How to Find True Love & Why Some People Pursue Impossible Goals

Ask frequent flyers what bothers them most about air travel and you might be surprised by the answer. It’s not turbulence, cramped seats, or bad food — it’s the other passengers. This episode begins by revealing which behaviors irritate fellow travelers the most and what people wish would stop happening at 35,000 feet. https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/airplane-etiquette-annoying-behaviors What brings two people together romantically has always been a mystery — and today, it’s more complicated than ever. Dating apps offer endless options, yet many people struggle to find meaningful connection. What actually predicts long-term attraction? What matters less than we think? And what do science and history tell us about love, choice, and compatibility? Paul Eastwick joins me to explain how attraction really works. He’s a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory, and author of Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection (https://amzn.to/49RrGS0) Most people pursue goals with a clear payoff — something they hope and expect to achieve. But some people dedicate their lives to goals they know will never happen. Why would anyone do that? What sustains them? And what do these impossible pursuits reveal about meaning, purpose, and fulfillment? Journalist Mark Medley shares remarkable stories of people chasing futures they’ll never live to see. He’s author of Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be (https://amzn.to/46fV95J). And finally, think about all the surfaces your phone touches — tables, counters, public spaces. Then think about where that phone goes when it rings – your face. We wrap up with what science says about phones, germs, and what that means for your skin and health.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/beauty/how-smartphones-damage-your-skin-5-ways-to-protect-against-blue-light-and-bacteria/articleshow/124968775.cms PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS QUINCE: Refresh your wardrobe with Quince! Go to ⁠https://Quince.dom/sysk ⁠for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for Hair Loss, ED, Weight Loss, and more, visit ⁠https://Hims.com/SOMETHING⁠ for your free online visit! SHOPIFY: Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/sysk⁠⁠ DELL: Dell Tech Days are here. Enjoy huge deals on PCs like the Dell 14 Plus with Intel® Core™ Ultra processors. Visit ⁠https://Dell.com/deals⁠ PLANET VISIONARIES: We love the Planet Visionaries podcast, so listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you're listening to this podcast! In partnership with The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 0:42Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need the right hire fast? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Today on Something You Should Know, the one thing airline passengers hate most of all, then what science tells us about the best ways to find love, and why online dating apps can be trouble.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  That's not to say that online dating can't work for some people. I think for people who are quite hot and are consensually desirable, they're going to do quite well. But the problem is that for a lot of people, it can be quite demoralizing.

• 2:14Mike Carruthers?

  Also, how your smartphone can cause skin problems if you're not careful. And the fascinating story of people who pursue goals, but not the kind of goals most of us go after.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  People who have spent their lives in pursuit of goals that they know are never going to happen, that are unlikely to happen, or are only going to be accomplished well after they're dead.

• 2:38Mike Carruthers?

  All this today, on Something You Should Know. Now here's something that might be worth a minute of your time. How would you like $1,000 to spend on shopping, especially with the holidays coming? Well, the people behind Shopify have a shopping site called shop.com. And to celebrate the new shop.com, they're giving away $1 million in Shop Cash. But not to one person. A thousand people will each win $1,000 in Shop Cash. And shop.com is actually a really clever idea. It brings lots of different stores together in one place.

• 3:21Mike Carruthers?

  So instead of bouncing around from website to website, you can search across stores, find what you're looking for, and track your orders, all in one place. Clothes, electronics, gifts, things for the house, all kinds of stuff. And whether you win or not, it's worth knowing, but with a thousand chances to win $1,000, I'd certainly take a look. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply.

• 4:04Mike Carruthers?

  Official rules available at shop.com.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today. Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  If you've ever been an airline passenger, you probably share this opinion. And the opinion is that one of the most irritating things about flying is the other passengers. And you're not the only one who feels that way. So that's what we're going to start with today on this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, welcome. I'm Mike Carruthers. So there have been several surveys that show that air travelers are genuinely irritated by the people seated around them. In a recent study, a majority of flyers said that behaviors like invading personal space, ignoring basic hygiene, talking loudly, playing audio without headphones, excessive drinking, and letting kids run wild

• 5:06Mike Carruthers?

  all make the flight significantly worse. In fact, nearly every annoying behavior tested bothered at least half of the people surveyed. What's especially striking is that many passengers say they dread interaction altogether, preferring silence over conversation at 30,000 feet. Tight quarters, long delays, alcohol, and stress combine to make etiquette failures feel even more aggravating in the air than they would on the ground. So the next time you fly, remember, it's not turbulence that ruins most trips. It's usually people, and that is something you should know.

• 5:48Mike Carruthers?

  What actually attracts people to each other, romantically speaking? We tend to focus on first impressions, looks, charm, chemistry. And those things do bring people together, but they don't tell you much about whether someone will be a good long-term partner. The way people pair up has always been complicated, and now it's even more so. Dating apps have given us an almost endless supply of potential partners, which sounds like a good thing, but maybe not. So what does science and history say about how successful couples actually meet? And does having so many options help us find love or make it harder? That's what we're exploring with Paul Eastwick.

• 6:32Mike Carruthers?

  He's a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis, where he directs the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. And he's author of a book called Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection. Hey Paul, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Hi, thanks so much for having me.

• 6:52Mike Carruthers?

  Sure, sure. So let's start here, because you say that we have a lot of misconceptions and wrong ideas about how attraction and connection and love work. So what are some of those? What do we get wrong?

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a few misconceptions out there. I think one of the biggest ones is the idea that the mating market, a competition between people for the best partners that is eternal and ongoing, that this is the only way that relationships form and take shape. It's kind of a demoralizing idea for many of us, that, well, I'm gonna go out there and, you know, maybe I'm not the most attractive person, but I'll do the best I can and, you know, hopefully I'll find a partner somewhere and they won't trade up on me down the line. I think this metaphor for thinking about attraction and close relationships is limited.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  It is limited in the sense that it applies amongst strangers who are meeting for the first time, but I think we underappreciate the extent to which market dynamics poorly explain how people form relationships, especially among groups of people who have known each other for a while. And it also just so happens that getting to know people in groups over long periods of time, historically, that actually is how humans have formed relationships.

• 8:22Mike Carruthers?

  So when you look at successful relationships, generally speaking, because there's a million ways people can get together, but generally speaking, what do the good relationships have in common in terms of how they came to be?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  What's fascinating is that, especially in today's day and age, people can get together in a wide variety of different ways. Obviously, we have the apps doing a lot of work for us, but it's also still true that people meet through the classic ways of, you know, meeting people in groups, friends of friends of friends, et cetera. What's really interesting, I find, is that the way that people meet in the first place and the trajectory that they take, at least in the beginning, it honestly tends not to matter all that much for what people will ultimately build. In other words, many

• 9:19Speaker 01

  relationships, they're sort of constructed along the way and a lot of relationships don't work out. But for people who do ultimately get together, it's very hard to do a single moment in time or a single decision that really put them on the right track. It's more like there's a million different ways to do it right, but you also have to kind of get a little bit lucky with the many, many choices that you make as you start forming a relationship with somebody. I also find this idea a little bit freeing, too, because what it means is when you initially meet somebody, if there's a connection there, but you feel like, oh, this isn't the kind of person I might want to date, or, oh, is

• 10:02Speaker 01

  this person more attractive than me? Is that going to be trouble down the line? For the most part, all the things that we can assess at the beginning ultimately have very little predictive power later on. What matters instead is what you build along the way.

• 10:18Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it seems that so much of what brings people together, what attracts people to each other, seems to have very little to do with what keeps people together. You know, looks and, you know, how you dress and, you know, the things that you try to do to get someone's attention. And none of that stuff matters in the long run, but it's real important in the beginning and kind of puts a gloss over what's really important.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  That's a very good point. What we often see in the research is that you can predict Who is initially popular? And it's a lot of the things you mentioned, right? People who are physically attractive, they tend to be more popular in settings when they're meeting strangers especially. People who have a lot of social confidence also tend to do well in those kinds of settings. But you're absolutely right that these attributes just don't have any meaningful predictive power later on as a relationship actually forms and takes shape. But one interesting wrinkle, the single best thing that I could recommend

• 11:32Speaker 01

  to somebody to do on like a first date as you're getting to know somebody is to be a little bit more open and a little bit more vulnerable than you might assume. And in fact, we see in a whole wide variety of settings that people who are willing to, you know, talk about things that might make them a little uncomfortable. Oh, what's something you regret? You've never told anybody, you know? Are you afraid of death? And, you know, why? Getting people to talk about these kinds of things actually can lead to more liking early on in the same way that they can help build closeness later in a relationship, too.

• 12:09Mike Carruthers?

  So the stereotypical ways that, you know, people meet people or have met people for as long as I can remember is, you know, a friend, a friend of a friend, you meet in a bar, those kinds of things. And now online dating. What about those things? I mean, have they historically been the way people meet? And do they work?

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so if we think back to the environment in which people evolved. And again, you know, my book is critiquing a lot of evolutionary psychology, but I also take an evolved approach. And I take very seriously the idea that when people formed relationships in our ancestral past, they were doing so in small groups. You didn't know all that many people, you know, in your groups on the savanna. You may be in a group of 50 people and only a tiny fraction of them were eligible partners for you. But you had the advantage of getting To know these people over pretty healthy stretches of time. And what that tends to pull for is what we call compatibility. Compatibility is a scientific concept, it's even a mathematical concept.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  And it basically means like, hey, you're gonna click really well with some people rather than others. Getting to know people over time in groups pulls for that. It allows people to find and even generate compatibility with other people. The challenge with the apps is that when you're browsing profiles and looking at people's pictures, compatibility is a little less palpable. And what you're instead focused on are the obvious surface level things like this person is hot. That's not to say that online dating can't work for some people. I think for people who are quite hot and are consensually desirable, they're gonna do quite well.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  But the problem is that for a lot of people, it can be quite demoralizing. And this is why I'm always recommending to people, like, you gotta diversify your dating portfolio. And don't forget about the classic group-based ways of meeting people. Because those are effective in many ways.

• 14:18Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, that makes sense. That if you're in a group of people and then, well, it also takes the pressure off. Because a group takes the pressure off of, do I like you and do you like me?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, absolutely. It's almost becoming a lost art, the lost art of socializing in groups of friends and acquaintances. Like people that you know pretty well and people you know kinda well. The idea that, oh, I might like bring somebody to this party and like, they're gonna know a few people and I'm gonna know a few people and maybe we're gonna meet new people this way. When you look at who is more likely to form relationships over a period of months or years, what you generally tend to see is that the people with richer, these are heterosexuals. So heterosexuals with richer networks of mixed.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Gender friends. These are the folks that are more likely to form relationships, not necessarily because they're dating the friends of their preferred gender, but it's probably more that they're dating the friends of the friends, or the friends of the friends of the friends. That historically has been how this has tended to work. And the nice thing about this approach is that it reduces the strong market forces that cause everybody to rush to want to date the most attractive people. As we get to know people over time, we stop feeling that pull toward the consensually attractive people to the same extent.

• 15:56Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about dating, attraction, and how couples get together with Paul Eastwick. He's a professor of psychology at UC Davis and author of the book Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection.

• 16:12Speaker 04

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• 16:40Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 17:08Mike Carruthers?

  So Paul, it would seem to me that one of the flaws in the system is that when you meet somebody, or you're attracted to somebody, there is a tendency to make sure that you put your best foot forward, that you try to look as attractive as you can, not in a deceptive way, but just in a put your best foot forward way.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Mike Carruthers?

  In other words, you're not exactly who you really are. You are a better you momentarily, and that that might attract someone to you, but then, you know, then the rose-colored glasses come off, because now they see you for who you really are.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, it's so interesting, because I fully resonate with this trajectory that you're describing. And I think it will feel familiar to a lot of people, but I want to at least encourage people to either try on something new, or think about this in a slightly different way. Yes, we have a tendency to try to self-promote, show off the best version of ourselves that we can, early on. Some of that tendency is indeed misguided. So there's some work, for example, showing that when you're first getting to know somebody,

• 18:32Speaker 01

  it actually comes across as more appealing. If you talk, if you identify something that the other person can do to help you, then if you act like you've got everything under control. So, these are studies that show things like, "Oh, like, that's really interesting that you know a lot about topic X. I actually could use some help with that, if you'd be willing to give me some guidance. I don't know much about that." That can make somebody seem extremely appealing that you've just reached out like that. So I think that's part number one that I think would surprise a lot of people. At a broader level, I think that one thing that people often miss is they think like

• 19:16Speaker 01

  they gotta be the best version of themselves to get into a relationship in the first place. And what they miss is that a lot of what being in a relationship means is that we become better versions of ourselves through that relationship by getting exposed to new ideas, new activities, new values. So that process of self-expansion is really a key part of getting in a close relationship in the first place. So this is why I always try to warn people like, don't, you know, do the whole like, I'm gonna work on myself first totally before I get into a relationship. It's really far more dynamic than that.

• 19:58Mike Carruthers?

  What has online dating, the apps, done to this whole thing? Because, because clearly before that, you were limited by a lot of things about who you would ever run into. Now you can meet like an endless supply of potential mates and one little red flag and you're gone because there's could be somebody better. And it seems like that skews the whole thing.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think this causes some issues. It causes some issues, like you mentioned, you discover a red flag and you're gone. By giving people the ability to bail early on potential partners, you really remove the possibility of compatibility forming. I think for a lot of people, maybe this earns some groans because what it means is that even if your first date with somebody is just kinda okay, really it is worth giving somebody a second and a third chance.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Because first impressions tend to be the least stable impressions. If you've interacted with somebody a thousand times, your a thousand and first impression is not going to be all that different than your thousandth impression. But your second impression can differ quite a bit from your first. And with an opt-out system, a system of dating where I can meet you for 20 minutes and say, nope, no more. I'm ghosting you. I'm done with this. I don't have to meet you again because we don't share any friends in common. This is, uh, this makes dating challenging for a lot of people. It really restricts our focus on the people that are initially super desirable.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I think the other thing that the apps can do is they really get us to focus on what we think we want. Because there are all these filters and you can just meet the people who share your particular interests. You try to draw up the perfect partner on paper, but I think the evidence suggests you're probably limiting your options unnecessarily and maybe, you know, raising your expectations unnecessarily. So I think these are in many ways the problems with the apps. It's like too easy to bail on somebody. We've lost the art of getting to know people over time, you know, kind of whether we want to or not. And second of all, it gets us really in our heads, you know,

• 22:32Speaker 01

  too focused on what we think we want rather than what it feels like to be around somebody over a period of time.

• 22:40Mike Carruthers?

  And then there are the people who, I've certainly known people, and maybe I've been one, who the red flags are there, but you ignore them because there's something else pulling you in. But you can see it. It's easier, I think, to see it with other people where they tell you, yeah, I met this person. And then you hear, wait, what? And that hasn't scared you off yet? But when is a red flag? A red flag and it's

• 23:08Speaker 01

  A real red flag.

• 23:09Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, right.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  This is, this is one of the genuine challenges. Because what people do in their ongoing close relationships, and I'd even argue what people kind of have to do in their ongoing close relationships is people have to somehow compartmentalize their partner's flaws. Because I've got news, all partners have flaws. And the only way that we can sustain a close, interdependent, risky relationship with another person is to acknowledge their flaws, but downplay them as best we can. So in many ways, that means taking this thing about your partner

• 23:51Speaker 01

  that other people might find annoying, but you find it adorable. Or you tell yourself things that like, well, yeah, I understand that she has these flaws, but like, everybody has these flaws. So it's not like if I were dating somebody else, that was going to be any better. We call this motivated reasoning. And motivated reasoning is one of the most important tools that we have in our mental toolkit for doing anything hard, like sustaining a close relationship. But the challenge here is that sometimes those things that you're downplaying, that you're putting in a box and setting it aside and trying not to look at, sometimes those things actually are bad. Sometimes those things are things, you know, reasons why

• 24:35Speaker 01

  you shouldn't be in a relationship with this person. I mean, if you were to put me on the spot, I would say this is the single thing that I wish the science could explain better for everyday people. What is the difference between a forgivable human flaw and a genuine red flag that's going to cause trouble? It's very hard to point to what they are. People who are aggressive in a proactive way, that's one that I can point to. That's a flaw that should be overlooked. But many of the other flaws that people have really can go in one category or the other.

• 25:11Mike Carruthers?

  Given all that you know, what's your like core advice here for people that are looking for love?

• 25:18Speaker 01

  For people who are out there and struggling and frustrated, I don't say ditch the apps entirely. I'm realistic. I know that they're valuable. For a lot of people, they're valuable in many ways. But I like to advise people to imagine what it would be like to just form connections with other people, even without the romantic pretense. What would it be like to regrow our social networks again? Because all of our social networks have kind of atrophied in the last 10 to 20 years. I like to think about what would it take to bring people together again around some sort of shared activity, shared

• 26:03Speaker 01

  interests? What would it be like to introduce friends to other friends just for the sake of growing that network? Not because, oh, please introduce me to this person. Like, I need you to set me up on a blind date. So instead of focusing on where you're going to meet your next partner, just focus on where am I going to hang out with some people again and help my social networks to grow and shift and change. Because again, where we tended to meet partners in the recent past and in the distant past were things like friends of friends. And if we reintroduce that strategy into the way that we date, I think that can be very helpful for a lot of people.

• 26:46Mike Carruthers?

  You know, speaking for myself, because you know, I've been married a long time. I have kids. You know, I've not been out dating for a long time. But I, along with, I'm sure many people listening who are in relationships or marriages, we still find this topic really fascinating. It's kind of like a spectator sport, I guess. And it's interesting to see how people get together, to watch other couples. I get a kick out of it, and I appreciate hearing about the science. I've been talking with Paul Eastwick, who is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and he's author of the book Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection. And

• 27:29Mike Carruthers?

  you'll find a link to his book at Amazon. And Paul, I'm grateful you stopped by. Thank you.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Thanks so much, Mike. It has been a joy being on with you today.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Pink Pantheress here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together, and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify, booked just for you based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more at coach.com.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 28:38Mike Carruthers?

  Imagine devoting your life to something that you know you'll probably never see finished. A goal you're almost certain won't come true in your lifetime, if it comes true at all. It's like starting a race you know you'll never finish. Most of us wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. We want outcomes, closure, proof that it was worth it. And yet, some people willingly spend decades pursuing goals with no guarantee of success and no chance of personal payoff. So why do they do it? What kind of person commits to an impossible goal and what keeps them going? Well, that's what we're exploring today with Mark Medley. He's a journalist and

• 29:21Mike Carruthers?

  author of a book called Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be. Hey, Mark, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me, Mike.

• 29:34Mike Carruthers?

  So this book you wrote, this project, explain what you did here and who you looked at and briefly why you did this.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Sure, so my book is pretty much about people who have spent their lives in pursuit of goals that they know are never going to happen, that are unlikely to happen, or they know are only going to be accomplished well after they're dead, in decades, in centuries, in millennia from now. So I went around the world to find people who kind of fit the bill, and it stems from work I've done as a journalist over the years. I mean, the roots of this project date back, you know, to 2008.

• 30:13Mike Carruthers?

  And so to give people a sense, just a quick list of some examples of these kinds of people, who they are, what they do.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  SETI researchers, that's the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, so those scientists and physicists who are looking elsewhere in the universe for intelligence life. I went to Sumatra to follow a renowned photographer who has spent the last 40 years trying to get a mystery ape that science doesn't believe exists, but he claims to have seen in the early 90s on film. I spent a lot of time following NASA's first ever planetary defense mission, which, you know, people who are in that field know a killer asteroid isn't going to strike the Earth anytime soon, but they are laying the foundation today to protect our descendants centuries, if not millions of years from now. So those are some of the stories that I tried to capture.

• 31:04Mike Carruthers?

  But also people who like state that they want to do something impossible, right?

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the people that I profiled is a woman who has, you know, spent her life trying to end poverty. Another person is, you know, a treasure hunter in Arizona who has spent the last, you know, 60 years looking for the lost Dutchman's mine. So these are things that I guess are theoretically possible, but they realize are probably not going to happen.

• 31:30Mike Carruthers?

  And why do they do it? Is it, is it a case of everybody has their own individual reason, or is there something that they all have in common that you can shine a light on?

• 31:42Speaker 02

  There's definitely a commonality that emerged as I spoke to these people. You know, they have bottomless reserves of patience. They have, you know, very impressive reserves of perseverance. And they take a lot of pleasure in what they do. I mean, you have to enjoy the run if you know you're not going to hit the finish line. You know, these are people who are more interested in the journey rather than the destination.

• 32:08Mike Carruthers?

  And so you decide, you pick an example of somebody that we can talk about for a little bit here to kind of get into their head and figure out what's going on here.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Of course. I mean, when I think back of the hundreds of people, the person that usually comes to mind is Jeremy Holden. He's a British photographer who's in his late 50s, but he has spent much of his life in Southeast Asia. He showed up to Sumatra, an island in Indonesia, in the early 1990s. He was just backpacking around like, you know, people after college tend to do. And when he was there, he met a woman named Debbie Martyr, who was a British journalist who had been spending the last several years looking for a creature named the Oran Pendak. Now, the Oran Pendak is basically Indonesia or Sumatra's version of the Bigfoot. I mean, this is something that the indigenous people who call the island home have been

• 33:02Speaker 02

  telling stories about for centuries. This is a creature that Marco Polo referred to in his journals during the period of the Dutch East Indies. Colonialists who were working on the island claimed to have seen it. But, you know, most people doesn't believe this exists. But Jeremy was very, very interested in the story and following Debbie. And so he agreed to put his travels to the side and he decided he was going to remain there. He claims to have seen the creature in the early 1990s, about six months after he arrived on the island. Conveniently, he didn't have a camera, but because he's a photographer, he decided the one way he was going to be able to prove to the rest of the world that this thing exists was to get it on film.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  And so, you know, since 1993, he has spent a large portion of his life in Sumatra in this National Park, which I traveled to a couple of years ago, trying to capture this creature on film. And, you know, he is somebody who is very well aware of how this story sounds, that, you know, people roll their eyes when they talk to him, that they think he's, you know, delusional, that he's wasting his time. He is somebody who very much has, you know, given up on what he says is any semblance of a normal life to try to capture this creature on film, and yet he does it anyway. You know, as he said to me, he's going to be somebody

• 34:22Speaker 02

  whose gravestone reads, "Here lies the man who failed at his life's quest." And yet, that failure has given him an incredible life. I mean, he has, you know, been able to travel the world as a photographer. He's captured other very rare animals on film, but the one creature that started this journey for him remains elusive. And yet, for him, it doesn't bother him at the end of the day. And I find something very admirable about that, that he has kept going, that he has not given up on this quest. Because I think, you know, most people in their lives, you get up in the morning and you have a list of things that you want to check off and accomplish before, you know, you go to bed. I mean, it's one of the reasons I became a journalist. When I was a reporter, I would

• 35:05Speaker 02

  go into the newsroom, I would write a story, and it would appear in the following day's paper. If you had told me that everything I was working on was never going to see the light of day, I don't know if I would have continued. I mean, I'm curious. If you knew every guest you talked to, these podcasts weren't going to see the light of day, would you do that?

• 35:22Mike Carruthers?

  No. What would be the point? That's what I don't understand. I mean, I understand doing things like saving the world from an asteroid that may be a long way away, but because there is a goal there, but just looking for a thing that probably doesn't exist, I don't, I don't get that.

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Well, for somebody like Jeremy, the reason that he's persevered so long is that he's adamant that if he proves to the world the Oran Pendak exists, it's going to be able to be used as a conservation hammer, in his words, that will ensure that the rainforest in that part of Sumatra is protected from illegal logging, from development, from being overrun by tourists. And so he sees it as, you know, a noble goal that if he is, if he's successful and proves it is a real creature, it will have, you know, positive spin-off effects. So for him, you know, he doesn't see it as a useless goal, even though, again, it's probably not going to happen.

• 36:26Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, see, there's the, that's the perfect word for this is how, it seems useless and pointless to me, or and to probably to a lot of people, but he clearly sees it as, there is a point to it, but the point to it is not necessarily the obvious point. He's not necessarily really looking for this thing as much as he's trying to save the rainforest.

• 36:52Speaker 02

  And I think he's using this goal as an excuse for an adventure, right? I mean, one of the things that has also struck me, looking back, I don't think I realized it at the time, but these are people who really understand that we have one life to live and they want to use that life and they want to live that life in very interesting ways. And so for him, you know, the search for the Oran Pendak was a vehicle to give him the excuse to live, you know, on, at the top of a volcanic lake in a national park on Sumatra, you know, in the middle of nowhere. If he had decided, you know, he was just going to be a run-of-the-mill photographer, his life path would have been radically different than it is.

• 37:34Mike Carruthers?

  So the people who are looking for extraterrestrial life, are they looking, they're looking for intelligent life? Or are they just looking for something that's alive? Like a plant?

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Well, there are, I mean, there are various threads when it comes to the search. I mean, there, SETI specifically is looking for what I think would be described as intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. So this wouldn't be so much a bacteria, you know, found on distant planets, but civilizations out there that they might not be as advanced as ours, but they would be, you know, what we consider to be another, another species.

• 38:11Mike Carruthers?

  And they do this because?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  I mean, one of the big questions in the world, I mean, one of the questions that I asked from a very, very young age is what else is out there? You know, I am a space nerd. I was raised on Star Wars and Star Trek and, you know, tales of intergalactic species and a vastly populated universe filled with all sorts of alien life. And obviously, I am probably never going to meet any of the others, the, these, these, this life myself. But to me, it's very, I love the fact there are people out there who are doing it. And they do that because they want to answer the question, are we alone? I mean, I do think it's an important question to ask,

• 38:56Speaker 02

  whether you're religious, whether you're not, whether you're just curious. The universe is immense and it's interesting to know what else might be hidden out there.

• 39:07Mike Carruthers?

  But interestingly, there is no evidence. Well, there's evidence that, that often gets blown up by somebody that says this is baloney. But, but I mean, there isn't real evidence that, that we're anywhere close to finding intelligent life. So, I mean, it would almost seem like, well, you know, if, if we had like a little string to pull on. Maybe, but I don't know where you even begin to look for intelligent life in the universe, because as you just pointed out, it's a pretty big place.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  I mean, the people who are conducting the hunt would agree with you, you know, they, one of the gentlemen that I spoke to, he says the truth about SETI is they don't really know what they're doing.

• 39:53Mike Carruthers?

  I love that.

• 39:54Speaker 02

  And this is, yeah, and this is one of the most preeminent searchers there is. This was Dan Wertham, who said that to me, I'm paraphrasing, but you know, they are taking telescopes and they're taking, you know, radio telescopes and they're pointing them to various points in the sky, hoping that they're going to get a signal, right? These are kind of fingers crossed experiments, but if you don't know that, you're never going to get any closer to an answer. So I think for a lot of these people, it's also a matter of, well, if we don't do this, nobody else is going to do this. And, you know, they know they are starting the hunt, even if they're the ones who don't finish it. It was also kind of described to me as, you know, they're running a relay race and they

• 40:39Speaker 02

  have the baton right now and they're going to hand it off to future generations of searchers. And hopefully, one day, one of them is going to cross the finish line.

• 40:46Mike Carruthers?

  You know what I wonder is, because if you're looking for intelligent life in the universe, which is a pretty daunting task, if you get into that self fulfilling prophecy thing where you start to see things that hopefully validate your reason for doing this, that maybe aren't really there, but you kind of want it to happen.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  There is definitely the fear of seeing things that aren't there. And quite a few of the people that I spoke to admitted an awareness to that, that, you know, there is the possibility of going too far down the rabbit hole of chasing ghosts that don't actually exist. And it's a question of being able to rein yourself in to ensure that, you know, it doesn't completely take over your life. I mean, these are people who are self admitted obsessives and, you know, obsession can be used as a force for good, but it can also, you know, take control of your life to the point where, you know, the only thing you're thinking about is searching for aliens, for instance.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  So it's a matter of, you know, finding the right balance between the two things.

• 41:57Mike Carruthers?

  But as you look at these people, and you used the term, I think, a moment ago, that, you know, it's an excuse for an adventure. Is that how they look at it? Do they say, "Yeah, we know, but this is more of just a joyride and we're using this as our fuel"? Or are they really looking?

• 42:18Speaker 02

  I mean, some of the people very much see their quests as a ride, that they don't know exactly where it's going to take them. But no, there are people who very much feel very passionately about what they're doing. They're committed to these quests. They're committed to finding or approaching an ending, or at the very least, you know, getting close to an ending and they can then hand off their work to somebody else, you know, once their careers, once their lives have reached an end.

• 42:45Mike Carruthers?

  I'm curious about the person who wants to end poverty, because that is a wonderful goal, but that's a pretty big task. I mean, does she have a plan?

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, Bonnie Morton, who is the character who has spent her life trying to bring about the end of poverty, is a really fascinating person. I mean, she grew up in poverty. She fled an abusive relationship and wound up in the city of Regina in Saskatchewan here in Canada, getting off the train with her young son, not knowing a soul in town, and being taken under the wing of a couple who ran a motel in the city. And they basically, you know, helped her get on her feet. And she decided, the kindness that she was shown at a very, very low point in her life, she wanted to pay it forward. That was basically the guiding principle for her life, to pay it forward.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  And a way she decided to pay it forward was to help others in need. And so she joined, after she completed university, an organization called the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, RAPM. And basically spent, you know, decades working with the cities downtrodden, working with the cities poor, advocating and lobbying the provincial government in Saskatchewan to, you know, pass legislation that helped the poor. Obviously, she was just looking at the issue in her own city, in her own backyard. You know, this wasn't somebody, even though she, you know, spoke at the United Nations and has, has spread her message around the world, she knew she could only take care of,

• 44:23Speaker 02

  you know, her neighbors. So I don't want to make it seem like, you know, she was trying to end poverty for everyone on the planet, but still, to me, I mean, I would, I, I would, I'm, I'm, I'm in a complete agreement with you. Like, if I knew that is how I was gonna, you know, attempt to, if, if basically, I had decided that was gonna be the way I was gonna spend my life, I think I would probably last a month or a week doing it. Because pushing that boulder up the hill, it's always gonna come and topple you down. And, you know, Bonnie is very well aware of that. As she said to me, the situation now for the poor in her city is worse, demonstrably, demonstrably worse than it was when she started.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  And yet, you know, up until the point where she retired, she did finally retire from the organization, although she is still a reverend, she continued to do that. And, and I find something very, you know, motivating about that. I find something beautiful about that.

• 45:20Mike Carruthers?

  What are these people who are trying to achieve something that's relatively unachie- well, not relatively, pretty much unachievable, what is it they share?

• 45:29Speaker 02

  Well, besides, you know, the patience and perseverance and loving what they do, I, I think ultimately, they believe in the world. That if you are spending your life towards a goal that you know isn't gonna happen while you're still living, to me at least, it suggests you believe in a world after you're gone. And, you know, at a moment like- Hours today where, you know, the headlines are dark and everybody's on edge. And, you know, we don't know what next week's going to look like, let alone next year or next decade. The people that I met over the years are working towards, working towards that.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  They're working for the long term. And to me, that means they believe there is going to be a long term. There is going to be a reason to protect the Sumatran rainforest because people are going to be able to enjoy it 100 years from now. There's a reason to study planetary defense and launch a mission to smash into an asteroid today. Because there's still going to be a civilization a million years from now that will benefit from the work we're doing today. That it's worth sending probes out into the galaxy and, and, you know, pointing our telescopes and radio telescopes at the stars to, to, you know, try to make contact or, or, or catch a signal from an alien civilization.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  Because one day, you know, our descendants and their descendants are going to meet somewhere. So to me, that is the commonality that they share, that they see the world as something that is, you know, interesting and brilliant and, and, and, and something that is worth working for, even if they themselves, you know, don't see the, the fruits of their labor.

• 47:18Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, it's really, it's really kind of curious because there are people who have very lofty goals that very likely won't come true. I mean, you might, as a, as a kid, say, you know, I want to grow up to be the president. Well, probably, probably you won't, but there is a chance you will. I mean, the, the, it is, there is a path that will get you there if you could figure it out. But these other things.

• 47:47Mike Carruthers?

  Not in your lifetime. There is no path to get there. You're not gonna make contact with extraterrestrials before you die. So, you know, there's a line there between what potentially possible and pretty much impossible.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  And that's what attracted me to these folks in the first place, that, you know, I am somebody, as I said, like, I like to see results. You know, I am somebody who gets up in the morning and I have a list of things I'd like to tick off before I go to bed. And if I was living my life, you know, with this one ultimate, you know, box that I knew I was never gonna check off, I don't think I could do it. I would probably quit as soon as I started. And so for me, it was as much an educational, and I was doing it for my benefit, because I was curious. I wanted to know, you know, what am I missing? Like,

• 48:44Speaker 02

  what do I lack? What do these people have that I don't? And, you know, as I said, they, you know, they have optimism, they have perseverance, they have patience, they have all these things that, you know, it's not that I'm a pessimist and I'm impatient, but they have it in spades in the way that I think most of us don't.

• 49:04Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it all sounds kind of quirky to me. I just, I could never see myself pursuing something that I know I'll never get to. But I'm fascinated by the stories of people who are able to do that. I've been talking to Mark Medley. He is a journalist and author of the book Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be. And there's a link to his book in the show notes. Mark, I appreciate you telling me stories. Thanks.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Hey, thanks so much, Mike. It's been a pleasure.

• 49:39Mike Carruthers?

  Think about all the places you put your phone. On tables, on bathroom counters, in your pocket. And all along the way, your phone is collecting bacteria. And then you hold that same phone device up against your face. And some of that bacteria can transfer to your skin. Experts say a dirty phone can exacerbate breakouts of acne by introducing extra bacteria and grime into contact with your skin. Regularly cleaning your screen and using headphones or earbuds instead of pressing that phone up against your cheek can help reduce the transfer of bacteria. And that is something you should know. Now, obviously, you like interesting things because you've listened to this entire episode

• 50:24Mike Carruthers?

  of this podcast. So I bet you know other people that like interesting things who would also like listening to this entire episode of this podcast. So please, share it with somebody you know and help us grow our audience. And for that, I am very appreciative. I'm Micah Brothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 50:45Speaker 04

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• 51:12Speaker 05

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