back to indexThe Cure To A Mediocre Life: 3 Unexpected Ideas To Reinvent Your Life | Cal Newport
Chapters
0:0 Getting started is overrated
30:31 How can I become more confident in social settings?
35:9 Is it ok to be an ordinary person?
41:0 Is it important to have friends?
43:57 I took a pay cut to become a teacher again. How can I better organize my life to prioritize craft?
51:44 Is it ok to use YouTube to discover new ideas?
59:19 Is Productivity Natural?
00:00:01.080 |
Well, last episode in episode 268, we looked at some ancient wisdom. 00:00:07.100 |
That we took out of Marcus Aurelius' meditations that seemed relevant to 00:00:10.680 |
the modern task of trying to build a deeper life in today's deep dive. 00:00:15.520 |
I want to look at three unexpected ideas from my own writing over the last 20 00:00:23.340 |
years that turned out to be surprisingly effective for helping people escape 00:00:29.180 |
the shallows and moved your life somewhere deeper. 00:00:31.840 |
So these are ideas that are unexpected, not the traditional things you would 00:00:35.200 |
hear, but over the years I've learned work really well, so we've shifted from 00:00:41.080 |
ancient ideas from last video and episode to modern ideas today. 00:00:46.620 |
So the first idea I want to start with is something I posted 00:00:53.320 |
So I have this loaded up on the screen for those who are watching. 00:00:56.880 |
The title of this essay from June of 2008, back when I was young and baby 00:01:02.500 |
faced and a doctoral student at MIT, is titled "Dangerous Ideas. 00:01:11.180 |
And I start off by saying, look, attend any talk given by an entrepreneur, 00:01:16.520 |
and you'll hear some variation of the following. 00:01:18.840 |
The most important thing you can do is get started. 00:01:24.560 |
A little bit later in the article, I say, but here's the problem. 00:01:27.040 |
I completely disagree with this common advice. 00:01:31.580 |
I think an instinct for getting started cripples your 00:01:36.800 |
And I suggest that on the contrary, you should develop a rigorous 00:01:39.380 |
thresholds that any pursuit must overcome before it can induce action. 00:01:50.640 |
And I nod towards survivor bias, noting that, hey, people who did 00:01:57.220 |
something successful then look backwards or like, well, you know, I'm glad I didn't wait. 00:02:01.660 |
So you should get started as well, because if you're also going to end up 00:02:05.760 |
doing something as successful as me, why wait, let's just get started. 00:02:09.100 |
So I argue that survivor bias or survivorship bias might be one of the 00:02:15.420 |
But when I looked at people in real life who seem to have been done 00:02:24.240 |
I've noticed that people who succeed in an impressive pursuit are those 00:02:28.260 |
who established over time, a deep emotional conviction that they want 00:02:33.600 |
to follow that pursuit and have built an exhaustive understanding of the 00:02:38.360 |
relevant world, why some succeed and others don't and exactly what type 00:02:45.500 |
Often it requires a long period of saturation in which the person returns 00:02:49.380 |
again and again to the world, meeting people and reading about it and trying 00:02:52.980 |
little experiments to get a feel for its reality, this period will be at 00:02:59.940 |
So this is what I had noticed when I got more serious about studying success 00:03:12.420 |
And if anything, action seemed to get in the way, because as you launch all 00:03:15.780 |
these different initiatives, not really understanding the world, not really 00:03:20.540 |
with a deep conviction of this is what I I'm going to do this, this is worth 00:03:31.420 |
And what do you get out of all this frenetic motion is, well, you get the 00:03:35.020 |
smoke from the friction, but no actual noticeable forward progress. 00:03:40.180 |
You're much more likely to get despondency than you are success because you begin to. 00:03:51.200 |
Those who do really impressive things often haven't said those two other 00:03:55.180 |
ingredients, they have a deep conviction that this is something that's worth 00:03:58.440 |
doing and it's worth taking the time to do, and they really understand how it 00:04:02.500 |
works and how people who do this actually succeed, they know the world. 00:04:14.100 |
If you're going to survive the ups and downs of getting really good. 00:04:19.460 |
You have to really come back to something again and again. 00:04:23.780 |
In my own practice, I think of this as the circling period where I'm 00:04:31.920 |
Let me come back at it again from another angle. 00:04:37.900 |
And you circle and you circle learning and encountering until 00:04:42.780 |
The potential pursuit becomes inevitable and unavoidable. 00:04:46.100 |
And then you launch down that path with your eyes blinkered forward, 00:04:50.640 |
your jaw set with conviction, or your ardor begins to dissipate. 00:04:54.860 |
And you realize, yeah, this probably wasn't the right thing to do. 00:05:08.300 |
2020 was not the first year I had a thought about a podcast. 00:05:11.980 |
I've been doing podcasts at a regular rate since roughly about 2014. 00:05:16.860 |
I've probably been on a couple thousand different podcast episodes. 00:05:21.180 |
I circled this for a long time until I really understood it, really 00:05:25.060 |
understood why it would make sense for me, really understood what it would 00:05:27.700 |
take to succeed, which direction I would have to go, and that all took time until 00:05:36.140 |
There was no real doubt when the time came by the summer of 2020. 00:05:44.060 |
It took a long time, but that was important because I had that 00:05:47.060 |
conviction in this particular case study, because I really understood the world. 00:05:51.740 |
I've known, I've seen the ups and downs up close. 00:05:59.700 |
I mean, Jesse will tell us because he's been here as well. 00:06:04.300 |
And we were talking about the numbers the other day, the big initial milestone. 00:06:18.340 |
I think it was a whole year before we signed with an ad agency. 00:06:21.100 |
So we could, we could do a two episodes a week and maybe 00:06:36.900 |
Jesse always hears me complain about our downloads graphs because to me and 00:06:40.820 |
Jesse, you'll, you'll admit this is true, whatever scale I look at these graphs, 00:06:44.940 |
no matter when I look at these graphs, it looks like our downloads are going down. 00:06:48.140 |
I'm always like, I was like, our downloads are going down. 00:06:52.980 |
And I don't know when this up is happening, but my point is that it's hard. 00:06:56.660 |
And if it wasn't locked in, I'm willing to spend five years, five years to make 00:07:01.300 |
this thing that something really big and impressive, if I wasn't willing to do 00:07:05.940 |
And that's why it took five years for me to decide to pull the trigger. 00:07:09.780 |
So that was my first piece of contrarian advice was be 00:07:15.540 |
Of course, won't this lead to procrastination? 00:07:20.660 |
And I do want to acknowledge that this is an issue. 00:07:23.740 |
Fear of success, perfectionism, procrastination becomes a much 00:07:28.700 |
heightened issue if you say, I really have to be sure before I get going. 00:07:32.460 |
And I think a lot of people have faced that issue, but my argument is the right 00:07:36.700 |
solution to that issue is not just get started on everything right away, because 00:07:41.460 |
The place where we should be focusing, if we care about the psychology of action, 00:07:46.460 |
the place we want to be focusing is on how to walk that tightrope, not getting 00:07:51.300 |
started too early and yet at the same time, not avoiding starting altogether. 00:07:56.540 |
That's a very difficult psychological tightrope to walk successfully, but it's 00:08:03.860 |
And we can't get rid of that challenge by saying, don't try. 00:08:07.060 |
And we can't get rid of that challenge by saying, just start right away. 00:08:11.140 |
We can't avoid that psychological complexity. 00:08:16.180 |
You shouldn't start right away, but you should start eventually, 00:08:20.180 |
And how do you know when it's the right time? 00:08:21.500 |
You don't really, you just learn and you think, and you build that conviction. 00:08:25.420 |
And it's complicated and it's difficult and we should just admit that, but just 00:08:28.980 |
getting started on everything, uh, it's not going to get you there. 00:08:34.740 |
Do you remember this book, Jesse guy, Kawasaki book, the art of the start. 00:08:41.180 |
But I think, uh, at some point I wrote a book or a post call, like the art of not 00:08:45.980 |
getting started or something like that, because I don't know. 00:08:49.020 |
Um, that was definitely in the, definitely in the air at the time. 00:08:52.540 |
All right, let's do another unexpected idea that proved in surprisingly effective 00:09:03.100 |
I believe I ended up writing about this in deep work, but this is where this idea 00:09:09.180 |
first emerged because this post is now from 2010, July, 2010. 00:09:13.580 |
So two years after the getting started post also in the summer, maybe the 00:09:19.340 |
The title of this article from 2010, treat your mind as you would a private garden. 00:09:29.340 |
If you want to have help taking action on the type of ideas we talk about in this 00:09:37.300 |
The link is right here below in the description, two to four times a month. 00:09:41.620 |
I send out detailed articles about the types of ideas we discuss here. 00:09:46.980 |
It's the best way to stay connected to me and my audience's 00:09:58.580 |
It comes from a book that I read around this time that was influential to me. 00:10:02.300 |
And that was Winifred Gallagher's 2009 ode to focus wrapped. 00:10:10.020 |
Now here's the thing about this book Gallagher who does fantastic science 00:10:13.460 |
writing begins her book talking about her own cancer diagnosis to quote her here. 00:10:20.860 |
Not just cancer, but a particularly nasty, fairly advanced kind. 00:10:26.220 |
Now I'm going to read from my post here for a second. 00:10:28.900 |
She realizes that this disease wants to claim her attention and that this was no 00:10:33.500 |
way to live with what may be the last moments of her life. 00:10:36.740 |
So she launches an experiment to reclaim her attention, relentlessly redirecting 00:10:43.620 |
Quote big ones like family and friends, spiritual life and work and smaller ones 00:10:51.460 |
Gallagher comes away from the experiment with a good prognosis for a disease and a 00:10:58.100 |
Quote, life is the sum total of what you focus on. 00:11:01.660 |
Yet most people expend little effort cultivating this focus. 00:11:07.660 |
She goes on to suggest that you should treat your mind like 00:11:13.140 |
Carefully tending what you allow to grow in there and 00:11:17.980 |
This idea was very influential to me, and I think it is more relevant today to our 00:11:23.980 |
culture writ large than it was back in 2010 when I was first writing this article. 00:11:30.980 |
There's a, almost a epistemological philosophical truth embedded in here 00:11:37.780 |
where Gallagher is saying there is not just an objective world out there that 00:11:41.260 |
you are observing and, and noticing things about. 00:11:44.020 |
It's not, here's the world and either you're seeing it or you're not. 00:11:46.540 |
Your experience of the world is constructed inside your mind. 00:11:50.340 |
It's based off of in general, the types of things that you are paying attention to. 00:11:57.740 |
It's just like if you are the victim of a crime, let's say you're 00:12:05.860 |
Your view of the world is when you go on the subway again, is very much going to be 00:12:10.580 |
one of, of anxiety and tension and fear and seeing everyone around you as someone 00:12:14.620 |
who's like potentially going to cause trouble because it's the same people that 00:12:18.460 |
you might've seen the day before you got mugged, but the way in what you pay 00:12:23.060 |
attention to can really change the way you experience your world. 00:12:25.660 |
And Gallagher saying writ large, this is true that even with all this terrible, 00:12:28.700 |
objectively terrible stuff happening in her life with a cancer diagnosis, by 00:12:32.100 |
focusing relentlessly on stuff that was good and important, it made her happy, 00:12:35.980 |
made the world she was in seem much better, even though these bad 00:12:40.900 |
What you pay attention to really affects your subjective experience of life. 00:12:46.900 |
More so than it was even when Gallagher's book came out 00:12:52.580 |
So now we are seeing this effect significantly amplified because of our 00:13:00.180 |
phones and social media, because of the engagement cues of algorithmic curation 00:13:06.300 |
and the push towards trying to attract attention as long as possible on these 00:13:10.020 |
devices, you can really be thrown into a world that is constructed algorithmically. 00:13:15.620 |
Every five or six minutes, you're checking your phone and seeing news and social 00:13:19.620 |
media posts and newsletters that are coming from this engagement ecosystem 00:13:24.020 |
that can incredibly color your experience of the world. 00:13:26.380 |
Think about people, you know, who are very online. 00:13:30.940 |
They tend, for example, to be very cataclysmic. 00:13:35.420 |
They think the world is, you know, a day or two away from a major civil war. 00:13:42.420 |
And really the only thing that's going to get in the way is before that can even 00:13:45.660 |
happen, there's going to be a climate apocalypse that's going to fuel an even 00:13:51.380 |
worse strain of COVID that turned people into zombies that are going to steal 00:13:56.540 |
election results as a way to try to keep certain books out of the libraries or 00:14:00.460 |
I mean, if you're online all the time, you're like, my God, the world is falling 00:14:07.180 |
Colors your experience of everything in the world. 00:14:09.580 |
Anything you see, innocent conversation you're having with a parent at your kid's 00:14:14.500 |
school, a play, everything suddenly is colored by this. 00:14:17.540 |
We should treat our minds like a private garden and say, I don't want to see the 00:14:22.300 |
world as being a few days away from, you know, the, the civil war climate pandemic 00:14:30.380 |
I like Winifred Gallagher, enjoy my six 30 martini friends going to see the movies. 00:14:36.620 |
So this is something I think that has proven to be really effective as care, 00:14:40.020 |
what you pay attention to, how much news you read, when do you read it? 00:14:44.020 |
What engagement sites you allow yourself to turn your attention towards? 00:14:48.260 |
How much of your time and attention do you want Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk to 00:14:56.660 |
I have better things to do than to be involved with that. 00:15:00.340 |
Why are you watching sort of YouTube videos of people crashing into things when 00:15:07.380 |
you could be reading a book like Winifred Gallagher's book or reading a classic, 00:15:11.420 |
trying to like put yourself into the mindset of a great thinker from times past 00:15:16.100 |
to push yourself instead of again, watching though they're entertaining, you know, 00:15:20.860 |
videos of people falling in the fountains because they're reading their phone. 00:15:23.740 |
I mean, what if you were going back and watching great films and reading 00:15:31.220 |
There's so much stuff you could be paying attention to that points out the good in 00:15:34.380 |
the world that gives you appreciation for quality that makes the world seem like a 00:15:39.140 |
place where the miraculous can happen and people are divine. 00:15:42.020 |
And there's really interesting things are always around each corner. 00:15:44.780 |
What you pay attention to matters for how you think about your world. 00:15:49.780 |
And never have we had to think about that more than in an age in which there are 00:15:53.660 |
plenty of companies that can reach us through that little piece of glowing glass 00:15:56.740 |
in our hand and control every ounce of what we focus on. 00:16:02.420 |
We need to treat our minds like a private garden. 00:16:07.420 |
You say it all the time too, with like books and how long they take to curate 00:16:11.940 |
those ideas and how long it takes them to write it as opposed to a post or 00:16:17.100 |
something that may have taken somebody a few hours. 00:16:23.180 |
Or a comment on a tweet that you then obsessively check to see if that got 00:16:30.420 |
I mean, here's the thing about a book as someone who's written eight of them now, 00:16:33.020 |
you spend a long time thinking about those ideas and a lot of people work on 00:16:37.260 |
them with you and like, are you saying this just right? 00:16:40.660 |
And let's go back and rethink the order of it. 00:16:42.540 |
By the time you get to the book, you're seeing a sort of crystallized form of 00:16:45.820 |
human thinking push to a level of consideration that you're not going to see 00:16:51.060 |
So even that can just give you hope for the complexity of human thinking. 00:17:04.020 |
We started in 2008 with the 2010, we're up to 2014. 00:17:10.300 |
Now the title of this, of this article doesn't give a lot away. 00:17:15.020 |
It's called, should you work like Maya Angelo or Eric Schmidt? 00:17:18.260 |
But the, the quote I want to use for the title of this idea is the following and 00:17:23.620 |
Think like an artist, but work like an accountant. 00:17:30.020 |
So this came from a David Brooks column that I had read back in 2014. 00:17:33.900 |
And as I say here, uh, in the top of this article, I wrote about Brooks's column. 00:17:40.700 |
Ultimately Brooks's column was about geopolitics, but he began it by riffing 00:17:45.860 |
on Mason Curry's book, daily rituals, which really was a phenomenon. 00:17:50.100 |
I've quoted that book quite a lot in a lot of my own work. 00:17:52.780 |
And this was a book where Curry went through the lives of famous creatives, 00:17:57.220 |
scoured their memoirs and biographies and letters, and just point extracted 00:18:02.500 |
everything he could find about their rituals for work. 00:18:07.220 |
And so Brooks was just looking for an excuse to write about it. 00:18:10.220 |
Now, however, what was cool about his summary was a couple of points he made. 00:18:14.780 |
So let me, let me read from my article, which will in turn quote Brooks. 00:18:18.260 |
To summarize these observations, Brooks quotes Henry Miller, quote, I know that 00:18:24.780 |
to sustain these true moments of insight, one has to be highly disciplined, 00:18:30.420 |
He then offers his own more bluntly accurate summary, quote, great creative 00:18:35.780 |
minds think like artists, but work like accountants or to put it in study 00:18:42.660 |
hacks, lingo, deep insight requires a disciplined commitment to deep work. 00:18:49.660 |
An idea that I think has pervaded my thinking about what we do here on this 00:18:55.100 |
podcast and in my writing in the years since, which is there is a paradox at the 00:19:03.020 |
So that's the term I'm going to use here for productivity that is focused on 00:19:07.060 |
organizing the obligations in your life so that you have more intentional 00:19:11.660 |
I'm trying to separate this from outcome-based productivity, which has 00:19:15.540 |
more to do with maximizing output per each unit of input. 00:19:20.900 |
So for organizational productivity, there's this paradoxical observation. 00:19:24.820 |
That the better you are at that, the more free, creative and relaxed you can be. 00:19:31.620 |
And this goes contrary to a lot of people's instincts. 00:19:33.780 |
People think, wait a second to be organized is in some sense 00:19:40.820 |
I'm going to have my planners and my systems and it's so rigid and there's 00:19:47.820 |
There's no room for me to just go on a flight of fancy and the following idea 00:19:51.540 |
or to go into the field with my fields note notebook and have that big insight. 00:19:54.940 |
If I structure my life, I'm going to be a boring executive. 00:20:00.300 |
I don't do that, but what Brooks is pointing out here, his lesson 00:20:04.700 |
from studying Mason Curry, his lesson that he quoted Henry Miller making 00:20:09.740 |
is that actually this organization supports creativity, relaxation, and freedom. 00:20:14.740 |
To have your arms around, here's the things on my plate. 00:20:22.460 |
Here's what I need to take off because this is too much. 00:20:24.580 |
That gives you the breathing room needed to relax. 00:20:27.700 |
That gives you the breathing room needed to be creative because when you can trust, 00:20:34.580 |
One of the things you can do is like, great, I'm going to spend all day today, 00:20:38.620 |
And you can do so without distraction or guilt because you're not just. 00:20:41.140 |
Randomly pushing stuff to the side and hoping nothing bad happens when you can 00:20:47.220 |
You can realize with precision, the impact of everything you've said yes to. 00:20:55.260 |
When you realize exactly what happens with your time and how long things take, 00:20:58.300 |
you're much more realistic when you say yes and no. 00:21:03.780 |
If I say yes to this, this, and this, that's going to put this many things on my schedule. 00:21:07.420 |
I've seen that before because I have a pretty good sense of my time. 00:21:13.420 |
No longer do these gigs, leave this position, rechange this. 00:21:16.780 |
It gives you this type of autonomy over how your time actually unfolds. 00:21:23.100 |
So I like the way Brooks put it, think like an artist, but work like an accountant. 00:21:27.060 |
So when you're thinking, be creative, be deep, be free, but when structuring your 00:21:32.540 |
work, be much more structured, like an accountant, and you'll be able then to 00:21:38.420 |
If you do things like a multi-scale planning, you have a quarterly, weekly, 00:21:45.660 |
daily plan, time block plan makes a big difference combined with full capture. 00:21:50.460 |
When you're making a plan for your time, as opposed to reacting, when you have 00:21:54.100 |
sequentiality, when you have heuristics and quotas for how much, when you say yes 00:21:58.780 |
and how much work of each type you let on, when you're able to see clearly how long 00:22:01.940 |
things took and then go back and make decisions about what to do going forward. 00:22:04.860 |
All of this actually frees up more creativity and more relaxation. 00:22:08.540 |
It leads you to the possibility of a freer life. 00:22:11.460 |
And if you really want to significantly simplify your life, there's really no 00:22:15.300 |
better way to start on that path than to get control over everything. 00:22:18.540 |
So that like a surgeon, you can start incising and scapling off all sorts of 00:22:22.740 |
different things that have the biggest footprints and make sure the things that 00:22:27.500 |
That's an unexpected idea, but it's one that has proven unexpectedly, I think, 00:22:33.300 |
effective in thinking about living a deeper life. 00:22:35.900 |
Think like an artist, but work like an accountant. 00:22:39.180 |
So obviously there's a lot of more classic ideas I talk a lot about on the 00:22:44.180 |
show, but I thought it'd be cool again, to go back and look at the other 00:22:55.900 |
Think like an artist, but work like an accountant. 00:22:59.860 |
All of these are a decade old or more, but I think they hold up. 00:23:06.860 |
That's old flame throwing Cal and his blogging days, just 00:23:13.260 |
That book, um, that Brooks reference sounds pretty cool. 00:23:21.700 |
It was just, here's a lot of famous creative minds from history. 00:23:32.980 |
I think I cite some stuff from it in slow productivity as well. 00:23:38.380 |
It was actually a blog, like everything was back then. 00:23:46.700 |
So I want to move on and do some questions roughly on these, this 00:23:49.380 |
general topic of sort of escaping the mediocre life and finding depth. 00:23:53.060 |
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I need this type of specialty, takes this insurance, has appointments, boom. 00:27:26.820 |
Here they say, look, he does pretty good treatments, but also has a tendency 00:27:39.980 |
You don't have to find, find out they don't take your insurance. 00:27:43.820 |
And once you find the doc you want, you can book them 00:27:47.780 |
No more waiting awkwardly on hold with a receptionist. 00:27:56.660 |
I was thinking, I was thinking Jesse about speaking of cannibalism. 00:28:01.420 |
One of my kids was going on a field trip today. 00:28:06.340 |
Going on a field trip today to a skyline caverns, the caves. 00:28:10.340 |
And I told him, cause I thought this was good advice. 00:28:12.380 |
So I said, look, if you notice something, uh, something seems to miss, like the, 00:28:18.860 |
Like he might be lost or like some of the lights are going off. 00:28:21.220 |
Your best bet is to start cannibalizing someone right away. 00:28:26.540 |
So like you keep your nutrients up, you know, you can get to like probably the 00:28:30.820 |
person, it just, just get right to the cannibalizing right away before, you 00:28:36.260 |
And he thought about it for a second and was like, dad, I think it's unlikely 00:28:41.220 |
So I guess you could probably say the same about if you're worried about your, 00:28:56.380 |
Forget cannibalism, good doctors, take your insurance nearby reviews. 00:29:03.380 |
Go to ZocDoc.com/deep and download the ZocDoc app for free. 00:29:18.100 |
That kind of got me reminded of a side rant that Mad Dog had last week about, 00:29:25.940 |
Were they, is Taylor Swift involved in a cannibal scandal with 00:29:32.700 |
There's just like, there's just this big rant that he went on that was 00:29:36.380 |
hilarious and it kind of reminded me of the same. 00:29:38.140 |
Speaking of Mad Dog, I was listening to Bill Simmons being interviewed 00:29:43.300 |
They were talking about why he got in the podcasting and he said his 00:29:57.620 |
Then he moved to Connecticut after his parents got divorced in high school. 00:30:05.060 |
But he said what he liked about Mike and the Mad Dog was when they would veer 00:30:08.940 |
from sports to talk about like culture issues. 00:30:14.460 |
And that's where Bill Simmons, you know, really adopted this idea, which is his 00:30:18.540 |
of bringing pop culture and intersecting that with sports. 00:30:23.180 |
It's the pop culture stuff is just as important. 00:30:33.580 |
What can I do to speak more articulately and gain confidence 00:30:40.300 |
And I can tell you a lot of this is practice, right? 00:30:43.540 |
The more you're around people in different situations, the more 00:30:48.820 |
The more you spend talking about things or explaining yourself or talking to people, 00:30:53.300 |
the more comfortable and articulate you get in those types of conversations. 00:30:57.540 |
I mean, I talk pretty, you know, here on this podcast, but in part, because 00:31:03.340 |
I've been professionally speaking since I was in my young twenties. 00:31:07.220 |
The cadences of speaking, the pacing, the coming up in your head with 00:31:17.460 |
You can start with very low key social stuff early on stuff that you're 00:31:21.580 |
I know this person, I don't mind hanging out with them. 00:31:23.540 |
So we go to a restaurant or a bar together or go to a movies 00:31:30.020 |
I'm just used to in a comfortable situation, being out in the world with 00:31:33.420 |
people and talking to them and interacting, but the stakes are low. 00:31:39.620 |
I'm going to go to bigger social events or parties at first, you know, small ones. 00:31:44.620 |
Here's my friend, that's their birthday party. 00:31:49.300 |
Now, one of the things I think that is often left out of this 00:31:55.380 |
Anxiety gets really intertwined with socializing in ways that I think it's 00:32:00.820 |
hard for people who don't feel that same anxiety to understand, they don't 00:32:04.620 |
understand how these really get mixed in together, you really can start to build 00:32:11.180 |
up a sort of dread or anxiety around different situations. 00:32:14.140 |
It's why one of the outcomes of pretty severe anxiety disorders would be an 00:32:19.300 |
agoraphobia where you don't leave your house anymore. 00:32:21.180 |
It's because often those two things can go together. 00:32:24.740 |
The same circuits that are related to sociality are often the same circuits 00:32:28.460 |
that are short circuiting when you're suffering from anxiety. 00:32:31.300 |
So if anxiety is a real issue here, Tanya, it's not just, Oh, I'm out of practice. 00:32:36.260 |
It's I really feel physically dread and concern and panic 00:32:43.460 |
I would look towards ACT, ACT-based techniques. 00:32:47.940 |
They're very good for exactly this situation. 00:32:50.420 |
So ACT, otherwise known as third wave psychotherapy, stands for 00:32:55.700 |
It's a very effective evidence-based type of psychotherapy that does really 00:33:02.700 |
well with anxiety, social anxiety, panic type anxiety around other people. 00:33:08.420 |
It's really based upon separating feelings from your actual actions. 00:33:14.500 |
It really helps train you to recognize the physical symptoms of something like 00:33:19.940 |
anxiety and say, yes, but I'm still going to commit to do this thing that I think 00:33:22.820 |
is valuable, and I can still do that even if this feeling comes and goes. 00:33:25.700 |
It helps you avoid labeling that feeling as this is really important. 00:33:32.740 |
It breaks that loop of you labeling your feelings and just seeing them as 00:33:39.220 |
We talked about this a little bit in last week's episode. 00:33:45.780 |
He had some actually stoic ideas that are connected to modern 00:33:50.900 |
But I just want to point that out there, Tanya, that there is a more serious 00:33:53.740 |
training you can do with the tools of ACT that are there and available. 00:33:59.420 |
And so if the anxiety is really holding you back, that's not permanent. 00:34:07.780 |
Though it might take some PT and a little bit of time. 00:34:14.340 |
I think it's the Happiness Trap is one of the famous sort of public 00:34:27.220 |
But I just want to throw that out there because it can be frustrating 00:34:37.820 |
Depending if you're on that spectrum, it can be frustrating 00:34:44.420 |
Just like come to the thing, like what could go on? 00:34:46.340 |
And they don't realize that you're feeling a minced red. 00:34:49.340 |
So there's a lot of things you can do there, Tonya, the train. 00:35:06.460 |
In what ways can being ordinary be good in life? 00:35:09.500 |
This was an interesting question, Ben, I had to think about it a little bit. 00:35:13.100 |
It resonated a little bit because I think what you're getting at here 00:35:17.020 |
is this interesting trade off when you're thinking about the deep life 00:35:22.380 |
There's one way you can go, of course, is towards exceptionalness. 00:35:31.660 |
I want to do something noteworthy, have some fame for this thing 00:35:36.060 |
That's one particular path for the deep life. 00:35:38.060 |
The other path for the deep life is I want to build a life around my values, 00:35:43.100 |
you know, start with discipline, figure out my values, organize my stuff, 00:35:46.660 |
sacrifice and be a leader on behalf of others and then find areas of my life 00:35:51.340 |
And you could sort of have this quiet, deep life 00:35:53.660 |
where you really matter to a lot of people and you find and extract out of life 00:35:57.700 |
a lot of joy and appreciation of stuff that's fantastic or great or remarkable, 00:36:02.620 |
all without having to be I am an exceptional X and people recognize it. 00:36:06.220 |
You have sort of two paths towards depth here. 00:36:11.420 |
especially when we look at that exceptionality path, right, 00:36:14.100 |
because there's good there and we shouldn't turn down the good. 00:36:16.740 |
Why do people want to try to be great at things? 00:36:18.900 |
Well, first of all, you do gain more autonomy. 00:36:20.940 |
Right, you do something really well, there's more demand for it, 00:36:25.260 |
you often gain more financial reward and or more control 00:36:30.540 |
There are several things I do at a pretty high level, 00:36:32.620 |
and I do have a lot of flexibility in my life. 00:36:34.380 |
We get to mess around in this playhouse, deep work HQ. 00:36:44.100 |
I don't worry about money, really. That's not really an issue. 00:36:47.340 |
So there's like great autonomy that comes from doing some things really well. 00:36:50.420 |
Also, it feels good to be respected in the moment. 00:36:56.500 |
We tell ourselves it doesn't matter, but there is ego. 00:37:00.220 |
And it's and you do feel if something goes really well, 00:37:05.780 |
That is the stimulus that is perverted when we see workaholism. Right. 00:37:10.340 |
So with a addiction, there's usually some sort of very powerful 00:37:14.180 |
stimulus that becomes the driver for the addiction, 00:37:19.140 |
Workaholism is really that feeling of, wow, I did this thing well. 00:37:27.700 |
That's why you could build a whole addiction around it. 00:37:30.340 |
On the flip side, though, it can be very stressful and anxiety producing 00:37:33.980 |
to try to do something exceptionally well, it's hard to do, 00:37:36.100 |
and it puts you in a bigger, more stressful circumstances. 00:37:41.380 |
You get more people perhaps who like want your time 00:37:43.860 |
than you have nearly enough time to actually give. 00:37:47.540 |
And people think that you're being, you know, snobby or elitist. 00:37:50.740 |
High stake things are just anxiety producing. 00:37:53.340 |
And you have to figure, is this worth the anxiety, is this one not? 00:38:01.820 |
I mean, I constantly have to make these decisions. 00:38:03.780 |
There's things I, you know, television, things I've turned down, for example, 00:38:08.540 |
that may be an isolation, you say, well, that's cool. 00:38:12.260 |
And it's like I can't do all of these things. 00:38:14.340 |
And if I did, it's going to overwhelm me with time constraints. 00:38:17.820 |
The anxiety have to be careful about how I make my path. 00:38:25.300 |
if you're going the route of let me just be exceptional, 00:38:30.380 |
And there are some real positives you're going to get, but there's also negatives. 00:38:33.180 |
And I say that because I think that then when you get the scale between 00:38:40.220 |
versus the exceptional, notable, famous remarkability approach, 00:38:44.740 |
when you put the cons with the pros on this ladder, the scales become about balance. 00:38:48.940 |
And so you really, if you're going the quiet, remarkability approach, a life that, 00:38:54.740 |
you know, it's. Lorelei Gilmore and the Gilmore Girls, 00:39:02.500 |
not like exceptional at anything, but in that world, 00:39:06.420 |
you know, is really well known and has built this really interesting life 00:39:09.980 |
and people really know her and appreciate her and she's involved in people's lives 00:39:13.540 |
and is having a positive impact on that town. 00:39:16.140 |
But she's not famous outside of that small little town. 00:39:18.740 |
That's quiet, remarkability, not so bad of a path. 00:39:23.220 |
And again, I don't want to say the other path, 00:39:24.780 |
the sort of exceptional remarkability is bad. 00:39:26.460 |
I'm just saying when you have the pros and the cons, it's no longer like, 00:39:28.900 |
well, this is clearly better if you have the skill, you know, you have the whatever. 00:39:32.020 |
I can shoot a really good jump shot. I could go that way. 00:39:34.300 |
If you have the possibility to go that way, it's not bad, 00:39:40.300 |
And if you don't see an obvious way to get to the exceptional remarkability, 00:39:43.220 |
you shouldn't feel bad about it, because again, these things balance out. 00:39:46.060 |
Steph Curry versus Lorelei Gilmore, that old famous comparison like there's 00:39:51.500 |
there's I don't know, there's plus and minuses to both. 00:39:54.460 |
So neither should be dismissive of the other. 00:39:57.940 |
That's a weird I might be the first person in history 00:40:01.580 |
to make that particular comparison, probably. 00:40:04.580 |
I mean, I can't imagine it's come up in the locker room. 00:40:09.180 |
The NBA finals, Steph, man, this is your it's your Lorelei moment, buddy. 00:40:17.340 |
I want you to man up and Lorelei this. All right. 00:40:19.740 |
I mean, you got to your dribbling should be like the fast speech 00:40:24.380 |
cadence of Lorelei Gilmore confusing people with as you move back and forth 00:40:35.060 |
I just probably some basketball strategy metaphor. 00:40:38.300 |
The end of that speech would be like, hold on one second. 00:40:41.700 |
Someone's hand me a piece of paper and oh, yeah, I'm fired. 00:40:45.860 |
And so that story ends like, yeah, it makes sense. 00:40:49.180 |
And I was fired. All right. Nonsense. Stop the nonsense. 00:40:53.180 |
All right. Great. Next question is from Samantha. 00:40:58.180 |
If it is important, how would you recommend an introvert go about finding some? 00:41:01.820 |
Also, can you provide some advice on moving on from certain friendships 00:41:08.220 |
So it's a good compliment to Tanya's questions 00:41:11.780 |
about being more social and confident friends, as I mentioned, 00:41:17.580 |
And for a friendship to be real, it has to involve non-trivial sacrifice 00:41:22.140 |
Otherwise, your brain doesn't treat it as real. 00:41:24.620 |
So just texting someone all the time doesn't count. 00:41:27.420 |
Commenting on the social media doesn't count. 00:41:29.900 |
Being active in a WhatsApp channel with them also does not count. 00:41:34.620 |
As far as your brain is concerned, they're not a friend 00:41:36.260 |
until you're going places and doing things with them, doing things 00:41:39.540 |
you might not otherwise want to do, but you're doing it because they're your friend. 00:41:42.340 |
That's when your brain begins to take the relationship seriously. 00:41:47.420 |
So this should be a regular part of your weekly planning, 00:41:49.420 |
especially if you're trying to build up friendships as something 00:41:52.620 |
that's more important than a regular part of your weekly planning should be. 00:41:55.620 |
What am I doing this week to strengthen or develop friendships? 00:42:01.020 |
Especially if you're sort of getting back in the saddle, so to speak. 00:42:04.500 |
So fortunately, I can point you towards a resource here. 00:42:07.780 |
There was a segment we did a few episodes back 00:42:11.780 |
on this notion of the friendship recession, this idea that Americans 00:42:16.220 |
in particular have less friends than ever before. 00:42:19.260 |
The segment where I had my friend Jamie Kilsing come on and talk about 00:42:23.420 |
what he went through to gain a new group of friends in his 40s 00:42:30.380 |
So we got into the weeds in that episode about specific things 00:42:33.580 |
you can do to actually find and cultivate friends. 00:42:35.980 |
So I won't repeat that all, but I will say find that segment 00:42:42.020 |
That was a final segment on a relatively recent episode. 00:42:47.460 |
Yeah, Jesse knows whenever Jamie's on, I begin just furiously messing up their names 00:42:51.420 |
because and as Jesse has pointed out, is maybe it's because 00:42:59.580 |
So it's just in the collective conscious of like Jamie is what you call 00:43:02.980 |
the other person on a microphone when you're podcasting. 00:43:14.460 |
Right. Episode 266, deep life dot com slash listen. 00:43:18.420 |
You'll find that in the video for it's there as well. 00:43:20.620 |
So look at that discussion with Jamie, because I think this is critically important, 00:43:23.740 |
especially if you do not have a robust group of friends. 00:43:29.140 |
It's going to require a lot of work on a regular basis with some tried 00:43:31.820 |
and true tactics, but it is absolutely, absolutely worth doing. 00:43:35.860 |
All right, Jesse, see, I almost had Jamie there. 00:43:40.700 |
I'm telling you, it's like very difficult once you start thinking about that. 00:43:51.340 |
I had been a high school teacher for over a decade 00:43:53.540 |
and then moved into a non classroom role, still in education. 00:43:56.340 |
Now, a couple of years in, I can confidently say it makes me miserable. 00:43:59.780 |
The work environment suffers from all the symptoms you describe 00:44:02.780 |
about knowledge, work and from lack of management. 00:44:05.340 |
Ultimately, I decided to return back to the classroom, taking a pay cut. 00:44:09.380 |
But I wanted to radically shift, radically shift how I approached the job. 00:44:14.580 |
I'm curious if you have any advice for re-approaching this type of work 00:44:18.300 |
in a way that guards against burnout and prioritizes craft, 00:44:23.380 |
Well, Evelyn, first of all, I like your intention here. 00:44:26.100 |
You're trying to actually craft your life to match the vision, 00:44:31.940 |
Let me briefly mention the pay cut piece as well, 00:44:34.540 |
because I think this is something that often leads people astray. 00:44:37.540 |
People often do a style of budgeting with their income 00:44:43.140 |
where they just think about any reduction in that income 00:44:47.180 |
When you're doing lifestyle centric career planning, 00:44:49.620 |
you got to go the other way and you have to do zero based budgeting, 00:44:53.060 |
which is implicitly what Evelyn is doing here. 00:44:55.780 |
What are the things that are important for us to live our life 00:45:00.660 |
How much of those costs? Good. That's how much money we need. 00:45:02.900 |
And so if this pay cut for Evelyn still keeps them able to, you know, 00:45:07.540 |
we can live where we want to live and do these things and not have undue stress, 00:45:14.340 |
The money becomes just one of the other tools you have to craft your ideal lifestyle. 00:45:18.700 |
It doesn't become the primary metric by which you measure 00:45:24.260 |
So this is a critical point to make for those who are cultivating a deep life. 00:45:43.300 |
I see what is the configuration of my life in this new job? 00:45:46.340 |
Do we have enough money to afford what we need? 00:45:49.260 |
And you see the money as one part among others. 00:45:51.620 |
That's a nice little tidbit hidden in this bigger question. 00:45:55.500 |
All right, let's get into the details, though. 00:45:57.700 |
Evelyn is saying now I'm returning to the classroom. 00:46:03.460 |
How do I keep slow productivity at play here? 00:46:07.660 |
I have a few things to recommend just based off the many teachers 00:46:10.860 |
I've spoken with over the years and my own experience as a academic teacher myself. 00:46:15.580 |
But first of all, organization systems really matter when fighting off burnout. 00:46:20.740 |
Multiscale planning control over your time matters. 00:46:24.460 |
If you are semester weekly, then daily time block planning, 00:46:29.060 |
you're making use of the full 40 hours you have every week. 00:46:31.900 |
And when you're making use of the full 40 hours, you can avoid the pile ups. 00:46:35.820 |
You can avoid the oh, my God, I got to work late tonight 00:46:39.220 |
because I have to prepare for parent teacher conferences and get all these tests 00:46:43.100 |
graded and all this has to happen by tomorrow. 00:46:47.700 |
Collision long work hour days is a real source of fuel for burnout. 00:46:52.220 |
Multiscale planning helps you avoid that because now you see, oh, I'm going to start 00:46:56.940 |
working on the parent teacher conferencing a week early in this Tuesday. 00:47:00.460 |
This block, I'm going to finish it and the test prep can start this day. 00:47:03.940 |
You see the time you have and you can move the proverbial chess pieces around there 00:47:08.060 |
much easier, so you have to care more about organizational productivity. 00:47:10.860 |
Second, tailor your curriculum more to minimize. 00:47:16.180 |
Negative impact of my curriculum here, I don't mean the content, 00:47:19.740 |
I mean the way in which you deliver and assess material. 00:47:22.940 |
Do we have the students do quizzes every single day? 00:47:26.340 |
Do they bring things home and I check them and then they go back 00:47:30.540 |
Anything involved in how you actually deliver the content 00:47:34.220 |
so that the logistical curriculum look at this, among other things, 00:47:38.660 |
through the lens of what's going to make my life easier. 00:47:43.300 |
What you do here is you keep the floor being, well, what's first of all, 00:47:46.140 |
what's going to work well for the students, but within the realm of the equivalence 00:47:50.300 |
class of many different ways that you could actually implement 00:47:57.500 |
that are going to make your life easier versus harder, 00:47:59.420 |
there is no difference to the students or the parents. 00:48:03.740 |
This is a real endemic issue with junior professors. 00:48:07.900 |
They come into planning their class and really don't want to think about. 00:48:12.300 |
Easiness for themselves, what's going to be tractable or not, like, no, no, no. 00:48:16.940 |
It's all has to be about what I do, I think is best. 00:48:19.780 |
And so we're going to do these interactive exams every single day, 00:48:23.260 |
and then they're going to comment on the class blog 00:48:25.300 |
and I'm going to come in and comment on their comments. 00:48:27.260 |
And then we'll have a scribe and the scribe is going to take notes 00:48:31.180 |
and then the scribe is going to give it to me to review so we can post it. 00:48:33.820 |
But I'm going to do a video wrap where I go to I go to give the best highlights 00:48:37.220 |
there, but I got to film each one on a different high point 00:48:40.300 |
from a different U.S. state because there's a metaphor there. 00:48:42.540 |
You have all these ideas like I just got to do the best ideas 00:48:47.940 |
Or actually, the students would get the same pedagogical effect if it was 00:48:52.060 |
we have these problems that's posted on the board when you come in 00:48:56.540 |
and you do each of these reaction problems for the first 10 minutes. 00:48:59.980 |
And there's an hour every day on Friday where you go through them 00:49:02.580 |
and use check plus grading because you don't want to get into the weeds. 00:49:05.220 |
And and it solves the problem, but it's much easier for you. 00:49:07.860 |
I learned this the hard way as a teaching assistant at MIT. 00:49:12.100 |
Oh, my God, the details of how I run this class makes a huge difference 00:49:17.620 |
They don't know the difference between this or this or that. 00:49:24.540 |
They don't consider the impact on their own time and schedule enough. 00:49:27.500 |
But if anything, it is negligent as a teacher 00:49:30.180 |
to design things that overwhelms you because your time and attention, 00:49:36.820 |
And it's sort of part of your responsibility to make better use of that. 00:49:39.540 |
So care about how you tailor the logistics of your curriculum. 00:49:42.460 |
Communication systems matter, especially with parents. 00:49:46.260 |
And one of my kids has a teacher, for example, that runs parent office hours, 00:49:51.940 |
These two hours on this day, you can always just call me. 00:49:56.780 |
Any question about your kid or what's going on, just call me. 00:50:00.620 |
You know how much back and forth email that solves? 00:50:02.700 |
The parents don't care. They just want clarity. 00:50:04.340 |
Oh, my God, I worry about this thing with my kid. 00:50:08.940 |
I'll call them then. Parents just want clarity. 00:50:11.100 |
But by having that good system, this teacher has 00:50:14.300 |
this context switching footprint has been reduced. 00:50:17.740 |
And then finally, I've heard this from a lot of teachers, 00:50:26.420 |
Be very wary, especially at first, to say yes to things 00:50:28.780 |
that you don't necessarily have to, hey, will you help run this thing 00:50:31.580 |
at the school or do this extra initiative or be the assistant advisor 00:50:35.340 |
for this new club? Just be really wary about that. 00:50:39.860 |
and you want to be really wary about making those costs. 00:50:42.220 |
You might even at first feel like I'm not really taking on new things 00:50:48.220 |
And then I got to choose something I really want to put my energy into extra. 00:50:55.860 |
And I'm not particularly apologetic about it. 00:50:58.060 |
And the people who ask me, I say, no, just move on to the next person 00:51:01.500 |
I'm not trying to become, I don't know, the teacher rep 00:51:07.820 |
All of those ideas, by the way, could adjust to many different 00:51:18.740 |
Being careful about your communication systems 00:51:23.740 |
I think that applies to almost any knowledge worker job 00:51:29.180 |
If I'm going to summarize these ideas, I'd use the term slow productivity 00:51:37.020 |
All right, let's do one more quick question here. 00:51:42.980 |
I like the idea of a deep life, and I've replaced passive Internet 00:51:46.460 |
use with activities that I really care about, such as mathematics, botany 00:51:51.140 |
My problem is that I discovered these hobbies, and he's actually in med school, 00:51:57.500 |
I follow Andrew Humor and other math channels. 00:52:00.460 |
Is it OK to still use YouTube to get innovative ideas? 00:52:04.340 |
Always a good chance to review my thoughts on YouTube 00:52:09.940 |
Video and independent produced video, I do strongly believe, 00:52:17.340 |
For whatever reason, video has a stronger hold over the human psyche 00:52:23.220 |
And yet it can also be a source of major distraction 00:52:28.260 |
So my advice is always YouTube is fine if you use it in the right ways. 00:52:33.140 |
And I say you should use it like a television and a library. 00:52:35.660 |
What I mean about that, I see, use it like a television. 00:52:41.940 |
That you might turn on on the TV to watch Seinfeld's on tonight. 00:52:54.780 |
He posts the video on, I don't know when he does it, 00:52:58.020 |
but let's just say for the sake of example, on Monday. 00:52:59.860 |
So to load up the YouTube app on your TV on Monday night 00:53:05.700 |
or I'm going to watch him as I eat lunch on Tuesdays 00:53:10.180 |
It's like a television where you have very niche channels 00:53:18.860 |
I have this hobby now, botany, like you mentioned, 00:53:25.300 |
Could be a fantastic way to learn how to do it. 00:53:28.340 |
There's a lot of great how-to stuff on YouTube. 00:53:45.380 |
until eventually it's like someone in a weird costume 00:53:51.180 |
that gets full of money from Mr. Beast or something. 00:53:55.260 |
when you go down the just maximizing engagement rabbit hole. 00:53:58.260 |
So use it to watch particular things you like. 00:54:01.900 |
Maybe you like my show, you like Huberman's show, great. 00:54:04.380 |
Think of it like you're watching a show on CNN or NBC. 00:54:06.860 |
It's just an internet delivery channel, fine. 00:54:09.140 |
Looking up stuff, how do I do this, how do I do that? 00:54:12.340 |
Just don't use it as a default source of distraction. 00:54:19.020 |
because there you're just searching for a particular thing. 00:54:25.900 |
If you're using it on your computer to look something up, 00:54:29.740 |
that can wipe the recommendations off the side. 00:54:32.580 |
So you can look something up in the search bar, 00:54:34.620 |
click on something to watch, and that's all you see. 00:54:36.260 |
You don't see those rabbit hole recommendations. 00:54:38.020 |
Do that and YouTube can actually be a plus to your life 00:54:44.500 |
So it's this weird thing that could go either way, 00:54:51.020 |
All right, well, we got a final segment we wanna get to. 00:54:54.900 |
I wanna read some of my own readers' reactions to my ideas. 00:54:58.340 |
First, however, I wanna mention another sponsor 00:55:06.900 |
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and training, and then you check in with this coach online 00:58:06.900 |
here's what's going well, here's what's not going well. 00:58:08.820 |
There's a problem, they say, great, let's rethink this. 00:58:20.420 |
you're communicating through the internet and not in person, 00:58:26.060 |
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trying to turn around your health and fitness. 00:58:55.900 |
and they will give you $50 off your first month. 00:58:58.580 |
So you just say, hey, I heard about this on Cal's podcast, 00:59:01.660 |
and Adam and his team over there will give you $50 off. 00:59:13.580 |
All right, we're on our way now to the final segment. 00:59:31.220 |
You can also read all my essays at calnewport.com. 00:59:37.260 |
So on September 29th, I published a short essay 00:59:44.260 |
It was based off of a small but important event 00:59:54.060 |
I had these low tire pressure warning lights on in my car, 01:00:00.980 |
You know, you lose pressure somehow, the air compresses. 01:00:06.460 |
Your pressure drops down, you get that indicator light on. 01:00:18.100 |
and that I'm losing whatever traction on the road. 01:00:33.540 |
in the middle of the day because I told my wife, 01:00:38.300 |
So I have to go see this movie 'cause it's about AI. 01:01:01.820 |
I'll always pick a day at the end of each semester. 01:01:04.660 |
I'll go buy a book and then go, go see a movie. 01:01:11.500 |
And I got out my tire pump and I pumped up the tires. 01:01:16.260 |
Dry off to see the movie and the indicator light goes off. 01:01:19.300 |
I felt this really non-trivial sense of accomplishment. 01:01:23.420 |
This thing was broken and I did something physical 01:01:30.500 |
And I told that story to emphasize a fact that we forget, 01:01:37.180 |
that we are wired to get non-trivial satisfaction 01:01:43.300 |
making our intentions manifest concretely in the world, 01:02:09.460 |
to lay in the sun until hunger makes it get up 01:02:13.180 |
But humans get antsy because we get that high out of, 01:02:16.260 |
you know what, I'm gonna change this rock into a hand ax. 01:02:24.100 |
What's the drive is we feel good when we do that. 01:02:26.540 |
So we do have this drive towards actual accomplishment. 01:02:45.260 |
about how both the promises and perils of productivity. 01:02:49.660 |
as pure artifice propped up by an exploitative hustle culture 01:02:53.540 |
orchestrated by the logics of late stage capitalism. 01:02:56.540 |
Such sentiments, of course, are not entirely unwarranted 01:03:00.980 |
buried within these general analytical broadsides. 01:03:08.100 |
Our brains find deep satisfaction in seeing a problem, 01:03:10.820 |
devising a plan, then witnessing its successful completion. 01:03:15.100 |
We're wired, in other words, to enjoy getting things done, 01:03:17.180 |
to flee this impulse is to alienate ourselves 01:03:29.820 |
The better query is how we can more fully reclaim it. 01:03:32.900 |
All right, let's see what the readers thought. 01:03:44.780 |
quotes where I said, "We're wired, in other words, 01:03:48.240 |
And he said, "I also am addicted to functioning 01:03:51.640 |
But while I don't believe in the need to flee this impulse, 01:03:54.060 |
I'm not so sure that this is our basic nature. 01:03:56.780 |
Perhaps we're only hypnotized into believing this." 01:04:10.700 |
that says, "We have a tendency to rationalize 01:04:12.620 |
anything we do and usually do it subconsciously. 01:04:15.260 |
And the claim that this would be our basic nature 01:04:26.140 |
I would argue, however, that Carl would likely respond 01:04:30.980 |
First, the notion of doing things is certainly drawn 01:04:33.220 |
from a much richer philosophical account of agency, 01:04:37.100 |
of the philosopher, motorcycle mechanic, Matt Crawford." 01:04:42.380 |
"Doing things puts us into a relationship with the world, 01:04:49.020 |
"Second, there's the question posed by Joseph Piper 01:04:51.860 |
in his book, 'Leisure and the Basis of Culture.' 01:04:56.380 |
What happens when there's nothing left to do? 01:05:00.220 |
plays a significant role in Carl's response." 01:05:14.220 |
And then we had a third reader come in and say, 01:05:20.180 |
but the whole discussion of agency and purpose 01:05:22.940 |
requires or involves somehow actually doing things, 01:05:46.380 |
Is it the idea that there's something natural 01:06:00.220 |
and that anything that is productivity is artifice? 01:06:04.900 |
is entirely constructed by discourses and is fake. 01:06:16.860 |
we have these two different alternative interpretations. 01:06:22.500 |
And the reason why is because this idea that, 01:06:34.460 |
is really just part of a sort of superstructure 01:06:36.620 |
meant to help reinforce the exploitative logics 01:06:49.820 |
a lot of these ideas are very smart and intricate 01:06:56.460 |
man, there's some satisfaction in doing something hard, 01:07:10.020 |
I mean, we see it, God, in the book of Genesis. 01:07:13.380 |
We see it in the way farmers think about things. 01:07:23.340 |
If I lean towards, there's probably something there. 01:07:27.620 |
Also, I think the evolutionary story is strong. 01:07:36.020 |
Otherwise, we don't take advantage of our brain. 01:07:48.740 |
So there's gotta be some sort of drive there. 01:07:50.060 |
So there is an interesting evolutionary story there as well. 01:08:10.300 |
Is it because like that's gonna help Exxon Mobil 01:08:17.620 |
That doesn't let us off the hook though, of course. 01:08:23.220 |
because we have many examples of base human instincts 01:08:27.020 |
that in the modern world get completely corrupted. 01:08:32.780 |
That's not a artifice of cultural construction. 01:08:37.780 |
that can also be exploited and make us very unhealthy 01:08:45.580 |
with this drive for, I like the fire to be started. 01:08:52.660 |
to try to create a culture that gets you working 01:08:57.900 |
And say, it's your passion, you should just do it. 01:08:59.540 |
There's all sorts of opportunities here for exploitation, 01:09:04.140 |
but we don't need the drive to accomplishment 01:09:10.340 |
and point out the exploitation of an instinct. 01:09:19.500 |
Knowing that we're playing with a fundamental human instinct 01:09:24.300 |
You can do much more damage with fundamental human instincts 01:09:26.840 |
than you can with stuff you have to construct from scratch. 01:09:30.780 |
is delivered through our phones is so successful? 01:09:37.180 |
And the promise of we can get rid of boredom right away 01:09:39.900 |
is in part why META is worth $800 billion in its market cap. 01:09:50.180 |
And I'm still falling on one side of this debate, 01:09:53.720 |
but I like that my readers are also sticking up 01:10:06.100 |
I think the more complex view of this we have, 01:10:13.820 |
I hope you, my readers and listeners keep arguing about it. 01:10:21.080 |
I've got the smartest readers on the internet. 01:10:31.760 |
It's people that have been with me for a long time. 01:10:33.340 |
We got the smartest commenters on the internet 01:10:45.720 |
So I'm glad to be able to throw that in there. 01:10:56.240 |
What a lot of people do, like these commenters here, 01:10:59.500 |
They wait till they get the essay in their inbox 01:11:04.040 |
And I know this because when we switched email providers 01:11:10.980 |
and it had the title of the essay at the top. 01:11:17.140 |
And in the new one, it was not automatically linked. 01:11:21.220 |
'Cause they said, no, no, no, I love the comments. 01:11:25.320 |
I wanna go to your website to see what people are saying. 01:11:45.700 |
All right, well, that's all the time we have. 01:11:49.360 |
We'll be back next week with another episode of the show. 01:11:57.340 |
about some modern ideas to cure your mediocre life, 01:12:07.540 |
taken from Stoicism to help you accomplish the same goal.