What Do You Read To Inspire You To Live a Deep Life?

00:00:03.500 | Our first question about the deep life comes from Joyce.

00:00:09.120 | Joyce asks, "What do you do or read to inspire and remind yourself of the importance of living a deep life?"

00:00:19.200 | Well, Joyce, for me, I love encountering case studies.

00:00:25.680 | Be it in magazine profiles, books, or videos, documentaries, etc.

00:00:32.760 | Whatever the format, I love encountering case studies of people who are living deeply.

00:00:37.440 | Seeing actual people doing this never fails to give me that hint of inspiration.

00:00:43.960 | So, for example, my oldest boys and I like to watch videos of people that are in the maker community,

00:00:50.040 | people who build things.

00:00:52.240 | And in particular, we like watching these videos.

00:00:54.440 | I've mentioned this before on the podcast of Adam Savage, former host of The Mythbusters.

00:00:59.320 | He has this massive—he calls it cave—it's actually a warehouse in the Mission District of San Francisco

00:01:04.240 | that's just full of tools and supplies, and in there he can build these elaborate things.

00:01:09.360 | And there's a focus and craftsmanship to that that I think is really inspiring.

00:01:14.120 | You can get this with athletic examples.

00:01:16.360 | You know, I really like seeing people or examples of people whose life have been crafted around

00:01:21.760 | mastering a particular physical pursuit.

00:01:24.480 | I like what Steve Ranella does on his Netflix show, Meat Eater, because it's very philosophical.

00:01:31.600 | Ranella, in some sense, is an heir to the stylish show that Anthony Bourdain was doing.

00:01:36.880 | It's not coincidental that Bourdain has been on or was on Ranella's show.

00:01:41.360 | They go out there and do these long hunts.

00:01:43.800 | Sometimes they are successful, sometimes they're not.

00:01:47.080 | But they are shot elegiacally, beautiful, long form, long focus shots.

00:01:53.760 | There is a very smart voiceover that Ranella does.

00:01:57.080 | Ranella is a hunter, but he also writes for The New Yorker.

00:02:00.120 | This is someone who knows how to think and write, so there's these really interesting,

00:02:04.160 | insightful voiceovers with these beautiful shots.

00:02:07.320 | And the whole thing is done in a world of depth.

00:02:10.080 | Just them alone, the mountains, in the plains, wherever they happen to be.

00:02:16.160 | And there's something that's calming about that.

00:02:18.240 | I wrote in Deep Work about being affected by watching the video of Rick Furrer, who

00:02:25.040 | is a old-time metalsmith.

00:02:27.800 | So he does blacksmithing using old-time tools.

00:02:31.880 | And he works out of a barn that's up there in Door County, near one of the Great Lakes.

00:02:37.840 | And he throws the barn doors open and it overlooks a field.

00:02:41.080 | And I watched a video of him building a Viking sword.

00:02:44.440 | It was a Nova episode I came across it.

00:02:46.320 | And again, something about that.

00:02:47.360 | It's someone who's working deeply with great focus, mastery.

00:02:50.920 | They're just doing one thing.

00:02:52.080 | They're doing that thing well and deeply.

00:02:53.640 | And just something about that hits a chord.

00:02:56.520 | I actually heard from Rick after Deep Work came out.

00:02:58.640 | We've had an interesting back-and-forth conversation, which I enjoyed.

00:03:03.040 | Great pleasure of actually having some of this work out there in the public.

00:03:05.360 | So that's what I would say.

00:03:07.160 | I love to encounter real people living deeply.

00:03:10.760 | You know it when you see it.

00:03:12.760 | It gives you that feel of inspiration or aspiration.

00:03:15.520 | And that's a feel that we should take seriously.

00:03:18.440 | What is it that I'm feeling?

00:03:19.800 | What is it that is causing the sense of aspiration or inspiration in what I'm watching?

00:03:24.360 | How can I isolate that?

00:03:25.680 | How can I identify what it is that's causing that feeling?

00:03:28.000 | And then once I've isolated those elements, I can then answer the question of,

00:03:30.880 | how can I get more of that in my life?

00:03:33.040 | This is the type of investigation, question, asking, and answering

00:03:36.560 | I think more of us probably should be doing right now.

00:03:39.400 | But in the meantime, though, it's an excuse to watch

00:03:42.200 | some of those fun, inspiring videos online.

00:03:44.880 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03:48.240 | [MUSIC]

What Do You Read To Inspire You To Live a Deep Life?

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