Snake Oil or Self-Help?, Minimalism’s Real Value, and Atheists Who Go to Church

Self-help is supposed to, you know, help. But what if, sometimes, it actually makes things worse? In this episode, we take a hard look at the self-improvement industry that promises transformation but often sells little more than feel-good illusions. From outdated advice that preys on your insecurities to the dopamine hit of "life-changing" content that changes nothing, we break down why self-help often fails the people who need it most. Along with unpacking the biggest traps of self-improvement, Drew and I also tackle whether or not minimalism was just an aesthetic rebellion against our parents’ McMansion dreams. We were both once staunch minimalists and we look back on what we learned and what principles still apply to our lives today. We wrap up with a listener question about the ethics of going to church if you’re an atheist. It’s another grab bag episode full of rabbit holes. Check it out. CHAPTERS Chapters 00:00:00 Introduction: The Chair Situation and What's Coming 00:00:31 Five Problems with the Self-Help Industry 00:03:07 Bad to Okay vs. Okay to Great: Two Different Audiences 00:05:33 The Shame Trap: When Self-Help Makes You Feel Worse 00:07:41 The Codependency Problem and Who We're Really Helping 00:10:08 Self-Help as Avoidance: Learning vs. Doing 00:13:51 The Magic Bullet Myth: Unrealistic Marketing Expectations 00:17:06 The Science Problem: Replication Crisis and What Actually Works 00:18:29 Treating Yourself as an Experiment 00:22:29 The Self-Acceptance Paradox: Revisiting the Fifth Problem 00:25:15 Minimalism: Our Personal Journey 00:26:29 The Cultural Context: Why Minimalism Became a Trend 00:30:37 The Benefits and Downsides of Owning Less 00:34:07 Minimalism as Identity: The Status Symbol Problem 00:34:49 Sentimentality and Objects: When Things Matter 00:33:22 The Real Lesson: Anti-Consumerism, Not Minimalism 00:40:52 Listener Question: Can Atheists Go to Church? 00:44:21 The Church-Sized Hole in Society 00:49:22 Why Strict Beliefs Create Stronger Communities 00:51:30 Wisdom of the Week: Carl Rogers on Self-Acceptance ⇨ Sign up for my newsletter, Your Next Breakthrough. It will help make you a less awful person: ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://markmanson.net/breakthrough⁩⁠⁠⁠ ⇨ Get clarity on what actually matters. Try Purpose, Mark's AI mentor app that learns your patterns, challenges your blind spots, and helps you take action. Get started at ⁠⁠⁠⁨https://bit.ly/4w46FMH⁠⁠⁠ FOLLOW MARK Mark's IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/markmanson⁠ Solved IG: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/solvedpodcast/⁠ Twitter: ⁠https://x.com/markmanson⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmanson/⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@IAmMarkManson Theme Song: Icarus Lives by @Periphery , used with permission from Periphery.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mark Manson?

  Drew, I cannot wait for the day that we can finally get rid of these chairs.

• 0:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 0:05Mark Manson?

  I cannot help but slouch in these chairs. And I've noticed with guests, too.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  They've been, yeah.

• 0:10Mark Manson?

  It's on the footage, too. Yeah, they're on the struggle bus when they come in. Gives us a bad reputation.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Well, I have to use this pillow because my legs are so short, too. If I don't, my legs stick out.

• 0:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, we gotta fix this. We are gonna fix it.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 0:23Mark Manson?

  Soon.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 0:24Mark Manson?

  Stay tuned. Things are gonna change around here.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Foreshadowing.

• 0:31Speaker 02

  It's the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Podcast with your host, Mark Manson.

• 0:40Mark Manson?

  What are we talking about today?

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Oh, Mark, we're giving a huge fuck this week about our own industry and what we do.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  The self-help word. When self-help is not helpful, I think that's the tagline I came up with. Is that a good tagline? I don't know.

• 0:54Mark Manson?

  That's pretty good.

• 0:55Speaker 01

  It's not too bad.

• 0:55Mark Manson?

  That's pretty good.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  There was, it's about 12 years, more than 12 years ago now. Back in 2012, you wrote this article called "Five Problems with the Self-Help Industry." And came up with these five points about, you know, what's wrong with your own industry that you're kind of self-critiquing it and maybe even some of the stuff we do.

• 1:12Mark Manson?

  It's interesting because in 2012, I was like the feisty upstart.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17Mark Manson?

  That nobody had heard of. And I'm like sticking the middle finger to every, you know, all the big established people in the industry. And now I am one of those big established.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  You are the man.

• 1:26Mark Manson?

  Yeah, so I'm very curious to actually go through these and see if I still agree with them.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Maybe turn the spotlight on ourselves a little bit here throughout all of this. I don't know.

• 1:33Mark Manson?

  Is this gonna be our, what's it called when you like, there's a word for it, where you like, audit yourself? Am I making, never mind.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  I have no idea.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  I don't know. We're self-owning ourselves? I don't know.

• 1:50Mark Manson?

  No, isn't there like a process like in Catholicism or something where you, like a cate- cate- cate-ism?

• 1:58Speaker 01

  Oh, is that what that means? I've never known what that word means.

• 2:01Mark Manson?

  It's like where you like audit yourself and like you like, like admit to all of your faults.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Like your confessions that you do. But there's like a whole process.

• 2:08Mark Manson?

  See, I wasn't imagining things.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  It's something like that. I don't know. Well, I mean, okay, and the way you start this article out, though,

• 2:15Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  It is a little bit like that, where it's the self-help industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Still true.

• 2:20Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Fills up bookstores and conference rooms, still true. It's made media celebrities out of people and capitalized wildly off the growing self-conscious, self-consciousness of recent generations.

• 2:30Mark Manson?

  Still true.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Still true. And all those changed millions of lives of people, mostly for the better. It still lacks a certain credibility.

• 2:38Mark Manson?

  Still true.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Could be, is it snake oil? Is it, you know, there's a lot of that going on.

• 2:42Mark Manson?

  There's some of that, yeah.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  A lot of people think it's just kind of a laughing stock of an industry, which, you know.

• 2:48Mark Manson?

  Can't blame them for that.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  They can't blame them for that either. So you introduced these five ideas throughout this of like, kind of five problems that you've seen. And I want to see how much you think these still hold up. I think most of them still do. And maybe if you'd have any changes, maybe additions.

• 3:01Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Maybe turn them on ourselves a little bit, too.

• 3:03Mark Manson?

  Sure.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Critique ourselves. And yeah, we'll jump right into it if you're ready.

• 3:06Mark Manson?

  Let's do it.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  All right, the first one is self-help reinforces perceptions of inferiority and shame. To kind of set that up, we've talked about this on the podcast before, too, though. There's what you call the bad to okay and the okay to great people.

• 3:20Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  That come to self-help. Lay that out for us first, I think, and then.

• 3:23Mark Manson?

  I think, I think what a lot of people miss is that self-help is secretly two different industries. Right? So I've always thought of it as two classifications. So there's like, people who are in a really bad place in their life, and they're really struggling and suffering, and they just want to feel okay again. You know, it's just like, just make the pain go away. And then there are people who their life's okay, but, you know, they're kind of like, things are stagnant, or they feel like they're missing out on something, or things could be better, or they're not, you know, living up to their potential. And I call those the okay to great people, right? It's like, my life's fine, but I really would love to be doing something amazing that I'm excited about, right? And those two groups, those two cohorts of people often get completely mixed up

• 4:05Mark Manson?

  and treated the same way, which is, from I guess, an intervention point of view, horrible. Like, for example, somebody who's in the okay to great camp. It might be good to be hard on them. It might be good to be like, you know what? Like, pick your ass up. Get your shit together. Like, stop being such a lazy asshole and, you know, you deserve more in this, blah, blah, blah. If you take somebody who's like very deep in depression and has struggled with mental health issues for many, many years, and you say that same thing, like, you might push them over the edge, right? So, the messaging is actually very different between those two groups. The goal is very different between those two groups. But because the same kind of marketing appeals

• 4:50Mark Manson?

  to those two groups, they often get lumped together in audiences and customer bases. And so, for a long time, I've always felt just a lot of mixed feelings over just the responsibility that quote-unquote gurus or, you know, thought leaders in this space have to recognize the sensitivities that come with the bad to okay group. Like, you have to treat them differently. You can't, you can't. There's no one-size-fits-all.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Right, and the point you were making in this section about the industry reinforcing perceptions of shame and guilt

• 5:28Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  are really pertinent for that okay, or the bad okay people.

• 5:33Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  Because like, you read a book on happiness or something like that. I think this is an example you gave in the article, actually. Read a book on happiness. The good, or the okay to great people are like, "Okay, yeah, I can do this, cool." But the bad okay people are like, "Well shit, these are all the things I'm not doing right, and I'm a loser, and I can't

• 5:51Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  wrap my head around this even, and I just may as well give up, and I'm a piece of shit."

• 5:55Mark Manson?

  I think the simplest way to sum it up is that you can, an okay to great person, you can tell them that they're fucking up, and that'll probably create a good result, right? Because they want to hear that. They want to know what they're doing wrong. They want to know what they could be doing better because they have a baseline self-esteem and self-worth that they can handle it, right? Whereas if you say, if you tell a bad to okay person that they're fucking up...

• 6:21Mark Manson?

  That's part of the reason they're in such a hole is like they feel guilt and shame and just absolutely awful about themselves because they feel like they've wasted their life. And so if you show up and start saying, "Well, you know what? You're fucking all this up because you should be doing this and that and the other thing." And like, they're just gonna hear that as like a validation of what they already feel about themselves. The worst problem about that is that it's those bad okay people that tend to... Like, let's say one of these people who's like in a very, very dark place goes to a generic self-help seminar, right? And starts hearing these messages. And obviously, it makes them feel worse. That person, the nature of being a person in that dark spot is that you think you're at fault for everything, right?

• 7:05Mark Manson?

  So it's like, if they go to the seminar and the guru is giving all this advice and that advice isn't working and it's making them feel worse, their assumption isn't gonna be, "Oh, this guru sucks. I should go somewhere else." Their assumption's gonna be, "Wow, I really am a loser. Even this self-help seminar is not fixing me." Right? Like, because that's just how their brain works. That's where their mind is at that moment. It's just, it makes me feel icky.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  No, yeah. Do you think there's also a risk of developing kind of like a codependent relationship there too? Like, especially with those bad okay people, they're gonna develop this kind of codependency with a figure or guru or whoever?

• 7:41Mark Manson?

  Right. Absolutely. And it's especially because it's like, okay, let's say you've... Nothing's worked and then you go to this seminar and that seminar makes you feel good for the first time in five years, right? And then you leave the seminar and you start feeling bad again, which is usually what happens. It's logical that you start assuming like, "Well, okay, this guy's got the answer. I need to follow him everywhere and do all the stuff and sign up for all the things and spend all my savings because it's like this is the only thing that's working." And it's part of, I think this is the thing that the general population intuits about self-help that makes them squirm a little bit, which is that the best customers tend to be the most hopeless people.

• 8:21Mark Manson?

  So a lot of marketing gets optimized to take advantage of those people and a lot of the money comes from those people. And so it just, it feels really gross. And in my business, in our business, like, I've always been very careful of like, A... Making sure the messaging is like clear, like differentiates between those two groups within a single piece of content, whether it's an article or a book, you know, just making sure it's, hey, I'm addressing the okay to great people now. Okay, now if you're like in a really dark place, this is different. So I'm going to address that now. But also, I just, I don't think I'm qualified or credentialed to be dealing with bad to okay people for

• 9:04Mark Manson?

  the most part, right? So I get emails all the time from people who are deeply depressed, suicidal, have like a pretty severe anxiety disorders, right? And it's like, my response is, you need to go find a professional. Like, I'm just a guy with a podcast, you know? So like, if you wanna, if you wanna like, figure out how to be 10% more effective in your career or your relationship, like, I'm your guy. If you wanna know how to get over a breakup, like, yeah, I got tips for you. If you are so depressed, you can't get out of bed, you should probably go talk to somebody more serious than I am.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  That said, there's been, I mean, probably dozens of people over the years who have come to you and said, hey, I was actually thinking about killing myself, or, you know, harming myself in some way. And it does help. So they can break through sometimes. But that's, that's the exception. And I get that.

• 9:54Mark Manson?

  Right. And you can't plan on that.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah, I can't bank on that for sure. Yeah. Okay, we'll get to kind of what the, what we can maybe do about that in another step here. We'll keep moving through this. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves.

• 10:06Mark Manson?

  Oh, okay.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Not really, but kinda. The next one, though, you said self-help is often yet another form of avoidance. This one is near and dear to my heart.

• 10:14Mark Manson?

  Well, I mean, what I've noticed is that a lot of people, a lot of self-help content is subtly specialized to make you feel as though you were having a transformation, rather than actually having a transformation.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Feltainment, yeah.

• 10:31Mark Manson?

  Yes. Yes, it's exactly, it's kind of like, it's like the cable news of. Growth, you know, it's like you've, you watch cable news, you feel like you're being informed, but you're actually not being informed, you know, it's like a lot of self-help, you feel like you're growing, but you're not growing, you're like literally doing all the same things and making the same mistakes you always made. So, and what I notice is that there are some people that actually get kind of hooked on that feeling of transformation, because they, they always feel like it's, you know, it's just around the corner, it's the next step, like I'm a new person, oh my God, I did this other thing, and now I'm a new person again. And it's meanwhile, they're, you know, their life's still a mess, and they're taking no responsibility, and they like, you

• 11:13Mark Manson?

  know, can't figure any of their shit out. So, there's a lot of that that goes on. And I, and I do think some of that kind of addictive quality to the feeling of transformation is another, like any addiction is, it's a way to avoid the discomfort of actually confronting your own issues.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:28Mark Manson?

  Why does this bug you so much?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Well, I think one of the thing, like, one of my just kind of core values in life, for whatever reason, almost didn't even choose it myself, is learning. And it's just like, I, I like psychology, and I like human behavior, and I like learning about myself. And you just get caught in that, I just like to learn, you know, and there's a lot of information in this space. So you can learn until you, you can not do anything but learn.

• 11:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  And that's what's, that's what bothered me so much about it. I think it's just I get too much in my head. I've talked about this before, I over-intellectualize everything. I, analysis paralysis kicks in at that point, too, where you just, you have all this information, you don't even know where to start.

• 12:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  So, I would agree that the industry itself, especially around, you know, there's so many books and just content that you can passively absorb that, without taking any action. And so, yeah, that's, that's been my problem.

• 12:18Mark Manson?

  Learning is a smart person's favorite way to procrastinate.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 12:23Mark Manson?

  That's what I've found.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  That hits home.

• 12:24Mark Manson?

  And it's, it's funny, because I honestly think most, most of these problems.

• 12:32Mark Manson?

  Are actually very, they're intellectually simple. They're just emotionally very difficult.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:39Mark Manson?

  And so I think the tendency is that when something feels emotionally difficult, we assume that it must be intellectually complicated. And so we set ourselves like, okay, I need to like buy a couple of books about this. And you know, maybe I should, maybe I should watch this lecture on YouTube to like really understand this and take notes and like journal for a few weeks. And before I can like know exactly how to break up with my girlfriend or whatever. Right. And it's like, no, you just fucking break up with your girlfriend.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:08Mark Manson?

  Like it's just, it's not going to make it any easier.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  But that's the avoidance you're talking about.

• 13:11Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Which is the emotional avoidance.

• 13:13Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  You do that through intellectualizing all this content or whatever.

• 13:17Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. I will say for my over intellectualizing brain, what helped was just realizing that experience and action is the best teacher.

• 13:25Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  You want to learn? Oh, okay. You're motivated to learn? Then get your ass off the couch and go do something.

• 13:31Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  So I don't know. That helped me anyway. So yeah. Okay. Speaking of, you've already mentioned marketing.

• 13:37Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Uh, once in this next point, you say self-help marketing creates unrealistic expectations. I think that's been driven home. Most people know that by now.

• 13:45Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Um, but what were some of those back then and now that you see the overpromising, underdelivering?

• 13:51Mark Manson?

  There's a, there's a short version of this, which I think most people kind of implicitly understand, which is it's just the magic bullet marketing, right? Like it's this idea that you can go to a seminar or read a book and you know, a lightbulb's going to go off and everything's going to change overnight. Like that is so, so intensely rare of an experience. Yet that, that I think most consumers in this market assume that that's the baseline. And I think there's a lot of self-delusion that people try to go through to convince themselves that that has happened. Uh, you know, I talked earlier about how people will, you know, go do all this stuff and go to retreats and seminars and.

• 14:35Mark Manson?

  Do all these new practices and stuff and claim they're a new person. And then meanwhile, it's like they're, they're still unemployed, their relationships falling apart, they're broke, like they still have terrible habits, like nothing, nothing of substance has changed. It's like all of the, you know, fun sexy stuff is, is, is changing. In my experience, and this is very much reflected in, in the literature, psychological literature and behavioral, like the literature around behavioral change is that the vast majority of change is small, tiny iterations over a long period of time.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Boring.

• 15:11Mark Manson?

  Right. It's like adding one little thing every couple of weeks that like you, nobody's going to notice and you might not even notice the benefits, but it's like, once you do like eight or 10 of those things over a long period of time, you suddenly look back and you're like, oh, wow. I'm like, I'm actually a very different person than I was a year ago or six months ago, you know?

• 15:34Speaker 01

  But you certainly can't, you can't write a marketing campaign for that. And you certainly can't cram that into a weekend and charge $5,000 for that.

• 15:41Mark Manson?

  Exactly. Like, like an honest pitch in self-help would be like,

• 15:48Mark Manson?

  try these 17 small iterative changes over a long period of time to maybe be able to perceive a significant growth in your life, you know? And it's like,

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Mark Manson, the next book, right there.

• 15:59Mark Manson?

  There it is. That's the title. And you probably put an asterisk there with a bunch of fine print, like clarifying like what change means, what growth means, what iteration means. So like, that's, that's the honest truth. And I, it's not a sexy message. I mean, I will say again, that the, the biggest thing I can say since that I wrote that article is like, things have gotten much better. You know, all the bullshit is still there. It's still very prevalent. There's still a bunch of like, really shady creepy people in this industry. There still are absolutely like frauds and charlatans making a lot of money. But the science-based side of the industry, the evidence-based side of the industry,

• 16:42Mark Manson?

  the realistic side of the industry has grown substantially. And I do see that message

• 16:50Mark Manson?

  of just like consistent, small, unsexy things.

• 16:55Mark Manson?

  Is actually what moves the needle. That is becoming more prevalent.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's at least a market for that now.

• 17:02Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 17:03Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Which is good. That, yeah, I would agree with that, too.

• 17:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Okay, I want to keep, keep moving here. You already, you mentioned this one a little bit already, too. Self-help is usually not scientifically validated, so just

• 17:14Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Coming right off of that.

• 17:16Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  You noted that most of the self-help practices, especially back then, and I would say in the like the 90s, 2000s was the case. They just weren't backed by scientific evidence. There was some evidence coming out around then, but like meditation, journaling, that was kind of starting back then. It was like, oh, these things are actually helpful. Gratitude practices, stuff like that. There was some, some of that. And I think that's, that has come online a little bit more, as long as you're not using it as a form of avoidance.

• 17:40Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's your take on that now?

• 17:42Mark Manson?

  Again, I think it's gotten a lot better. What's interesting about all that stuff, you know, you mentioned meditation and journaling, like both, both of those kind of had their heyday of like, you know, all these studies came out. It's like, oh, my God, this is like the big new thing. It's, everybody should be doing this. And of course, you see that effect as more people start doing it, the milder the benefits become, right? And I guess one thing that like I've kind of, I don't know if I've changed my views on this, but it's more like my, my views have evolved on this, which is that

• 18:15Mark Manson?

  most things work a little bit.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:17Mark Manson?

  Nothing works completely. And the things that work for each individual are going to be completely different. And so really like, if you approach this,

• 18:29Mark Manson?

  this industry or this project of improving your self-improvement, really like the right framework you should be working from is just treating everything as like an endless series of small experiments, right? I'm going to try journaling every morning for 30 days and I'm gonna see and I'm just gonna note like if I feel better if I don't feel better if it's useful if it doesn't feel useful. Everybody's mileage is gonna vary like me personally, I I've messed with journaling on and off, you know, my entire adulthood. I discovered relatively early that like I I'm what I call a crisis journaler, so I don't journal every day. I journal when shit hits the fan.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:10Mark Manson?

  You know, it's like when something is like a huge mess in my life or something is like I have a really stressful problem that I need to work through. I journal shit out of out of my.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  You go right to the blank page.

• 19:20Mark Manson?

  My notebook. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'd like I'll I'll go through like 10 pages in my journal, but then I'll sit there for eight months and not be touched. And I've just found that like that's what works for me. And I think I think if more people understood how I don't want to say flimsy the research is, but like how mild the effects sizes are in in most of the research and most of the interventions. They would probably take that approach as well, like just understanding that like even even even the the tried and true things like therapy and like pharmaceutical interventions, like even those like don't have massive hit rates, right? Even those like people's mileage varies drastically from person to person. So it's like

• 20:04Mark Manson?

  take everything as a small experiment, be very conscious of like, I'm gonna do this for X amount of days or X weeks. And I'm gonna see how I feel at the end compared to the beginning and I'm gonna try to be really honest with myself of like is this is this moving the needle at all? Is this worth it? Am I gonna keep doing it? And like, and if not, that's fine. That's still information. Like you didn't lose anything. You journal for 30 days and it didn't do anything for you. That's not a loss. That's actually that's still a win because now you know that that's just not a thing that works for you. So you go try something else.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think over the last like decade or so, too, you and I are both we've we've seen this, the replication crisis in in psychology especially. And at first it I was very disillusioned by that. I was like, oh, no, this like the whole field's in trouble. But when I you step if you step back and you think about it.

• 20:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  I I'm still, I'm not giving up on the scientific project here at all. Because that's how it goes. It's just a long time. And then when you try to, but when you try to apply that to an individual life, right? That's a shorter time span we need to deal with. Whereas the arc of scientific discovery is much longer and we have to still believe in that, I think, just on principle. But it's like you're saying, take it with a grain of salt. Be a skeptic in your own mind. Be a scientist in your own mind. Be like, well, let's see if this works for me.

• 21:25Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  So I I arrive at the same place that you do.

• 21:28Mark Manson?

  And just to give context for listeners who aren't aware, like the replication crisis is it's happened in most of the social sciences, but basically it's it's somewhere around 60%. You know, when they run a psychological study, it's usually with a bunch of college students in the US. And at some point, around 10, 15 years ago, they started taking some of these common psychological experiments and running them in like, you know, Indonesia and the Amazon rainforest.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Or sometimes in the US again.

• 21:54Mark Manson?

  Or sometimes in the US again. And and and they find that it doesn't replicate. Like you get totally different results. And so there's, there's been roughly around 60% of what was considered like scientifically true and psychology.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:07Mark Manson?

  Is, does not replicate. And so it's actually been called in the question. And so a lot of, there's I would just say this, like, if you've read a lot of science-based books on like happiness and motivation and and improving your life that were written, say, in the 2000s to early 2010s. There's a good chance that a lot of that does not hold on. So.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Being a scientist on a personal level, though, good, that's yes. Experiment on your own. That's where I end up with that, too.

• 22:35Mark Manson?

  Absolutely.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  Okay, last one. Self-help is a contradiction. And this goes back to the bad to okay and okay to great people. You say that the fundamental, kind of the fundamental project of improvement is self-acceptance. And that, you can't get that. By definition, you can't get that externally.

• 22:53Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  Right. And so self-help ends up being the most useful for the people who needed the least. You've kind of already mentioned this a little bit.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  What so what does someone do? If they are in that, like you said, you know, of course, therapy and do all of those kind of things too. But what are, what's the project? Is that the project, I guess, is if you're bad, okay. If you're in a really bad spot, just getting yourself to the point where? Yeah, you could use these things.

• 23:21Mark Manson?

  This is the only one I, I don't know if I stand by this anymore. I think this, it's interesting hearing this 12 years later in my 40s. That one, I think the first four are totally legitimate, especially for the time. That one kind of sounds like a guy in his twenties trying to sound really smart.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:39Mark Manson?

  It's not that he's wrong, but it's just like, I think it's overstating the case a little bit like it's true. The goal is to achieve a level of self-acceptance, but like you're not going to get there overnight. And there are, I do think there are a lot of things that you can do to help, like help guide people in that direction. Or like help teach them the tools to develop that in themselves without demeaning them, without like robbing them of their agency. Or preventing them from taking responsibility for themselves. There is a lot of stuff in the self-help industry that does those things to people, but there's a lot of healthy ways to go about it as well. So, yeah, I think, I think that's overstated.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:20Mark Manson?

  I think, I think there, there is a healthy path to help people get to a place of self-acceptance.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:25Mark Manson?

  So, yeah, I mean, overall, I'm like, I'm optimistic.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:28Mark Manson?

  I am.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  We're still here. I mean, we're still here, we're still doing this.

• 24:32Mark Manson?

  Still doing it. I mean, the, the industry is bigger than it's ever been and the demand. I mean, what's interesting is that it really has become mainstream.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:39Mark Manson?

  It is, it's almost like, you know, the same way people listen to sports and weather and read the, you know, read the news, like headlines for the day. They've got their little inspiration practice or the person they listen to or the, you know, whatever Facebook account they follow, you know?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  I, I used to, I used to kind of hide my self-help books. I would, you know, kind of bury them. Now they're up on my bookshelf.

• 25:03Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Whatever. I mean, obviously there are, but yeah.

• 25:05Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's changed a lot.

• 25:07Mark Manson?

  Cool.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Which is good.

• 25:08Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  All right. We'll be right back.

• 25:15Mark Manson?

  And we're back. What are we, uh, what are we calling bullshit on today, Drew?

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, brilliant bullshit this week, Mark. Minimalism. Near and dear to our hearts.

• 25:25Mark Manson?

  We really are digging into the old Manson archive, aren't we?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Well, this one, it's like, this one I've thought a lot about. I mean, you and I, we'll get into our stories, I think, a little bit here, but we've been...

• 25:35Mark Manson?

  We should define minimalism first, for people who have not heard of it.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  We'll define minimalism. The core premise of minimalism, let's just say, is owning fewer things will create less stress and more freedom in your life.

• 25:49Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Right? Okay. I think even you, you wrote an article about this, I think it was in 2012 as well, so it's been 12, 13 years, right?

• 25:56Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  So...

• 25:57Mark Manson?

  It's a strong Manson year, 2012.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And there was still a very, um, kind of in the zeitgeist, you know, Fight Club was still out, right? Like, the things you own still end up owning you, that famous line from Chuck. Um, so... And you and I both were, at one point in our lives, very staunch minimalists. We no longer are.

• 26:17Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  So maybe we can go through your, your experience with it first, and I can, I can pepper in mine as well, and what you learned from that.

• 26:28Mark Manson?

  Well, just to zoom out, I really, in hindsight, I really do think minimalism was kind of a cultural trend that probably hit, it was probably some combination of two things. One is, I think, our generation grew up, like, I don't know about you, but like, our parent, my parents, our parents, our generation's parents, you know, it was all about the beautiful house and the white picket fence and, you know, yeah, and like, going to the mall and getting all the shit on sale and having all these, like, beautiful things, you know, outside and around, and the garages got boxes piled, you know, to the ceiling with extra stuff and... I grew up around that. I was like a little bit disillusioned by it.

• 27:13Mark Manson?

  Thought it was a little bit ridiculous. Like just growing up with the amount of consumerism that we grew up with. I think there was kind of a natural propensity to rebel.

• 27:22Mark Manson?

  Once, once we hit young adulthood. So I think that was a huge part of the trend. I also think part of it was the great financial crisis. You know, you basically had this, this generation of 20 year olds who A, had no money or possessions already. And then B, had no immediate opportunities for financial advancement. And so of course they like come together and create a

• 27:47Mark Manson?

  owning nothing as a status symbol.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:49Mark Manson?

  You know, they're like, it kind of makes sense. Maybe that's a cynical way to look at it, but at that time in my life, you know, I was living as a nomad. I was young, self-employed, worked off my laptop. I didn't really need a whole lot.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:03Mark Manson?

  Like to be happy, I really just needed some clothes, my computer, an internet connection and you know, that was kind of it.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, a few bucks to buy beers here and there.

• 28:16Mark Manson?

  Exactly, exactly. So it was an easy. Again, this is not to like discount it as a, as a philosophy. And I do think there, I'll get to some principles that I do think are valuable that came from it. But again, looking back at who I was when I was 25. It was, I was not risking a whole lot. Like there was not much downside.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Conclusion I came to too.

• 28:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it's not like I was like selling my cars and like moving into a tiny studio apartment with like no furniture. It's like, I didn't have anything to begin with. So of course it was easy to like give everything away.

• 28:53Mark Manson?

  As I got older, you know, I met my wife, I settled down, I started developing a career. I started taking my, my writing way more seriously, which meant that like, okay, I actually want to have a comfortable office chair. I want to have a desk with like stuff on it that I like. I want to have pictures on the wall of like things that make me happy because I'm going to spend 10 hours a day in this room. Like staring at this wall. So might as well be something really nice on it. You start seeing the reason why you like certain possessions are nice to have, like they add value to your life. That said, the principle that I try to hold from the minimalism days that I do think is true is that.

• 29:35Mark Manson?

  Owning a possession is not always in that positive. Like, I think our parents' generation and like earlier generations that grew up with very little, it was just kind of implicit that like owning something is gonna add value to your life. Whereas I think we were the first generation that had the experience of like recognizing that, like, just because you own something doesn't mean it's a net positive. It can actually make your life more difficult than than not. So I try to remember that and I try to really ask myself, you know, before any major purchase or, you know, when accumulating junk, I just try to like, do I really need this? Is this adding anything to my life? You know, the Marie Kondo blew up 10 years ago. You know, she had this great phrase where she said, like, does it bring joy? Great question.

• 30:19Mark Manson?

  Like, you should ask that about everything in your life. And if it doesn't bring joy, you should probably consider getting rid of it because the core principle of minimalism, that owning less gives you more freedom and alleviates stress, I do think is true.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, there's, there's tons of benefits from minimalism as well. You get the, a few that I've come across and came up with. Cognitive clarity, cluttered environment, it's your brain's all over the place. Decision fatigue.

• 30:50Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  You know, there was a classic, this was like, like, early 2010s, you know, the CEOs who wore the same thing every day, you know, that was touted. Obviously, the financial benefits, you're gonna save money.

• 31:01Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  You have more time and freedom, sure, you have less maintenance of things and stuff like that. Mental health benefits, where you just don't, some people, anyway, like you already mentioned, don't just have a relief when they don't have all these things.

• 31:14Mark Manson?

  Lack of paradox of choice, I would say.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Lack of paradox of choice, that goes, definitely goes with the decision fatigue type bucket. It's just less wasteful, too.

• 31:24Mark Manson?

  That too.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  You know? Yesterday, we were, we're talking about, you know, the studio's kind of a mess right now, right? And I was talking about getting rid of something and our social media manager, Jess, she said, "You Americans," she's Australian, so in her cute little Australian accent, "You Americans just always throwing shit away." And I was like, "Oh, yeah, you know, that's true. We're a throwaway society at this point."

• 31:43Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  So there's all those benefits, sure. Some of the downsides I came up with, though, as well.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  You can take it like anything, you can get way too far into it. The stress of minimalism, like, oh, my God, I have 10 things and I swore I was only gonna have, you know, nine or whatever it is. So there's that. There was also, and I think I fell into this trap, that minimalism equals happiness. So like, well, if possessions don't make you happy, then no possessions will make you happy, right?

• 32:08Mark Manson?

  Right, right.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  And that's just a false dichotomy that that comes to bear. And you already mentioned too, minimalism as a status symbol too.

• 32:14Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Was that was, that can get to be like, oh, I look how few things I can own.

• 32:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Becomes a status symbol, or, or it can even turn into the things I own need to be, you know, really good quality, whatever. And you end up spending $300 on a plain white t-shirt or something like that. Like, come on, guys, right? And there's, there's times where more is better, right? Like you said, we were young, 20-year-old stupid dudes, right? If I was a parent, there's no way I would.

• 32:42Mark Manson?

  Oh, no way.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  What are you, you can't argue for that. You can argue with intent that you need to be more intentional with the things you buy your kids, the toys, the clothes, the, all of that, sure. But, you know, hobbyists too, they get a lot of joy out of things they make or whatever, and they need lots of like tools, like my, you know, my, my wood shop has tons of tools in it now.

• 33:00Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  Collectors, just people who like just having things too. Is there anything inherently wrong with that? I don't think so. It goes back to the joy thing and Marie Kondo.

• 33:08Mark Manson?

  I buy books compulsively, like.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Now I do too.

• 33:11Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I, I like, for every book I read, I like own probably five.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  I love books too, physical books.

• 33:16Mark Manson?

  I have a beautiful library. It's awesome.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  I love.

• 33:18Mark Manson?

  It's great.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:19Mark Manson?

  Yeah, I mean, I honestly, I think minimalism is probably a little bit of a misnomer, like really the, what it should have been called is just anti-consumerism. You know, it's just like, don't just buy shit compulsively. Don't buy shit that you don't need. Don't buy shit for stupid status reasons.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:35Mark Manson?

  You know, be conscious of what you're purchasing, be conscious of what you own. Make sure it's adding value to your life and not detracting it. And then do your thing.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:44Mark Manson?

  You know?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. But beyond like the loss aversion and the maintenance costs and all of that, I, I think there's even kind of more insidious attachments that we, we have to our things. And you mentioned in the article, again, the identity investment. When, when you start attaching your identity

• 33:58Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  to the, your possessions, that can be a big problem too, right? Like, um, and you said.

• 34:04Mark Manson?

  Or if you attach your identity to the lack of possessions.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Ah, oh.

• 34:09Mark Manson?

  Gotcha, 25-year-old Mark. You fucking punk.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  We were definitely not thinking about that. Because that was for me.

• 34:17Mark Manson?

  That was it.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  I prided myself. I lived out of two bags for two years. And I didn't own a car.

• 34:22Mark Manson?

  Yep.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  I left, the one thing, I left my guitar like at my friend's house and like everything else. That was my, and I went around telling, I was an evangelist.

• 34:30Mark Manson?

  Badge of honor.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Evangelist, yes, very much so.

• 34:33Mark Manson?

  I live out of a suitcase.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  I thought everybody should live this way. And, yeah, yeah. And I got so attached to that identity. You're absolutely right.

• 34:40Mark Manson?

  It's the same thing as a person who's like entire identity is his car.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 34:46Mark Manson?

  Same shit.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. You did mention though, okay, um, the sentimental, the sentimentality around some objects and stuff like this. This is one I've come around on quite a bit too. Uh, my, my grandmother is a very sentimental person around objects especially. And I just never, never understood it. Until recently, I think I started getting a little older too. And what I realized is that she connects those objects to a person or a place or a time or something like that. And I realized that because when my grandfather passed away, her husband, my grandpa passed away. She gave me some of his clamps and I use them in my, in my shop sometimes. And every time I pull those out, I think about my grandpa now. And I'm like, they're, they're not great clamps. They're not fancy, expensive ones or anything like that. But I'm like, oh shit.

• 35:27Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  I love those fucking clamps. And same, I got a set of chisels from one of my uncles who passed away too. And they're crappy little chisels, but I think about him every time I pull those out, you know?

• 35:36Mark Manson?

  Yeah, totally.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  That to me is like, oh, okay, I get that now. It's not, that is not like a, you're not attaching your identity to something, but you are, there's like this little story around it that you can connect to emotionally and remember people and honor them in a way that's like, okay, that's pretty cool.

• 35:51Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it is absolutely. It's the attachments to relationships. It's also attachments to a certain period of your life. It's interesting, next week we have Randy Blythe on, who is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands ever. And it's interesting because I, the, one of the first times I hung out with him, I kind of, I was like, I was backstage with him at one of his shows and I got into this very philosophical conversation with him about like, what is fandom? Like, why are you a fan of somebody or, or something of like art or whatever? And, uh, and as we were talking, I told him, I was like, you know what's funny? Like your band, when I was in college, your band is like the soundtrack to my university experience.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I, yeah, okay, yeah.

• 36:36Mark Manson?

  And, and he like immediately was like, that's it, that's it. And I was like, don't get me wrong, like, I like all the stuff you guys have done since, but like, there's like a four-year period in my life that you were like, the sound, if my life was a movie, you were the soundtrack during those scenes. And, and it's like, there is just this emotional attachment that is there. The same way I'd be emotionally attached to like, you know, a stuffed dog I grew up with, or, you know, a dish that my grandmother used to make, you know? And it is, it is super fascinating, that emotional attachment that we develop at certain times and with certain people in certain places. That that is, that is what, that's the value of an object, right?

• 37:20Mark Manson?

  That is, other than the utility, right? Like, that is, that is what makes it valuable.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had a very similar experience. Recently, I dug up an old playlist that I made.

• 37:30Mark Manson?

  Oh, yeah?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, when I was living in Chile. And like, it took me straight back. I'm walking through the streets of Santiago while I'm listening to this.

• 37:38Mark Manson?

  Dude, is there, is there nothing better than like rediscovering music that you loved like 10 or 15 years ago and then forgot about?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it just, it transports you.

• 37:48Mark Manson?

  Exactly, it takes you right back.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Ah, it's insane. Yeah, no. And, and that's what I, that happened with music, that's happened with music with me before, or even like movies and stuff like that, you know? I, I didn't make that connection with physical objects for the longest time. And I think some people are more prone to do that than others. Like, my grandmother definitely is. But she also grew up with nothing too, you know, so like, the things in her life meant a lot. And I think that's another point we forget too, is that, for some people, there is like a psychological security around their things. And if it doesn't get into your identity, I think that's okay too.

• 38:21Mark Manson?

  Well, I'll add this, is that some people really struggle with waste. And so I, for-

• 38:28Mark Manson?

  My wife is, she also is very interested in kind of minimalist philosophies. But her inspiration is completely different. For me, it's very much, it's like a very Buddhist, like, I don't want to be attached to anything. For her, she really struggles with wasting things.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  That's my grandma, too.

• 38:43Mark Manson?

  Yeah, it tortures her. And so she is, for her, the cost of wasting an object is so high that like, she is really, she thinks very, very, very hard before she gets something for that reason. And it's funny, because there have been times in our relationship where, like, for months, I'll keep telling her, I'm like, you know, we really need to get one of these things. And like, she's like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know. And then like, six months go by. I'm like, why have we not bought this thing yet? And she's like, well, I don't want to get the wrong one. And then we have to throw it out, or like, sell it. And, you know, I'm just like, just buy the fucking thing. So, some people, some people really struggle with the idea that like, they have not taken full advantage of, you know, what they've spent their money on. And then that kind of tortures them. And so then they, they would rather just not buy it at all.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah, and there's, this is somewhat related, I guess, there's this minimalist principle, some people call it the 10-10 rule, or there's a 20-20 rule. If it can be replaced for $20 within 20 minutes, just get rid of it now.

• 39:39Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  That's a very wasteful mindset, though, too, if you think about it. It's like, well, do you...

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Are we, you know?

• 39:48Mark Manson?

  I mean, now, well, now we're getting into like, sub philosophies, sub philosophies of minimalism. Like, because there is kind of a minimal, there's like, the sustainability minimalism. And then there's the, the, I guess, like, the ego attachment minimalism, which I was always the latter.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, same.

• 40:04Mark Manson?

  I would throw stuff away all the time.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  No, same, for sure, for sure.

• 40:07Mark Manson?

  I'm very American.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Now, yeah, again, yeah, that's, my dad always said this growing up. It's like, we've become, we've transferred from a fix-it society to a throwaway society. And I think that's where we need to get, we do need, you do need to be more intentional around what you own for all sorts of reasons. And that's, I mean, that's one of them, we can't, like, being so wasteful. They say something like, if, if everybody on the planet lived like Americans, we'd need like, 20 planets, or something like that. You know, and if it's, if it was the, the equivalent in France, we'd need like, six, you know, or something like that. It's insane. So, there is that argument around, which I totally get and buy into.

• 40:45Mark Manson?

  We'll be right back.

• 40:52Mark Manson?

  All right, we're back. What is the listener question of the day?

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Uh, yes, this one comes from Tyler, not Tyler Durden, but Tyler, just Tyler.

• 41:01Mark Manson?

  Okay.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  This is an interesting one, and it actually came up in a recent episode. So we, I like this one. Is it okay for an agnostic person to go to church with the intent to learn and socialize if they do not intend to convert? Being respectful applies throughout. So he puts that condition on. I really like this question.

• 41:20Mark Manson?

  Okay, I feel like this question came up because of the Arthur Brooks episode.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it was, yeah.

• 41:26Mark Manson?

  And it's interesting because I've been thinking about this ever since that episode. And it was funny too, because I saw we got some comments who like, kind of trashed him for trying to convert me.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, right, right. Which I didn't feel like he was trying to convert you, but I mean.

• 41:41Mark Manson?

  It was good. I mean, he was very, he was very respectful, but there was definitely like some like nudges. I mean, I kind of called him out on it, but.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Yes, you did. And there was one, you said in there, something along the lines, you said, like, as an atheist, I could argue God is not real. And he said, and you could be right.

• 41:59Mark Manson?

  Yes.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  Which I thought was, oh, okay. You know, even he's a devout Catholic and he acknowledges doubt as part of faith and all of it.

• 42:04Mark Manson?

  I did not think he, he crossed any lines, but it was funny because he was definitely kind of like nudging, like, hey, you should go, go, go to church. Go, go see what it's about.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  He recommended that to people. He said, go. And he's like, people will, you know, they'll engage you for the most part. You will run into zealots and assholes, just like you will anywhere.

• 42:20Mark Manson?

  Yeah, pick the right church for sure.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  What do you think about this as a, I don't know the context, it's a short question and he doesn't give a whole lot of context. He just wants to learn and socialize is what he says.

• 42:32Mark Manson?

  I think if you've never been exposed to Christianity or church, I think it's a great exercise.

• 42:41Mark Manson?

  I would definitely recommend it to anybody who's curious to do it at least once. Just go see what it's about. See what a church service is like. See what they talk about. Listen, you know, listen to the Bible versus.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  It could be temple or synagogue or whatever.

• 42:52Mark Manson?

  Actually, one of my favorite things that I did, I had a really cool youth group leader when I was a teenager. Great guy. And one of the things he did for us is we took, I think it was a month and it was every Sunday, we went to a different religious service. So we went to a Jewish temple one week and then we went to like a mosque one week. And then we went to, I think we went to like a Mormon church one week and it was really cool, like just. And like he had called ahead of time, it was like, hey, I'm just gonna bring a bunch of these like Christian kids. And it's just to learn about your religion and just like see, be exposed to the different beliefs. It was really cool. It was like very, um, yeah, it was awesome.

• 43:29Mark Manson?

  And so I, I, I think just from a purely like educational perspective and empathetic perspective of like learning and understanding different types of people and, uh, different philosophies and religions, like, I think it's a great exercise. Should you go regularly and become, try to become part of that community while not, while being atheist or agnostic? I, I don't know. That's like, so that's the question I struggle with. It's actually funny because, uh, you know, I actually live two blocks from a church and, um, since, since my wife and I moved here, we like make jokes that we're gonna like, like, oh, it's Sunday morning, time to go to church, you know, like we'll walk past to like, go get our, our breakfast or something.

• 44:10Mark Manson?

  We're like, ah, we should stop in, go to church. Uh, we kind of like laugh about it, but it's, and like after the Arthur Brooks episode, I, I had a conversation with her. I was like, maybe we should go, we should go sit in church. I don't know. Like it is, I do agree with him that like, you and I, we've done so many episodes on the loneliness epidemic, on the atomization of society, how people are like, seem to be getting worse at maintaining community and relationships. And like, that is such a huge problem. It's a problem that I experienced in my own life. And, and I, I, I can't help but look at it and just see a, a church sized hole in society. Like that, it's just all this stuff, like church was kind of the, and not just church, but religion in general. It was like the binding force that like solved all these problems.

• 44:55Mark Manson?

  And, and so I lament that and I, there, and I mentioned on that episode, like, I think back to my parents' church community when I was a kid and, uh, you know, as an adult now, I, I, I remember it with envy. Like, I'm like, man, I, I wish I had a group of friends like that, that I got to see every Sunday and do all these cool things with. And, um, that I could rely upon and that would show up, you know, at all times, all hours and pitch in and help with whatever was needed. I get the draw. I'm just very, very skeptical that you can synthetically recreate that. Yeah. Without the buy-in to the Jesus stuff. Right.

• 45:36Mark Manson?

  And also to try to embed myself or oneself into that community without that buy-in.

• 45:45Mark Manson?

  On some level feels disrespectful.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Right, but yeah, and so like initially, I think the question is like initially going to learn and socialize.

• 45:52Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Sure, that's okay.

• 45:54Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  One of the things I like about this question, though, is it's somebody who's intentionally putting themself in a situation with people that they disagree with. And I think like a lot of the comments we got to the Arthur is a polarizing episode. It did really well, like the people who liked it, loved it, the people who didn't had a lot to say about it. And it just, it kind of shows you how uncomfortable people are sitting with ideas that they disagree with and don't want to engage with. And I just, I commend Tyler here for just being so proactive about being like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go see what this is all about. That's.

• 46:31Mark Manson?

  Go check it out.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Go check it out. Absolutely.

• 46:33Mark Manson?

  Yeah, you know, there was, there was this period,

• 46:38Mark Manson?

  probably like 15 years ago, you know, in the, in the late 2000s, early 2010s, where there was kind of this, this violent atheism. You know, it was like Sam Harris was bursting out to the scene.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Richard Dawkins.

• 46:49Mark Manson?

  Dawkins was doing his thing and Hitchens was still alive and it, so it became very fashionable to be not militant atheist, but like uncompromisingly atheist. Cause before that atheists were just kind of chill. They're just like, yeah, just don't make me go to church.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:07Mark Manson?

  But then in the 2000s, it became like, kind of like a, not only am I atheist, but I think religion is bad. And that never sat right with me as somebody who grew up in a religious community. If like, just because I've seen firsthand how beneficial it is to so many people's lives. And again, from the community aspect, the social aspect, the emotional support aspect. So I think for people who have never been exposed to a religious community, it's probably a useful exercise to go check one out, see what it's all about, see what the people are like. Chances are, unless you find a real shitty denomination with a bunch of assholes, chances are you're gonna meet the nicest people of your fucking life. You're gonna be blown away by how friendly they are.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:52Mark Manson?

  And.

• 47:54Mark Manson?

  That's, uh, that's something that gets missed, I think, a lot in the secular side of society.

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Right, right. And to be sure, there are downsides and there's assholes and there, yeah, the dogma can, you know, get in and hook its claws into you and stuff like that. And yeah, sure, there's, there's that, there's that side of it. That can happen without religion, too.

• 48:14Mark Manson?

  Totally.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  So, you know, you see those political movements now, which are basically like you talked with Arthur Brooks, they're basically religious movements now, and we see the fallout from that. And that's what we're trying to replace this church-sized hole that you talk about. We're replacing it with things that could be scarier. And Tim Urban said that, too. And there's another polarizing episode there, too. Tim Urban said that, too. It was like, yeah, there's a lot about religion he doesn't like, and he's agnostic atheist as well. But he's like, what are you replacing that with?

• 48:42Mark Manson?

  Right.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Because it could be a lot worse than, than what we've done for the last 2,000 years, or more, actually. So, I, yeah, to be curious, and you don't, you know, you don't have to, you're sure, you don't have to sign up, you don't have to drink the Kool-Aid.

• 48:55Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  I don't think it's such a bad idea either.

• 48:57Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  I don't know. What do you think about like, you know, like unitarians or like these, do you think anything like a, like a almost pseudo-religion could replace that? You have already kind of noticed that, or mentioned that. Probably not.

• 49:12Mark Manson?

  You know, there's a theory, and they've actually found this in the research, that it's basically like, the more strict the belief system of a movement, the, the more binding it is, like, the more, the stronger the community is.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:27Mark Manson?

  And the more resilient the community is, because there's just a higher bar to entry, and then there's more, you lose more by failing, and, and everybody's behavior is kept in check through accountability. I don't know. I think there's some threshold of like, you need to buy into something. That's like, hard to buy into, right? Like, you can't just show up and be like, ah, well, maybe we believe the same thing, maybe we don't, but it doesn't matter, because we're all just here to hang out. Like, no group based on that ever laughs or sticks around. Like, it's, it's when people have skin in the game by believing something that is potentially embarrassing or punishing in some way.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  Sets them apart.

• 50:07Mark Manson?

  That sets them apart. Like, that's also the glue that binds them together. Right? And so, and then that's where you get the benefits, all the social and emotional benefits of like having a community and relying on each other. And so, I don't think you can recreate it. I think it's, and it's interesting because I think a lot of, there's, there's a lot of, I guess, secular organizations that are like behaving more like religions, right? Like, if you think about things like CrossFit, or yoga studios, or like veganism, you know, the, or the effective altruism. Like, there's all these secular movements that are like trying, are being like religi- religious-ish.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:50Mark Manson?

  And, and it doesn't really work.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:54Mark Manson?

  Doesn't really work. It, it's actually, it's funny. You kind of get the worst aspects of religion, which is like you get, you get the zealotry and the judgment, but you don't get the good aspects. You don't get the community and the like, the reliance and all the good vibes and stuff. So...

• 51:07Speaker 01

  It's herding cats a lot of times. Yeah, for sure.

• 51:10Mark Manson?

  Yeah.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:11Mark Manson?

  So, I don't know. Maybe we should create a religion, Drew. Call it Bernieism.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  You tried to do that in an article a long time ago. Remember that?

• 51:18Mark Manson?

  I, I love that article.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  I know you didn't. A lot of people did. And I was like, I don't know.

• 51:22Mark Manson?

  You hated it.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  This isn't mine.

• 51:23Mark Manson?

  Honestly, it, that was not my best article. A lot of people did not like that article.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Well, okay.

• 51:31Mark Manson?

  All right. What's the?

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I got some wisdom of the week for you.

• 51:34Mark Manson?

  Yeah. What's the, what's the quote?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  This one's, it's going back to the self-help stuff and the self-acceptance. The great Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologist, he said, "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

• 51:51Mark Manson?

  Mic drop moment. All right. We'll be back next week, folks. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie. Edited by Andrew Nishimura, Jessica Choy is our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next week.