah, I didn't know that he...

2201
02:27:33.073 --> 02:27:58.793
kind of came from this bohemian aesthetic life and then like found psychology went all in on it i mean it's actually it's a beautiful representation of kind of what this whole episode is about like he found a thing that resonated decided right he cut off the alternatives went all in on it and it paid off in a in a massive way he's got this great quote by the way where he said make a plan for your life and then be grateful when it doesn't go that way

2202
02:27:59.713 --> 02:28:00.414
He's full of those.

2203
02:28:00.454 --> 02:28:00.835
Yeah.

2204
02:28:01.075 --> 02:28:01.536
I love him.

2205
02:28:01.856 --> 02:28:08.786
So Gilbert is really famous for having a lot of kind of counterintuitive happiness research.

2206
02:28:08.867 --> 02:28:14.615
He has all sorts of findings that show that a lot of what we expect to make us happy doesn't make us happy.

2207
02:28:14.635 --> 02:28:15.196
And a lot of the...

2208
02:28:15.476 --> 02:28:19.838
Stuff that we expect to make us unhappy doesn't really make us unhappy and vice versa.

2209
02:28:20.058 --> 02:28:24.780
In a lot of cases, the things that we remember as making us happy actually didn't make us that happy at the time.

2210
02:28:24.820 --> 02:28:28.781
And basically our perception of our own happiness is very unreliable.

2211
02:28:28.961 --> 02:28:31.602
It's quite relative given the circumstances.

2212
02:28:32.182 --> 02:28:36.064
Now, this is going to be really important in a minute once we kind of come back to commitment.

2213
02:28:36.399 --> 02:28:42.624
his foray into this line of research actually totally happened on accident back in the early nineties.

2214
02:28:42.664 --> 02:28:50.549
He was having lunch with a colleague and it just so happened that both him and that colleague had endured like pretty awful years.

2215
02:28:50.589 --> 02:28:51.210
They both had,

2216
02:28:51.670 --> 02:28:53.231
people close to them pass away.

2217
02:28:53.251 --> 02:28:56.773
They both had some pretty significant professional setbacks.

2218
02:28:56.813 --> 02:29:07.160
They had some problems in their personal lives and they were sitting there talking about it, but also kind of analyzing themselves as I guess psychologists do when they sit and have lunch for a long time.

2219
02:29:07.500 --> 02:29:15.745
And they realized that both of them actually felt a lot better about their situations than they would have guessed beforehand that they were handling everything

2220
02:29:16.766 --> 02:29:18.287
much better than they would have predicted.

2221
02:29:18.588 --> 02:29:25.754
And that looking back, things were actually not as awful as they sounded initially.

2222
02:29:26.074 --> 02:29:34.401
So this got them curious of like, why don't we try to measure people's forecasting into what's going to make them happy and what actually makes them happy?

2223
02:29:34.661 --> 02:29:44.431
And this kicked off a series of fascinating findings that Gilbert later kind of packaged together and labeled the psychological immune system.

2224
02:29:44.831 --> 02:29:50.416
And the idea behind the psychological immune system is that the same way our body will fight off...

2225
02:29:51.157 --> 02:30:02.001
bacteria and a cold virus, our psychology also seems to have a bit of an immune system to keep unhappiness and misery at bay.

2226
02:30:02.181 --> 02:30:11.084
So it turns out that we will misremember things in our favor, that we will highlight things in our past that make us happier and

2227
02:30:11.944 --> 02:30:16.767
subtly kind of forget the things that were unexciting or uninteresting.

2228
02:30:17.227 --> 02:30:22.190
We will overestimate things in our future to generate a large sense of optimism and hope.

2229
02:30:22.410 --> 02:30:30.115
Whereas like once we actually get the thing that we're excited about, it's never as good as you think it's going to be.

2230
02:30:30.235 --> 02:30:35.177
So he identified all of these different ways that our mind is kind of

2231
02:30:36.398 --> 02:30:41.722
irrational and inaccurate in terms of what it predicts and what it expects.

2232
02:30:42.002 --> 02:30:50.048
And it seems to consistently be irrational and inaccurate in the same direction, which is to make us mildly happier.

2233
02:30:50.468 --> 02:30:53.050
Our psychological immune system takes many different forms.

2234
02:30:53.170 --> 02:31:02.036
It comes in rationalizing post-hoc justifications, reframing situations, finding silver linings to terrible things that

2235
02:31:02.897 --> 02:31:07.819
It also involves a series of cognitive biases that we are just like not even aware of when they're happening.

2236
02:31:08.119 --> 02:31:12.560
So my favorite story involving Dan Gilbert is actually about one of those biases.

2237
02:31:12.620 --> 02:31:15.021
He had been with his girlfriend for like 15 years or something.

2238
02:31:15.041 --> 02:31:16.062
They'd never gotten married.

2239
02:31:16.142 --> 02:31:19.503
And he was talking to a colleague about some of his recent research.

2240
02:31:19.563 --> 02:31:23.064
And he actually found that putting constraints together

2241
02:31:23.404 --> 02:31:29.466
on somebody made them more satisfied with their situation than removing the constraints, right?

2242
02:31:29.506 --> 02:31:32.427
It's, it's kind of Sartre and the prisoner of war camp.

2243
02:31:32.487 --> 02:31:40.830
It's like he found the more constraints you put on people, the more satisfied they seem to be with that situation.

2244
02:31:41.110 --> 02:31:44.031
After the fact, his colleagues said, Oh, that's really interesting.

2245
02:31:44.091 --> 02:31:47.332
That's like a very strong psychological argument for marriage.

2246
02:31:48.285 --> 02:31:49.968
And Dan Gilbert sat there for a second.

2247
02:31:49.988 --> 02:31:53.534
And up until that point, he had never really believed in the value of marriage.

2248
02:31:53.554 --> 02:31:55.958
He saw it as kind of a pointless legal formality.

2249
02:31:56.339 --> 02:31:58.503
And he sat there and he was like, oh, shit.

2250
02:31:59.068 --> 02:32:01.149
And he went home and immediately proposed to his girlfriend.

2251
02:32:01.749 --> 02:32:05.691
And sure enough, he later said, getting married made me happier with my relationship.

2252
02:32:05.991 --> 02:32:10.532
It's that barrier to exit that makes you more satisfied staying where you are.

2253
02:32:10.913 --> 02:32:24.438
Now, this is important for commitments because it turns out that there are a lot of aspects of our psychological immune system that are kind of geared towards nudging us to be satisfied with our decisions, even if it wasn't the greatest decision in the world.

2254
02:32:25.018 --> 02:32:25.239
Right.

2255
02:32:25.259 --> 02:32:30.544
So the fear that the estate has, which is like, I can't make a choice.

2256
02:32:31.465 --> 02:32:32.746
What if I make the wrong choice?

2257
02:32:32.866 --> 02:32:33.947
What if I'm not happy?

2258
02:32:34.007 --> 02:32:35.989
What if this other choice was the better choice?

2259
02:32:36.069 --> 02:32:38.312
The dizziness of freedom, the dizziness of freedom.

2260
02:32:39.373 --> 02:32:40.053
It turns out.

2261
02:32:41.148 --> 02:32:49.219
Once you've made the choice, your mind will unconsciously start justifying that choice to yourself and finding reasons to be happy about it.

2262
02:32:49.479 --> 02:32:53.885
And I think this is actually an important part of our psychological software.

2263
02:32:54.226 --> 02:32:55.347
Evolutionarily speaking...

2264
02:32:56.388 --> 02:33:00.272
optionality was very scarce throughout most of human history.

2265
02:33:00.292 --> 02:33:03.795
And so we have a very strong bias towards maintaining optionality.

2266
02:33:04.496 --> 02:33:15.807
But then it makes sense once you have kind of walked through that door and closed the other doors, it makes sense that you would have a bias towards justifying that decision and being happy with whatever resulted from it.

2267
02:33:16.187 --> 02:33:24.950
Do you think opposite, opposite biases, depending on when like that you were talking about that anxiety before the decision versus the different anxiety you might have after it?

2268
02:33:24.970 --> 02:33:26.431
They're completely different mechanisms.

2269
02:33:26.511 --> 02:33:27.251
It seems like, yeah.

2270
02:33:27.431 --> 02:33:29.792
And I come back to the cold pool metaphor, right?

2271
02:33:29.852 --> 02:33:36.495
It's like the fear of jumping in is, is, is only matched by the satisfaction once you're already in.

2272
02:33:36.515 --> 02:33:36.615
Yeah.

2273
02:33:37.115 --> 02:33:41.337
Like nobody ever jumps into a cold pool on a hot summer day and is like, why did I do this?

2274
02:33:41.757 --> 02:33:42.737
I made the wrong decision.

2275
02:33:42.777 --> 02:33:44.998
I should have jumped into the hot tub instead.

2276
02:33:45.038 --> 02:33:47.639
Like it's no, you're like, this is nice.

2277
02:33:48.059 --> 02:33:49.100
The cold pool example.

2278
02:33:49.200 --> 02:33:53.481
You can't jump out of the cold pool as if you've never done it before.

2279
02:33:53.501 --> 02:33:53.721
Right.

2280
02:33:54.101 --> 02:33:59.964
So it's whereas that that door study I was talking about where you get the three doors always keeping those three options open.

2281
02:34:00.004 --> 02:34:00.704
There's a difference there.

2282
02:34:00.724 --> 02:34:03.685
There's a qualitative difference there to categorical difference there, actually.

2283
02:34:03.845 --> 02:34:05.685
the reversible versus unreversible.

2284
02:34:05.805 --> 02:34:14.508
And that's actually something they see in the research is that the psychological immune system actually kicks in the strongest when you have an irreversible decision.

2285
02:34:14.568 --> 02:34:16.268
So you make a decision and you can't go back on it.

2286
02:34:16.748 --> 02:34:21.469
You're probably going to be more satisfied with it just because you have no other option in that case.

2287
02:34:21.789 --> 02:34:31.712
So kind of in the short term, if you're making these decisions, if you have these irreversible decisions that you need to make, there is a little bit of an argument for like, just make the decision, just do it.

2288
02:34:32.192 --> 02:34:32.372
And your

2289
02:34:33.932 --> 02:34:40.436
I think in the modern world where there is, it's more like the open door study or it's more like the door study where you can keep all of these doors open if you want to.

2290
02:34:40.456 --> 02:34:43.558
There might be a better door down the hall almost at all times.

2291
02:34:44.119 --> 02:34:45.820
I think that's where a lot of us get stuck.

2292
02:34:45.960 --> 02:34:48.262
We have the optionality to keep all those doors open.

2293
02:34:48.542 --> 02:34:48.722
Yeah.

2294
02:34:48.822 --> 02:34:54.506
But the psychological immune system works best when there are these kind of like irreversible decisions or at least ones that we perceive as irreversible.

2295
02:34:54.666 --> 02:35:00.850
This lends itself to Dan Gilbert's point that like increasing constraints are

2296
02:35:01.243 --> 02:35:04.544
on your decision actually increases your satisfaction with that decision.

2297
02:35:04.624 --> 02:35:11.166
Like the more irreversible you can make something, the more satisfied with it you'll probably be.

2298
02:35:11.627 --> 02:35:15.128
It's funny, actually, I just saw this yesterday on social media.

2299
02:35:15.348 --> 02:35:18.509
It was an interview with the sports journalist Stephen A. Smith.

2300
02:35:18.669 --> 02:35:24.271
He was like, I have a friend whose prenup, I believe, is the most perfect legal document ever written.

2301
02:35:24.651 --> 02:35:26.692
It's a prenup of only one sentence.

2302
02:35:27.890 --> 02:35:29.230
You want to guess what the one sentence is?

2303
02:35:29.470 --> 02:35:31.271
Whoever leaves gets nothing.

2304
02:35:34.072 --> 02:35:36.172
How's that for incentives and irreversibility?

2305
02:35:37.012 --> 02:35:37.673
Yeah.

2306
02:35:37.773 --> 02:35:44.414
There's been decisions that I've made where it was just like, oh, I got all these options in front of me and I felt that dizziness of freedom before.

2307
02:35:44.794 --> 02:35:47.995
And as soon as I made one, I just instantly almost felt better about it.

2308
02:35:48.175 --> 02:35:52.056
When I finished my master's degree, I was like, still like, I don't know what I want to do with my life type of thing.

2309
02:35:52.096 --> 02:35:52.736
And I said, screw it.

2310
02:35:52.756 --> 02:35:54.457
I'm going to go live in South America for a little while.

2311
02:35:55.097 --> 02:35:57.159
And I was so anxious before that.

2312
02:35:57.179 --> 02:35:59.001
And I was like, I don't know what I want to do, blah, blah, blah.

2313
02:35:59.021 --> 02:36:01.704
And as soon as I made that decision, I was like, there was clarity.

2314
02:36:01.724 --> 02:36:02.885
I knew exactly what I needed to do.

2315
02:36:02.925 --> 02:36:03.806
I need to buy this ticket.

2316
02:36:03.826 --> 02:36:05.648
I need to sell all my stuff.

2317
02:36:05.688 --> 02:36:08.030
I needed all of these things like just fell into place.

2318
02:36:08.050 --> 02:36:10.372
I think that's part of it, too, is it gives you this clarity.

2319
02:36:10.552 --> 02:36:11.754
Again, almost no matter what it was.

2320
02:36:12.334 --> 02:36:15.195
That honestly probably wasn't a great decision of mine to do.

2321
02:36:15.255 --> 02:36:19.517
I probably should have just kept going on a more stable career path at the time.

2322
02:36:20.157 --> 02:36:26.939
But that said, I made the decision, and it removed a lot of that uncertainty around it.

2323
02:36:27.339 --> 02:36:28.520
You're alluding to something.

2324
02:36:28.540 --> 02:36:35.862
This is actually a point I made in Subtle Art, and it's something that I believe very strongly, but it's very hard to communicate.

2325
02:36:36.122 --> 02:36:36.903
I think people who are

2326
02:36:37.723 --> 02:36:39.906
very aesthetic in the way they live.

2327
02:36:39.926 --> 02:36:41.528
Like, it just, they don't understand.

2328
02:36:41.889 --> 02:36:46.434
What you just described is a very subtle form of freedom in that.

2329
02:36:47.377 --> 02:36:53.161
When you cut off the alternatives, it actually frees you to focus on the thing that you chose on.

2330
02:36:53.861 --> 02:36:54.081
Right.

2331
02:36:54.622 --> 02:36:57.684
And that's actually a very powerful form of freedom.

2332
02:36:57.924 --> 02:37:01.266
The example I've given a number of times is when I got engaged to my wife.

2333
02:37:01.346 --> 02:37:04.328
Like I fretted and worried about that for so many months.

2334
02:37:05.049 --> 02:37:06.210
I agonized over it.

2335
02:37:06.310 --> 02:37:07.731
And then as soon as I proposed.

2336
02:37:08.591 --> 02:37:11.719
it was like this burden was lifted off my shoulders.

2337
02:37:12.080 --> 02:37:17.192
And the way I describe it is that it was like I had this like software running in the back of my head that was always like,

2338
02:37:18.995 --> 02:37:20.096
Where's the hot girl?

2339
02:37:20.416 --> 02:37:21.416
Does she like me?

2340
02:37:22.477 --> 02:37:23.417
Should I talk to her?

2341
02:37:23.737 --> 02:37:32.942
Even when I had a girlfriend, it was quietly still kind of operating because you're still kind of, even if you're in a relationship, you're still kind of measuring your sexual market value, I guess.

2342
02:37:33.862 --> 02:37:42.666
And as soon as I got engaged, it's like that software shut down and all of this RAM and bandwidth was freed up for me to focus on things I actually gave a shit about.

2343
02:37:42.907 --> 02:37:44.367
And the experience was liberation.

2344
02:37:44.847 --> 02:37:47.389
And I remember that really fucked with my head because...

2345
02:37:48.363 --> 02:37:57.838
as we talked about last chapter, like I'd spent pretty much all my twenties living in an aesthetic life and pursuing as much novelty and stimulation as possible.

2346
02:37:57.958 --> 02:38:01.584
And so then the fact that like the most significant,

2347
02:38:02.508 --> 02:38:09.871
confining choice that I had ever made up until that point in my life, I also experienced as the most liberating, like really mind fucked me.

2348
02:38:10.051 --> 02:38:10.251
Yeah.

2349
02:38:10.271 --> 02:38:14.452
What we think of as freedom, that optionality, what you're saying is no, actually making a decision is freedom.

2350
02:38:14.512 --> 02:38:15.693
You have that, you have that choice.

2351
02:38:15.713 --> 02:38:19.294
You have the freedom to make that decision to cut off all these other things.

2352
02:38:19.514 --> 02:38:22.235
That's a very different way about, of, of thinking about freedom.

2353
02:38:22.415 --> 02:38:24.716
I believe John Dewey had this concept of

2354
02:38:25.616 --> 02:38:27.157
positive freedom and negative freedom.

2355
02:38:27.377 --> 02:38:29.058
Positive freedom was optionality.

2356
02:38:29.098 --> 02:38:33.440
It was freedom to do a lot of things, whereas negative freedom was freedom from.

2357
02:38:34.080 --> 02:38:36.121
It was freedom from impediments.

2358
02:38:36.181 --> 02:38:37.742
It was freedom from distraction.

2359
02:38:38.462 --> 02:38:43.725
And I think when you make a choice, you are trading positive freedom for negative freedom.

2360
02:38:44.105 --> 02:38:47.827
You're trading in lots of options of what you could do for

2361
02:38:48.927 --> 02:38:52.808
the freedom to only focus on the thing you have chosen to do.

2362
02:38:53.008 --> 02:38:55.568
In my example, I decided to go live in South America, right?

2363
02:38:55.708 --> 02:38:58.689
And ran into a whole bunch of issues while I was down there.

2364
02:38:58.729 --> 02:39:03.230
Like I was teaching English in the school I was working with, was going bankrupt and I wasn't getting paid and all of this.

2365
02:39:03.650 --> 02:39:09.311
And I remember I was standing at this hostel and there was this guy there, he's from Iceland, spoke like five languages.

2366
02:39:09.351 --> 02:39:10.131
His name was Daniel.

2367
02:39:10.371 --> 02:39:15.992
He lived all over the world and I was talking with him about my situation and I had, I had decided to, I need to move back and

2368
02:39:16.872 --> 02:39:18.575
I kind of fell into the whole bad faith thing.

2369
02:39:18.595 --> 02:39:20.458
I was like, oh, I have to move back because I can't.

2370
02:39:20.618 --> 02:39:27.469
You know, there's all these financial things around it and I'm homesick and oh, I need to get back to my career and all of these things.

2371
02:39:27.549 --> 02:39:28.731
So I told him, you know, I have to go back.

2372
02:39:28.771 --> 02:39:31.035
And he says, you don't have to go back.

2373
02:39:33.041 --> 02:39:33.642
I'll remember that.

2374
02:39:34.022 --> 02:39:35.804
He was very clear-eyed about his life too.

2375
02:39:35.944 --> 02:39:43.252
Like he, he, he kind of lived that bohemian life in a way, but he's like, I choose this and I understand it in a way that I think a lot of people didn't.

2376
02:39:43.612 --> 02:39:49.998
My point there though, too, is that even once you make that decision, though, it's, it's not a one-time thing, right?

2377
02:39:50.098 --> 02:39:53.282
Just like your marriage, your, your decision to marry, marry your wife.

2378
02:39:53.502 --> 02:39:55.184
That's, that wasn't actually a one-time decision.

2379
02:39:55.624 --> 02:40:04.191
It was in alignment with something that you valued for sure, but it wasn't just this one-time event that, oh, all of a sudden now I'm just, I don't have to worry about this ever again.

2380
02:40:04.591 --> 02:40:08.114
The RAM thing you're talking about, all of that, that went away, sure.

2381
02:40:08.514 --> 02:40:11.356
But you still have to make that decision and that commitment over and over.

2382
02:40:11.696 --> 02:40:14.298
We mentioned this before, commitment isn't the one-time decision.

2383
02:40:14.318 --> 02:40:19.823
It's a mechanism for cutting off all of these other routes and for defining who you are.

2384
02:40:20.063 --> 02:40:20.383
It's funny.

2385
02:40:20.423 --> 02:40:22.585
I had a friend in my twenties, an older friend who's

2386
02:40:23.205 --> 02:40:25.046
a bit of a mentor figure to me for a while.

2387
02:40:25.086 --> 02:40:33.889
And it was really annoying, but it was also something that looking back, I kind of appreciate, you know, because I could be like a whiny young person at times, be like, oh, I can't do that.

2388
02:40:33.909 --> 02:40:34.510
It's not fair.

2389
02:40:34.590 --> 02:40:35.630
You know, all that sort of shit.

2390
02:40:35.870 --> 02:40:36.951
He was about 10 years older than me.

2391
02:40:36.971 --> 02:40:42.553
And I remember every time I ever said, I can't do this, he would interrupt me and say, you can, you choose not to.

2392
02:40:43.768 --> 02:40:47.510
And I was just like, whatever, dude, like, shut up.

2393
02:40:48.650 --> 02:40:55.973
But it's like he said it enough times that it started to sink in of like, OK, yeah, I can stay in Chile if I want.

2394
02:40:56.033 --> 02:40:56.213
Right.

2395
02:40:56.233 --> 02:41:02.076
Like, yeah, I don't have to go back to the U.S. You're refusing to pay the cost of choosing is what you're doing there.

2396
02:41:02.356 --> 02:41:03.737
Sartre made that point as well.

2397
02:41:03.857 --> 02:41:06.078
It wasn't necessarily that you can do whatever you want.

2398
02:41:06.118 --> 02:41:06.998
That's not what he's saying.

2399
02:41:07.018 --> 02:41:07.118
Yeah.

2400
02:41:07.258 --> 02:41:12.003
You have the ability to choose how to respond to whatever situation you're in, whatever life throws at you.

2401
02:41:12.263 --> 02:41:13.624
I can't choose to be six foot five.

2402
02:41:13.984 --> 02:41:14.225
Right.

2403
02:41:14.325 --> 02:41:20.010
Like, but I can choose to interact with the world in a way that my height might not matter or whatever it is.

2404
02:41:20.150 --> 02:41:20.351
Right.

2405
02:41:20.771 --> 02:41:21.972
I think that's an important thing.

2406
02:41:22.012 --> 02:41:22.813
He acknowledged that.

2407
02:41:22.853 --> 02:41:27.778
It wasn't just like, oh, no, you know, your choices are limitless and you can choose whatever you want.

2408
02:41:27.798 --> 02:41:29.259
Yes, you have to cut off these or whatever.

2409
02:41:29.559 --> 02:41:30.821
He acknowledged there are limits.

2410
02:41:31.101 --> 02:41:31.261
Yes.

2411
02:41:31.281 --> 02:41:32.062
You have to work within.

2412
02:41:32.082 --> 02:41:32.322
Right.

2413
02:41:32.442 --> 02:41:36.751
I think it's very analogous to the point Annie Duke made on the last episode.

2414
02:41:36.791 --> 02:41:39.597
You know, she made the point, she was like, look, you are always...

2415
02:41:40.972 --> 02:41:48.377
weighing options and kind of making decisions based on probabilities or making decisions as bets, right?

2416
02:41:48.397 --> 02:41:49.418
That like something's going to work.

2417
02:41:50.018 --> 02:41:52.340
She said, that's how your brain works anyway.

2418
02:41:53.040 --> 02:41:55.141
The question is, is how aware of it are you?

2419
02:41:55.522 --> 02:41:59.844
Because most people who are not aware of it, they just go with their gut, right?

2420
02:41:59.905 --> 02:42:02.006
They just do what the people around them are doing there.

2421
02:42:02.026 --> 02:42:04.067
They're just doing what they feel like is expected of them.

2422
02:42:04.107 --> 02:42:04.347
And so

2423
02:42:05.548 --> 02:42:09.892
The decision-making process is still happening, but it's happening under the surface.

2424
02:42:09.913 --> 02:42:10.974
She called it under the hood.

2425
02:42:11.274 --> 02:42:15.037
It's happening beneath the surface of the threshold of consciousness.

2426
02:42:15.198 --> 02:42:23.285
It's similar with this of like the willingness to limit yourself and cut off the opportunities for yourself.

2427
02:42:24.066 --> 02:42:25.367
You're always doing that anyway.

2428
02:42:25.387 --> 02:42:27.347
You're always choosing things anyway.

2429
02:42:27.688 --> 02:42:33.790
Living in bad faith is when you, you intentionally keep it buried beneath the surface, keep it unconscious for yourself.

2430
02:42:34.451 --> 02:42:37.312
And when you keep it unconscious for yourself, you don't have control over it, right?

2431
02:42:37.332 --> 02:42:40.213
You can't manage it or navigate it.

2432
02:42:40.553 --> 02:42:43.174
It just becomes very impulsive and instinctual.

2433
02:42:43.535 --> 02:42:45.555
Choosing how you react to your own emotions.

2434
02:42:46.296 --> 02:42:46.516
Yes.

2435
02:42:47.675 --> 02:42:49.516
You could even go down to that level, I think, too.

2436
02:42:49.776 --> 02:42:52.577
You could even argue you're choosing your emotions in many cases.

2437
02:42:52.817 --> 02:42:55.078
Like, that gets hard.

2438
02:42:55.558 --> 02:42:59.279
I think there's some situations that you cannot choose, right?

2439
02:42:59.319 --> 02:43:06.222
Like, if somebody I love gets hit by a car in front of me, like, obviously, I cannot, I'm not consciously, I'm not choosing how I feel in that moment.

2440
02:43:06.242 --> 02:43:09.623
But there are a lot of situations where you are actually choosing emotions.

2441
02:43:09.723 --> 02:43:13.187
to be pissed or choosing to feel sorry for yourself.

2442
02:43:13.347 --> 02:43:16.371
It comes down to how you are choosing to see it.

2443
02:43:16.411 --> 02:43:21.437
Like what is the narrative that you are choosing the right around the situation?

2444
02:43:21.837 --> 02:43:28.405
If most of what you're feeling is dictated by that narrative, then to a large degree, you are actually choosing that emotion in that moment.

2445
02:43:29.005 --> 02:43:32.289
One more example I think I'll bring up is actually when I got the job with you.

2446
02:43:32.309 --> 02:43:34.251
And I've talked about this before a little bit.

2447
02:43:34.472 --> 02:43:36.834
I kind of like come in and out of academia a little bit.

2448
02:43:36.954 --> 02:43:43.121
I took a break and went to South America for a little while, came back to academia, got into a PhD program and all of this.

2449
02:43:43.282 --> 02:43:45.644
I never quite felt at home with that, though, you know.

2450
02:43:46.325 --> 02:43:49.108
And I always was like, I want to go do something more creative.

2451
02:43:49.188 --> 02:43:51.270
And like, I love the internet and all of these things.

2452
02:43:51.430 --> 02:43:52.571
I got the job offer with you.

2453
02:43:52.752 --> 02:43:59.578
And like immediately, that was one of those things too, where like my psychological immune system like kicked in because there was people all around me like, are you crazy?

2454
02:43:59.598 --> 02:44:00.219
What are you doing?

2455
02:44:00.419 --> 02:44:01.901
And I was like, no, you're crazy.

2456
02:44:01.921 --> 02:44:02.661
Like I'm fine.

2457
02:44:02.721 --> 02:44:02.962
Right.

2458
02:44:03.542 --> 02:44:09.768
That was an instance where my, I think my psychological immune system had kicked in and helped me like accept that decision and give me some clarity around it.

2459
02:44:10.329 --> 02:44:11.971
Can we talk about that feeling?

2460
02:44:12.111 --> 02:44:14.013
Because I actually think that's really important.

2461
02:44:14.033 --> 02:44:14.273
Yeah.

2462
02:44:14.413 --> 02:44:14.614
Yeah.

2463
02:44:14.674 --> 02:44:19.319
When it comes to commitment, it's probably what Gilbert felt when he took that first psychology course.

2464
02:44:19.359 --> 02:44:22.502
And like, I went to school, I studied international business and finance.

2465
02:44:22.903 --> 02:44:24.004
I got a job in a bank.

2466
02:44:24.204 --> 02:44:25.085
I fucking hate it.

2467
02:44:25.125 --> 02:44:25.265
Like,

2468
02:44:26.126 --> 02:44:29.687
From the first hour, I hated my existence inside the bank.

2469
02:44:29.847 --> 02:44:33.649
I used to pass the time by reading books because I just hated being there so much.

2470
02:44:33.769 --> 02:44:36.610
And one of the books I read was Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek.

2471
02:44:36.650 --> 02:44:39.771
And I remember reading that and being like, I know how to make a website.

2472
02:44:40.471 --> 02:44:41.352
I'm a pretty good writer.

2473
02:44:42.252 --> 02:44:44.273
I'm pretty sure I could figure this out, right?

2474
02:44:44.313 --> 02:44:46.414
Like, why don't I make a go at it?

2475
02:44:46.734 --> 02:44:51.235
I remember I worked up the nerve to quit my job maybe a month later.

2476
02:44:52.296 --> 02:44:53.816
And I woke up.

2477
02:44:54.556 --> 02:44:56.717
The first day at home, I started building a website.

2478
02:44:56.837 --> 02:44:58.578
I had no idea what I was doing.

2479
02:44:58.598 --> 02:44:59.998
It was a shit show.

2480
02:45:00.018 --> 02:45:04.900
I mean, like the first like six months was, I mean, I was just flailing.

2481
02:45:05.280 --> 02:45:06.181
Nothing was working.

2482
02:45:07.241 --> 02:45:15.776
tech issues, like building sites that nobody visited, working for a month to sell something and like getting literally getting zero sales.

2483
02:45:16.077 --> 02:45:20.344
But I remember the whole time I was doing it, I was like, I would rather be broke and do this.

2484
02:45:21.710 --> 02:45:23.212
then go back to the bank and have money.

2485
02:45:23.452 --> 02:45:28.319
Like, I remember just being like, I'm so, there's something about this that I'm like, I'll be homeless.

2486
02:45:28.439 --> 02:45:28.959
I don't care.

2487
02:45:29.060 --> 02:45:32.204
I'm like perfectly fine doing this.

2488
02:45:32.344 --> 02:45:35.288
As long as I get to do this, I don't care how much money I make.

2489
02:45:35.448 --> 02:45:38.592
I'm never going back to the corporate world ever again.

2490
02:45:39.593 --> 02:45:42.674
And I also trusted that like eventually one day I'll figure it out.

2491
02:45:42.754 --> 02:45:44.374
But like, what is that feeling?

2492
02:45:44.534 --> 02:45:49.696
Like we've kind of talked about this on the change episode that like we all have predispositions towards things.

2493
02:45:49.736 --> 02:45:53.317
And a lot of times we're not aware of what those predispositions are.

2494
02:45:53.497 --> 02:45:58.838
It takes a lot of time and experience to like really understand yourself and understand like what's right for you.

2495
02:45:59.278 --> 02:46:08.541
A lot of people who struggle to commit to something and like find their path, it's largely because they haven't had many of those experiences where they've done something and they're like, oh, this is it.

2496
02:46:09.401 --> 02:46:10.722
I don't care what anybody else says.

2497
02:46:10.882 --> 02:46:12.082
I don't care if I go broke.

2498
02:46:12.122 --> 02:46:13.783
Like this is it.

2499
02:46:14.063 --> 02:46:19.446
Part of it is just like exercising that decision muscle a little bit too.

2500
02:46:20.226 --> 02:46:21.367
I want to go back to something here.

2501
02:46:21.387 --> 02:46:28.510
I mentioned early at the top of the show that you have been a little more extreme in this domain than a lot of people.

2502
02:46:28.570 --> 02:46:31.252
You were at your corporate job for what was it all of like six or eight weeks?

2503
02:46:31.912 --> 02:46:32.312
At most.

2504
02:46:32.332 --> 02:46:32.873
Something like that.

2505
02:46:32.913 --> 02:46:33.113
Yeah.

2506
02:46:33.273 --> 02:46:35.415
I went in and out of academia for like six or eight years.

2507
02:46:35.595 --> 02:46:35.995
Okay.

2508
02:46:36.175 --> 02:46:36.416
Right.

2509
02:46:36.436 --> 02:46:37.677
Like that's what I was doing.

2510
02:46:37.697 --> 02:46:38.837
I think that's more common.

2511
02:46:38.857 --> 02:46:41.039
I think as people kind of like, kind of coming in and out.

2512
02:46:41.399 --> 02:46:44.021
Now I had this, I always had this pole kind of in and out of it.

2513
02:46:44.382 --> 02:46:46.503
And, and I knew I couldn't sit in there forever.

2514
02:46:47.144 --> 02:46:48.585
You, you figured that out early on.

2515
02:46:48.625 --> 02:46:52.228
It took me a little bit longer, which I think a lot of people, it takes them a little bit longer.

2516
02:46:52.988 --> 02:46:56.111
That feeling though, that you're talking about, I think there were little, you know,

2517
02:46:57.243 --> 02:47:00.266
Like I had little mini revelations along the way.

2518
02:47:00.286 --> 02:47:01.067
Like hints and inklings.

2519
02:47:01.087 --> 02:47:02.148
Yeah, there were hints along the way.

2520
02:47:02.168 --> 02:47:03.329
It was like, ooh, this feels good.

2521
02:47:03.710 --> 02:47:06.733
And then I kind of like slide back into it and like pull myself back out.

2522
02:47:07.193 --> 02:47:09.716
Eventually, though, I think you do get to a point where like, well, fuck it.

2523
02:47:09.736 --> 02:47:10.416
I'm just doing it.

2524
02:47:10.456 --> 02:47:10.917
It's unavoidable.

2525
02:47:10.957 --> 02:47:12.318
It's unavoidable at that point.

2526
02:47:12.358 --> 02:47:12.779
So, yeah.

2527
02:47:13.139 --> 02:47:18.845
I think what I've observed is that people who have lived in bad faith for a long time, who have...

2528
02:47:20.010 --> 02:47:24.965
followed everybody else's rules, done what everybody else wants, done what everybody else expects of them.

2529
02:47:25.206 --> 02:47:27.533
They've never gotten the reps that they've never gotten

2530
02:47:28.725 --> 02:47:35.709
Because I think probably what's true in the case of you and I is that throughout our lives, we did things for no other reason than we enjoyed them.

2531
02:47:35.869 --> 02:47:37.510
And so we learn things about ourselves.

2532
02:47:38.331 --> 02:47:44.595
Whereas if you're somebody who grew up in an environment where there's zero opportunity to do things because you enjoy them.

2533
02:47:44.835 --> 02:47:46.096
I'll use my wife as an example.

2534
02:47:46.116 --> 02:47:47.877
So she grew up extremely poor in Brazil.

2535
02:47:47.937 --> 02:47:51.259
She couldn't go take an art class because she felt like it.

2536
02:47:51.299 --> 02:47:53.060
She had to get the fuck out of poverty.

2537
02:47:53.180 --> 02:47:56.122
So it was every decision in her life.

2538
02:47:57.264 --> 02:48:01.845
had nothing to do with what she actually wanted other than not being poor.

2539
02:48:01.865 --> 02:48:02.045
Right.

2540
02:48:02.065 --> 02:48:02.485
Survival.

2541
02:48:02.505 --> 02:48:02.765
Yeah.

2542
02:48:02.785 --> 02:48:03.045
Right.

2543
02:48:03.165 --> 02:48:04.866
Until she was like 28.

2544
02:48:05.386 --> 02:48:10.287
And so she went through a period where like she really struggled to know like, what do I, what do I actually enjoy?

2545
02:48:10.327 --> 02:48:11.507
What do I actually care about?

2546
02:48:11.527 --> 02:48:12.468
What do I actually want?

2547
02:48:12.648 --> 02:48:22.590
I've observed this with over the years talking to readers and listeners that like people who grow up in that kind of situation where they've just always done what the people around them expect them to do.

2548
02:48:23.535 --> 02:48:25.596
They've never even asked themselves what they want.

2549
02:48:25.696 --> 02:48:26.717
They really struggle with this.

2550
02:48:27.377 --> 02:48:30.799
Like they've never had that experience that you just described of like, oh, this is it.

2551
02:48:31.140 --> 02:48:45.568
One of the things I sometimes suggest to them is like, try to go back, ask yourself, like, what did you love when you were a kid that for some reason you kind of just dropped along the way and you probably dropped it because it wasn't cool.

2552
02:48:46.449 --> 02:48:47.529
Maybe kids made fun of you.

2553
02:48:47.589 --> 02:48:51.032
Maybe your parents told you it wasn't practical or maybe your teacher's,

2554
02:48:52.010 --> 02:48:56.839
told you it was a waste of time, but like what got dropped along the way?

2555
02:48:57.220 --> 02:48:58.843
Exercising that muscle is important.

2556
02:48:58.863 --> 02:49:01.869
And the sooner you can do it, the better there's constraints on you.

2557
02:49:01.889 --> 02:49:03.151
There's going to be constraints on you.

2558
02:49:03.970 --> 02:49:08.151
Yet, even as Sartre would say, you even have a choice within those, even if you're very limited.

2559
02:49:08.191 --> 02:49:09.432
Your wife's example even too.

2560
02:49:09.512 --> 02:49:10.272
She found a way out.

2561
02:49:10.312 --> 02:49:11.572
You know, you always have a choice.

2562
02:49:12.132 --> 02:49:14.333
They might be shitty choices, but you always have that choice.

2563
02:49:14.813 --> 02:49:18.634
And so exercising that early on, I think that the psychological immune system helps us out with that.

2564
02:49:19.414 --> 02:49:22.055
Because you make a choice and your brain's going to be like, all right, we're doing it.

2565
02:49:22.215 --> 02:49:24.436
It will increase your good feelings about it.

2566
02:49:24.476 --> 02:49:26.216
You'll be more focused on it.

2567
02:49:26.256 --> 02:49:27.477
You'll work harder on it.

2568
02:49:28.377 --> 02:49:35.679
In the short run, really where the durability comes in is when you're making decisions that are aligned with your values and what you actually want about this.

2569
02:49:35.939 --> 02:49:36.999
There's some research around this.

2570
02:49:37.179 --> 02:49:38.299
It's called self-concordance.

2571
02:49:38.719 --> 02:49:40.100
It is exactly what it sounds like.

2572
02:49:40.160 --> 02:49:46.801
It's making these decisions and these commitments that are aligned with what you actually truly want.

2573
02:49:46.961 --> 02:49:48.341
You have to listen to that.

2574
02:49:48.541 --> 02:49:50.842
You're saying maybe it is something for your childhood or whatever you want.

2575
02:49:51.382 --> 02:49:53.022
I'm not saying go with your gut all the time.

2576
02:49:53.042 --> 02:49:54.183
That's not what I'm saying necessarily.

2577
02:49:54.203 --> 02:49:55.543
It's actually figuring out what

2578
02:49:56.724 --> 02:50:08.418
and making a commitment to that, cutting off all the other outside options, that actually is what leads to a longer sense of, a longer, more durable sense of well-being around these things.

2579
02:50:08.638 --> 02:50:11.802
You're much more likely to be persistent through a lot of these things.

2580
02:50:11.822 --> 02:50:14.024
You're much more likely to have just better mental health.

2581
02:50:14.325 --> 02:50:14.545
And, yeah,

2582
02:50:15.646 --> 02:50:17.767
really be satisfied with those decisions.

2583
02:50:18.047 --> 02:50:20.568
Your psychological immune system can get you through the short run.

2584
02:50:20.588 --> 02:50:25.690
So my example with the chili thing, I was like, oh yeah, I want adventure and freedom and all of this.

2585
02:50:26.350 --> 02:50:27.631
And that was good for a few months.

2586
02:50:27.991 --> 02:50:29.432
That only lasted me a few months though.

2587
02:50:30.132 --> 02:50:31.333
It wasn't super durable.

2588
02:50:31.533 --> 02:50:34.594
I needed something more and I wasn't quite sure, do I really want this freedom?

2589
02:50:34.634 --> 02:50:35.054
I don't know.

2590
02:50:35.074 --> 02:50:36.575
Do I need more stability?

2591
02:50:36.615 --> 02:50:37.895
I was kind of going back and forth between it.

2592
02:50:37.915 --> 02:50:42.177
So it wasn't like a really fully aligned decision or commitment that it made.

2593
02:50:42.437 --> 02:50:43.437
I'm going to work with you or whatever.

2594
02:50:43.457 --> 02:50:45.878
That was much more in line with this is what I want to do.

2595
02:50:46.098 --> 02:50:49.019
And it was much more durable sense of well-being that it got out of that.

2596
02:50:49.159 --> 02:50:51.319
That's the second step in this system, I think.

2597
02:50:51.339 --> 02:50:53.300
I'm going to challenge that a little bit though, right?

2598
02:50:53.340 --> 02:50:56.801
Because I would argue you had to go to Chile to find that out.

2599
02:50:57.401 --> 02:50:57.681
Sure.

2600
02:50:57.761 --> 02:50:58.061
Oh, yeah.

2601
02:50:58.201 --> 02:51:01.742
I think this is kind of the irony with people who avoid choosing.

2602
02:51:02.082 --> 02:51:07.228
By not choosing, you only maintain and increase that sense of uncertainty.

2603
02:51:07.408 --> 02:51:13.654
If you choose and it doesn't work out, then good, because now you know that's not the thing for you, right?

2604
02:51:13.674 --> 02:51:14.836
Like that's information.

2605
02:51:14.896 --> 02:51:15.476
It's valuable.

2606
02:51:15.817 --> 02:51:19.701
You came back to the U.S. You're like, OK, I did the South America thing.

2607
02:51:19.741 --> 02:51:21.383
I did the travel to the liver broad thing.

2608
02:51:22.670 --> 02:51:23.771
I know how that feels.

2609
02:51:25.252 --> 02:51:27.033
Now that informs my future decisions.

2610
02:51:27.353 --> 02:51:32.016
People might be listening to this and just thinking like, okay, well, I gotta choose something like just out of a hat.

2611
02:51:32.136 --> 02:51:33.317
You know, it's like, no, no, no.

2612
02:51:33.537 --> 02:51:38.340
You should really think about like what matters to you kind of on a deep level and use that as a navigation.

2613
02:51:38.981 --> 02:51:48.107
The other piece of advice that I often give around this is that I think for a lot of people, it's actually, it's easier for them to start with what they don't want, right?

2614
02:51:48.147 --> 02:51:48.988
So instead of like,

2615
02:51:49.928 --> 02:51:54.590
Say taking all the things they're doing in their life and like choosing one to commit to or go deep on.

2616
02:51:55.430 --> 02:52:08.775
Maybe just start by picking the one or two things that you're currently spending time doing that like is not bringing a whole lot of value and like just cut those out first and then slowly prune until you kind of see what you end up with.

2617
02:52:09.150 --> 02:52:11.352
You cut off the things you don't want to do.

2618
02:52:11.832 --> 02:52:12.232
I get that.

2619
02:52:12.772 --> 02:52:15.194
What happens though when you still regret it though?

2620
02:52:15.614 --> 02:52:22.259
Like if you do come to regret a decision you make or how does regret work in this, this system that we're building here?

2621
02:52:22.619 --> 02:52:26.141
I'll give you my personal take and then you can, you can give us the research.

2622
02:52:26.522 --> 02:52:31.145
It's funny because I have so few regrets and it's exactly for what I said.

2623
02:52:31.205 --> 02:52:34.427
It's like even the things that I did that turned out to be stupid, I'm

2624
02:52:35.013 --> 02:52:37.354
I learned that they were stupid and I learned not to do them again.

2625
02:52:37.514 --> 02:52:37.714
Right.

2626
02:52:37.734 --> 02:52:45.417
And so like those bad decisions provided just as much value as some of my good decisions because they, they taught me just as much.

2627
02:52:46.198 --> 02:52:47.798
What I've noticed over the years.

2628
02:52:48.298 --> 02:52:50.539
And I've like, dude, I've done a lot of stupid shit.

2629
02:52:50.959 --> 02:52:53.701
The only things I regret in the long run.

2630
02:52:54.921 --> 02:52:55.921
is how I've treated people.

2631
02:52:56.542 --> 02:52:57.022
Oh, okay.

2632
02:52:57.322 --> 02:52:58.923
I never regret a bad decision.

2633
02:52:59.023 --> 02:53:07.686
Like I've, I've, I have done so many stupid, I've wasted so much money on like dumb decision, like bad business ventures.

2634
02:53:07.767 --> 02:53:09.607
Like I have made a fool of myself.

2635
02:53:09.647 --> 02:53:10.868
I've embarrassed myself.

2636
02:53:11.108 --> 02:53:16.770
I have fucking shot myself in the foot in so many, so many contexts, so many situations.

2637
02:53:17.451 --> 02:53:21.552
The only things I regret are times that I've hurt somebody.

2638
02:53:21.572 --> 02:53:22.013
I really care.

2639
02:53:22.033 --> 02:53:22.153
Sure.

2640
02:53:22.173 --> 02:53:22.433
Okay.

2641
02:53:22.593 --> 02:53:22.913
Okay.

2642
02:53:23.093 --> 02:53:26.821
Some people would point to you and say, well, you're just not prone to regret, Mark, I guess.

2643
02:53:26.921 --> 02:53:28.364
You're just not a person who regrets things.

2644
02:53:28.925 --> 02:53:30.949
I would argue, no, that's not actually the case.

2645
02:53:31.029 --> 02:53:34.236
Because in the research, what they found is that what people end up regretting

2646
02:53:35.344 --> 02:53:36.585
is the actions not taken.

2647
02:53:36.945 --> 02:53:39.327
You have this tendency to just take action.

2648
02:53:39.547 --> 02:53:45.973
It's exactly what they find in the research is that in the short run anyway, people kind of like, they make a decision 50-50, they regret it or not, right?

2649
02:53:46.213 --> 02:53:52.258
In the long run though, when people look back, they're like, I don't regret making that decision even though it turned out horribly.

2650
02:53:52.338 --> 02:53:54.019
Like I don't regret making the decision.

2651
02:53:54.279 --> 02:53:57.542
What they regret is not making a decision, is inaction, is inaction.

2652
02:53:57.782 --> 02:54:00.244
You know, Warren Buffett points this out too about a lot of the investments.

2653
02:54:00.264 --> 02:54:02.025
He's like, the ones I regret are the ones I didn't make.

2654
02:54:02.105 --> 02:54:04.567
He's like, if I lost money, I lost money, whatever, on the ones I made.

2655
02:54:04.967 --> 02:54:07.569
But it's the ones I didn't make that I regret the most.

2656
02:54:07.669 --> 02:54:10.211
And the same is true throughout life as well.

2657
02:54:10.511 --> 02:54:12.993
So I don't think you're actually not a regret prone.

2658
02:54:13.013 --> 02:54:16.015
I thought that for a little while, but then I thought about it more and I was like, no, he's not regret prone.

2659
02:54:16.035 --> 02:54:18.137
He just- I compulsively take action.

2660
02:54:18.177 --> 02:54:19.818
He compulsively takes action, yeah.

2661
02:54:19.898 --> 02:54:20.699
I will say this.

2662
02:54:21.219 --> 02:54:25.542
I do have like very like kind of subtle regrets, but it's always, it is similar to that.

2663
02:54:25.562 --> 02:54:26.583
It's around wasted time.

2664
02:54:26.863 --> 02:54:28.125
Wasted time making a decision.

2665
02:54:28.305 --> 02:54:29.667
Wasted time making the commitment.

2666
02:54:29.687 --> 02:54:29.847
Yeah.

2667
02:54:29.947 --> 02:54:30.207
Yeah.

2668
02:54:30.227 --> 02:54:33.932
And in my case, it was, it's never like not making a decision.

2669
02:54:33.972 --> 02:54:39.820
I mean, I've known people who spent years, wasted years avoiding making a decision.

2670
02:54:39.880 --> 02:54:43.564
And then once they make the decision, they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I wasted so many years.

2671
02:54:44.225 --> 02:54:45.326
And they feel really bad about it.

2672
02:54:45.506 --> 02:54:55.617
For me, it's more like I pursued things that in hindsight were kind of dumb, not very aligned with my values or my long-term who I wanted to be.

2673
02:54:56.017 --> 02:54:57.839
And so I just kind of look back and I'm like,

2674
02:54:59.533 --> 02:55:01.455
all right, that was stupid.

2675
02:55:01.595 --> 02:55:03.137
In my case, it's actually kind of the opposite.

2676
02:55:03.157 --> 02:55:06.661
I think there's like, maybe I took too much action on some things.

2677
02:55:07.242 --> 02:55:12.447
I spent too much time pursuing things that were like kind of dumb and ultimately didn't add a whole lot to my life.

2678
02:55:12.467 --> 02:55:13.909
That gets into the self-concordance thing.

2679
02:55:13.949 --> 02:55:20.576
Yeah, so it's like, I look back at the amount of partying I did in my 20s and I'm like, okay, I'm glad I did like,

2680
02:55:22.264 --> 02:55:23.064
75% of it.

2681
02:55:23.745 --> 02:55:24.485
There's about 25%.

2682
02:55:24.605 --> 02:55:28.708
I'm like, dude, stay home and work, watch a movie or something.

2683
02:55:29.289 --> 02:55:30.970
You know, I took it too far.

2684
02:55:31.250 --> 02:55:31.470
Yeah.

2685
02:55:31.650 --> 02:55:36.434
This kind of reminds me a little bit to, you know, we had Annie Duke on last time and in her book, she has a book on quitting.

2686
02:55:36.774 --> 02:55:40.917
One of the big points I got out of that is people wait too long to quit usually.

2687
02:55:41.297 --> 02:55:44.099
And I would just generalize that people wait too long to make a decision period.

2688
02:55:44.600 --> 02:55:49.263
I can definitely point to a lot of things in my life where I was like, I spent way too long considering this.

2689
02:55:49.503 --> 02:55:54.566
They've shown studies around people trying to make big life decisions around work, school, relationships.

2690
02:55:54.646 --> 02:55:54.906
Right.

2691
02:55:55.607 --> 02:56:00.230
And they measure how much they you know, how much do you think this is going to affect you?

2692
02:56:00.250 --> 02:56:03.292
This is going to be a bad or a good decision at the time.

2693
02:56:03.372 --> 02:56:05.073
And then they follow up with them months later.

2694
02:56:05.293 --> 02:56:06.294
And did you quit or not?

2695
02:56:06.474 --> 02:56:10.456
The people who quit earlier report a lot more satisfaction than people who don't.

2696
02:56:10.736 --> 02:56:12.878
So it's like you're waiting too long to quit.

2697
02:56:13.338 --> 02:56:16.180
And I would just say in general, you're waiting too long just to make a decision, period.

2698
02:56:16.200 --> 02:56:16.420
Right.

2699
02:56:16.580 --> 02:56:18.541
I'm not prone to regret, but I do agree with you.

2700
02:56:18.561 --> 02:56:19.662
I am prone to action.

2701
02:56:20.062 --> 02:56:22.883
I would rather just do something and then figure it out along the way.

2702
02:56:23.183 --> 02:56:31.148
And as somebody who does that kind of compulsively, I can report from the other side that like, there's never been a time where I'm like, I should have waited longer to do that.

2703
02:56:31.288 --> 02:56:33.189
I cannot think of a single thing in my life.

2704
02:56:34.024 --> 02:56:35.544
that I'm like, I should have waited longer.

2705
02:56:35.565 --> 02:56:36.785
I do things very quickly.

2706
02:56:37.025 --> 02:56:41.987
I do not sit around and agonize over many decisions in my life.

2707
02:56:42.467 --> 02:56:47.448
I cannot think of a single one that I'm like, oh, I should have thought about that for another month or another year.

2708
02:56:47.468 --> 02:56:50.929
I think you just get better at making decisions too, the more you make, obviously.

2709
02:56:50.969 --> 02:56:52.450
It's a volume game at a certain point.

2710
02:56:52.950 --> 02:56:53.590
Here's the thing, though.

2711
02:56:53.990 --> 02:57:01.993
Kierkegaard's Ethical Life, his argument, that Judge William character he made up, Judge William's argument was not, you're going to feel better, right?

2712
02:57:02.350 --> 02:57:04.451
about your decisions if you just make them, right?

2713
02:57:04.471 --> 02:57:05.952
If you commit to something, you're going to feel better about.

2714
02:57:05.992 --> 02:57:07.133
That was not his argument.

2715
02:57:07.813 --> 02:57:13.177
His argument was that making commitments creates the self.

2716
02:57:13.417 --> 02:57:15.098
It creates an identity for you.

2717
02:57:15.398 --> 02:57:19.881
Something solid and something worth standing for is what commitments do for you.

2718
02:57:20.733 --> 02:57:21.974
Yes, you'll feel better about it.

2719
02:57:22.314 --> 02:57:23.155
Like, that's a benefit.

2720
02:57:23.255 --> 02:57:28.939
I think that's the kind of like the psychological sneak in that we have is that there is some well-being you're going to get from some of this.

2721
02:57:29.239 --> 02:57:34.223
But ultimately, what Kierkegaard argued was the ethical life is not defined by feeling good about it.

2722
02:57:34.363 --> 02:57:36.084
It's about creating a self.

2723
02:57:36.345 --> 02:57:37.966
You can't create a self without commitments.

2724
02:57:38.246 --> 02:57:40.007
And the research bears this out too.

2725
02:57:40.047 --> 02:57:44.909
There's this guy, James Marsha, back in the 60s, who kind of started this work on identity formation.

2726
02:57:45.689 --> 02:57:52.531
And he operationalized your identity formation along these two axes, or these two components, really.

2727
02:57:53.012 --> 02:57:58.314
One he called crisis, which is really dramatic because all that is is actually exploring.

2728
02:57:58.614 --> 02:57:59.674
You're in exploration phase.

2729
02:57:59.694 --> 02:58:01.055
That's your crisis phase, he called it.

2730
02:58:01.175 --> 02:58:03.235
And then commitment was the second phase too.

2731
02:58:03.275 --> 02:58:07.237
So investment in some part of your life and some firm decision in your life, right?

2732
02:58:08.288 --> 02:58:11.849
And so if you take those two components, you can come up with kind of four different things.

2733
02:58:11.889 --> 02:58:16.571
If you have low crisis versus high commitment or so on and so forth.

2734
02:58:16.611 --> 02:58:16.751
Right.

2735
02:58:16.771 --> 02:58:20.333
OK, so he comes up with these four identity statuses out of this.

2736
02:58:20.473 --> 02:58:22.293
OK, and I'll just run through them really quick here.

2737
02:58:22.333 --> 02:58:28.896
So the first one is what he calls diffusion, which is low crisis, low exploration and low commitment.

2738
02:58:29.256 --> 02:58:32.918
This is just somebody who's not thinking about their options and not really committing to anything, right?

2739
02:58:32.978 --> 02:58:34.858
They're just, it's very much go with the flow.

2740
02:58:34.979 --> 02:58:37.780
You're not really engaged with life at all on any level.

2741
02:58:37.980 --> 02:58:40.441
The next one, though, he called foreclosures.

2742
02:58:40.481 --> 02:58:43.062
That's low exploration and high commitment.

2743
02:58:43.442 --> 02:58:48.604
So these are the people who definitely look around and it's like, it's more like this is what I'm supposed to do and I'm going to commit hard to it.

2744
02:58:48.644 --> 02:58:52.086
You know, I'm going to take the safe job and marry this certain person together.

2745
02:58:52.206 --> 02:58:53.468
Do what my parents told me.

2746
02:58:53.488 --> 02:58:54.549
Do what my parents told me.

2747
02:58:54.950 --> 02:58:56.853
So there's a very high level of commitment.

2748
02:58:57.393 --> 02:58:59.857
So you might get some psychological immune system benefit from that.

2749
02:59:00.498 --> 02:59:02.941
But at the same time, you haven't explored that deeply.

2750
02:59:02.961 --> 02:59:04.704
And so we talked about the self-concordance thing.

2751
02:59:04.844 --> 02:59:07.788
You don't have the self-awareness around whether or not that was good for you, right?

2752
02:59:08.529 --> 02:59:10.111
The next one is moratorium.

2753
02:59:10.572 --> 02:59:13.455
So this is where there's high exploration but low commitment.

2754
02:59:13.495 --> 02:59:14.636
This is where the asthete lives.

2755
02:59:14.896 --> 02:59:25.508
At least for younger people in this phase, they were a lot more likely to reach the next phase, which he called achievement, which is both a high exploration and a high commitment.

2756
02:59:25.528 --> 02:59:29.673
So this is someone who's very deliberate, eyes wide open type of decision that they make.

2757
02:59:30.113 --> 02:59:38.355
And they found through all of this, you know, that the people who do reach that achieved commitment status, they're the ones who have the highest well-being and everything we just talked about, too.

2758
02:59:38.375 --> 02:59:40.036
The psychological immune system kicks in.

2759
02:59:40.056 --> 02:59:44.777
And then they also like, oh, I have this long-term sense of well-being and it's durable and I feel good about it.

2760
02:59:44.817 --> 02:59:46.978
I have good mental health, good relationships, all of that.

2761
02:59:47.378 --> 02:59:50.599
But also they have a very strong sense of who they are.

2762
02:59:51.359 --> 02:59:52.319
A strong sense of self.

2763
02:59:52.699 --> 02:59:56.901
I think somebody hears that and somebody who might not have a real strong sense of themselves might not know what that means.

2764
02:59:57.461 --> 02:59:59.021
Like, what is a strong sense of self?

2765
03:00:00.022 --> 03:00:00.942
What is a strong sense of at all?

2766
03:00:00.962 --> 03:00:01.862
I'm going to ask you that first.

2767
03:00:01.882 --> 03:00:03.303
What do you think that entails?

2768
03:00:03.723 --> 03:00:10.545
I think it's a high degree of confidence in knowing what you value.

2769
03:00:12.258 --> 03:00:15.162
what you prefer, what you're good at, what you're bad at.

2770
03:00:15.302 --> 03:00:18.647
And I would argue that some degree of self-exploration is necessary for that.

2771
03:00:18.787 --> 03:00:26.158
You kind of need this exploration phase when you're young to put yourself in a bunch of novel situations to get that information.

2772
03:00:26.198 --> 03:00:28.441
Like you have to go to Chile to find out that you don't want to

2773
03:00:29.182 --> 03:00:33.789
live there long term, because that teaches you something very important about yourself when you come back.

2774
03:00:33.909 --> 03:00:36.533
And so that makes it easier to do future decisions.

2775
03:00:36.914 --> 03:00:40.359
Now you're better able to close off alternatives because you know more about yourself.

2776
03:00:40.599 --> 03:00:42.181
I think that's what the research bears out to you.

2777
03:00:42.382 --> 03:00:43.143
You kind of just have a...

2778
03:00:44.064 --> 03:00:47.648
Almost no matter where you are or where you go, you kind of feel the same in a way.

2779
03:00:47.908 --> 03:00:49.930
We all kind of change who we are in different situations.

2780
03:00:49.970 --> 03:00:50.390
I get that.

2781
03:00:50.430 --> 03:00:54.655
But there's still like a sense of yourself that you have throughout those different situations.

2782
03:00:54.855 --> 03:00:56.617
You know who you are, right?

2783
03:00:57.037 --> 03:01:01.361
And if you don't have that sense of yourself, I think a lot of it is because you haven't really committed to

2784
03:01:02.642 --> 03:01:04.243
something in your life, right?

2785
03:01:04.423 --> 03:01:05.904
And you don't have that to fall back on.

2786
03:01:06.164 --> 03:01:16.408
If we come back to my definition, which by the way, I just totally pulled out of my ass, but I feel pretty good about the high degree of confidence in one's values, preferences, talents, and abilities.

2787
03:01:16.668 --> 03:01:18.289
Commitments solidify that, right?

2788
03:01:18.369 --> 03:01:26.593
If I commit to this career and I spend all of my time doing this one thing, that is going to increase my confidence in who I am.

2789
03:01:26.913 --> 03:01:27.113
right?

2790
03:01:27.173 --> 03:01:28.515
It's like, I am a podcaster.

2791
03:01:28.635 --> 03:01:29.696
I am an author, right?

2792
03:01:29.716 --> 03:01:31.678
Like it's, I've been doing this for 20 years.

2793
03:01:31.758 --> 03:01:34.560
So I have a high degree of confidence that that is who I am.

2794
03:01:35.021 --> 03:01:36.522
Whereas like, if I haven't really

2795
03:01:37.918 --> 03:01:51.787
tried many things and if I haven't really had many jobs and I haven't done anything for more than a year, then I'm going to have a very low degree of confidence in who I am because I haven't accumulated that evidence to gain that self-understanding.

2796
03:01:52.287 --> 03:02:00.012
It's funny how this is tying into the confidence piece of like, right, we did a whole confidence episode and one of the big takeaways from that is that actually confidence is...

2797
03:02:00.592 --> 03:02:04.153
It's not the input of performance, it's the output of performance.

2798
03:02:04.213 --> 03:02:09.835
And it is built through accumulating evidence that you're capable of handling a situation.

2799
03:02:09.935 --> 03:02:11.895
And it's like a positive feedback loop.

2800
03:02:11.955 --> 03:02:16.717
It's like the more I'm able to make a decision and commit to something, the more I learn about myself.

2801
03:02:17.317 --> 03:02:22.279
The more I learn about myself, the better able I'm going to be to make commitments and decisions in the future.

2802
03:02:22.819 --> 03:02:26.280
And so you kind of get this upward spiral of commitments and self-knowledge.

2803
03:02:27.396 --> 03:02:33.619
And as we'll find in the next chapter or in the next stage, Kierkegaard's next stage, is that eventually you kind of hit escape velocity with that.

2804
03:02:33.699 --> 03:02:39.601
And in that you find a commitment that you are happy to take to your grave with you.

2805
03:02:39.962 --> 03:02:44.424
This episode is called Finding Your Path in Life, but like it's kind of an airy fairy thing.

2806
03:02:44.444 --> 03:02:51.947
But I think that is ultimately what people crave is that they want something that they feel confident about.

2807
03:02:52.317 --> 03:02:53.258
I can do this till I'm dead.

2808
03:02:53.398 --> 03:02:59.322
Coming back to that, that liberation, like as soon as you hit that, like that is actually incredibly liberating.

2809
03:02:59.602 --> 03:03:04.546
It's almost like a marriage to a vocation or a career or a place or whatever, like a hobby.

2810
03:03:04.926 --> 03:03:07.788
Once you find that, you're like, cool, I never have to think about this again.

2811
03:03:08.168 --> 03:03:12.031
But I think it's important to note that like the ethical stage, you're not quite there yet.

2812
03:03:12.191 --> 03:03:15.173
This is almost like an intermediary stage where,

2813
03:03:15.253 --> 03:03:22.419
The aesthetic stage, you're chasing stimulation, you're chasing novelty, you're trying new things, you're exploring.

2814
03:03:23.099 --> 03:03:28.063
The ethical stage is where you start coming in with that razor and you're like, nope, not that.

2815
03:03:28.644 --> 03:03:29.424
Nope, not that.

2816
03:03:29.864 --> 03:03:31.986
I'm going to try this, see how it goes.

2817
03:03:32.006 --> 03:03:32.787
It's very intentional.

2818
03:03:32.947 --> 03:03:34.268
It's very intentional.

2819
03:03:34.408 --> 03:03:40.733
And Kierkegaard wrote about it in terms of doing it open-eyed, understanding things.

2820
03:03:41.187 --> 03:03:51.207
the trade-offs that you're making, like if you commit to a partner or you commit to moving to a new city, you're committing to both the good and the bad things about that, that experience.

2821
03:03:51.568 --> 03:04:14.342
is it's something along the lines of holding the tension between those two like you're wide-eyed about that you're like i i continue to choose this even though i got this thing over here like you said deciding to get married and like shutting down the ram and whatever there's still though an aspect of that where it's like i know i'm leaving this all behind yes it's easier day to day back because i have this commitment but there's still an aspect of i know exactly what i'm

2822
03:04:15.102 --> 03:04:17.505
what I'm doing here, what I'm leaving behind, what I'm giving up.

2823
03:04:17.665 --> 03:04:25.312
I think that's the real weight of the ethical stage is, is that it's not, again, it's not that you're going to feel better about this because sometimes you're not.

2824
03:04:25.612 --> 03:04:28.195
There's actually going to be a lot of tension still in the ethical stage.

2825
03:04:28.275 --> 03:04:30.357
And there will be doubt, right?

2826
03:04:30.617 --> 03:04:33.240
There'll be times where you're like, did I make the right decision?

2827
03:04:33.500 --> 03:04:34.701
Like, did I fuck this up?

2828
03:04:35.322 --> 03:04:36.223
That's part of it, right?

2829
03:04:36.363 --> 03:04:38.925
Like, if you didn't have that, it wouldn't be a commitment.

2830
03:04:39.165 --> 03:04:39.706
Ah, right.

2831
03:04:39.906 --> 03:04:40.186
Yeah.

2832
03:04:40.506 --> 03:04:40.787
Yeah.

2833
03:04:40.947 --> 03:04:46.251
Like, that's actually a signal to, like, you're fully eyes wide open about what you've given up.

2834
03:04:46.291 --> 03:04:49.574
That's actually, and you have some doubts around it.

2835
03:04:49.594 --> 03:04:49.794
Yeah.

2836
03:04:50.175 --> 03:04:51.315
Let me go through really quick.

2837
03:04:51.335 --> 03:04:57.518
You know, we talked a bit about, we gave examples of the aesthetic life in different domains, right?

2838
03:04:57.538 --> 03:05:00.039
So the aesthetic who's dating, right?

2839
03:05:00.059 --> 03:05:01.419
They're constantly swiping.

2840
03:05:01.439 --> 03:05:04.580
They're constantly imagining that the next person's better, right?

2841
03:05:04.600 --> 03:05:07.881
They're just cycling through lots and lots of first and second dates.

2842
03:05:08.101 --> 03:05:12.303
A person in the ethical stage, they would approach dating and relationships as like,

2843
03:05:13.207 --> 03:05:17.790
no, I'm going to, I'm going to give this person, I'm going to commit myself to this person and see where this goes.

2844
03:05:18.050 --> 03:05:18.210
Right.

2845
03:05:18.230 --> 03:05:21.052
It's, it is that cutting off of other options.

2846
03:05:21.593 --> 03:05:22.773
Maybe you're not married yet.

2847
03:05:22.853 --> 03:05:36.642
Maybe you're not like imagining that you're going to die with this person, but like you're at least making the decision of like seeing where this goes in career, you know, the aesthetic person in their career, they are changing their career every other year.

2848
03:05:36.722 --> 03:05:37.043
They are

2849
03:05:38.163 --> 03:05:40.745
going back to school, taking classes every couple of years.

2850
03:05:40.846 --> 03:05:44.148
They're moving to Costa Rica to become a surf instructor because they're burnt out.

2851
03:05:44.248 --> 03:05:45.990
There's always something new.

2852
03:05:46.050 --> 03:05:49.052
They're chasing kind of the next novelty, the next high.

2853
03:05:49.332 --> 03:05:53.336
An ethical person has chosen a line of work and they're like, you know what?

2854
03:05:53.476 --> 03:05:59.060
I'm going to at least pursue mastery at this because I need to become excellent at something.

2855
03:05:59.380 --> 03:06:01.002
Maybe this isn't the perfect thing, but

2856
03:06:02.468 --> 03:06:04.409
I like it, so I'm going to go for it.

2857
03:06:04.549 --> 03:06:09.511
And there's going to be days that it sucks and there's going to be days that I wonder like what the hell I'm doing, but that's part of it.

2858
03:06:10.152 --> 03:06:10.952
So let's go for it.

2859
03:06:11.352 --> 03:06:15.234
We talked about the aesthetic life in terms of choosing where you live.

2860
03:06:15.414 --> 03:06:27.200
You know, an aesthetic person is always traveling, always moving, always changing cities, always in and out of town, going back, visiting family, going abroad, like seeing old friends, coming back.

2861
03:06:27.520 --> 03:06:30.581
The ethical life is a little bit more rooted, right?

2862
03:06:30.601 --> 03:06:31.282
It's like, okay,

2863
03:06:32.182 --> 03:06:38.808
I it's probably best for me to be here, even if I don't always love it, even though the city has problems, even though there are things I don't like.

2864
03:06:39.629 --> 03:06:43.753
It's overall, this aligns with my values and this aligns with the other areas of my life.

2865
03:06:43.773 --> 03:06:48.577
So I'm going to like make a good go at it and understand that the trade offs that I'm taking on.

2866
03:06:48.837 --> 03:06:57.443
Can I just say that in recent years, that's probably one of the more salient examples of my life, like choosing where to live.

2867
03:06:57.684 --> 03:07:00.406
Where I live in Colorado now, I've left twice and I've come back twice.

2868
03:07:01.206 --> 03:07:01.546
Okay.

2869
03:07:01.707 --> 03:07:05.730
And then a couple of years ago, kind of, you know, when we started the podcast, you were like, hey, if you want to move out to L.A.

2870
03:07:06.030 --> 03:07:10.093
I don't know if I've ever really talked to you about this, but I've I struggled with that quite a bit.

2871
03:07:10.433 --> 03:07:11.794
I have a really good community there.

2872
03:07:11.814 --> 03:07:12.875
We've talked about this before.

2873
03:07:13.615 --> 03:07:16.657
And I decided that's a big part of what I value.

2874
03:07:17.238 --> 03:07:23.963
The thing about that one, though, is unlike a lot of the other decisions in my life, that one I made pretty eyes wide open.

2875
03:07:24.223 --> 03:07:25.524
I was like, I know what I'm giving up.

2876
03:07:25.944 --> 03:07:27.205
I give up FaceTime with you.

2877
03:07:27.525 --> 03:07:28.186
Probably some money.

2878
03:07:28.206 --> 03:07:29.647
I've left some money on the table for sure.

2879
03:07:29.667 --> 03:07:32.749
I know you have like your executive meetings out here that I'm not a part of.

2880
03:07:33.029 --> 03:07:34.710
That is a decision I made eyes wide open.

2881
03:07:34.730 --> 03:07:36.532
Now, again, though.

2882
03:07:37.332 --> 03:07:39.193
it's the commitment isn't a one-time thing.

2883
03:07:39.373 --> 03:07:47.017
I've had to like re up that because there are times where I'm like, ah, you know, if I, if I did move, there's that doubt.

2884
03:07:47.157 --> 03:07:49.339
There's that like, ah, I know what I'm leaving on the table.

2885
03:07:49.419 --> 03:07:49.779
It's it.

2886
03:07:49.819 --> 03:07:52.540
There's a, still a poll over there at the end of the day though.

2887
03:07:52.560 --> 03:07:54.281
I'm like, okay, what do I, what do I value?

2888
03:07:54.301 --> 03:07:58.924
And it's like, I realized like the, how lucky I am on the, on the social side of things.

2889
03:07:58.964 --> 03:08:00.925
And like my friend group and my community that have built there.

2890
03:08:00.945 --> 03:08:03.346
And I'm like, I, yeah, I'm, I'm choosing that.

2891
03:08:03.446 --> 03:08:03.666
Yeah.

2892
03:08:03.946 --> 03:08:06.348
I feel like this is very much a post pandemic.

2893
03:08:07.131 --> 03:08:28.094
thing for a lot of people like remote work has become so common now props for making that decision because just in my life like i have so many for everywhere i've lived in the last six years it feels like half of my friends leave within three or four years because everybody's just like constantly finding a quote-unquote better place to go it's really complicated and

2894
03:08:29.135 --> 03:08:31.756
building community, building long-term friendships.

2895
03:08:31.976 --> 03:08:33.077
I've been one of these people too.

2896
03:08:33.137 --> 03:08:39.720
Like I have sat with groups of friends and we have literally spent an entire afternoon just trying to figure out where we should live.

2897
03:08:40.766 --> 03:08:47.188
And it's funny because that is a quote unquote problem that didn't even exist a generation ago.

2898
03:08:47.228 --> 03:08:51.149
Like my parents never, never, never occurred to them.

2899
03:08:51.309 --> 03:08:54.110
Like, should we pick up and move to another city with the kids?

2900
03:08:54.710 --> 03:08:59.171
I never occurred to them because my dad's business was always in Austin.

2901
03:08:59.431 --> 03:09:06.173
And again, there's like a freedom and luxury of not having to make that decision, of not having that optionality.

2902
03:09:06.693 --> 03:09:15.143
that I think our generation, because we have the optionality, we now are blessed with the anxiety of always wondering if we made the right decision.

2903
03:09:15.323 --> 03:09:21.130
For a lot of people too, if you are considering, you're like, oh, I just need a new city, a new whatever.

2904
03:09:21.150 --> 03:09:22.732
I'm like, really think about that one.

2905
03:09:23.072 --> 03:09:24.013
Really, really think about that one.

2906
03:09:24.234 --> 03:09:25.375
If you can't be happy where you are,

2907
03:09:25.595 --> 03:09:32.778
Outside of like, if you're in like, I don't know, a war torn area or, you know, abusive relationship that you need to get away from, obviously get out of that.

2908
03:09:32.998 --> 03:09:36.139
Otherwise, if you're just like, oh, I don't know, I don't like this place.

2909
03:09:36.599 --> 03:09:37.379
I'm not sure about that one.

2910
03:09:37.740 --> 03:09:52.145
One of the things that I kind of landed on with with my wife and I, as we've kind of agonized over this question at different times over the last 10 years is I've arrived on the heuristic of like, there needs to be a better reason than happiness to leave.

2911
03:09:53.106 --> 03:09:53.266
right?

2912
03:09:53.346 --> 03:09:56.248
We can't just go because it's like, oh, this city sounds better.

2913
03:09:56.408 --> 03:09:57.789
We have more things to do there, right?

2914
03:09:57.809 --> 03:10:08.035
Like there needs to be something coming back to that value alignment, that self concordance, like there needs to be something deeper and more aligned than just like, this will be more fun.

2915
03:10:08.295 --> 03:10:21.103
So because the ethical life, like you are making commitments, making decisions, open-eyed, like major life decisions with both of your eyes open, understanding the trade-offs that you're making, you are choosing to eliminate the

2916
03:10:21.985 --> 03:10:24.167
possible lives and possible versions of yourself.

2917
03:10:24.287 --> 03:10:30.131
You are also, in some cases, you are choosing to let go old versions of your life and old versions of yourself.

2918
03:10:30.472 --> 03:10:37.217
What doesn't get talked about nearly enough is that there is a component of grief and sadness that comes with this.

2919
03:10:37.497 --> 03:10:37.677
right?

2920
03:10:37.717 --> 03:10:42.960
Like it is losing a version of yourself and accepting that like that version of you is never going to exist.

2921
03:10:43.221 --> 03:10:43.921
It's really hard.

2922
03:10:44.081 --> 03:10:50.385
It's like letting a friendship go or, or letting go of a place that has a lot of sentimental value for you.

2923
03:10:50.725 --> 03:10:56.829
Change gets marketed as this kind of pep rally, like rah, rah, you're awesome.

2924
03:10:56.849 --> 03:10:57.089
Yeah.

2925
03:10:57.209 --> 03:10:59.831
It's, it's, it's going to be this euphoric epiphany.

2926
03:11:00.031 --> 03:11:04.154
And the reality is that change often requires you to cut off

2927
03:11:04.834 --> 03:11:09.778
possible versions of yourself that are going to be incredibly difficult and painful to cut off.

2928
03:11:10.619 --> 03:11:16.804
And so there is a grieving process that comes with that elimination of a part of yourself.

2929
03:11:17.045 --> 03:11:26.393
And I think it's important for people to give themselves space to grieve that version of themselves, to grieve that life that they are leaving behind, that they're not going to be able to go back to.

2930
03:11:26.633 --> 03:11:29.195
I felt this a lot actually when I stopped being a nomad.

2931
03:11:29.255 --> 03:11:32.378
I didn't want to go back, but like I still grieved myself.

2932
03:11:33.500 --> 03:11:43.232
losing that lifestyle and knowing that like, I'm never going to be 20 and like traveling around Asia for the first time again, that experience is gone forever.

2933
03:11:43.513 --> 03:11:44.634
I'm never going to feel it again.

2934
03:11:45.035 --> 03:11:46.216
And, and it is sad.

2935
03:11:46.717 --> 03:11:47.358
It is hard.

2936
03:11:47.518 --> 03:11:48.899
It's hard when you put it that way.

2937
03:11:48.919 --> 03:11:50.381
It is like, it is hard to sit with.

2938
03:11:50.762 --> 03:11:52.464
And so people avoid sitting with it.

2939
03:11:52.615 --> 03:11:56.317
Would it be even sadder to keep trying to relive that, though?

2940
03:11:56.397 --> 03:11:59.999
I think that's maybe a Kierkegaard's point, right, about the asthete.

2941
03:12:00.839 --> 03:12:02.360
Yeah, I would say yes.

2942
03:12:02.420 --> 03:12:07.963
Yeah, because you're going to realize that you can't relive it, and then you just keep doing that to yourself over and over again.

2943
03:12:08.083 --> 03:12:11.805
That's why Kierkegaard says that the asthete lives in despair.

2944
03:12:13.006 --> 03:12:20.668
Even though they're having fun, even though they're partying, even though their Instagram is really, really sexy, they are living in despair.

2945
03:12:21.029 --> 03:12:25.170
It's all Casanova had left, too, was to write about the past and try to relive it.

2946
03:12:25.310 --> 03:12:26.390
And, God, that's sad.

2947
03:12:26.410 --> 03:12:26.650
Yeah.

2948
03:12:26.850 --> 03:12:31.792
What we've learned in this chapter is that commitment delivers a sense of meaning and a sense of self.

2949
03:12:32.292 --> 03:12:40.916
Even if your decision is not the optimal decision, the psychological immune system will kick in and it will help you sit more comfortably with whatever decision that you made.

2950
03:12:41.096 --> 03:12:48.240
And the regret research shows that it is far more difficult for us to accept the things we didn't do more than the things that we did do.

2951
03:12:48.815 --> 03:12:53.520
Now, these initial decisions, they kind of get that feedback loop kicked off, right?

2952
03:12:53.560 --> 03:12:55.101
It's like, okay, I'm going to make a decision.

2953
03:12:55.421 --> 03:12:56.903
I'm going to learn something about myself.

2954
03:12:57.483 --> 03:13:08.034
Whatever I learn about myself, it's going to make it easier to make further decisions and further commitments in my life, which then is going to teach me more about myself and then it's going to be easier and so on.

2955
03:13:09.075 --> 03:13:12.498
As you start to get deeper into this feedback loop, you're going to be able to make it easier.

2956
03:13:12.638 --> 03:13:14.518
That's where your identity starts to take shape.

2957
03:13:14.758 --> 03:13:26.541
You've cut off enough alternatives in your life to start to see a kind of an outline of who you are, what you care about, what you're dedicating yourself to.

2958
03:13:26.961 --> 03:13:38.283
A big piece of these decisions and commitments is making sure that they feel aligned with each other and aligned with your values, that they're in concordance to give that self-confidence.

2959
03:13:38.503 --> 03:13:39.043
definition.

2960
03:13:39.524 --> 03:13:45.166
You know, we did an ego episode ages ago, uh, where we talked about the, that the goal is not to eliminate the ego.

2961
03:13:45.186 --> 03:13:46.587
It's to develop a healthy ego.

2962
03:13:46.747 --> 03:13:52.909
And part of a healthy ego is a internally consistent ego, an ego without contradiction within it.

2963
03:13:53.049 --> 03:13:59.032
But as you go, as you make deeper and deeper commitments in your life, you will be cutting off larger and larger alternative selves.

2964
03:13:59.352 --> 03:14:01.153
You'll be cutting off larger past selves.

2965
03:14:01.173 --> 03:14:01.773
Yeah.

2966
03:14:01.813 --> 03:14:06.295
That you have to grieve and accept that you'll never get to live those lives.

2967
03:14:06.315 --> 03:14:11.096
You'll never get to go back and be the 25-year-old again.

2968
03:14:11.116 --> 03:14:13.617
And you have to come to terms with that.

2969
03:14:13.957 --> 03:14:17.258
But if the grief is real, that means you did something right.

2970
03:14:17.779 --> 03:14:27.302
Because paradoxically, the more you make these commitments, the more you narrow your self-definition, the more you actually experience it as a liberation.

2971
03:14:27.982 --> 03:14:32.764
a liberation to care about the thing that you actually want to be in this life.

2972
03:14:33.784 --> 03:14:38.366
And Kierkegaard was such a melancholy and emo dude.

2973
03:14:38.666 --> 03:14:41.407
He never framed this around happiness or well-being.

2974
03:14:41.427 --> 03:14:43.008
That's a very 20th century idea.

2975
03:14:44.169 --> 03:14:44.610
concern.

2976
03:14:44.930 --> 03:14:56.703
He always framed it around finding a real self, defining a real self for yourself, which honestly, 50 years before Freud, like that's a pretty radical goal to set set about for yourself.

2977
03:14:57.124 --> 03:15:01.709
Having that strong self-definition, having that clear path for yourself is,

2978
03:15:03.123 --> 03:15:17.316
having that coherent narrative of both your past selves and your future selves, this is really the basis of being a psychologically healthy individual, being somebody who is thriving and flourishing and feeling as though they are getting the most out of life.

2979
03:15:17.776 --> 03:15:21.760
So everything we've talked about in this chapter has been about choosing well.

2980
03:15:22.340 --> 03:15:34.072
Exploring your options, closing doors, letting your psychological machinery kind of do its work, building an identity, becoming satisfied with that identity, learning more about who you are so you can make further commitments.

2981
03:15:34.393 --> 03:15:39.878
Now, all of that is real and it's important, but for Kierkegaard, that still wasn't enough.

2982
03:15:40.319 --> 03:15:44.183
Like, there was a whole other level to this that these kind of rational...

2983
03:15:45.755 --> 03:15:49.857
open-eyed decisions still weren't really approaching or getting at.

2984
03:15:50.377 --> 03:15:53.678
Because ultimately, the ethical person is, they're still choosing.

2985
03:15:53.839 --> 03:15:56.580
Even if they've made a commitment, they're maintaining that commitment.

2986
03:15:57.180 --> 03:15:59.221
They're re-upping their commitment.

2987
03:15:59.661 --> 03:16:00.641
They're doubling down.

2988
03:16:01.342 --> 03:16:04.383
Some cases, they're backing out of commitments or changing commitments.

2989
03:16:05.764 --> 03:16:13.087
They're, sure, they walk through a door and shut it, but they're kind of holding it shut and they're not sure if they maybe want to open it again.

2990
03:16:13.660 --> 03:16:18.142
Kierkegaard argued that there is a level of commitment that that effort disappears.

2991
03:16:18.642 --> 03:16:30.507
That necessity of doubling down and re-upping commitments and re-choosing commitments, that it does eventually go away, but it only goes away in these very special circumstances.

2992
03:16:30.927 --> 03:16:35.949
And Kierkegaard spent pretty much the final years of his life trying to explain how this happens.

2993
03:16:36.349 --> 03:16:41.311
And what's interesting is that he couldn't explain how it happens without talking about it in religious terms.

2994
03:16:43.512 --> 03:16:45.613
We're going to get into the religious life.

2995
03:16:46.254 --> 03:16:48.175
But real quick, a word from our sponsors.

2996
03:16:48.635 --> 03:16:49.816
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2997
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2998
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2999
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Sure enough, ChatGPT tells them that they're so brave.

3000
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3001
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3002
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3003
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3004
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3005
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3006
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3007
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3008
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3009
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3010
03:17:50.106 --> 03:17:52.448
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3011
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This episode is brought to you by Waking Up.

3012
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3013
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3014
03:18:07.634 --> 03:18:10.555
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3015
03:18:10.955 --> 03:18:15.597
But it's not especially useful if you're an adult with an actual mind that you'd like to understand.

3016
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3017
03:18:17.538 --> 03:18:18.678
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3018
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3019
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3020
03:18:28.742 --> 03:18:30.022
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3021
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3022
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3023
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3024
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3025
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And it's the only meditation app either of us has actually stuck with over the long run.

3026
03:18:50.968 --> 03:18:52.688
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3027
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3028
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3029
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3030
03:18:58.950 --> 03:19:05.571
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3031
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3032
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3033
03:19:14.375 --> 03:19:16.956
That's Manson.Deals slash Waking Up.

3034
03:19:17.817 --> 03:19:19.297
Welcome back to the Solve podcast.

3035
03:19:19.538 --> 03:19:20.358
Let's get back into it.

3036
03:19:25.705 --> 03:19:33.729
So this episode is about commitment, life paths, but in a lot of ways, it's kind of doubled as a Kierkegaard episode, which I love.

3037
03:19:33.949 --> 03:19:41.313
I mean, I'm a big fan, but it's interesting because my exposure to Kierkegaard was a little bit awkward.

3038
03:19:41.613 --> 03:19:42.274
It was actually funny.

3039
03:19:42.334 --> 03:19:51.839
After Subtle Art came out, I remember getting an email from a reader asking me if I had read Kierkegaard, and I said no, and he was blown away.

3040
03:19:51.879 --> 03:19:54.360
He was like, you have to read this guy because...

3041
03:19:55.728 --> 03:19:57.370
You're just going to love everything that he says.

3042
03:19:57.890 --> 03:19:59.632
And then I still didn't read them.

3043
03:20:01.414 --> 03:20:04.156
I had a book club when I lived in New York with a couple of good friends.

3044
03:20:04.376 --> 03:20:06.659
And it was a philosophy book club.

3045
03:20:06.679 --> 03:20:12.845
The whole point of the book club was to like read really difficult books that we wouldn't read otherwise if we just tried to read them on our own.

3046
03:20:13.785 --> 03:20:17.168
And one month we chose Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.

3047
03:20:17.228 --> 03:20:20.070
It was my first exposure to Kierkegaard.

3048
03:20:20.090 --> 03:20:29.197
And really all I knew about him at the time was that he was a really sad emo dude who like fumbled his girl and that he was super Christian.

3049
03:20:29.978 --> 03:20:32.200
Those are kind of like the only two facts that I understood.

3050
03:20:32.800 --> 03:20:35.803
And so we got Fear and Trembling, and I started reading it.

3051
03:20:36.183 --> 03:20:41.287
And Fear and Trembling is about the Abraham and Isaac story from Genesis in the Bible.

3052
03:20:41.668 --> 03:20:58.982
And the story, for people who are not familiar, is that very early on in the Bible, God calls on Abraham, who's kind of like the father of the three Abrahamic religions, to take his favorite son, which is Isaac, to the top of a mountain.

3053
03:20:59.262 --> 03:21:05.744
And once he's on top of the mountain, he commands Abraham to sacrifice his son in the name of God.

3054
03:21:06.025 --> 03:21:17.869
And this is a test because Old Testament God is extremely insecure and needs to be reassured at all times that his adherents love him and believe in him.

3055
03:21:18.049 --> 03:21:20.910
And then Abraham is about to go ahead and do it.

3056
03:21:20.930 --> 03:21:25.312
He's about to like plunge a knife into his son's chest.

3057
03:21:25.952 --> 03:21:34.194
when God interrupts and is like, JK, just checking, making sure you're like my number one dude.

3058
03:21:34.634 --> 03:21:40.255
And of course, I grew up going to church and Bible study and Sunday school.

3059
03:21:40.335 --> 03:21:42.716
And I went to a Christian high school.

3060
03:21:43.176 --> 03:21:44.336
We had theology class.

3061
03:21:44.356 --> 03:21:46.777
So I was very familiar with the Abraham stories.

3062
03:21:47.297 --> 03:21:50.257
I thought they were absolutely ridiculous when I was young.

3063
03:21:50.397 --> 03:21:52.438
I was like, this is the most insecure story.

3064
03:21:53.198 --> 03:22:18.791
fucking gaslighting narcissistic bullshit like what a shitty god why would he do this and so i remember when i opened up kierkegaard and i started reading and i realized that the entire 300 page book was going to be about the abraham and isaac's yeah i was like no fucking way i'm doing this no way i'm doing this this is awful if i didn't have those friends who were going to read the book and we're going to hold each other accountable

3065
03:22:19.391 --> 03:22:20.752
I would have stopped after page five.

3066
03:22:20.772 --> 03:22:21.332
Yeah, yeah.

3067
03:22:21.692 --> 03:22:26.114
Slowly but surely, as I got through the book, Kierkegaard won me over.

3068
03:22:26.694 --> 03:22:33.096
And by the time I was halfway through, I was like, okay, this is like some serious, profound shit.

3069
03:22:34.037 --> 03:22:40.679
And while Kierkegaard was extremely religious and very Christian, he was like,

3070
03:22:41.356 --> 03:22:47.547
Fear and trembling and the religious stage of life, it can be read in a way that is quite secular.

3071
03:22:47.788 --> 03:22:54.660
I think all of these concepts apply regardless of what religion you are, regardless of whether you can believe in any religion.

3072
03:22:55.974 --> 03:23:07.058
Because they point to a very deep and powerful psychological mechanism within us that I think is very powerful and profound.

3073
03:23:07.218 --> 03:23:11.340
And I don't really see it talked about anywhere else.

3074
03:23:13.150 --> 03:23:14.390
Definitely not in psychology.

3075
03:23:15.010 --> 03:23:17.091
So a quick summary of Fear and Trembling.

3076
03:23:17.551 --> 03:23:20.532
Kierkegaard's framework was written across two different books.

3077
03:23:21.032 --> 03:23:26.473
There's Either or, which explains the difference between the aesthetic life and the ethical life.

3078
03:23:26.653 --> 03:23:31.054
And then Fear and Trembling was written later as kind of the third stage.

3079
03:23:31.574 --> 03:23:35.335
It was Kierkegaard's argument that, wait, there's a whole other level of fear.

3080
03:23:36.456 --> 03:23:45.947
to commitment, and that the ethical life is necessary, but it's not sufficient to live a life that you feel is well-defined and deep and meaningful.

3081
03:23:46.487 --> 03:23:55.617
The reason that he chose the Abraham and Isaac story is because he uses it as a metaphor or an analogy for Abraham's faith.

3082
03:23:57.322 --> 03:24:09.050
In this case, it was God, but basically he had a degree of faith and a degree of commitment to something to such a level that it was completely absurd and irrational.

3083
03:24:09.610 --> 03:24:13.773
And in the book, Kierkegaard calls this the virtue of the absurd.

3084
03:24:14.053 --> 03:24:18.336
And the idea is that the strongest commitments in our lives are.

3085
03:24:18.948 --> 03:24:28.811
We've committed to them so wholeheartedly to such a massive extent that they break into irrationality.

3086
03:24:29.252 --> 03:24:32.533
Like you can't really explain them to somebody else.

3087
03:24:32.613 --> 03:24:35.794
There's no reasoning or justification.

3088
03:24:35.914 --> 03:24:46.538
And it's important that to differentiate this from the ethical stage and that the ethical stage, you are making commitments, but there's still like a there's a cost benefit analysis kind of going on behind the scenes.

3089
03:24:46.578 --> 03:24:47.018
There's like a.

3090
03:24:47.878 --> 03:24:50.700
There's a questioning of like, does this represent my values?

3091
03:24:51.200 --> 03:24:53.241
Is this really who I want to be for the next 10 years?

3092
03:24:53.561 --> 03:24:54.181
Yeah.

3093
03:24:54.341 --> 03:24:55.842
And those are important questions.

3094
03:24:56.283 --> 03:24:58.724
Kierkegaard is not negating the importance of those questions.

3095
03:24:59.164 --> 03:25:06.328
He's just pointing out that there is another level of commitment that can only be taken on sheer faith.

3096
03:25:07.048 --> 03:25:15.653
That there's not really any sort of explicable, rational justification for somebody wanting to do that.

3097
03:25:16.113 --> 03:25:17.674
They're just doing it for the sake of doing it.

3098
03:25:17.974 --> 03:25:18.214
Yes.

3099
03:25:18.554 --> 03:25:19.055
Right?

3100
03:25:19.175 --> 03:25:22.596
And whereas like in the ethical life, like we said, it's the mechanism.

3101
03:25:22.737 --> 03:25:25.798
It's the actual mechanism of continuing to choose over and over again.

3102
03:25:26.418 --> 03:25:28.780
You're saying this goes beyond that.

3103
03:25:29.200 --> 03:25:29.480
Yes.

3104
03:25:29.760 --> 03:25:30.080
Okay.

3105
03:25:30.301 --> 03:25:36.224
So I'm going to actually kind of explain this in religious terms first because this is how it's initially explained in Fear and Trembling.

3106
03:25:36.564 --> 03:25:39.966
And then I'm going to try to apply it to kind of secular commitments.

3107
03:25:40.446 --> 03:25:41.867
So Kierkegaard's argument is...

3108
03:25:42.687 --> 03:25:47.870
and this is a religious argument, is that blind faith in something is not faith, right?

3109
03:25:47.990 --> 03:25:55.153
Just kind of assuming something, like just believing something because that's what your parents told you to believe, that's not faith.

3110
03:25:55.434 --> 03:25:56.934
That's just living unconsciously.

3111
03:25:56.954 --> 03:25:58.535
That's another form of the aesthetic life.

3112
03:25:59.035 --> 03:26:07.180
Real faith is recognizing the absurdity, the irrationality, the complete impossibility of proving whether something's true or not.

3113
03:26:07.940 --> 03:26:11.182
and then still choosing to believe in spite of all of those things.

3114
03:26:11.482 --> 03:26:14.444
Like that is what faith actually is.

3115
03:26:14.704 --> 03:26:16.445
You had Arthur Brooks on the old podcast.

3116
03:26:16.465 --> 03:26:18.066
He came on and he's religious.

3117
03:26:18.106 --> 03:26:20.107
He's a devout Catholic.

3118
03:26:21.008 --> 03:26:22.389
And you had a discussion with him about this.

3119
03:26:22.489 --> 03:26:28.773
And he called it the childish version of religion and faith, which was just, yeah, you just believe and don't question it.

3120
03:26:28.953 --> 03:26:35.517
And he said, actually, the much more durable, much more kind of rock solid version of it is doubting.

3121
03:26:35.817 --> 03:26:38.080
And continuing to choose it anyway.

3122
03:26:38.200 --> 03:26:39.581
There's, that's religion.

3123
03:26:39.641 --> 03:26:41.463
That to him, that was a religious belief anyway.

3124
03:26:41.703 --> 03:26:47.349
Just growing up in the church, I think you do see that more mature version of faith show up in places.

3125
03:26:47.570 --> 03:26:52.775
Like I have vague recollections of certain people in my churches kind of talking about that, that like you're supposed to doubt.

3126
03:26:53.035 --> 03:26:53.936
That's what makes it faith.

3127
03:26:55.077 --> 03:26:56.518
If you don't doubt, that's not faith.

3128
03:26:56.538 --> 03:26:59.360
That's just blind kind of stupidity.

3129
03:26:59.940 --> 03:27:01.581
The doubt is actually part of the process.

3130
03:27:02.021 --> 03:27:08.324
And it is part of what makes it so powerful and meaningful is like knowing that this makes no sense, but you're going to live by it anyway.

3131
03:27:08.685 --> 03:27:11.046
Now, how to apply this to secular life?

3132
03:27:11.286 --> 03:27:20.411
For me, the most kind of the clearest example of this that I can give is back when I was in music school, it was very interesting because if you're going to go into music and

3133
03:27:20.692 --> 03:27:22.693
and this applies to any of the arts, right?

3134
03:27:23.413 --> 03:27:25.535
Acting, art, whatever it is.

3135
03:27:26.235 --> 03:27:29.277
It is so overwhelmingly likely

3136
03:27:30.362 --> 03:27:37.128
that you are not going to make a full-time living doing that, that it is something you have to really wrestle with.

3137
03:27:37.208 --> 03:27:40.270
And I remember it was something I really wrestled with in music school.

3138
03:27:40.390 --> 03:27:43.993
And most of my fellow students wrestled.

3139
03:27:44.073 --> 03:27:45.314
I mean, we would talk about it.

3140
03:27:45.354 --> 03:27:46.595
We would kind of joke about it.

3141
03:27:47.456 --> 03:27:54.342
There was a joke that went around music school quite a bit, which was, what's the difference between a professional musician and a pizza man?

3142
03:27:55.644 --> 03:27:57.206
A pizza man can feed a family of four.

3143
03:27:57.426 --> 03:28:00.511
Okay.

3144
03:28:01.112 --> 03:28:02.495
Okay.

3145
03:28:02.515 --> 03:28:04.738
So there's like a very intense awareness.

3146
03:28:04.838 --> 03:28:08.825
And coming back to it being an ethical commitment versus a religious commitment.

3147
03:28:10.285 --> 03:28:12.627
I think music for me was very much an ethical commitment.

3148
03:28:12.727 --> 03:28:15.989
It was something that I enjoyed very deeply.

3149
03:28:16.009 --> 03:28:18.191
I was very passionate about it.

3150
03:28:19.652 --> 03:28:25.096
I got a lot of social validation from it, a lot of satisfaction from practicing and becoming better.

3151
03:28:25.456 --> 03:28:28.499
But ultimately, it was a cost-benefit analysis in my life.

3152
03:28:28.819 --> 03:28:36.585
And once I started hitting that dip, and the dip in the arts is very long and brutal, it made me start questioning,

3153
03:28:37.702 --> 03:28:38.383
why am I here?

3154
03:28:38.744 --> 03:28:39.525
Am I going to make it?

3155
03:28:40.106 --> 03:28:41.808
I'm not as good as that guy or that guy.

3156
03:28:41.848 --> 03:28:42.069
Like,

3157
03:28:43.123 --> 03:28:44.744
There's only so many jobs, right?

3158
03:28:45.044 --> 03:28:45.825
And so I dropped out.

3159
03:28:46.045 --> 03:28:47.286
And most people do drop out.

3160
03:28:47.346 --> 03:28:51.649
In fact, the music school that I went to, the dropout rate, I believe, was like 87%?

3161
03:28:51.709 --> 03:28:52.269
Probably.

3162
03:28:52.289 --> 03:28:52.890
Something like that.

3163
03:28:52.910 --> 03:28:54.551
I was going to say 90% probably.

3164
03:28:54.611 --> 03:28:56.592
It's staggeringly high.

3165
03:28:57.413 --> 03:29:00.395
So I've kind of kept tabs on some of my classmates.

3166
03:29:00.595 --> 03:29:01.936
And a few of them have made it.

3167
03:29:02.136 --> 03:29:04.317
And a few of them have developed careers in music.

3168
03:29:04.337 --> 03:29:07.640
But from the outside, you wouldn't necessarily call them successful.

3169
03:29:07.820 --> 03:29:12.623
It's kind of your wedding band musician, your high school music teacher, that sort of thing.

3170
03:29:12.983 --> 03:29:18.474
Looking back, I think the thing that was really apparent is that the people who are going to make it in music,

3171
03:29:19.698 --> 03:29:21.939
felt like there was nothing they could do other than music.

3172
03:29:22.159 --> 03:29:33.703
When I think about the people who did end up making it in the music industry, they were never the people in music school sitting around joking about a pizza man, you know, asking themselves like, is this going to go anywhere?

3173
03:29:34.404 --> 03:29:37.625
It was unfathomable to them to do anything else.

3174
03:29:37.845 --> 03:29:39.326
They couldn't imagine themselves doing anything.

3175
03:29:39.346 --> 03:29:40.346
Whether they went somewhere or not.

3176
03:29:40.906 --> 03:29:41.546
Right?

3177
03:29:41.747 --> 03:29:41.967
Right.

3178
03:29:42.167 --> 03:29:47.589
Broke, rich, happy, sad, successful, unsuccessful, anonymous, famous, like...

3179
03:29:48.189 --> 03:29:51.472
I don't think any of that registered with them whatsoever.

3180
03:29:51.592 --> 03:29:53.354
They were just like, this is what I do.

3181
03:29:53.434 --> 03:29:56.997
I can't imagine not playing my instrument eight hours a day.

3182
03:29:57.017 --> 03:30:00.600
So I'm going to play my instrument eight hours a day.

3183
03:30:01.020 --> 03:30:03.182
I remember we had a conversation in the office once.

3184
03:30:03.562 --> 03:30:07.005
Steph, who works on the podcast, went to acting school.

3185
03:30:07.045 --> 03:30:10.188
And she was saying the same thing about a lot of the acting students there.

3186
03:30:10.408 --> 03:30:11.589
You see this in entrepreneurship.

3187
03:30:11.729 --> 03:30:13.351
There's a famous line, uh...

3188
03:30:15.172 --> 03:30:18.773
Elon Musk was giving a talk somewhere and there was a Q&A with the audience.

3189
03:30:19.213 --> 03:30:26.536
Somebody stood up in the audience and asked Elon, what words of encouragement would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

3190
03:30:26.576 --> 03:30:30.317
He said, I would give none because if you need encouragement, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur.

3191
03:30:30.657 --> 03:30:33.018
There's this sense that entrepreneurship is.

3192
03:30:34.179 --> 03:30:35.962
you don't choose to be an entrepreneur.

3193
03:30:36.322 --> 03:30:38.886
You are chosen by entrepreneurship.

3194
03:30:39.066 --> 03:30:44.413
Like it is baked into you and you don't really feel like you have a choice, but to do it.

3195
03:30:44.613 --> 03:30:44.853
Yeah.

3196
03:30:45.374 --> 03:30:46.796
Mark Andreessen makes that point too.

3197
03:30:46.996 --> 03:30:49.439
Andreessen Horowitz, famous, you know, venture capital firm.

3198
03:30:49.719 --> 03:30:50.480
Uh, he says that the,

3199
03:30:51.001 --> 03:30:57.364
The people they look for when they're getting pitched is he can just tell that at this point, he's got so much experience with this.

3200
03:30:57.584 --> 03:30:58.544
You can tell it's these people.

3201
03:30:58.584 --> 03:31:00.065
They can't do anything but this.

3202
03:31:00.405 --> 03:31:00.605
Right.

3203
03:31:00.825 --> 03:31:02.486
They can't not be an entrepreneur.

3204
03:31:02.506 --> 03:31:06.868
It's like if they're not going to do this thing that they're presenting to me right in front of it, they're going to go find something else to do it no matter what.

3205
03:31:07.028 --> 03:31:07.468
Yeah.

3206
03:31:07.488 --> 03:31:11.930
But he says you can tell the people who come in and they're like, I came up with this idea and I think it's a good idea.

3207
03:31:11.990 --> 03:31:13.250
And we're going to make a bunch of money.

3208
03:31:13.350 --> 03:31:13.791
And yeah.

3209
03:31:14.011 --> 03:31:14.731
He's like, you can tell.

3210
03:31:15.111 --> 03:31:25.619
So Purpose, my AI app, my co-founder Raj, I remember when we were having lunch meetings early on to decide if we were going to start the company or not.

3211
03:31:26.260 --> 03:31:29.342
So Raj is like a serial founder entrepreneur.

3212
03:31:29.362 --> 03:31:31.904
He's had a number of successful businesses, a number of exits.

3213
03:31:32.265 --> 03:31:37.109
And he was kind of approaching the conversation as if like, okay, this is my next business.

3214
03:31:37.829 --> 03:31:41.491
we'll probably exit or sell it or I'll step out or whatever.

3215
03:31:41.531 --> 03:31:42.552
We'll hire a CEO.

3216
03:31:43.072 --> 03:31:51.176
And he was doing the responsible thing that every co-founder pair, every group of co-founders should do, which is like talk about exit strategy.

3217
03:31:51.196 --> 03:31:54.798
So I remember we were sitting at lunch and he was like, well, let's talk about exit strategy.

3218
03:31:55.379 --> 03:31:58.761
What is your desired endgame for this business?

3219
03:31:59.001 --> 03:32:00.802
And I looked at him and I was like, what do you mean?

3220
03:32:01.602 --> 03:32:02.223
And he said, well,

3221
03:32:03.303 --> 03:32:04.503
Where do you want this to end up?

3222
03:32:04.584 --> 03:32:07.324
Like, do you want to exit three years, five years, 10 years?

3223
03:32:07.344 --> 03:32:08.565
Like, do you want it to be cash flow?

3224
03:32:08.605 --> 03:32:12.086
Do you want to like outsource, you know, hire managers?

3225
03:32:13.006 --> 03:32:15.747
And I just looked at it and I was like, dude, I'm going to die in this industry.

3226
03:32:15.907 --> 03:32:18.228
So I don't really care.

3227
03:32:18.408 --> 03:32:22.590
Like, if you want to do something, like if you want to get out after five years, like we can figure that out.

3228
03:32:22.750 --> 03:32:22.930
But

3229
03:32:24.631 --> 03:32:25.452
I'm in this for life.

3230
03:32:25.872 --> 03:32:32.138
It's funny because he later told me he said one of the biggest reasons he decided to go into business with me is because of that answer.

3231
03:32:32.518 --> 03:32:33.559
But it's something it's true.

3232
03:32:33.599 --> 03:32:40.185
It's something I feel like very deep down at this point, which is that I don't have a choice.

3233
03:32:40.265 --> 03:32:42.287
Like this is this is my life.

3234
03:32:42.608 --> 03:32:44.129
Like this is what we're doing right now.

3235
03:32:44.149 --> 03:32:47.992
Like this is my life's work and it always will be.

3236
03:32:48.433 --> 03:32:50.255
And I'm going to do this till I'm dead.

3237
03:32:50.835 --> 03:32:56.177
There's a certain amount of peace that comes with that, with that certainty.

3238
03:32:56.517 --> 03:32:58.537
There is an irrationality about it, right?

3239
03:32:58.557 --> 03:33:01.218
Like you could easily sit here and make all sorts of arguments.

3240
03:33:01.238 --> 03:33:05.260
So like, well, Mark, you could go start a multimedia company.

3241
03:33:05.340 --> 03:33:06.580
You could become a serial founder.

3242
03:33:06.640 --> 03:33:08.781
You could go into venture capital.

3243
03:33:08.821 --> 03:33:10.701
There's a lot of things that I could do.

3244
03:33:11.181 --> 03:33:15.723
And there was a period where I thought a lot about that and I worried a lot about that.

3245
03:33:16.623 --> 03:33:29.055
And I would say about like three or four years ago, I kind of arrived at this conclusion of like, for whatever reason, call it the universe, call it God, call it fate, call it chance.

3246
03:33:30.557 --> 03:33:36.102
I was put in this situation with this incredible opportunity and privilege of like,

3247
03:33:37.591 --> 03:33:44.395
speaking to millions of people, being listened to by millions of people, I have a certain set of talents and abilities.

3248
03:33:45.356 --> 03:33:46.757
It chose me.

3249
03:33:47.057 --> 03:33:49.419
At a certain point, it's like, I didn't choose this anymore.

3250
03:33:49.459 --> 03:33:54.122
This is just who I am and this is what I'm destined to do.

3251
03:33:54.942 --> 03:33:56.603
At that point, it just becomes faith.

3252
03:33:56.904 --> 03:34:00.006
Like, it's like there's an absurdity to it, I guess you could say.

3253
03:34:00.286 --> 03:34:07.392
You know, you kind of mentioned this before, I guess, too, though, that you kind of had to come to this, though.

3254
03:34:07.592 --> 03:34:13.277
And it wasn't, you didn't have this lightning bolt necessarily moment, or maybe you did at some point.

3255
03:34:13.457 --> 03:34:15.018
But at first it was music.

3256
03:34:15.358 --> 03:34:20.763
And I think you held on to that even for a while beyond even getting out of music school and everything, right?

3257
03:34:20.783 --> 03:34:20.883
Yeah.

3258
03:34:21.463 --> 03:34:33.073
Yeah, well, it's funny because initially when I started my online businesses, the idea was, oh, if I can make some money on the internet, then I'll have the financial security to go do the music thing.

3259
03:34:33.093 --> 03:34:34.074
And time and everything.

3260
03:34:34.474 --> 03:34:34.755
Okay, yeah.

3261
03:34:34.775 --> 03:34:34.895
Yeah.

3262
03:34:34.915 --> 03:34:37.057
So it was completely like a horse trade, right?

3263
03:34:37.137 --> 03:34:37.957
It was like, I didn't.

3264
03:34:37.977 --> 03:34:38.137
Yeah.

3265
03:34:39.490 --> 03:34:42.373
all this online shit, it was totally a means to an end.

3266
03:34:44.496 --> 03:34:48.160
But as I got deeper into it, A, I realized how fucking hard it is.

3267
03:34:48.360 --> 03:34:51.243
Like, there's, like, nothing... Yeah.

3268
03:34:51.303 --> 03:34:52.985
It takes a lot of time and effort.

3269
03:34:53.126 --> 03:34:56.369
A lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of skill building, a lot of, like...

3270
03:34:57.230 --> 03:35:18.160
understanding so many sub skills and different like areas of study and then of course the more i did it the more i liked it and the better i got and then of course you reach this inflection point of like okay this is actually the thing i'm best at and so it would be kind of stupid to like go and do music now the success of the books like really kind of reignited this like i you know i did the books in the late 2010s

3271
03:35:20.561 --> 03:35:21.603
Bunch of money came in.

3272
03:35:21.623 --> 03:35:23.486
I kind of burnt myself out.

3273
03:35:23.626 --> 03:35:27.632
And so I was sitting in a position where I'm like, okay, I'm like, I can do whatever I want.

3274
03:35:27.753 --> 03:35:30.357
I'm like, I'm not, I'm not even 40 yet.

3275
03:35:31.058 --> 03:35:32.240
Got a ton of money in the bank.

3276
03:35:33.722 --> 03:35:36.544
I've got infinite opportunities in front of me, right?

3277
03:35:36.564 --> 03:35:37.764
Like, what do I want to do?

3278
03:35:38.004 --> 03:35:47.089
And it was funny because it felt like anything I started kind of playing with or leaning into, it almost felt irresponsible.

3279
03:35:47.550 --> 03:35:56.654
I don't think I really appreciated how special this situation we have is.

3280
03:35:57.795 --> 03:35:59.936
until like three or four years ago, right?

3281
03:35:59.956 --> 03:36:07.140
Like how many people are ever put in a situation where millions of other people will listen to them and trust them?

3282
03:36:08.200 --> 03:36:13.183
Like that is such an honor and such a privilege to have

3283
03:36:13.643 --> 03:36:17.944
So I started feeling a lot of responsibility towards owning that.

3284
03:36:18.204 --> 03:36:23.526
And I think it's like that responsibility piece, like that's when it starts to feel like I'm not choosing it anymore.

3285
03:36:23.606 --> 03:36:25.366
Like I'm being chosen by it.

3286
03:36:25.846 --> 03:36:31.848
And then, yeah, around the same time I came to the realization of like, this is just, I'm going to do this till I'm dead.

3287
03:36:33.149 --> 03:36:34.509
And that was freeing.

3288
03:36:34.969 --> 03:36:38.190
And the same way like getting engaged was freeing.

3289
03:36:38.462 --> 03:36:44.006
Yeah, it's funny that you went through the relationship things and getting married first and then the career thing.

3290
03:36:44.066 --> 03:36:46.288
Even though the career, you started that first.

3291
03:36:46.628 --> 03:36:46.808
Yeah.

3292
03:36:46.829 --> 03:36:48.550
Yeah, the timing of that's kind of interesting to me.

3293
03:36:48.570 --> 03:36:48.870
I don't know.

3294
03:36:48.890 --> 03:36:49.010
Yeah.

3295
03:36:49.030 --> 03:36:49.591
I don't know.

3296
03:36:49.911 --> 03:36:57.697
There's two points that Kierkegaard makes about this level of commitment that differentiates it from the ethical commitment.

3297
03:36:58.037 --> 03:36:59.699
One is the irrationality, right?

3298
03:36:59.719 --> 03:37:00.620
The absurdity of it.

3299
03:37:00.680 --> 03:37:02.201
Church of God calls this the leap of faith.

3300
03:37:02.241 --> 03:37:14.873
This is actually where the term leap of faith comes from, is that he compared it to jumping off a cliff and just trusting that something's going to catch you, even though you have no evidence that anything's going to catch you.

3301
03:37:15.514 --> 03:37:21.479
It takes that degree of faith and belief to achieve this kind of level of commitment.

3302
03:37:22.520 --> 03:37:36.579
The second thing that he talks about is he called it infinite resignation, which is that you have to be willing to commit to the thing knowing full well that it may not work.

3303
03:37:37.438 --> 03:37:39.379
it may not go the way you want it to.

3304
03:37:39.719 --> 03:37:42.261
It may fail absolutely miserably.

3305
03:37:42.741 --> 03:37:44.422
And this is kind of the music school thing, right?

3306
03:37:44.462 --> 03:37:48.584
It's like the people who can't not play music all day, right?

3307
03:37:48.925 --> 03:37:57.930
Like they totally understand that they might end up teaching a bunch of fifth graders band in some small town in Texas or whatever.

3308
03:37:57.950 --> 03:37:59.150
But it's like, they're okay with that.

3309
03:37:59.511 --> 03:38:01.572
They're like, this is just what I do, right?

3310
03:38:01.652 --> 03:38:05.094
So the ethical is still kind of bargaining in a lot of ways.

3311
03:38:05.434 --> 03:38:06.695
It's like, am I really going to get...

3312
03:38:07.375 --> 03:38:10.157
everything I want out of this, is this really going to represent who I am?

3313
03:38:10.197 --> 03:38:18.421
Whereas the religious is like, you feel like you have no choice, which is ironic because you kind of arrive back where you started.

3314
03:38:18.921 --> 03:38:22.603
The aesthetic feels like they have no choice, but it's because they refuse to choose.

3315
03:38:22.984 --> 03:38:23.964
They're afraid of choosing.

3316
03:38:24.004 --> 03:38:25.285
There's an anxiety of choosing.

3317
03:38:26.185 --> 03:38:28.086
The ethical has trained themselves to choose.

3318
03:38:29.587 --> 03:38:37.432
And has gotten good at choosing, but they're still evaluating every choice in terms of cost benefit and who they want to be.

3319
03:38:38.033 --> 03:38:49.320
Once you get to religious, it's you found yourself in a commitment that like you are so deeply embedded in your, your identity is so merged and meshed with that it no longer feels like a choice.

3320
03:38:50.001 --> 03:38:50.241
Yeah.

3321
03:38:50.521 --> 03:38:51.522
It just feels like who you are.

3322
03:38:51.902 --> 03:38:54.343
It does remind me a little bit of that Bukowski quote.

3323
03:38:54.363 --> 03:38:55.244
Yeah.

3324
03:38:55.324 --> 03:39:02.126
When John Martin went to him with this measly deal, like, if you don't want to write, I'll give you a few hundred bucks a month or whatever it was to live.

3325
03:39:02.206 --> 03:39:06.667
And Bukowski wrote in his journal, I think it was, you know, I have the choice.

3326
03:39:06.687 --> 03:39:10.408
I can stay at the post office where he was working and be miserable the rest of my life.

3327
03:39:10.848 --> 03:39:12.929
Or I can come out here and play it right or and starve.

3328
03:39:13.169 --> 03:39:13.369
Yeah.

3329
03:39:13.469 --> 03:39:14.449
And I've chosen to starve.

3330
03:39:14.570 --> 03:39:14.770
Yeah.

3331
03:39:15.150 --> 03:39:15.490
Like, yeah.

3332
03:39:16.390 --> 03:39:20.133
That's a religious level of dedication that he took.

3333
03:39:20.153 --> 03:39:21.614
And he understood.

3334
03:39:21.654 --> 03:39:22.595
He's like, you know what?

3335
03:39:23.135 --> 03:39:23.736
Might not work out.

3336
03:39:23.816 --> 03:39:24.997
I might starve, literally.

3337
03:39:25.137 --> 03:39:25.377
Yeah.

3338
03:39:26.278 --> 03:39:26.618
Whatever.

3339
03:39:26.898 --> 03:39:29.981
Which he has one of my favorite lines ever.

3340
03:39:30.001 --> 03:39:36.646
I know it's one of your favorite lines, too, which is perfectly appropriate for this, which he said, find what you love and let it kill you.

3341
03:39:36.986 --> 03:39:37.867
That's the level of.

3342
03:39:38.527 --> 03:39:40.148
that we're talking, right?

3343
03:39:40.388 --> 03:39:43.670
It's almost like choosing the vehicle towards your own desk.

3344
03:39:44.751 --> 03:39:46.432
You have to give your time to something.

3345
03:39:46.952 --> 03:39:48.393
Like Sartre would put it in these terms.

3346
03:39:48.413 --> 03:39:51.715
He would say, you have to spend your times on something.

3347
03:39:52.095 --> 03:39:57.258
In every moment you are already sacrificing, the only question is, what are you choosing to sacrifice for?

3348
03:39:58.639 --> 03:40:06.944
And the religious level of commitment is once you have found that thing in your life that you are willing to literally give your entire life to,

3349
03:40:08.457 --> 03:40:12.361
I will give all of my time to this thing because why?

3350
03:40:12.621 --> 03:40:13.141
Just because.

3351
03:40:13.262 --> 03:40:13.482
Yeah.

3352
03:40:13.722 --> 03:40:13.922
Yeah.

3353
03:40:14.042 --> 03:40:14.723
That's just who I am.

3354
03:40:15.063 --> 03:40:18.306
I saw an interview with Mick Jagger recently.

3355
03:40:18.807 --> 03:40:20.829
And you know, he's getting old.

3356
03:40:21.529 --> 03:40:21.870
Yeah.

3357
03:40:22.210 --> 03:40:24.472
So he was doing a lot of reflection back on his life.

3358
03:40:24.492 --> 03:40:29.897
And he said, you know, people in this industry, you have to have a big ego, he said, to be in this industry.

3359
03:40:29.917 --> 03:40:32.900
I actually think what he meant, though, was this blinding faith thing.

3360
03:40:33.040 --> 03:40:37.463
in yourself or just in the fact that you're like, this is what I'm here to do.

3361
03:40:37.643 --> 03:40:38.563
Screw everybody else.

3362
03:40:38.663 --> 03:40:38.843
Right.

3363
03:40:38.863 --> 03:40:41.645
He called it a big ego, but I'm not sure if that's exactly what he meant about it.

3364
03:40:42.445 --> 03:40:48.329
I think anytime you enter an industry like that, like you have to be delusional about yourself.

3365
03:40:48.349 --> 03:40:48.589
Yeah.

3366
03:40:49.409 --> 03:40:50.911
Or you just have to not care.

3367
03:40:51.011 --> 03:40:51.231
Yeah.

3368
03:40:51.251 --> 03:40:52.212
Like genuinely not care.

3369
03:40:52.232 --> 03:40:52.352
Right.

3370
03:40:52.372 --> 03:40:53.032
Like Bukowski.

3371
03:40:53.152 --> 03:40:53.353
Right.

3372
03:40:53.493 --> 03:40:56.936
And it's funny because I think with music, A, I did not have that ego.

3373
03:40:56.956 --> 03:40:59.398
I did not have a delusional belief in my own abilities.

3374
03:41:00.279 --> 03:41:01.319
And B, I did care.

3375
03:41:01.339 --> 03:41:08.426
I was like, I don't want to, I don't want to be fucking broke and, you know, playing dive bars when I'm 45.

3376
03:41:08.726 --> 03:41:09.667
Like that sounds awful.

3377
03:41:09.927 --> 03:41:11.888
I would rather have a real career and a real job.

3378
03:41:12.309 --> 03:41:14.711
Whereas I think a lot of people in music, like they're fine with that.

3379
03:41:14.791 --> 03:41:14.931
Yeah.

3380
03:41:14.951 --> 03:41:15.812
They're totally fine with that.

3381
03:41:15.832 --> 03:41:15.932
Yeah.

3382
03:41:16.072 --> 03:41:17.253
Whereas with writing, I didn't care.

3383
03:41:17.573 --> 03:41:19.095
I was like, cool.

3384
03:41:19.135 --> 03:41:19.975
I mean, this is fun.

3385
03:41:20.015 --> 03:41:22.818
I'll publish a bunch of stuff and we'll see what happens.

3386
03:41:23.558 --> 03:41:23.759
Yeah.

3387
03:41:23.939 --> 03:41:24.099
Yeah.

3388
03:41:24.119 --> 03:41:34.108
And if we do want to explain kind of this from a secular way of instead of religious way, there's a lot of research around like having a calling and a vocation.

3389
03:41:34.808 --> 03:41:35.048
Right.

3390
03:41:35.088 --> 03:41:40.574
Like finding your calling and finding your vocation or at least choosing that, I guess, is probably a better term for it.

3391
03:41:41.095 --> 03:41:43.457
There were these two researchers back in the 2000s, Dick and Duffy.

3392
03:41:43.477 --> 03:41:46.701
They kind of did a lot of these initial studies around it.

3393
03:41:46.961 --> 03:41:47.662
Dick and Duffy.

3394
03:41:47.742 --> 03:41:48.302
Dick and Duffy.

3395
03:41:49.384 --> 03:41:50.505
Shout out to Dick and Duffy.

3396
03:41:50.545 --> 03:41:50.905
Yeah.

3397
03:41:51.926 --> 03:42:10.695
2009 maybe what a researching duo man they define a calling as it's like this they use a little bit of religious language a transcendent summons towards purposeful work okay so it is that it's you're called towards it like you said you're chosen by it almost these people who have what they think of as a calling yeah

3398
03:42:10.935 --> 03:42:12.876
Again, they feel like they're chosen by it.

3399
03:42:13.556 --> 03:42:16.697
And it's associated with a greater sense of self-concept clarity.

3400
03:42:16.717 --> 03:42:22.439
Like we've talked about, you have a more defined self around this, a higher wellbeing, professional commitment around it, life satisfaction.

3401
03:42:22.459 --> 03:42:24.020
You're more persistent and resilient.

3402
03:42:24.300 --> 03:42:26.161
Like all of those things come along with it, right?

3403
03:42:27.308 --> 03:42:29.229
Just searching for it isn't enough, obviously.

3404
03:42:29.269 --> 03:42:33.933
And that's another thing they say, you know, there's a lot of people who out there who do they search for the calling.

3405
03:42:34.793 --> 03:42:35.974
Just searching for it isn't enough.

3406
03:42:36.014 --> 03:42:37.815
You do actually end up having to commit.

3407
03:42:38.215 --> 03:42:41.358
You're like, well, okay, what if you don't have a calling in the first place, right?

3408
03:42:41.638 --> 03:42:44.720
Then how are you supposed to, if it chooses you and you can't find it?

3409
03:42:46.282 --> 03:42:54.150
Really what I think, I don't think the research really specifically says this, but if I'm reading between the lines, there is some degree of commit first.

3410
03:42:54.471 --> 03:42:54.651
Yeah.

3411
03:42:54.831 --> 03:42:56.813
And then you kind of develop the calling around it.

3412
03:42:57.274 --> 03:42:59.336
Very much what your story is telling too, I think.

3413
03:42:59.476 --> 03:43:00.237
Right.

3414
03:43:00.457 --> 03:43:00.837
Is that...

3415
03:43:01.718 --> 03:43:05.759
At a certain point, I think you do feel like, oh, this is what I was here for.

3416
03:43:06.399 --> 03:43:08.679
We're talking a lot about creative pursuits.

3417
03:43:08.740 --> 03:43:12.100
And people think of these things when they think of callings.

3418
03:43:12.140 --> 03:43:19.662
Oh, I don't want to be a writer or a musician or an artist of some kind or something that's creative in some way, shape, or form.

3419
03:43:20.302 --> 03:43:23.443
I had somebody come in and work on my furnace one time.

3420
03:43:23.463 --> 03:43:24.803
This guy, he was an HVAC guy.

3421
03:43:26.227 --> 03:43:34.176
And he comes in and immediately I could just tell this guy was super, super in to heating and air conditioning.

3422
03:43:34.757 --> 03:43:35.098
Okay.

3423
03:43:35.858 --> 03:43:40.364
I mean, I get to talking to this guy and I'm like kind of just watching him and he just starts explaining things to me.

3424
03:43:40.424 --> 03:43:41.465
Like he's teaching me.

3425
03:43:41.725 --> 03:43:41.945
Right.

3426
03:43:42.026 --> 03:43:42.646
In that moment.

3427
03:43:43.367 --> 03:43:44.588
And I didn't ask him at all.

3428
03:43:44.728 --> 03:43:44.928
Yeah.

3429
03:43:45.168 --> 03:43:48.250
And then he just sits here and he starts talking to me about HVAC stuff.

3430
03:43:48.490 --> 03:43:48.711
Yeah.

3431
03:43:48.811 --> 03:43:51.552
And I could just immediately tell him like, this guy is super into what he does.

3432
03:43:51.833 --> 03:43:55.015
And then I just start talking with him and I'm like, how did you get into this and this and that?

3433
03:43:55.035 --> 03:43:56.916
And he's like, oh, I've just kind of always been interested in it.

3434
03:43:56.936 --> 03:43:57.877
And I really keep up on it.

3435
03:43:57.897 --> 03:44:00.158
I go to classes on the weekends, almost every weekend on HVAC.

3436
03:44:00.198 --> 03:44:01.099
I'm like, hold on.

3437
03:44:01.559 --> 03:44:05.001
You spend your nine to five Monday through Friday doing this.

3438
03:44:05.061 --> 03:44:07.203
And then you go on the weekends and you keep doing this.

3439
03:44:07.903 --> 03:44:12.226
I don't think it has to be these pie in the sky pursuits that we have.

3440
03:44:12.306 --> 03:44:13.346
If you have one of those, that's great.

3441
03:44:13.366 --> 03:44:13.987
Don't get me wrong.

3442
03:44:14.307 --> 03:44:18.530
But I have an immense amount of respect and admiration for that guy for finding what it was.

3443
03:44:18.550 --> 03:44:20.771
And I think a lot of us see that in our lives.

3444
03:44:21.111 --> 03:44:26.475
You see somebody out there who's like, they love being a teacher or they love whatever it is.

3445
03:44:26.715 --> 03:44:27.135
Sewing.

3446
03:44:27.335 --> 03:44:27.755
I don't know.

3447
03:44:28.416 --> 03:44:31.658
Own a small business that makes a little bit of money for them and they're able to live that way.

3448
03:44:31.678 --> 03:44:33.319
But they're super, super into it.

3449
03:44:33.359 --> 03:44:34.600
And they're like, this is what I'm here for.

3450
03:44:35.560 --> 03:44:39.584
I worked at a bakery one time in a mall.

3451
03:44:39.604 --> 03:44:40.945
And we got a new manager.

3452
03:44:40.985 --> 03:44:44.628
And her passion was decorating cakes and cookies.

3453
03:44:45.248 --> 03:44:47.270
So far, she was like, this is what I'm here to do.

3454
03:44:47.290 --> 03:44:48.170
Just obsessed with it.

3455
03:44:48.351 --> 03:44:49.191
Obsessed with it.

3456
03:44:49.652 --> 03:44:52.394
And so I don't think we got to get super crazy about this.

3457
03:44:53.134 --> 03:44:54.215
Again, it goes back to that.

3458
03:44:54.315 --> 03:44:58.138
When you commit to something, that self-coalesces around it.

3459
03:44:58.339 --> 03:45:02.302
And I think we have a lot of admiration and respect for those people, too.

3460
03:45:02.322 --> 03:45:03.463
It doesn't have to be something...

3461
03:45:04.103 --> 03:45:05.204
wild and crazy at all.

3462
03:45:05.324 --> 03:45:05.844
Absolutely.

3463
03:45:06.464 --> 03:45:19.672
It reminds me, there was a story in Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, which, by the way, great book around this because he makes the point in that book that you don't find a vocation that you're passionate about.

3464
03:45:19.712 --> 03:45:25.355
What generally happens to most people is they find something that they have a talent for or they have a knack at

3465
03:45:26.325 --> 03:45:27.546
They get really good at it.

3466
03:45:27.726 --> 03:45:33.908
And it's that process of mastery that generates the passion and the sense of purpose around it.

3467
03:45:34.388 --> 03:45:40.111
And so I remember in that book, he uses the example of there was a secretary at the university that he works at.

3468
03:45:40.611 --> 03:45:42.492
And he talked to her and she was like...

3469
03:45:43.592 --> 03:45:51.175
Absolutely believed full heartedly that being a secretary at a university was her life's calling that that was like why she was put on earth.

3470
03:45:52.155 --> 03:46:03.560
And he asked her like why she felt that way and she was like, oh, I'm like the connective tissue between so many departments and I'm like, I'm like the machinery in between all the different cogs and if I wasn't here then like,

3471
03:46:03.940 --> 03:46:08.145
There's so many important people that make very important decisions for tens of thousands of students.

3472
03:46:08.165 --> 03:46:12.811
They wouldn't be able to make their decisions if I wasn't here handling these administrative tasks for them.

3473
03:46:12.851 --> 03:46:18.458
And she felt an extreme amount of purpose and significance around...

3474
03:46:19.439 --> 03:46:22.900
A job that I think most young people wouldn't even look at twice.

3475
03:46:23.280 --> 03:46:31.502
There's a piece here, we talked about this in the purpose episode, but there's a component here of feeling that you have something to give.

3476
03:46:32.422 --> 03:46:41.624
And then I think there's also a component of kind of natural talent, natural ability, or something that you are uniquely suited to do that most other people are not.

3477
03:46:42.300 --> 03:46:46.884
There's a point, I think we'll make this here in a little bit as well too, but you can't just jump right into this as well.

3478
03:46:46.904 --> 03:46:50.568
You kind of have to go through that ethical exploration that we talked about.

3479
03:46:50.588 --> 03:46:54.672
You know, there's this research out there back in the 2000s as well.

3480
03:46:54.712 --> 03:47:02.339
Duffy was a part of this as well, where like college students who like they'd sense they have, I know I have a purpose, I just haven't found it yet.

3481
03:47:02.899 --> 03:47:07.023
They were actually more undecided and less clear about the...

3482
03:47:07.824 --> 03:47:12.665
kind of their vocational identity, about their identities really, than people who just weren't searching at all.

3483
03:47:12.945 --> 03:47:18.306
So it was like they kind of, they had that open loop, all those open doors, but they hadn't committed to anything yet.

3484
03:47:18.787 --> 03:47:28.569
So it's kind of like this evidence that you have to, you really do have to go through this stage and this exploration and this conscious choosing before you can really get to that more religious stage, I think.

3485
03:47:29.049 --> 03:47:29.289
Okay.

3486
03:47:29.309 --> 03:47:35.150
There's something really interesting about that because anecdotally, the most

3487
03:47:37.851 --> 03:47:41.292
are always talking about their fucking calling and their fucking purpose.

3488
03:47:41.452 --> 03:47:54.315
Like when I think about the most noncommittal, impulsive, self-indulgent people, I know they're always justifying their behavior is like, Oh, I just feel like this is, this is part of my calling.

3489
03:47:54.335 --> 03:47:55.895
This is my purpose.

3490
03:47:56.055 --> 03:47:56.855
I'm exploring.

3491
03:47:56.935 --> 03:47:57.776
Right.

3492
03:47:57.876 --> 03:48:03.357
And meanwhile, they're just, they're just jumping from one thing to the next because they think the next thing is their calling.

3493
03:48:03.557 --> 03:48:03.697
It's,

3494
03:48:04.277 --> 03:48:05.098
it's really interesting.

3495
03:48:05.118 --> 03:48:10.203
Whereas like the people who are actually making commitments, they're just being very practical about it.

3496
03:48:10.303 --> 03:48:14.166
They're like this, you know, I need to set roots somewhere.

3497
03:48:14.226 --> 03:48:14.607
I need to

3498
03:48:16.165 --> 03:48:18.046
find my lane, get really good at it.

3499
03:48:18.386 --> 03:48:20.128
And they don't have to question who they are at that point.

3500
03:48:20.368 --> 03:48:21.028
Right, right.

3501
03:48:21.148 --> 03:48:24.470
And then the calling emerges as a side effect of that.

3502
03:48:24.790 --> 03:48:33.876
Like, I don't think there's an aesthetic person out there who like suddenly shows up in Costa Rica and is like, oh yeah, I was meant to be a surfer in Costa Rica for the rest of my life.

3503
03:48:33.916 --> 03:48:35.837
Like, I don't think that ever happens.

3504
03:48:35.997 --> 03:48:38.099
No, I get the commitment isn't a one-time thing, right?

3505
03:48:38.199 --> 03:48:39.119
It's a mechanism.

3506
03:48:39.560 --> 03:48:39.820
Right.

3507
03:48:39.940 --> 03:48:42.081
And it's also, there's a skill aspect of that.

3508
03:48:42.101 --> 03:48:43.302
And a skill to a skill you build.

3509
03:48:43.322 --> 03:48:43.502
Yeah.

3510
03:48:43.522 --> 03:48:43.722
Yeah.

3511
03:48:43.762 --> 03:48:44.623
Like it is...

3512
03:48:45.223 --> 03:48:50.485
You have to develop the skill set of cutting off alternatives, get good at that.

3513
03:48:51.845 --> 03:48:59.108
That process of cutting out alternatives slowly winnows down what you find worth doing with your life.

3514
03:49:00.006 --> 03:49:05.131
And then eventually you arrive on one, two, three things that you're like, oh, this is what I was here for.

3515
03:49:05.672 --> 03:49:09.916
And it's that what I was here for is that is not like necessarily cosmically true.

3516
03:49:10.176 --> 03:49:10.396
It is.

3517
03:49:10.476 --> 03:49:11.377
That's the feeling.

3518
03:49:11.838 --> 03:49:12.959
That's what it feels like.

3519
03:49:13.039 --> 03:49:13.319
Okay.

3520
03:49:13.439 --> 03:49:14.881
It feels like it feels inevitable.

3521
03:49:15.361 --> 03:49:15.541
Right.

3522
03:49:15.561 --> 03:49:19.045
It feels like you couldn't decide otherwise if even if you wanted to.

3523
03:49:19.585 --> 03:49:22.428
Like at this point, like I feel like even if I wanted to.

3524
03:49:23.229 --> 03:49:24.350
to go get a different job.

3525
03:49:25.471 --> 03:49:26.432
I don't feel like I can't.

3526
03:49:26.532 --> 03:49:34.140
Like it just, it's so nonsensical to me at this point of like, why, why would I ever do that?

3527
03:49:34.360 --> 03:49:34.600
Right.

3528
03:49:35.040 --> 03:49:37.923
But you have all this evidence from before of making all those commitments and decisions.

3529
03:49:37.943 --> 03:49:39.445
And that's why you've come to that.

3530
03:49:39.505 --> 03:49:39.705
Yes.

3531
03:49:39.945 --> 03:49:40.586
realization.

3532
03:49:40.866 --> 03:49:44.049
Again, it's not, oh, it just dawned on me one day.

3533
03:49:44.550 --> 03:49:44.870
Correct.

3534
03:49:44.910 --> 03:49:45.531
It was a process.

3535
03:49:45.711 --> 03:49:47.413
It was like a multi-decade process.

3536
03:49:47.433 --> 03:49:48.834
Right, right.

3537
03:49:49.014 --> 03:49:50.316
A lot of fits and starts.

3538
03:49:50.876 --> 03:49:51.177
Yeah.

3539
03:49:51.377 --> 03:49:54.080
You know, we talked about constraints with Dan Gilbert's research.

3540
03:49:54.220 --> 03:49:56.162
I do think there is something about

3541
03:49:58.103 --> 03:50:02.486
kind of psychologically priming ourselves for some of these commitments.

3542
03:50:02.766 --> 03:50:08.391
I think you can kind of construct your environment and situation in such a way that you, you make these things more likely than not.

3543
03:50:08.551 --> 03:50:09.371
I'll give you an example.

3544
03:50:09.792 --> 03:50:18.318
Like Stephen Pressfield, who we're both fans of and a friend of mine, he has this concept that's called going pro.

3545
03:50:18.878 --> 03:50:26.223
And it's, it's, it's a book, any aspiring creative person, like definitely recommend, uh, uh,

3546
03:50:27.204 --> 03:50:34.308
Reading that, reading Going Pro, and then also reading The War of Art, I think they're both must-reads for anybody who wants to be in a creative field.

3547
03:50:34.868 --> 03:50:47.654
But his concept of Going Pro is basically like people who aspire to have a creative career, they tend to kind of waffle around and wait for inspiration and kind of wait for the world to recognize their genius and...

3548
03:50:49.335 --> 03:50:51.436
And find like the right moment or the right thing to do.

3549
03:50:51.556 --> 03:50:58.400
And what he points out is that he said, you should just start treating yourself as a professional before you're a professional, right?

3550
03:50:58.420 --> 03:51:03.483
So ask yourself, like, if I was a professional musician, what would my day be like?

3551
03:51:03.743 --> 03:51:08.926
Well, I would probably wake up and I would have a whole practice regimen and a rehearsal schedule.

3552
03:51:09.546 --> 03:51:10.486
And I would probably...

3553
03:51:11.647 --> 03:51:33.721
study theory at the same time every day and i would probably do like vocal lessons at the same time every day like you would be extremely regimented with your schedule and your timing and you would you would treat it like a job uh in a way that i definitely never did when i was in music school and i think most creative people never do and what pressfield recognized is that if you

3554
03:51:35.075 --> 03:51:41.482
get people to act as though they've already made the commitment, then the commitment kind of follows suit.

3555
03:51:41.502 --> 03:51:42.763
It's like what you said earlier.

3556
03:51:42.823 --> 03:51:47.548
It's like the action, you don't commit to something by thinking about it.

3557
03:51:47.588 --> 03:51:52.172
You act first, and then your brain catches up later to justify it, right?

3558
03:51:52.232 --> 03:51:56.337
And so what Pressfield is doing is he's basically giving people permission of like, okay, if you

3559
03:51:59.653 --> 03:52:18.791
set up a corner of your apartment to be your writing studio, set up a schedule every week, write for four hours a day, show up, have your favorite pens, have your favorite paper, download the writing software that you would use, and then play at Writer for a certain amount of time to see if it actually sticks.

3560
03:52:19.892 --> 03:52:32.156
I saw a video on YouTube where a guy was talking about, he was like, you know, there are a lot of people who want the results of an athlete, but they're not willing to actually like live like an athlete.

3561
03:52:32.656 --> 03:52:38.898
If you want elite fitness, then you have to live your life the way an athlete lives their life, right?

3562
03:52:38.958 --> 03:52:41.438
It's every meal's planned weeks in advance.

3563
03:52:41.838 --> 03:52:44.239
Every training session is planned weeks in advance.

3564
03:52:44.779 --> 03:52:47.040
You don't miss a day, you don't miss recovery.

3565
03:52:47.720 --> 03:52:53.867
He's like, people want to just kind of wander into a gym and work out really hard for an hour and be like, man, I wish I was like an athlete.

3566
03:52:53.967 --> 03:52:59.474
Like, I wish I had a six pack and was like fast, you know, like the guy was just explaining.

3567
03:52:59.494 --> 03:53:00.715
He's like, it doesn't work that way.

3568
03:53:01.216 --> 03:53:01.396
Right.

3569
03:53:01.416 --> 03:53:06.121
Like you have to, there's, you make the commitment first and then the results follow.

3570
03:53:06.662 --> 03:53:07.303
Does that make sense?

3571
03:53:07.583 --> 03:53:08.424
Yeah, absolutely.

3572
03:53:09.605 --> 03:53:12.448
One of my favorite quotes, too, is from Chuck Close.

3573
03:53:12.849 --> 03:53:13.910
He's a portrait artist.

3574
03:53:13.930 --> 03:53:16.273
He does these huge mosaic portraits.

3575
03:53:17.374 --> 03:53:18.715
And he was also disabled.

3576
03:53:18.815 --> 03:53:22.199
But he has this quote, he said, inspiration is for amateurs.

3577
03:53:22.299 --> 03:53:23.921
The rest of us just show up and get to work.

3578
03:53:23.981 --> 03:53:24.101
Yeah.

3579
03:53:24.121 --> 03:53:24.301
Yeah.

3580
03:53:25.102 --> 03:53:33.233
He said that all of his inspiration, all of the good ideas he ever had, all of the commitments he ever made came through the work itself.

3581
03:53:33.994 --> 03:53:34.314
Yeah.

3582
03:53:34.354 --> 03:53:36.457
He sat down and you get to work first.

3583
03:53:36.737 --> 03:53:36.938
Yeah.

3584
03:53:37.038 --> 03:53:38.440
And then you'll find the inspiration.

3585
03:53:38.520 --> 03:53:39.661
Then you'll find the purpose.

3586
03:53:39.701 --> 03:53:41.924
Then you'll find the reason and the commitment behind that.

3587
03:53:42.705 --> 03:53:44.727
So yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

3588
03:53:44.767 --> 03:53:46.828
You're like Michael Phelps too.

3589
03:53:46.848 --> 03:53:47.369
I remember him.

3590
03:53:48.210 --> 03:53:51.532
I think he didn't miss a workout day for, I can't remember how many years.

3591
03:53:52.273 --> 03:53:55.636
Every single day for like, I think it was like three years or more.

3592
03:53:55.756 --> 03:53:56.436
It might've been more than that.

3593
03:53:56.456 --> 03:53:56.917
I can't remember.

3594
03:53:57.197 --> 03:53:58.798
Did not miss a single workout, you know?

3595
03:53:58.818 --> 03:54:02.441
And everybody's like, oh yeah, but he's got these like huge limbs and he's like a freak of nature.

3596
03:54:02.461 --> 03:54:04.863
And it's like, yeah, he's a freak of nature because he showed up every single day.

3597
03:54:04.883 --> 03:54:05.023
Yeah.

3598
03:54:05.564 --> 03:54:07.065
Even when he wasn't inspired to do that.

3599
03:54:07.285 --> 03:54:07.846
Yeah.

3600
03:54:07.946 --> 03:54:10.207
That's a level of religiosity if you want to talk about

3601
03:54:11.148 --> 03:54:38.058
uh that you know i think you just made a really interesting connection there and that like once you take a commitment to a certain degree people use that term that like it's like they got religious about it right like it's it's if somebody works out every single day for say seven years straight you would describe that in religious terms they are treating their workouts the way some people treat church some people treat prayer

3602
03:54:38.633 --> 03:54:45.299
Like I imagine a lot of people, I was initially turned off by Kierkegaard's kind of religious language around this.

3603
03:54:45.419 --> 03:55:00.994
The more you sit with it and the more you dig into it, the more it actually starts making sense that it's like the same mechanisms in our brain that are kind of responsible for religious faith and religious belief are also responsible for the deepest, most profound commitments of our life.

3604
03:55:01.014 --> 03:55:01.274
Yeah.

3605
03:55:01.575 --> 03:55:01.795
Yeah.

3606
03:55:01.935 --> 03:55:03.817
We just have religious brains kind of, yeah.

3607
03:55:03.997 --> 03:55:09.580
You know, we've talked about other areas of life too, and we're really focusing on career paths or, you know, callings, whatever.

3608
03:55:10.160 --> 03:55:12.341
There's other areas that you can apply this as well.

3609
03:55:12.361 --> 03:55:15.383
You know, marriage being one of those is like, that's a leap of faith, right?

3610
03:55:16.143 --> 03:55:19.025
You don't know what that person's going to be like in 30 years, 50 years, 60 years.

3611
03:55:19.545 --> 03:55:20.826
That's a leap of faith, right?

3612
03:55:21.186 --> 03:55:22.907
Maybe the city you live in could be too.

3613
03:55:23.047 --> 03:55:24.208
You know, there's some people...

3614
03:55:24.728 --> 03:55:26.609
You see this a lot with New Yorkers, right?

3615
03:55:26.629 --> 03:55:29.290
They're like, I can't imagine living anywhere else.

3616
03:55:29.790 --> 03:55:32.852
Some people were born there or moved there or whatever, and they're like, this city is part of me.

3617
03:55:32.892 --> 03:55:33.712
I'm part of the city.

3618
03:55:34.052 --> 03:55:34.252
Yeah.

3619
03:55:34.352 --> 03:55:37.173
There's kind of a religious level of commitment there too with that.

3620
03:55:37.394 --> 03:55:39.254
I've actually got a great story around this.

3621
03:55:39.354 --> 03:55:48.538
When I wanted to propose to my wife, like I mentioned earlier, I was very anxious about it, agonized over it for multiple months.

3622
03:55:48.838 --> 03:55:49.779
It was also kind of that...

3623
03:55:50.139 --> 03:55:53.442
phase in the relationship where it's like, all right, dude, shit or get off the pot.

3624
03:55:53.482 --> 03:55:55.684
Like, are you going to buy a ring or what?

3625
03:55:55.764 --> 03:56:03.089
You know, at this point, you know, I had met her family and everybody loved each other and she had met my family and everybody loved each other.

3626
03:56:03.129 --> 03:56:09.174
And pretty much every time I went home and saw my parents, they'd be like, so what are you buying a ring?

3627
03:56:09.234 --> 03:56:10.595
Do we have a wedding to look forward to?

3628
03:56:10.615 --> 03:56:11.296
Like what's going on?

3629
03:56:11.316 --> 03:56:13.218
And I'd be like, uh, I don't know.

3630
03:56:13.318 --> 03:56:14.018
I'll get back to you.

3631
03:56:14.038 --> 03:56:16.040
And this went on for like six months.

3632
03:56:16.975 --> 03:56:20.158
And then finally, I remember I was having dinner with my dad and my stepmother one night.

3633
03:56:21.098 --> 03:56:24.721
And they started getting on my case about like, you bought a ring yet?

3634
03:56:24.941 --> 03:56:27.583
Like, when are you going to settle down?

3635
03:56:27.623 --> 03:56:28.965
Like, come on, she's a good one.

3636
03:56:28.985 --> 03:56:30.125
You know, all that sort of thing.

3637
03:56:30.946 --> 03:56:33.548
And I was like, yeah, I don't, I'm thinking about it.

3638
03:56:33.588 --> 03:56:34.729
I think I'm going to do it.

3639
03:56:34.749 --> 03:56:37.691
It's just like, I don't know the right time or whatever.

3640
03:56:37.752 --> 03:56:40.614
And then my stepmom looked at me and she's like, what are you waiting for?

3641
03:56:41.114 --> 03:56:42.916
Like, what's the holdup here?

3642
03:56:43.136 --> 03:56:45.778
And I looked at her and I was like, you know, I just...

3643
03:56:47.505 --> 03:56:49.887
How do I know she's the right one?

3644
03:56:49.907 --> 03:56:51.268
I mean, it's the rest of my life.

3645
03:56:51.328 --> 03:56:54.932
How do I know I'm going to want to be with her for the rest of my life?

3646
03:56:55.672 --> 03:56:58.155
And my stepmother looked at me like I was a fucking idiot.

3647
03:56:58.815 --> 03:57:05.621
And she was like, Mark Manson, I've been with your father for 26 years, and I still don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

3648
03:57:06.122 --> 03:57:08.704
You just put the ring on the finger and you do it.

3649
03:57:08.724 --> 03:57:09.865
I don't know.

3650
03:57:12.587 --> 03:57:12.907
All right.

3651
03:57:12.947 --> 03:57:13.268
Fair enough.

3652
03:57:13.288 --> 03:57:13.788
It's a leap of faith.

3653
03:57:13.988 --> 03:57:14.448
Fair enough.

3654
03:57:14.508 --> 03:57:14.809
It is.

3655
03:57:14.849 --> 03:57:15.589
It's a leap of faith.

3656
03:57:15.609 --> 03:57:15.829
Yeah.

3657
03:57:16.029 --> 03:57:17.410
And it is irrational.

3658
03:57:17.450 --> 03:57:18.952
By definition, it's irrational.

3659
03:57:19.452 --> 03:57:20.573
It's completely irrational.

3660
03:57:20.673 --> 03:57:21.313
Correct.

3661
03:57:21.333 --> 03:57:29.539
Two strangers coming together, legally agreeing to share all of their assets, to call themselves a family.

3662
03:57:30.179 --> 03:57:33.422
There's nothing rational about it.

3663
03:57:34.182 --> 03:57:38.065
It is very deeply irrational and absurd on some level.

3664
03:57:38.085 --> 03:57:38.185
Yeah.

3665
03:57:39.018 --> 03:57:40.220
But that's what makes it profound.

3666
03:57:40.260 --> 03:57:46.710
That's what makes it one of the most profound commitments that you can have in life, right?

3667
03:57:46.990 --> 03:57:47.851
Is the absurdity.

3668
03:57:48.172 --> 03:57:51.877
It is the value, as Kierkegaard called it, the value of the absurdity.

3669
03:57:52.798 --> 03:57:58.883
And I think this is what people often, I think it's a mistaken view.

3670
03:57:59.543 --> 03:58:03.927
They say, you know, whatever, 30, 40, 50% of marriages end in divorce and all this.

3671
03:58:04.167 --> 03:58:07.069
I don't think that's a failure of the institution, right?

3672
03:58:07.549 --> 03:58:12.993
It's a failure of somebody not seeing that with their eyes wide open, that absurdity.

3673
03:58:13.013 --> 03:58:13.394
Yeah.

3674
03:58:13.974 --> 03:58:14.214
Right.

3675
03:58:14.395 --> 03:58:15.576
And committing to it anyway.

3676
03:58:15.676 --> 03:58:17.298
Everyone wants to blame marriage, right?

3677
03:58:17.398 --> 03:58:19.580
Oh, marriage, it's a failed institution.

3678
03:58:19.660 --> 03:58:20.141
It's too hard.

3679
03:58:20.161 --> 03:58:22.083
And it's not what humans were meant to do.

3680
03:58:22.123 --> 03:58:23.264
Well, okay, sure.

3681
03:58:23.724 --> 03:58:35.997
No, but there's also, I think it's more of a failure on the individual's part not to acknowledge that absurdity, not to acknowledge the commitment itself is something that is not a one-time thing.

3682
03:58:36.157 --> 03:58:44.259
Well, and to come back to the infinite resignation, just because there's a 30, 40% chance it fails doesn't mean it's a bad commitment.

3683
03:58:44.419 --> 03:58:44.639
Right.

3684
03:58:44.679 --> 03:58:44.900
Yeah.

3685
03:58:45.220 --> 03:58:45.420
Right.

3686
03:58:45.560 --> 03:58:52.222
In fact, you would say that for it to be a good commitment, it should still be worth doing even if it had a 30 or 40% chance.

3687
03:58:53.442 --> 03:59:00.268
It was interesting, not to bring Elon back into this, but he happens to have a couple good quotes around commitment.

3688
03:59:00.668 --> 03:59:05.812
I remember watching an interview of Elon a number of years ago, and they were asking him about SpaceX.

3689
03:59:06.132 --> 03:59:14.819
And for people who are not familiar, SpaceX should have failed like half a dozen different times.

3690
03:59:15.059 --> 03:59:21.825
And it really survived purely on the sheer will and ingenuity of him and his core engineering team.

3691
03:59:22.170 --> 03:59:23.790
So he was being interviewed about it.

3692
03:59:23.970 --> 03:59:30.232
And the interviewer was saying, they were kind of talking about like why, how it should have failed multiple times and how he stuck through it.

3693
03:59:30.852 --> 03:59:33.192
And he literally put all of his money into it.

3694
03:59:33.212 --> 03:59:36.353
So it's like, if it didn't work, he would have been broke.

3695
03:59:36.633 --> 03:59:45.995
And the interviewer asked him, they said, what was, what do you believe the chances, like looking back, what do you think the chances were that SpaceX was going to succeed after the third rocket blew up?

3696
03:59:46.055 --> 03:59:49.256
And Elon said he was like, honestly, probably like five to 10% chance.

3697
03:59:50.143 --> 03:59:56.865
And then the interviewer said, what percent chance do you think it would have had to be for you to walk away?

3698
03:59:57.665 --> 04:00:00.246
And Elon's answer was really interesting.

3699
04:00:00.426 --> 04:00:04.208
He said, there's no percent chance that I would have walked away.

3700
04:00:04.388 --> 04:00:11.430
He said, even if it was 100% chance going to fail, I believed it was worth doing, which is crazy.

3701
04:00:11.938 --> 04:00:13.941
a religious level of commitment to something.

3702
04:00:14.121 --> 04:00:14.321
Yeah.

3703
04:00:14.601 --> 04:00:17.585
Like, say what you want, but it's a religious level of commitment.

3704
04:00:17.925 --> 04:00:26.516
He kind of went on to say, too, he's like, I think we should actually try to do things that are still worth doing, even if we know they're going to fail.

3705
04:00:26.896 --> 04:00:28.057
Like, his multiple marriages.

3706
04:00:28.077 --> 04:00:28.178
Yeah.

3707
04:00:28.978 --> 04:00:29.478
Yeah.

3708
04:00:29.518 --> 04:00:30.058
Yeah.

3709
04:00:30.198 --> 04:00:30.458
Sorry.

3710
04:00:30.478 --> 04:00:31.799
That was a blow blow.

3711
04:00:31.899 --> 04:00:32.399
You had to.

3712
04:00:32.419 --> 04:00:33.539
I mean, it's cheap shopping.

3713
04:00:33.559 --> 04:00:33.739
Yeah.

3714
04:00:33.779 --> 04:00:34.539
He's he.

3715
04:00:34.739 --> 04:00:34.979
Yeah.

3716
04:00:35.219 --> 04:00:36.359
He's kind of asking for it.

3717
04:00:36.439 --> 04:00:39.400
But but I do think there's something very profound in that.

3718
04:00:39.660 --> 04:00:39.880
Right.

3719
04:00:40.120 --> 04:00:43.701
It's like, what is worth doing, even if it's guaranteed to fail?

3720
04:00:43.821 --> 04:00:44.081
Yeah.

3721
04:00:44.561 --> 04:00:49.782
And I would again apply it to to like somewhere you live, choosing a place as well.

3722
04:00:49.962 --> 04:00:51.282
You could you could say that.

3723
04:00:51.562 --> 04:00:53.482
I mean, you know, where I live is not perfect.

3724
04:00:53.642 --> 04:00:56.943
And I know that and I kind of have committed to it either way.

3725
04:00:57.323 --> 04:01:00.285
If there is any doubt that creeps in, then I have to reevaluate that.

3726
04:01:00.345 --> 04:01:03.568
And again, it's a process and the commitment is a mechanism.

3727
04:01:03.968 --> 04:01:06.750
It has come to a point where it's like, oh yeah, no, I belong here.

3728
04:01:07.571 --> 04:01:10.393
I think people are looking for a sense of belonging for somewhere.

3729
04:01:10.513 --> 04:01:13.836
And I think it's the same thing as like a relationship or a job or whatever.

3730
04:01:13.916 --> 04:01:16.278
There is a level of you have to commit first.

3731
04:01:16.978 --> 04:01:18.379
There's a process to it as well.

3732
04:01:19.180 --> 04:01:20.421
Then you get the sense of belonging.

3733
04:01:20.461 --> 04:01:21.982
It's not you show up and, oh, I belong here.

3734
04:01:22.202 --> 04:01:48.668
yeah which i think a lot of aesthetic people are like oh they show up in places look at this all these exciting things i belong here and then they find out oh there's all these shitty parts to it too yeah i think i think a steed's mistake novelty and stimulation for belonging it's funny i remember i remember getting in an argument with a friend um about this and he used to claim that certain places had better energy than others and i mean you know how i feel about energy quote unquote

3735
04:01:52.489 --> 04:02:17.357
you know because he was speaking in like cosmological terms he's like you know some countries just have better energy and i'm like okay time out you're like making a generalization about tens of millions of people like what the fuck do you mean by energy it's like well i get off the plane and i look out the window and i just feel it i'm like okay well what are you feeling specifically it's like well it's just there's just an energy i'm like well couldn't that energy just be

3736
04:02:18.397 --> 04:02:45.079
you liking where you landed like looking out the window i mean like this looks cool yeah but it's not that simple i'm like okay well what am i missing here right and it's just like ascribing like temporary emotional feelings and vibes and making like grand universal claims based on those vibes it's like okay i feel good in thailand therefore thailand has good energy and everybody should go to thailand like it's that kind of

3737
04:02:45.679 --> 04:03:09.221
simplicity and immaturity that that i i think just backfires on these people three months go by they hit the dip in thailand and they're like oh the energy changed the energy in vietnam is actually much better right right and you will be in that endless cycle forever forever yeah for fucking ever yeah if that's how you treat it yeah yeah what did we learn drew bernie oh boy

3738
04:03:10.958 --> 04:03:12.578
This was a light and cheery episode.

3739
04:03:12.618 --> 04:03:12.918
Yeah.

3740
04:03:13.138 --> 04:03:17.159
Nothing like four hours of Kierkegaard to fucking melt your brain.

3741
04:03:17.359 --> 04:03:18.320
I mean, he was intense.

3742
04:03:18.460 --> 04:03:19.340
He was intense.

3743
04:03:19.380 --> 04:03:23.261
And that's actually one of the lessons I got out of it is just the intensity of all of this.

3744
04:03:23.281 --> 04:03:26.621
If you don't feel some of that intensity, like he calls it the dizziness of freedom.

3745
04:03:26.961 --> 04:03:31.802
Like he said, the depth of your anxiety is kind of a reflection of the depth of how spiritual you are.

3746
04:03:31.902 --> 04:03:32.802
Like that's how he put it.

3747
04:03:33.042 --> 04:03:35.243
And I think that's one thing I took away from it is just...

3748
04:03:35.803 --> 04:03:37.524
This is an intense thing to go through.

3749
04:03:38.105 --> 04:03:39.586
And it has to be that way.

3750
04:03:39.606 --> 04:03:47.231
It has to be, because it is some of the most fundamental base level feelings and perceptions we have about ourselves.

3751
04:03:47.711 --> 04:03:51.594
Yeah, and I look back and some of those decisions that I've brought up, they were very, very intense.

3752
04:03:52.014 --> 04:03:56.717
And whether they ended good or bad, it gave me some sort of clarity, like you talked about.

3753
04:03:56.857 --> 04:04:02.041
Even if it didn't turn out well, it still gave you some sort of clarity around it, which is kind of what we're all going for.

3754
04:04:02.421 --> 04:04:03.502
I'm not so sure I have...

3755
04:04:04.897 --> 04:04:12.025
I've met that like real religious to the bone kind of clarity yet, you know, where you have a couple areas of your life.

3756
04:04:12.306 --> 04:04:12.526
Yeah.

3757
04:04:12.706 --> 04:04:24.700
It's definitely made me like consider like go back to those times where I was making those commitments or those decisions, really just decisions, even if they weren't a commitment, the power in those moments.

3758
04:04:25.400 --> 04:04:28.583
The freedom is really exercised through those decisions.

3759
04:04:28.983 --> 04:04:30.424
Got to pay the consequences of all of it.

3760
04:04:30.724 --> 04:04:30.904
Right.

3761
04:04:30.944 --> 04:04:31.825
And they're not limitless.

3762
04:04:31.845 --> 04:04:32.505
Don't get me wrong.

3763
04:04:33.166 --> 04:04:40.271
But if I'm ever feeling lost or whatever, I know that I need to go back to, oh, okay, there's some sort of decision I'm avoiding.

3764
04:04:40.371 --> 04:04:41.912
There's some commitment that I'm avoiding.

3765
04:04:42.152 --> 04:04:43.994
There's some way I'm living in bad faith.

3766
04:04:44.254 --> 04:04:44.434
Yeah.

3767
04:04:44.474 --> 04:04:46.636
We talked about acting like I don't have the choice here.

3768
04:04:46.836 --> 04:04:46.996
Yeah.

3769
04:04:47.156 --> 04:04:48.097
When I actually do.

3770
04:04:48.457 --> 04:04:51.399
That was, this was a very, very good reminder of that.

3771
04:04:51.639 --> 04:04:52.340
And, um, yeah.

3772
04:04:52.960 --> 04:04:54.981
And yeah, just to like lean into that intensity.

3773
04:04:55.482 --> 04:04:57.423
The dizziness of freedom is anxiety.

3774
04:04:57.723 --> 04:05:02.506
Like you said, Kierkegaard kind of gave us the modern use of that word anxiety.

3775
04:05:02.646 --> 04:05:03.306
Yeah, he did.

3776
04:05:03.386 --> 04:05:12.712
We see it as a bad thing, but actually there's a way to kind of turn it into some sort of like activation energy or whatever you want to call it that is not comfortable.

3777
04:05:12.752 --> 04:05:17.015
But turning towards it is really, really important in those moments.

3778
04:05:18.318 --> 04:05:26.664
I am more convinced than ever that even though he wrote in the 1840s, this is the philosopher for the 21st century.

3779
04:05:26.924 --> 04:05:28.385
He called it the present age back then.

3780
04:05:28.425 --> 04:05:29.506
It's the present age today.

3781
04:05:29.526 --> 04:05:29.986
Oh my God.

3782
04:05:30.006 --> 04:05:31.667
He's describing it word to word, right?

3783
04:05:31.787 --> 04:05:34.489
It's, I mean, talk about a guy calling his shot.

3784
04:05:34.649 --> 04:05:37.131
Like he is, he had no idea.

3785
04:05:37.411 --> 04:05:40.373
He had no idea where things were going to go and how.

3786
04:05:40.953 --> 04:06:06.387
prescient a lot of these observations were going to end up becoming you want to hear something funny i learned actually prepping for this episode that i didn't know the name kirkegaard in danish the translation is churchyard or graveyard churchyard or graveyard yeah really yeah you know it's like sometimes you meet somebody and their name is like literally who they are and uh kirkegaard is yeah it's churchyard or graveyard just like almost too perfect

3787
04:06:07.072 --> 04:06:08.113
He was a fascinating dude.

3788
04:06:08.273 --> 04:06:08.593
Yeah.

3789
04:06:08.973 --> 04:06:10.874
Okay, so just a quick recap.

3790
04:06:12.295 --> 04:06:14.977
We have three stages of commitment in life.

3791
04:06:15.537 --> 04:06:19.220
You have the aesthetic stage, which is our default state.

3792
04:06:19.960 --> 04:06:22.442
It is the gravitational pull of our desire for...

3793
04:06:23.282 --> 04:06:26.683
sensory experience, stimulation, novelty, excitement.

3794
04:06:27.443 --> 04:06:31.384
It is a stage of life where we are living unconsciously.

3795
04:06:31.424 --> 04:06:36.106
Our choices are being made unconsciously or they are being outsourced to the world around us.

3796
04:06:36.146 --> 04:06:44.128
We are just giving in to our impulses and the social pressures and obligations around us without much thought, without much clarity or reasoning.

3797
04:06:44.448 --> 04:06:49.109
The aesthetic life just leads to a place of pure indulgence.

3798
04:06:49.149 --> 04:06:51.030
You just end up on this hedonic treadmill of

3799
04:06:51.690 --> 04:06:59.088
constantly chasing the next high and uh and ultimately it leads you to a very bad place as we saw with casanova

3800
04:06:59.773 --> 04:07:08.778
Eventually, you have to learn to start making reasoned distinctions between the things you want in your life and the things you don't want in your life.

3801
04:07:08.858 --> 04:07:12.040
You can't just chase novelty and stimulation endlessly.

3802
04:07:12.600 --> 04:07:16.522
You have to decide that some things are actually worth not feeling good for.

3803
04:07:17.463 --> 04:07:20.705
Some things are actually worth sacrificing for and giving things up for.

3804
04:07:20.745 --> 04:07:24.787
There are certain struggles and challenges that you are actually happy to have in your life.

3805
04:07:25.507 --> 04:07:28.509
And this brings you into the ethical stage where you start making decisions.

3806
04:07:28.689 --> 04:07:35.694
reason trade-offs and strong decisions about who you want to be in this world and who you don't want to be in this world.

3807
04:07:36.454 --> 04:07:39.636
And as you make these decisions, not all of them will be correct.

3808
04:07:39.836 --> 04:07:41.317
Some of them will fail.

3809
04:07:41.377 --> 04:07:49.423
Some of them will be painful, but all of them will teach you something and you will learn something about yourself, about your values, about who you are, about what you care about.

3810
04:07:49.703 --> 04:07:53.585
And slowly as you go through that process of making decisions, making decisions, making

3811
04:07:56.227 --> 04:08:05.811
your identity and self, and eventually you land on one or two or three things in your life that feel so profoundly important that you're willing to ride them to your grave.

3812
04:08:06.111 --> 04:08:14.234
And this brings you to the religious stage that Kierkegaard talked about, that there are things that you are so committed to that you cannot...

3813
04:08:15.134 --> 04:08:16.335
reasonably explain them.

3814
04:08:16.915 --> 04:08:34.164
It is the absurdity of your commitment to them that actually makes them meaningful to you and that they require a leap of faith, a belief without evidence that they matter, that they're important, and that they are worth doing even though you can't prove it to anybody or even yourself.

3815
04:08:34.664 --> 04:08:41.389
And it is that final state, that level of commitment that truly defines our whole self.

3816
04:08:41.669 --> 04:08:46.132
In Kierkegaard's framework, that is a spiritual definition of self.

3817
04:08:46.353 --> 04:08:53.458
This is not merely defining a self in Freudian terms of mental stability and battling neuroses.

3818
04:08:53.858 --> 04:09:00.203
It is not defining a self in the positive psychology sense of maximizing flourishing and well-being.

3819
04:09:00.763 --> 04:09:06.639
although both of those things are true, for Kierkegaard, this is defining yourself in almost spiritual terms of like,

3820
04:09:08.005 --> 04:09:08.746
I existed.

3821
04:09:09.446 --> 04:09:13.549
I did something significant, and this is what I did.

3822
04:09:14.230 --> 04:09:15.711
So that is finding your life path.

3823
04:09:16.151 --> 04:09:21.836
As always, we have a free PDF guide available with all of our citations, references, more explanation.

3824
04:09:21.856 --> 04:09:24.798
A lot of the studies that we talked about are glossed over.

3825
04:09:24.818 --> 04:09:30.503
You can go to solvepodcast.com slash commitment to get that PDF guide.

3826
04:09:31.223 --> 04:09:34.465
Please follow and subscribe wherever you're listening to this show.

3827
04:09:34.765 --> 04:09:35.426
It helps us.

3828
04:09:35.706 --> 04:09:38.668
And if you're able, leave a review or recommend it to a friend.

3829
04:09:39.509 --> 04:09:42.831
Drew and I will be back next month with another topic.

3830
04:09:43.872 --> 04:09:45.553
Anything you want to say before we go, Drew?

3831
04:09:46.373 --> 04:09:51.437
Oh, go exercise your freedom and commit to things and choose wisely.

3832
04:09:51.597 --> 04:09:52.117
Go forth.

3833
04:09:52.998 --> 04:09:53.958
And I've got an ounce.

3834
04:09:56.060 --> 04:09:56.620
I will say this.

3835
04:09:56.720 --> 04:09:58.141
I did not choose this podcast.

3836
04:09:58.201 --> 04:09:59.562
This podcast chose me.

3837
04:09:59.682 --> 04:10:00.403
Oh, there you go.