Comedian Drew Michael on Optimization, Social Media Culture, and Empathy

Ryan talks to Drew Michael about his new stand up special Red Blue Green, the line between being artistic and being offensive, how ideology and emotional disposition are linked, and more. Drew Michael is a stand-up comedian who has long been a fixture in the New York stand-up scene. Drew has also released comedy albums (2013’s Lovely and 2016’s Funny to Death) along with a very funny Comedy Central half-hour. He spent the 2016-2017 season writing for SNL, and he appeared on an episode of The Carmichael Show. Drew also has two Netflix specials, Drew Michael (2018) and Red Blue Green (2021). Drew is not a stranger to adversity. At 3 years-old, Drew discovered he was deaf, and this had a profound impact on how he perceived the world. He dropped out of engineering school twice to pursue his career in stand-up comedy. Drew uses comedy to ask what the role of comedy should be for him personally and for the art form more broadly. His most recent specials are a revelation about how he thinks about masculinity, strength, and vulnerability in relation to his work as a comedianLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply. Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now. InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal. Framebridge makes it easier and more affordable than ever to frame your favorite things - without ever leaving the house. Get started today - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code STOIC to save an additional 15% off your first order. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 4:50Speaker 0

  Loving yourself means when you're, you know, doing things that are good for you, even when it's hard, you know, going to bed on time and like taking care of your body, taking care of your space, taking care of your emotional, you know, um disposition and whatever, and like tending to yourself, doing things that are good for you.

• 5:14Speaker 1

  I was trying to think even about what we talked about when we met. Whoa. So that would have been 2015 or so. I don't even remember when that was in Austin. In Austin, yeah, I've I've I

• 5:24Speaker 0

  think I've seen you twice. I it once was in uh in Austin, and then once was um in New York.

• 5:34Speaker 1

  Yeah, we went to we did like a thing at Soho House or something after one of my book launches, right?

• 5:39Speaker 0

  Yes. Yeah. I don't know what we talk about. You exposed me to Topo Chico. I had my first and only Topo Chico with you.

• 5:48Speaker 1

  Well, you know, so much has changed in the sparkling water game since then. Now sort of everything is sparkling water and everyone has their own. I still I just had a Topo Chico myself. It's still it's I would say it's my favorite, but now there's some that are of rainwater, you know, whatever it's actually a good illustration of like in our lifetime of how marketing just creates made up shit that then makes people want it. Do you know what I mean? Like you watch how you have to distinguish yourself from okay, regular water and then sparkling water, and then how inside the sparkling water market, do I make up things that people will want? It's gonna be in this bottle, it's gonna be a glass, it's gonna have this kind of you know, you you watch uh you watch it get manufactured in front of you.

• 6:37Speaker 0

  Yeah, you know what's interesting what I find interesting is how almost like back, like it goes back to the almost like you know, when people had a craft or whatever, but like the the way that people look at the world sometimes is influenced by like their training or where they come from or whatever else. Like, you know, obviously you have an extensive background in in marketing and advertising, and so you you're gonna see the gears of of that churning probably first or among first. And it reminds me, I I got I got a uh a manicure and uh the the person like you know, working on my my hands, she she she asked me, she's like she's like, you're a writer or a musician. And I was like, oh, right, like the like she that's how like is she completely right because she was like deducing my life, yeah, based on my my hands, and that's how she was sort of like seeing people and seeing the world.

• 7:37Speaker 0

  I just think it's fascinating, like how you know, people's backgrounds and people's um you know, trades even can like uh dictate how they see how they see things.

• 7:47Speaker 1

  No, that's totally right. You develop like a sort of a point of view or frame of reference early in life, and then professionally uh you cultivate that thing. So like a comedian is always gonna be someone who has a certain amount of perception, a certain uh knack for finding what's funny, and then as you understand how the market works and how the actual act of performing on stage works, you start to get like confirmation bias to your benefit. Like you see the things that you can use because you know you now have a need for those. Oh, interesting.

• 8:23Speaker 0

  You think there's like a heightened awareness to things that would be beneficial to notice.

• 8:29Speaker 1

  Yeah, of course. It it's like when you have a hammer, uh, everything looks like a nail, but it like to your benefit. Like you you're able to perceive things that you can use. Like, like I read when I read books, I read for pleasure, obviously, I read to learn, but then I also have this I, which I cultivated as a research assistant, but now knowing what goes into a book, I'm like, that is that is a story that I can use. So like I have and and you you have I imagine like let's say a musician, like they're fucking around on the guitar. There's they're gonna there's gonna be some like light that goes off in their head when they hear three or four notes together that they're like, oh, that is the genesis of a song, right?

• 9:17Speaker 1

  Sure,

• 9:18Speaker 0

  sure. I I think but so sometimes though some of that uh recognition is done way, way, way later. Like, you know, it won't be until sometimes months or years after the fact, sometimes where I'm pulling, I'm I'm writing about something, I'm thinking about something, and then a certain reference or a certain, you know, uh analogy or certain parable comes to mind and and you start to realize oh how how appropriate that that is. Um yeah, I I I guess I I guess that's true. I don't know what I'm trying to argue necessarily, but I I guess um that's

• 9:53Speaker 1

  interesting. Well, I find that like so. When I read, like I'm always like, oh, I like this, I like this, I like this, I just collect it. And then once I know what I want, like then I'm like, okay, I'm writing a book about X. I go back through everything I find, and I I found stuff that works for that idea that I collected before I knew I was looking for that thing. Right. Right, all right. So it's all floating around. Like if your specials around a theme, you probably think back to jokes that were throwaways like from three years ago that suddenly work for that theme. And so you didn't know you were cute, you were you were inching your way towards there, but you sort of subconsciously work. Yeah, I I think I think that's definitely true.

• 10:36Speaker 0

  And um, but I also think that like yeah, there is sometimes sometimes it maybe works the other way, where the things that have worked or would work, or the kinds of you know, subjects or perspectives or you know, sort of idiosyncrasies that you can observe, the things that that would work, maybe like I I guess I'm I'm in a place now where I think I'm finding like the things that I'm noticing are actually sort of contradictor, contradictory to the types of things that maybe like the aggregator would want in my mind. And so it creates like this sort of upending, and and maybe that's growth, and maybe that is you know, challenging my own sort of frame of reference. But it's like sometimes the things that I find myself noticing or or reacting to or relating to or being moved towards are things that somewhat or come or sometimes completely contradict or negate or challenge the the precepts that kind of maybe would facilitate um what I was used to doing.

• 11:39Speaker 0

  And so I think that you know, I again I don't know if that's like artistic growth, if that's an inherent limitation of comedy, like maybe like the idea that something has to end in a punchline is inherently limiting. Like if you were writing a book and you're like every sentence or every paragraph has to come back around or or generate this this the visual or or logical clash that is required for comedy to emerge, then you would be it's like you know, you both hand sided behind your back, where it's just like you can't you can't really get to what you're trying to get to if everything has to be stuck in this in this one thing. And so as somebody who I think you know, I I think I got into comedy not necessarily to make people laugh or to even be the funniest, but because you know, I had certain things that I thought about and wanted to talk about and explore.

• 12:37Speaker 0

  I think for a while there was a way to do that um, you know, on the basis of comedy, but I think like as time goes on, that just feels more and more and more limiting, and the things that I find myself recognizing and the things that are the patterns that I see in the world and the things that I deduce as true are not necessarily um you know congruent to like joke structure or or whatever else. I think sometimes they they sometimes completely defy joke structure.

• 12:30Speaker 1

  Back in the ancient world, philosophy wasn't abstract, it wasn't theoretical, it was designed to help you live the best life. In Stoicism 101, we have a two-week course that will introduce you into philosophy that will make you a better person. There's interviews with me, daily lessons that will challenge you to be better, give you new ways of thinking, tackling the problems of life, becoming your best self. As Marx really says you could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow, Epic Tis, how much longer are you gonna wait to demand the best for yourself? Check out our new course, Stoicism 101 at Daily Stoke.com/slash 101. Well, like I think it's probably short-term maladaptive, right?

• 13:17Speaker 1

  Because like if you're like a character, if instead of being a person, you're like a comedian character who only looks for the world in terms of like redneck jokes or this kind of joke or whatever, then like to have uh the opposite of tunnel vision is maladaptive, right? Because you're sort of going through, and instead of seeing just what you can use, you're seeing all sorts of stuff. But it is much more intellectually honest and more likely to allow for long term growth, uh long term connection, and probably I think ultimately uh a more diverse audience, right? Because for instance, it was with stoicism, I was initially interested in its uh impact on sort of personal development, personal growth, um, you know, like productivity and uh, you know.

• 14:08Speaker 1

  How would help you as an individual? But increasingly I've been much more interested in what the philosophy sort of offers and demands, sort of ethically, collectively, politically, etc. Now the irony is this is coming at exactly the time that the audience is biggest and the audience has grown, primarily because people are interested in productivity and resiliency and all the personal stuff. So it's this clash where like you know if you were just delivering straight down the middle stuff, it would be better for you in the short term, but it would also be I think creatively bankrupt and then in some ways morally bankrupt, but also I think have a shorter shelf life because it is artificially constrained, and you would also burn out with it faster.

• 14:56Speaker 0

  Right. Well, well, I think what you're talking about, and and for forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but like is it's sort of I think it's similar. I think we're similar in the sense that uh trying to align the professional and personal pursuits so that they are not necessarily uh at odds with one another. Um, you know, I mean, I guess there's like an inherent uh you know, static when it comes to like pursuing truth or pursuing, you know, in your case, a very specific um, you know, discipline of truth, uh, you know, or study of it, and um, and then obviously with the necessities of commercialization and monetization and stuff like that.

• 15:44Speaker 0

  Uh, it's funny. I don't know if you uh how much of my world you catch wind of, but it kind of in in the vein of of you know, stu the the the clash of stoicism or or comedy and you know, the kind of marketplace. Um I I and I don't know if he is doing this with a wink. I don't think he is, but uh Chris Rock has a new tour that he's going on. Um the the name of it is called uh ego death. And so his his poster says ego death world tour. And to me, it's just like I don't I like that's too ironic and too hilarious to not be a joke, but I don't think it is a joke. Like I think it is earnestly saying like ego death, and then but it is the world tour.

• 16:33Speaker 0

  And it's just like ego death world tour to me is the funniest. That's like a David Foster Wallace thing. Like that's not supposed to happen. That's supposed to be, you know, what the past viewed as like the sort of parody or satirical outcome of this modality, and and um, you know, it it's it's like Zen Buddhism, the ride. It's like, yeah, it's just

• 16:58Speaker 1

  not. Well, I was thinking about that the other day. I was actually, I was playing with my kids and I was laying down upstairs, uh, and we have this game room, and like we have some posters from my books, like, you know, like when you do a book signing, they give you like a big cut out of the thing, and I was like, hey, can I have that? And they're like, we're just gonna throw it away. So I have it on the wall. And I noticed it caught me that on my first book to like where I am now, my name has gotten bigger on each book, right? It win right in the middle, one of those books is ego is the enemy. And then I was like, well, is that symbolic? And then I was like, but actually also it's a market thing, right? Because like when I published zero books, the the thing that mattered was the title of the book.

• 17:48Speaker 1

  Like, is the title of this book interesting? Right. Now it's like it's me. Yeah, after I'd sold more books, now it's a tension between is the title drawing the reader, or is the fact that I also have fans who exist in the world, and they would be more like, are they gonna be interested in a book on stillness in like thinking about the overlapping diagrams? Is a book called stillness is the key going to sell uh like attract the audience sell better. Still, this is the key name of author you have to like zoom in to see, or is it gonna be, oh, I've liked previous books from this person, and I want to so it's this weird tension, right? And and actually my publisher on ego is the enemy. They were like, what if we did this thing where like sort of an artistic statement, your name wasn't on the cover?

• 18:38Speaker 1

  And I was like, well, first of all, it kind of sucks because I wrote it, right? Like uh I I should the painter should sign their work. It's not an egotistical thing, it's just like own own your shit. But also, like, is that better? Like it which is a better business decision, right? Like at Brass, not even business, what is a better getting people to read a book which the instinctually they don't want to read. And so you have that tension of like because it's a capitalistic commercial thing, it's not just what makes sense artistically or philosophically, it's also like what will work to deliver the medicine.

• 19:12Speaker 0

  Right, right. The the logical extension of your name getting bigger is like the book tour becomes like an arena show with pyrotechnics. It's like, you know, like everyone needs to learn stillness and just like you know, like a like a fighter jet flying overhead and just like everyone's cheering and they have foam fingers of you and like pictures of your face on their t-shirt, and like we love you, and you're like, I'm just preaching. You know what I mean? Like, so so to me, I mean, that's obviously like the hyperbolic, crazy, satirical extreme of this idea of you know, uh uh, you know, a philosophy or uh a set of ideas that are somewhat um, you know, uh uh uh you know not uh compatible with with the sort of like capitalistic enterprise, but then having to exist inside of a capitalist landscape.

• 20:02Speaker 0

  It's like there's yeah, I think the tension is gonna be inherent. I don't think there is like it will play out in different microcosmic ways where it's like the name versus the title, and like, yeah, it would be a statement to be, but then the but like even the publisher, it's like there's so many layers that we're trying to like trick ourselves into thinking we're absorbing actual truth, but it's really like a just a better version of a commercial. And it's like the idea would be like, oh, you publish this book that has no author, and that's the thing, and then like, oh, secretly it's this guy who you know. And it's like it so it is like this this sort of like constant trying to one up the marketing aspect of it. And and and something you see now, I mean, on social media is that uh, you know, the people are so inherently brand conscious, and but like, but the but the you know, with innovative with performers and with authors and artists and and creators or whatever you want to call them, like the they are the product, they are also the marketing brand.

• 21:08Speaker 0

  Like they are the logo and the product and the team and the everything. And so, you know, the delineation of like you know, like we've gotten rid of ads. It's like we didn't. It's just the people just do themselves. So it's like if you were watching like uh, you know, a Simpsons episode back in the day, it would be like if in the middle of the episode, Mars just started talking about like Tide Pods, and you were like, what is what is going on? But that is now. That's just what we know.

• 21:39Speaker 1

  Well, I was thinking, I was thinking about this with your last special, not the most recent one, which I also really liked, but your decision to not have an audience, right? Like, is that an ego death decision decision? Is that an artistically brave decision? And so there's all of that, and then there's just like, well, now I'm watching it and it's different, and it's not what I expect. And because it's not it's different and not what I expect, I don't know how to interpret it, right? Like, there's all these, like you realize I was talking to Chuck Klosterman about this too. Like, there's all these sort of um constraints or it's tropes the wrong word, but like standard practices, like in a medium, whether it's a book or a blog post or video or whatever. And if you push too far on the edges, it might be artistically daring, but then people are like, this makes me uncomfortable because it's different, and now I can't enjoy the thing the way that I might ordinarily do.

• 22:33Speaker 1

  It's like you realize like the audience is it's not just there for vanity, but the audience is also there to prime people, which feels artificial, but then without the artificial, it doesn't feel as organic, you know, like it's weird how these things you take them for granted, but the architecture of them is actually really important.

• 22:53Speaker 0

  Yeah, well, but they also I think deserve to be challenged. I mean, like uh on an artistic level. I think like there is a difference, and maybe it's uh subjective uh determination, but like I think there is a difference between uh, you know, pushing the like I don't want to say push the animal because that sounds cliche, but like, you know, um challenging some preconceived notion of what is and what should be uh on an artistic basis, you know, like let's see, let's let's experiment, let's play with this form in a way that people haven't, and in a way that maybe seems suitable to this actual thing, not just as a as a gimmick. And I think like that there's a big difference between that and then being a reactionary who is you know, essentially taking like what is currently in the zeitgeist, what what what the discourse that is, and then trying to essentially become so outrageous or so noticeable by their hot take or reactionary, you know, like that's kind of in the somewhere in like the podcast land, and also you could probably say Trump was probably a big uh you know, in Advertent proponent of that philosophy.

• 24:06Speaker 0

  And it's just like I think like they're like it they're both driven by the same thing, which is a desire to stand out, I think. But I think there is a difference between somebody doing something artistically radical or versus somebody saying something that's so incendiary or so like inflammatory that it like becomes a thing that people can't ignore.

• 26:01Speaker 1

  Well, no, there's a line between challenging convention, questioning convention, questioning artistic boundaries and then trolling, right? And I think uh that that line people don't understand well. And and the the tricky part is they both often get the same reaction. So it's hard to know. Yeah, so right. If you're if if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're like, oh, well, I have riled people up. I am being denounced, therefore I must have succeeded. And it's like, no, you just like uh pulled your pants down in the middle of a room. This is like that that's not being artistically uh created. Like you just did something that's like wildly inappropriate and uh unwar and unwanted. That's not the same as sort of coming up with some you know interesting artistic statement.

• 26:51Speaker 1

  Yeah, and I think

• 26:53Speaker 0

  because that's exactly right. I think like people have sort of co-opted the reactions that previously radical things or progressive voices or I'm saying progressive, not in like the political sense, but in like the you know, challenging, yeah, challenging something that that the status quo or something that currently existed. And yeah, that was obviously gonna be met with a lot of you know pushback and offense and death threats and whatever uh, you know, like you know, Lenny Bruce was arrested and Malcolm X was killed, and you know, like it's so like you're gonna get that sort of hostility, and so it's it's just essentially isolating the hostility component and saying and and reverse engineering it through whatever means necessary in order to generate the hostility and then essentially rebranding that as you know, I am like these people.

• 27:47Speaker 0

  I'm I'm just so you know challenging to these people can't handle me, and that's an incredibly incredibly captivating thing to watch, just inherently, like just people, like if you saw a bus fight, if you saw one person being the worst and a hundred people trying to like fight them on a bus, you'd watch it's like I that's un I can't take my eyes off of that. And so, you know, and then some people would start really getting invested in the one person, being like, oh yeah, I will see myself in that dude, and like I like now I will subscribe. I want to hear more, and I'm you know, I want to I want this person to be like my avatar in this sort of public sphere. And I think that that is you know, somewhat it's obviously created like a pretty dangerous landscape where it's just like self-promotion trumps everything.

• 28:39Speaker 0

  Like it's like, well, it's working, it's like I'm selling out, it's like, yeah, but and to me, like not to not to get too into the weeds on on the Trump thing, but like to me, Trump just kind of ended the idea that like selling tickets is the ultimate barometer. It's like, yeah, you can you can do this. Like, in and he, I think he does it exceptionally well. You know, I think he is like a talent, he's talented at what he's doing in his own way. And like, but it's just like, what is this though? Like, what like is this cool? Like, I don't like like I guess it's cool in the sense that like you are taking on a lot of people, and some of those people do suck, but just because someone sucks and thinks you suck doesn't make you awesome.

• 29:22Speaker 1

  Yes. Well, I actually JD Vance said this in one of the interviews he's doing. He's running for Senate in Ohio. Uh previously seemed like what was a thoughtful, reasonable human being, and then it sort of revealed himself to be a total piece of shit. Um, but uh, you know, he he uh he was like uh they're hated by the right people. He was like, I like this person because they're hated by the right people. Or that they hate the right people, right? Right. And so it becomes this idea of like, like, like, look, are you op this is kind of what my first book was about, which is like, are you optimizing for like doing cool stuff or saying stuff that's true, or like questioning things that need to be questioned, or are you optimizing for the reaction?

• 30:07Speaker 1

  Yeah, right. Are you optim are you optimizing for getting the people that you don't like to not like what you're doing? Yeah, right. And I think a lot of people in comedy, in art, influencers in politics, etc., have just said like they've just dispensed with everything and said, like, who do we want to piss off? This is where the sort of they call this like owning the libs. Like, if all I want to do is own the libs or get this group of people to disproportionately freak out, it really doesn't matter what I do, what I say, what I care, all that matters is am I getting that reaction? And I have to imagine as a comic, you sort of distinguish between like earning a laugh and then doing something that gets a laugh that like to an ordinary person, those might seem like the same thing, but there's like an honest way to do it and a dishonest way to do it, and there is a difference.

• 31:02Speaker 0

  Yeah, uh no, for sure. And and um you you made me think it just real quick, when you say your first book, is that trust me, I'm lying, or is there something so that that was how I was in introduced to you is I I think I saw an article you wrote about the alt-right, about how like I wrote the playbook that they're using, and it was inadvertent, obviously. And so that got me to read the book, and there's there are two books that I think I've sent to people the most. One is uh Antkind by Charlie Kaufman, and the other is Trust Me, I'm lying by you. And the reason is because I it like it feels almost like the sort of update, the updated version. Obviously, it's like a little bit more about blogosphere, which is maybe early 2010s than it is like this hyper social media thing that is current, but like I think so many of the principles still apply, but but it feels like an update from you know this sort of Edward Brunet's uh outline of the sort of uh you know public relations industry in the 20th century.

• 32:06Speaker 0

  And so this felt like you know, sort of that um distilled down to the the elements that are that are relevant to like to new technology. And one of the things that uh I I always quote from the book, I don't know if I quote it correctly, so I apologize, but like just the idea of um the emotional balance of something being the determining factor of how quickly it spreads or how rapidly or how how much it proliferates and just this idea that that outrage and and and um anger spreads. I think I think it was something in a three-to-one clip of of even like the most beautiful happiness, you know, kind of kind of feelings. And so it it just makes sense that the sort of algorithmic outcome of that is going to be that people are going to lean into the incentives of something spreading a lot.

• 32:56Speaker 0

  And so of course, like I don't think it's I don't think it's even like scheming billionaire people. I think it's literally just robotic like human uh manipulation that that's occurring.

• 33:07Speaker 1

  Or it just selects for crazy people whose own barometer, like you we've all met people who are like they stir up craziness, they go towards craziness, and so like this is their moment. You know what I mean? Like Trump is Trump is in his late 70s, right? Like he he's always been this way, and then culture aligned with his personality perfectly, right? And so I think it's like a normal person isn't like I would love to be on a reality show on E. That's like that's my scene. You know what I mean? But there is a kind of person who is perfectly designed for that crazy environment, right? And like so it selects for those people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They may not even know they're doing it. That's just who they are, and then suddenly they're getting all the attention and love that they've always craved and not even knowing.

• 33:55Speaker 1

  Yeah, it's like

• 33:57Speaker 0

  the warlord uh concept where it's like if if it's a war-torn, you know, uh crazy lawless country or area or region, then the you know most ruthless and and you know, vicious person or or group is going to survive that and and emerge victorious, and so they'll they'll essentially just be elevated by the circumstance. And there might be other people like that who just don't quite, you know, whatever, and but like it's going to like you said, self-select for that. I think that's what's we're seeing now, is like um it is self-selecting for the people who can present like, you know, yeah, the the stuff that uh gets people gets people engaged, as they say, and doesn't matter there's no Z access to engagement is the problem.

• 34:43Speaker 0

  Like there's view, there's like clicks and like time, but there's no like intensity or feeling, or you know, there's no like because sometimes people somebody will have like a hundred million views or something, and it's like, yeah, but did people connect to it, or was it just kind of passively seen, you know, like so there's no there's no way to really quantify that. I don't necessarily know if it should be quantified. Like it's like it's maybe slightly dystopian of like I want to quantify like the level of attachment I feel for a piece of art. It's like uh I don't know.

• 35:22Speaker 1

  I don't know if I don't know if you said this in the special or if you were just talking about an interview, but you got rid of social, right? You don't use social interview. Anymore. How has that changed your life? I

• 35:30Speaker 0

  use social. I don't use Twitter. I don't use Facebook. I have an Instagram. But I I would say I use it sparingly, you know. And I have my brother helps me with some of the social stuff. And so like I have he have him, like he'll just upload videos for me into the algorithm just to kind of get them through there. But I'm not, I'm not engaging with it, but Twitter I deleted, like deleted my account at the beginning of the pandemic. So sometime in 2020. And Facebook I had deleted maybe like four four years prior to that, or three or four years prior to that. And so I do think Instagram is like as vapid and whatever is it is.

• 36:16Speaker 0

  I think it's probably the least toxic of the three. Weirdly,

• 36:18Speaker 1

  yes, because you can use it, it's not entirely comment-based, right? Like you're the content is the thing. So you can look at the pictures and be like, I'm just not gonna go down the rabbit hole of these toxic comments, but you can engage in the platform. It's like YouTube. YouTube is the worst community, but is the social network you can use without breaking your brain as much because you can just watch this.

• 36:42Speaker 0

  I think that's I think Twitter probably is the worst because comments can become content, and that's like where it starts to go crazy. Like you can retweet a comment. It is

• 36:50Speaker 1

  a comment. You can the tweet is a good idea. Right, right, right, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 0

  You're commenting to some thing that's either explicitly or implicitly, you know, present. And um, Twitter felt like Instagram feels like it the least cruel. Like there's the least space for cruelty and on Instagram. I mean, obviously, people get hate and and all that kind of stuff, but like Twitter almost feels designed around that, where it's like you you like the tone of it, like the inherent tone is you know, putting something down or calling something stupid, and I I just feel like that, you know, obviously that's at the core of it. So on the fringes of that, you're gonna get like doxing and you know, rape threats and shit, where it's just like horrendous, horrendous stuff, and you know, I'm not I don't think I'm one of these people who's like oh I can't take a little internet comment.

• 37:45Speaker 0

  It's like it's fucking crazy. Like when that is like that barrage is coming at you, it's like not chill, and it's not like just the idea of people not liking your work, like that's hard enough, but it's just like this is and and I just don't understand when why anyone would do that at all. Like what way what it would take for me to log in, unless you're on some like 40 chess, like I'm gonna troll because this is all nihilistic and we're all deserve nothing. Like, but if you're like in earnest, you know, you have a fucking your profile picture is you and like whatever jersey of whatever team you like, and you're like have like your son like this, and then you like go in and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna tell this person that he should kill himself.

• 38:34Speaker 0

  It's like I don't know, like I truly can't identify with with that. Like I can identify with rage or whatever, but like to actually log in to actually type it, to actually hit send, and then sit back and be like, yeah, I fucking did something. And so that, but then also if I were the type of person who were inspiring, who was inspiring that type of behavior on my behalf, I would seriously rethink everything that I was saying to the public. It's like, what am I doing? You know, it's it's like if you if you're consistently dating someone psychotic, that's like what well, what are you doing? What like what are you putting out there that this is who's calling it? Everyone you

• 39:05Speaker 1

  meet's an asshole, you're an asshole, also. Like, that's how that works. Say it one more time. Oh, the the expression is if everyone you meet is an asshole, right? You're probably an asshole. Like, if you're there's something you're putting out in the world that you're getting back, it's it it's it's reflexive. Yeah,

• 39:20Speaker 0

  100%. And so I don't I don't know how someone can not self-reflect at that point and be like, yeah, you know, my fans uh threaten to kill your mom. That's just they're they're rambunctious. It's like what are you inspiring here? Like it's you know, it's like joker bane shit.

• 39:39Speaker 1

  Which no, I I remember I read I read this article that was like uh it was actually really funny. It was looking at like who uses the share buttons on you porn because like each video has like a share, like just like YouTube, you can share it. And they were like, who posts pornography to their LinkedIn account, which was like one of the options. That's as inexplicable to me as the people who use social media to like attack people that they don't like. I just like I it's I know it exists, right? Like I'm aware that it exists, but it's so incomprehensible to me that it may as well not exist because I don't understand it at that level. Yeah, you

• 40:16Speaker 0

  know, it's it's so absurd, and right. It's like who would do this? And it's like, well, apparently millions of people. Like that that's the crazy part. It's like who

• 40:24Speaker 1

  would do this millions of people.

• 40:28Speaker 0

  Yeah, I mean, maybe like you know, you share it. I don't I couldn't, I yeah, I I yeah, I I don't know how I I don't know what it would take for me to be like even to like a friend, be like, this is so good. I thought you would like this.

• 40:44Speaker 1

  It's inconceivable. Right inconsistent. But people do it, or is all those bots? Like people actually I don't know. I don't know. It's it's it's in the

• 40:55Speaker 0

  like a tumbler or something because Tumblr has like all those, you know, porn-esque

• 41:02Speaker 1

  tumbler things. It's it's you know, you try to be empathetic. You try to go like, why do people do what they do? This is like a philosophical principle, right? Like, why get inside their brain and why is it working? And you're just like, I can't. It doesn't make any like I've tried it, I've tried it, and I'm now even less sympathetic because that's so

• 41:23Speaker 0

  inconceivable. Right, right. Like, right, because before it was like, oh, if I only just put myself in their shoes, I would maybe have a chance of bridging the gap. But like then you do it and you're like, yeah, it's even more alien, and I actually think I hate it more now because

• 41:38Speaker 1

  I'll give you a crazy one that I was thinking about. Okay, so like I live in this small town outside Austin, and you know, we try to be like a good uh you know, participant in the community. It's like all of a sudden there's just like little things that you're asked to do that you're not asked to do if you like live in New York. Like they're like, hey, can we put up this sign for our fundraiser like in the window of your store? And I'm like, shit, I have to like think. Do I have a policy about this? Anyways, they came by, I guess a police officer in town was like shot and injured in the line of duty, right? My dad is a police officer. That's terrible. I don't like that. But the poster they wanted me to hang up was a raffle for an assault rifle for his benefit. Right? So like they were coming in, they're like, hey, we're giving away effectively a machine gun to raise money uh because a police officer was injured.

• 42:31Speaker 1

  Right, right,

• 42:32Speaker 0

  right.

• 42:33Speaker 1

  And so you're like, look, these are like decent people, they mean well. Clearly, they're trying to help this injured person, and you go, like, you know, maybe if I just thought about it from their point of view, I would I would be more and then I was thinking about it, and I'm like, this is the most insane thing that I've like, I'm so much less sympathetic having thought about it because it's maybe clear to me that they didn't think about it at all. Like, like, because if they thought about it, there's really only one conclusion. It's not it's worse than ironic. It's obscene. Do you know what I mean? Right. It's like it's obscene. Right,

• 43:04Speaker 0

  right. It's like uh, you know, one of the neighbors kids has leukemia and we're trying to raise money for uh his his hospital bills and said we're gonna have Mendingo fights

• 43:17Speaker 1

  to raise money. It's

• 43:18Speaker 0

  like uh can I just put like a couple bucks in like a good Kickstarter or something? Like why are we doing yeah,

• 43:27Speaker 1

  like why are we trying to Well it's like our solution to this problem is to contribute significantly to the problem that that's like what we want to do. What are you talking about? Yeah,

• 43:37Speaker 0

  like it right. It's um but then it becomes like, and this is maybe the next layer of that. Um I don't know, I don't even know if that's what they were called. I was pulling that reference from Django, and yeah, but I think I'm gonna guess the context of it. Um but then it's like I don't want to do that, and then it's like, oh, you hate whatever the thing that they're raising money for. It's like, no, I hate how you're doing it. I totally like, yeah. And honestly, like if you're doing it that way, it makes me like so who was this guy.

• 44:11Speaker 1

  The juxtaposition is horrible. Like, what do you think? What are you talking about? Well, actually, you know what? I I was thinking about this. Uh it's actually this is a good segue to something to talk about in this special, I'm pretty sure. Where you're talking about uh, or maybe it was before you're talking about you read the the Unibomber manifesto and you were like, I get it. Like, I get what he's talking about. Like the weird part is you you study history and it gets really complicated really quickly. Uh and then all like if you're kind of stuck there, you're like, well, what about this? What about this? Hey, this the the uh states rights was a part of the civil war, right? And like, and then and then you think about it some more, and it gets simple again because you're like, wait, what did they want the states' rights for? Oh yeah, slavery, right? So like the the the paradox of like it's like you don't think about it, you think about it, then you really think about it.

• 45:01Speaker 1

  These can get you to kind of similar places. And so I think some people are just like, whatever, who cares?

• 45:08Speaker 0

  Right, well, yeah, exactly. And and that that that the the the context of that bit was. Basically, like I don't I don't want to read anymore because anytime I read something really interesting, it's just just teaches me or exposes me to an idea that's essentially incompatible with everyday life. And it's like, because inherently, like inherently, if you find something that's truly like, you know, it breaks ground in your mind and it and it feels like new, it's going to at least partially run counter to everything. And so, you know, it it's just like there is a social adaptability factor that I think sometimes knowing a lot and being really in depth in knowledge, not that I am that person, but just even on a small level. And so, yeah, the the Unibomber Manifesto, which like outside of it's just funny, like outside of the killing, which he doesn't really talk about in the manifesto.

• 45:59Speaker 0

  I mean, there's like some maybe like latent sexism and stuff like that. And so it's but like in terms of principles, his is like the his the points he's made. Yeah, he's a genius. Like he's not, you know, he spends seven years or whatever in a cabin just reading about sociology and living in the fucking you know wilderness, and like he was literally like, you know, uh Abe Simpson, where it's like old man yells at a cloud, like that was literally him, and he was yelling at airplanes as they would say would fly overhead. And but he's uh he's a Luddite, you know, and he he talks about you know, like the the corruption of of this essentially modernized uh you know um tech society on human psychology, and I don't think that's like that controversial necessarily. I think it's like yeah, but I mean his you know, some people are like, yeah, so the best way to deal with that is to like stop doing all this, tear it down and start, you know, in like a sort of like pseudo-agrarian commune thing.

• 46:57Speaker 0

  It's like right. That might not even be wrong, but like that's also just impractical. Like we're not gonna like nobody's gonna be on board for that. Nobody is gonna be like, yeah, let's just tear this all to pieces.

• 48:21Speaker 1

  Well, and also when you study his history and you're like, oh yeah, they tried that in the Great Leap Forward, and they tried it in Russia, and it was horribly awful for just different reasons. You know, like uh anyways, I remember uh, you know, that that expression, like um uh those who don't study history are deemed to repeat it, right? And and like I saw a meme that I think about all the time. It's like actually that's not true. Those who study history are doomed uh to watch in terror as leaders repeat, right? So it's like the there is this paradox of knowledge. Like if you studied history, if you have a sense of like how things have gone historically, it doesn't matter, like sure, if you're the president, it's good to have studied history, but for the rest of us, it just means like you know what where the roller coaster is going, and you're strapped in and you just have to to sit there in impotent terror, knowing this is gonna be really awful.

• 49:18Speaker 1

  Yeah, right.

• 49:20Speaker 0

  You could identify uh immediately what this you know, what analogy this evokes and be like, oh, that's gonna be bad, and then continue to just have nothing to do about it. Right. Like that that, yeah, well, that's uh that speaks to like a general sense of like powerlessness in a you know in a society with so much you know inertia that has nothing to do with you. And somebody a friend of mine made a point, and maybe it wasn't his point, but it was just like the things that really like if you're talking about fundamental um momentum of society, like the things that can really upend that, like truly, it's really just uh technology, war, maybe like biochemical disease or environment.

• 50:06Speaker 1

  Yeah,

• 50:06Speaker 0

  and it's like you're you know, no protest has ever really shifted like the the bigger tectonics of things, and and that's not to say that they're futile. I mean, obviously, like you know, there are societies existing on top of like these bigger um you know plates of of you know sociology or whatever, but like it it it's like if if you're if you're protesting like something bigger that or at least is is a byproduct of something much bigger, it is it sucks because it's like I I don't want to be I'm not nihilistic at all. I don't think that like it doesn't nothing you do matter. I don't believe any of that, but it's also like I I yeah, I I don't know what to do. I mean, like because right, educating yourself seems to be just making yourself furious at how not right things are going.

• 50:58Speaker 0

  And then you know, like you know, like how you like granularly how not right it is. It's like, oh I used to think it was like fucked up, but now I could write like a dissertation on why it's fucked up. But it's it doesn't necessarily it gets hairy because it's like I don't want to say like oh fuck it because then it that's worse, and so I don't know what the answer is. Well it's

• 51:23Speaker 1

  funny, like we we talk about like you know, we have the the children's story, like chicken little. It's like the sky is falling, the sky's falling, and no one believes you. But like the ancients had the the myth of Cassandra, like the person who can see the future and lays out exactly what's gonna happen, just nobody listens. And so the the idea, like, you know, we're like, oh, this is so unprecedented, like whatever we're going through right now. It's like this is very precedented. This has happened like a thousand times, and this is exactly more or less how it's gonna go. That's not to say we're we're not power, we're powerless to do anything about it. In fact, there's a lot we can do about it. It's just also understanding we're not gonna do anything about it.

• 52:09Speaker 1

  And that's kind of the that's where you get into the nihilism. You're like, here, like it's like watching what's gonna happen politically. It's like it is a Trump re-election inevitable, like not in any sense that like uh he's super competent and is unstoppable in that sense, but is it likely that the people who sh who can and should stop him will get their act together anytime soon? No, uh, because who could

• 52:35Speaker 0

  you know

• 52:36Speaker 1

  who could

• 52:37Speaker 0

  like um who who it like here's the the here's my question is like he has the biggest he's the most popular like he he has the biggest like when he was president, I think I think he was the most famous person to have ever lived at

• 52:55Speaker 1

  the time of their life. I think currently you probably say that you're even now, yeah. But

• 53:00Speaker 0

  I'm just like but everything was going through that guy. I mean, like obviously, you know, you know, you have historical figures who are more famous, but like not at the time of of their of their life. I think Trump is or is he at least up there? And so Well, you mean

• 53:13Speaker 1

  you go back historically, like to take Alexander the Great, like let's say everyone knew who he was, but how many people could hear directly from Alexander the Great or knew what Alexander the Great looked like or thought like yeah, exactly. It would it was it was crazy. But I mean it's he has been stopped once. I mean, he did lose an election. Yeah, but he didn't

• 53:35Speaker 0

  lose to anyone, he just

• 53:36Speaker 1

  losed to not he lost to not him. That's but but so I'm saying it's not actually impossible, but it but you could Trump is so loaded, you could insert anything. It's like, you know, is disaster from climate change inevitable, not in the sense that there's nothing human beings can do about it, but is it likely that human beings will do anything that the pandemic wasn't inevitable either, right? Like there were lots of things we could have done, and you can look at other countries that did things differently. Obviously, we're all in the same boat, and that nobody like perfectly stopped it, but like it's it's like human beings have the agency and the ability to bend the arc of history. It's just most of the time they don't. And that's the that's what lends one to nihilism, because you're just sort of like, yeah, I guess it it can change, but it won't.

• 54:28Speaker 1

  So my

• 54:30Speaker 0

  well, yeah, and I've tried to, and maybe this is like a privileged position or something, but I I've tried to um localize my efforts, and and I don't mean in even in like the community sense. I mean like on the individual basis, like, you know, because I think that there is something to be said for you know, being highly involved in uh big abstract comp complex topics, and then at the same time, you know, your personal relationships, your relationship with yourself is um dysfunctional. I think that like that's actually like like you're doing more you're most of your impact is done on like the interpersonal level, just like unless you're you know, one of a hundred people, you know, unless you're Elon Musk or whatever, like I think you and I, even as people who speak to the public, whatever, like I think the the relationship that you have with yourself and with the people closest to you, that's going to echo out in your communication.

• 55:32Speaker 0

  And so it's like that seems to be the of the utmost importance is to is to maximize and and you know find uh harmony in that. And I'm sure I mean I'm talking to someone who who preaches on um you know something adjacent to that. And so I I have found some solace in the sense of like, you know, these are problems that I can solve. Like I have my own personal issues that I I need to work through that doesn't negate the need for for bigger, you know, changes and and and all of that. But I think like, you know, it's similar to the you know, you're on an airplane, like put put your auction mask on before helping the person next to you. It's like I I'm really of no good to anyone if I'm just like this ball of uh of you know unbridled anger or frustration, but that that's some sometimes is is triggered.

• 56:24Speaker 0

  By like the state of the world, but I think a lot of that is also internal for me at least. I mean, obviously, like, you know, if I'm growing, if I'm if I'm black living in America, for example, like I would imagine like the anger that's mine is put upon me in a way that I I don't think necessarily I can I obviously can't relate to that component of it. But there are, you know, everyone has their own external and internal factors. And I think like trying to manage those and then spread that out to the relationships that you have with with people seems to be a way to you know move.

• 57:03Speaker 1

  Yeah, I was reading this piece that this woman she found out like later in life that her father, who was like a doctor but kind of worked for the government, his sort of secret job was that he was tasked with like preparing a plan slash protections for the president in case Washington DC was struck with nuclear weapons, right? So he had all this here's where the president's gonna go, here's the medical care he's gonna get blah, blah, blah. But that like there was obviously no stipulations for like this random guy's family, right? So she was reflecting on what it must have been like for her father to plan for like a sort of end of the world scenario that he was powerless, he was he had professionally an obligation here, but personally would have to also consider would be the end of everything and everyone that he cared about.

• 57:52Speaker 1

  Right. And so how did he like just go through her life? Like, how did he just every day live with that? And she she was sort of reflecting on that during the pandemic. She's like, well, you know, it's similar. Like, what do I do? She's like, I don't know, you make sandwiches, you drive kids to school, like you just live your life. You like I thought it was a it's sort of a beautiful and then also kind of like uh bittersweet idea of just like what do you do? You just try to be a good person and do the little things that are in your control for the people that you care about. And it's not that you just like hope for the best, it's just like you you don't even think about that because there's nothing you can do about it. It just is and and it's always been there.

• 58:37Speaker 1

  Do you know what I mean? Like it's not like we like to think of the past as like as whatever, but it's like you think the Romans weren't walking around knowing the city could get sacked and they would all get murdered in an instant. Like the threat of existential uh destruction has always existed. It's not new.

• 58:57Speaker 0

  I think there is like it right. So we are like one of two things is true. Um either we are acutely under that threat right now, or like the most self-conscious generation is living in a world where everyone has throughout history constantly thought the world was gonna end, but for for us, like we're like, but it's gonna happen to us though. Like it's like, but we're but we're the ones who it's gonna definitely gonna happen to. And so, you know, uh, that's not me negating any sort of like you know, scientific understanding of of where things are in the world right now, but like it I don't know, like something like that is too big for me to like fully come down on one side or another.

• 59:50Speaker 0

  I'm just like, yeah, I don't I mean my my argument for uh changing the way we behave via like climate change is like even if you don't believe in climate change, it's like it's still like nice to have a nice clean earth. Right,

• 1:00:08Speaker 1

  like

• 1:00:08Speaker 0

  it's like

• 1:00:09Speaker 1

  not doing

• 1:00:10Speaker 0

  my dishes isn't gonna end the world, but I do them. Like I don't want dirty dishes in my sink. That's gross. It's like not so it's like, yeah, maybe don't pump smoke into the like it's bad. Like you don't want to breathe smoke, you don't want to like toxic sludge in the water, you don't want you know, species to be getting slaughtered. It's just like that's just not nice, it's not good vibes. But

• 1:00:35Speaker 1

  isn't that isn't that weird because that is a historical constant, right? Like whether it's segregation or environmental, you're just like this is asking or or wearing a mask during a pandemic. It's like we are we're not asking you for you to change everything. We're asking you to do this very minor thing. Like, do your own dishes, don't dump toxic sludge out of your company's trucks, you know, or whatever. Uh like uh let people who want to come into your restaurant come into your restaurant. This is so fucking minor. But like the historical constant throughout history has been like, oh, you're asking me to do that. Now I definitely don't want to do that. Right, right, right, right, right, right. It's like, and even though it's good for me, it's good for me, but now that you've asked me to do it, I'm not gonna do it out of spite.

• 1:01:22Speaker 0

  I do think I I mean how much of that is American, though, like specific. I mean, obviously, like the that that there's a human element to that, but I do think there's like a specifically American resistance to I mean, obviously it exists elsewhere, but like I just feel like there's there's maybe slightly there's there's something about like the

• 1:01:38Speaker 1

  definitely, you

• 1:01:38Speaker 0

  know, the don't tread on me kind of thing where it's like if if the government demands, but it's like yeah, I don't know. Like we have all these it's like we have all these other things, like there was one. I remember there was one, I think I don't know who it was, but we can find you can find it. There was one guy, this is like uh during Thanksgiving, I think 2020 Thanksgiving, but it was really bad, and there were all these mandates on like how many people you could have in your home, right? And there was this one guy, I want to say like a senator or a congressman or something like that. Um where he said, This is ridiculous, like you're gonna tell me how many the government is gonna tell me how many people I can have to a private event. This is like a family time, this isn't that.

• 1:02:24Speaker 0

  I'm gonna have as many people as I want, uh, provided that I you know follow all the you know fire and health fire and safety codes. I'm just like that's that's its own governmental restriction based on some data that and listen, I'm not saying that that's you only don't like this one because it's new. Exactly. It's like we the ones that that already exist, it's like those that's not that they're neutral, you know. Like the restrictions that already exist. Like, I feel like if we didn't have traffic lights, people would protest the idea of traffic lights. If they're like, we're gonna introduce traffic lights. Like, fuck you, tell me how fast I can go. Like, I'll go wherever it's like, I don't know.

• 1:03:04Speaker 1

  But I mean, there were like we in not our lifetime, but our parents' lifetime, like people didn't like laws against seatbelts. I mean, do you remember like when it was like 2007, 2008? I remember I was living in California and they passed the thing that said like you couldn't use your phone while driving. And I remember people were like, Who are you to tell? Like, you know, I'm good at it. What like these things are like it's always happening, and our instant reaction is always why should I give up something that's easy or comfortable or convenient for me for somebody else's benefit?

• 1:03:39Speaker 0

  Yeah, and well, I think like that goes to like just uh inherent lack of trust in society and not feeling like it's actually connected to anything. I feel like it's like I feel like you know, I think um a lot of people have written about this, but Eric Fromm uh has written extensively about like the atomization of you know the you know what uh in the the wave of suburbia and just like the way that you know the the sort of American landscape had had progressed in the 20th century, and just like and obviously, I mean it's even crazier now. Um, but there is this idea of that it's like me and then there's everything. There's like me, I am in this like one column, and then everyone has their own columns, and like, yeah, we're all like together, but we're not really bound by, you know, there's the the flag, there's their taxes, there's the military, there's you know, geography, but other than that, we're not really bound by uh uh a sense of community or common idea.

• 1:04:34Speaker 0

  And I'm not saying I don't maybe it's not possible for you know 350 million people to do that without it being like China-esque or something, but like you know, I I don't so it it's just like if you were in a relationship, for example, just two people where it's like you're you're you're dating someone, you care about them, friendship, whatever it is, and it's like, hey, this, you know, when you show up 20 minutes late, it makes me feel like you don't um like that I don't matter. And it's like I would I it it would it would I'd appreciate it if if you could be respectful of my time. The the you know, hopefully the response you get is like, oh I uh I'm really sorry, like yeah, something I struggle with, and I do better because I don't want you to feel like that. And it's like that isn't removing your liberty, it's like you're trying to make something work.

• 1:05:22Speaker 0

  And so I think that like yes, there can definitely be overreach, 100%, and we probably have a ton of that, you know. Like, I'm uh but it there is still it's like there isn't a like like that. This is why, you know, the the like the true like hardcore libertarian has never I'm just like this is like missing so much of what makes this possible, and also like yeah, I don't want to get too far in the weeds on that, but like um I just think like there's no

• 1:05:46Speaker 1

  well the the libertarian thing is interesting because if they were like the gut like I would I would buy it more if they're like the government can't tell me to do it. I'm still going to do it. I just don't want you to tell me to do it. But it never those two never seem to go together, right? Well, it's never like I I hate mandates, but I'm obviously wearing a mask or uh vaccinated. It's like who it's ultimately the objection is like I don't want to do it, and no one should do it, right? Like, like it I would I would love a world in which more things were voluntary, provided, you know, it's like I would love not to. Have to tell my kids what to do. Right. Like I'd love them just to like intuitively do all the right things. But since they don't, I have to be the parent, right?

• 1:06:34Speaker 1

  Like it's not, it's not, it's not my preferred mode of living, but like stuff has to operate a certain way or shit falls apart.

• 1:06:42Speaker 0

  Yeah, I think right. That's what I mean, that's essentially

• 1:06:45Speaker 1

  just what society is. And I think there's like if people had,

• 1:06:48Speaker 0

  but again, like your your kids have trust in you, and there's like a mutual trust where like, you know, you um, but I think even the paternal analogy, I think would turn people off, like this idea that the government is here to take care of us, and um, you know, even though the people who hate that, that's what Trump kind of ran on. And it no one's consistent. It's it's it's just you know, um, I I don't know, I don't have any answers. I don't know nothing.

• 1:07:14Speaker 1

  Well, I remember I I remember listening to your interview with Marin. I remember messaging you about it. I think it's not just like, hey, government has consistently let us down. I'm skeptical. I also think generationally we've been let down. Like I went through this. My parents, it sounds like you kind of let went through it with your parents. So people, the real the real root of the trust is they're like, I've never actually seen someone whose job it is to be responsible, be responsible. Or you know what I mean? And so I think there's like sort of the it's there's also this like when you when you kind of lay out like the the arc of the boomers, it is like one set of betrayal after another for like the younger generation, and then they're like kids these days, you know, it's like fuck you,

• 1:07:59Speaker 0

  right? Right. It's like you're you're talking about essentially like an inter intergenerational like um dysfunction, like on a family level, just yeah, yeah, like but it's like just applying it to like on the societal level where it's like um yeah, if you see your parents not, you know, like you said, being like the way that they should be, then you have no model for what that even looks or feels like. And so you can kind of kind of try to replicate it by deduction where you're like, yeah, okay, it's not that. So I'm taking a stab at like the inverse of that, which is all other possibilities, which is like pretty big, you know, and so there's a lot of trial and error, or you know, obviously, this is where like personal work, therapy, whatever your mode of getting at some of these things and working them out is and trying to like you know, uh reconnect with yourself in a way that is meaningful and that is um you know healthy, so that by extension that the way that you kind of um you know interact with with everyone else will be and so I don't know how to necessarily apply that to the intergenerate, like the the massive scale, but I do think that like again going back to if you do it, like if you yourself do it, and then you are are you are with people who also foster that same kind of I just feel like so many of the people that I find myself like bothered by, it's not even like their opinion that I disagree with.

• 1:09:21Speaker 0

  It's like this idea, this is something I talked about in the last special, this idea that like someone's emotional subspace and their intellectual uh uh you know uh ideology or belief system are completely separate. Like I

• 1:09:33Speaker 1

  it

• 1:09:32Speaker 0

  to me, it's like it's either like ignorance or it's it's willful disavowal of something true, and it's like you know, like the Ben Shapiro kind of ethos of like facts don't care about your feelings, like like this idea that reason detached from feeling is like a virtue, and it's like that like that's like the true way. It's like I don't know how you could like how you could interact with a human with that, and it's like so take that on the on the on the social scale, and it's just like no, if you feel a certain way, if you feel attacked or you feel you know threatened, you're going to believe things that are based on that disposition. And so you're gonna take the stance of a person who's threatened or person who is feels like the world is hostile.

• 1:10:23Speaker 0

  And but if you yourself don't feel that way, if you feel trusting, if you feel loving, then there's gonna be a lot more, I don't want to say empathy, but there's gonna be a lot more just sort of like openness to um certain things. I think that that those things a hundred percent shape ideology. I don't think ideology and and you know, uh a person's emotional disposition are at all at all distinct.

• 1:12:44Speaker 1

  Yeah, I was I was um I I I've uh I read his really good book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature. Oh it was very

• 1:12:54Speaker 0

  I meant to tell you you emailed me about that book, I bought it and read it, yeah. It's good, yeah, super helpful.

• 1:13:00Speaker 1

  Yeah, it I think uh obviously that was helpful with me understanding my like my parental situation, but it's also just helpful understanding human beings, period, right? Like it's like, oh, you're just in you're you're emotionally immature. I don't mean that like condescendingly or like dismissively. I just mean you're struggling with this because it's hard. There's this financial podcast I like when he talks about people who are savvy with money and people who are not, and how people who are not savvy they fall for tricks, you know, this they have like an expensive car loan because they they went in and they were like, what is this car cost per month? Right, which is not how a person who understands how math or budgets or you know, investing thinks about it. They're like, how much is the car, right?

• 1:13:47Speaker 1

  Like, like, not like, oh, it's 200 a month times 97 payments. Like, no, a smart person doesn't that's that's that's not the right word. A savvy person doesn't think that way. An emotionally uh mature person understands, oh, I'm dealing with some feelings, I'm gonna calm down for a second before I vomit all over you or whatever. Or I need to go.

• 1:14:08Speaker 0

  Yeah, or look them in the eye. It's not even necessarily, oh, I'm hysterical, I need to calm down. It's just like I need to uh uh understand what I'm feeling and why, and and I can you can address the feelings, you can be pissed off, like being pissed off is okay, like that pissed me off. You don't have to necessarily like let it go. Um just

• 1:14:26Speaker 1

  try not to act

• 1:14:28Speaker 0

  on your pissed off feelings, yeah, be not be motivated by yeah, you don't want to be motivated by like a feeling that you're not uh aware of, you know, you don't want to be like and but that happens so much. I mean, like we're all emotionally immature to some degree. I mean, like, you know, we're trying to learn, and um it's similar to like the reading phenomenon where I was saying like oh, reading just kind of teaches you things that people don't know, and then you're just like ostracized even further. And I feel like the same is true with you know, the more mature, the more um introspective and the more reflective you become, and the more you actually try to like work toward it, like the more you're just like like kind of like outpacing a certain ex accepted way of being, and it's just like this isn't okay.

• 1:15:18Speaker 0

  Like, so so for me, it's it's hard to like when there's growth and when then there's certain things I'm like, oh, I don't tolerate that anymore because it's actually like either toxic or not good enough, like it isn't like it it's not that you know it lacks reciprocity or whatever, but that has its own like alienating quality, because then it's like well, yeah, it you know, and you know my disposition is alienate alienation. Like I, you know, I don't know. Um I grew up uh I I have a hearing loss that I grew up, you know, um, and it went untreated for 20 years. It was known about, but like there was never anything done about it. And so I mean, we tried doing stuff and I didn't want to. My parents didn't weren't really involved in it. It just wasn't um I that's a whole other discussion.

• 1:16:06Speaker 0

  But so the first 20 years of my life was uh spent 21 years really um living with a very, very, very serious hearing impairment and without it, without any correction, without anyone even really knowing, I kind of just kind of faked it to such a degree that you know I'm 36 now, and it's like still very much starting to get to like the root of some of that stuff. Like how much I was doing, how how how separate it kept me from everyone, not just in the physical sense, like I couldn't hear, but like the emotional sense of like I wasn't able to communicate what was going on. I didn't even know what was going on inside me. I was working like extra extra extra hard to just barely get by. And I think that was causing a lot of distress, and I was never able to to be myself because I had to just constantly and then so you know, that would lead me to like crave solitude, but then that was fucking lonely.

• 1:17:00Speaker 0

  And so it's just like this there this sort of like double-edged sword of alienation. And so that is something that that I've always dealt with where I look at myself as separate from the world, I look at the world as hostile toward me. I look at um, you know, people as agents of uh danger, you know, and so it that has definitely de dictated how I saw things and what I believed. I mean, I have the I have this old bit about depression about how like is depression, you know, like isn't isn't depression just a natural reaction to this fucked up world. And it's like aren't happy the people aren't happy people the ones who need to be medicated, like if you're happy in this world, like what the fuck is wrong with you? And you know, it's a bit that a lot of people liked and responded to, but I think what I got wrong in it is that like I was using like my perspective as a way to justify my feeling as opposed to vice versa, where it's like, no, I'm seeing the world this way because I feel this way about myself or I'm struggling with this type of you know emotional issue.

• 1:18:06Speaker 0

  Whereas if I felt like a I had a healthier, more stable disposition, yeah, those things are true. Like you can always find something fucked up in the world, like the world is. Isn't like but it's but it's kind of a you know it's kind of uh a rorshock where it's like you can the world is just you know there's amazing things that happen in the world all the time and to not look at any of them and to not have them count for anything, I think says more about your own disposition than like some ultimate truth about the world.

• 1:18:38Speaker 1

  Yeah, um Susan Kane, who I love, her new book is called uh bittersweet, and she's sort of talking about how melancholy is that kind of depressive outlet, but there's also if done right, a sort of love of beauty and wonder and solitude and what it's so it's like if you're only getting the negative part of it, you're probably doing it wrong. But if it's actually kind of shaped, you know, it allowed you to create some inner world that you can retreat into and it connected, like you can you can kind of choose to see it different ways, I guess. Well,

• 1:19:11Speaker 0

  that's kind of uh the David Foster Wallace uh is it this is water or is it the other one? Yes, where he's like you can choose and then he killed himself. It's like that's a bummer. Yeah,

• 1:19:23Speaker 1

  it does undermining the argument. So

• 1:19:26Speaker 0

  we all know which one you chose.

• 1:19:27Speaker 1

  Yeah, no, I I think I I think going like, hey, um like the going back to the emotional immaturity thing. I think what I've taken from is like, okay, yes, this is explains why these people uh act the way they do. But it also explains why I act the way I do, because that was my model my whole life. And so like it's not like how dare they, I'm angry, I'm resentful, that's what I'm gonna carry around. It's I'm probably whatever this argument I'm having with my wife is, chances are a good portion of my reaction is driven by a similar amount of emotional immaturity. Right, because that's just like basic probability at this point. You know what I mean?

• 1:20:13Speaker 1

  And and the at the end of the day, all you can really do is direct that sort of towards your own behavior.

• 1:20:21Speaker 0

  Yeah, you know, 100%. I would when I read the book, I actually skipped the first half of it, and I only read the second half of it because the first half of the book is like, are your parents emotionally immature? How to know? I'm like, yeah, yeah, they fucking are. Like, I don't need like I would skip now. I was like, oh yeah, like I've identified all of the things, but then when I started uh reading about, you know, hearing like some of my own behaviors explained by someone who had never met me in like this sort of archetypical way. Some sometimes that feels restrictive, but sometimes it's really, really, really comforting because it's like, oh, this thing that I kind of just live with that is somewhat amorphous and nameless is being identified very clearly by someone impartial, and there's comfort in knowing that like, oh, that's a thing, and I it has a name, and it's you know, it's brought about by these forces that seem to make sense.

• 1:21:17Speaker 0

  I get cry I like it, you know, it it's not like okay. Well, the book says, you know, like I'm like, no, it's yeah, this this resonates, you know, and so um, yeah, I think that's I think that's super helpful.

• 1:21:30Speaker 1

  Yeah, and like awareness isn't magically solve the problem, but I think it's better than not being aware of it.

• 1:21:22Speaker 0

  Wait, can I what did you say right before you switch back to the book? What were you?

• 1:21:41Speaker 1

  Uh what was I talking about? Uh, what was I talking about? I don't remember.

• 1:21:32Speaker 0

  Me either. But I had something to say about it right before we switch. Oh, oh, oh, the choice thing. I though my my one issue, and this is the David Foster Wallace thing kind of like goes into that because he killed like I I think there is this sort of reductive element to the idea of choice of like you can choose to see the world this way, you can choose to see the world this way. I don't know if it's that simple. I don't know if it's like like this binary choice that one can make once and then that's it. I think it's like it is a it's deciding something more fundamental, deciding that like you matter, deciding that like you're somebody worth taking care of, and then like continuing to choose that all the time, as opposed to some people's default is to neglect themselves or abandon themselves and let them kind of just float in this abyss, and like I don't think that's just a matter, like getting out of that is not just a matter of like, oh, the world's so great.

• 1:22:27Speaker 0

  There's so many good like actually when you're when you're depressed, thinking about like how great things are, it's just worse because you feel so detached from it. I think it starts from and not to like you know, I'm not I'm not trying to argue anything, but like there's an internal disconnect that like needs to be fed. And I think like the choice is like I matter, my happiness matters. Like, there's and some people feel that inherently, some people struggle with that. I'm somebody who struggles with that, and so I have to like make that choice. And then have you have you read the The Art of Loving? Uh, not to bring up Eric From again. Yeah, it's it's it's like a smaller, sort of less like academic um uh book that he wrote. Um where he talks about love as an art rather than like uh a fleeting feeling or some like electric thing.

• 1:23:15Speaker 0

  It's in how it requires like any art requires practice and dedication and all these different things. And I think the same is true for your yourself. Like, you know, you see like these Instagram infographics that are like love yourself. It's like, yeah, but that's not just deciding to do that. It's like loving yourself means when you're you know, doing things that are are good for you, even when it's hard, you know, going to bed on time and like taking care of your body, taking care of your space, taking care of your emotional, you know, um disposition and whatever, and like tending to yourself, doing things that

• 1:23:51Speaker 1

  are good for you. Well, that that's what I think about the bittersweet thing, right? It's not I I don't think it's like, oh, just choose to see the world that's good. It's that it's bitter and sweet, like the the world view that you you were given by nature of what you went through. It's probably not what you would choose, but it's not only bad. Do you know what I mean? Like that that like it's it there that's what I like. I don't particularly like bittersweet chocolate, but I understand there's two tastes going on at the same time. Do you know what I mean? Like that to me, it's about that duality or that tension. Yeah, it's not like, oh, I could be depressive, but I choose to be happy all the time. It's no, like because of what I went through, I have a level of understanding or appreciation or compassion or wisdom that like you're that I wouldn't have if I was just like everyone else, or if I was just given what I think I want.

• 1:24:45Speaker 1

  Do you know what I mean? I so I just think it's that's what to me what her book was about was this idea of like, no, don't beat yourself up for looking at the world the way you look at it. Actually, this is a this world view is responsible for some of the great art and achievements and like person of all time, and you should we can appreciate it. She's saying just the same way, like her first book was about introverts, and we like an introvert is not just uh uh a person who needs to be made into an extrovert. They have their own, like it's good that they're that way, and that's a unique special thing, and they should come to appreciate the strengths as well as the weaknesses in it. And I think that's kind of what she's saying about. Yeah, yeah. And that I mean

• 1:25:31Speaker 0

  that's it's a very challenging thing to do to sort of reconcile the internal forces that at one point felt so overwhelming and so unmanageable and so like untamable that you know, to kind of like harness them and to be able to coexist with them. And yeah, because I don't think you can necessarily do away with it. I think it becomes manageable to a point where it doesn't um snowball, you know, into like something catastrophic, which some people is like physical stuff destruction or self-harm or you know, like drinking drugs, sex, you know. Uh but for other people, it's like that was never my thing. It was never like it was more like um internal stuff. Like I would shut down, I would my thoughts would get really really really negative and really like I would feel like you know, a million miles away from everybody, and that would make me want to like you know reach out for some kind of compensation to that.

• 1:26:31Speaker 0

  And so it, you know, but everyone has their own way of of like flailing in the water, you know, like you're you're getting waterboarded. It's like ah, you know, like your body's gonna like lay it's gonna like react in a way. Um but yeah, it's it's it's it's something that I think a lot of like you say, emotional maturity is required to parse through that.

• 1:27:09Speaker 1

  That's right. Well, man, this was really fun. Let's um let's get together in person again.

• 1:27:13Speaker 0

  Okay.