How To Rescue Young Men From Shallowness And Despair

00:00:00.000 | All right, let's do a, where are we at?

00:00:03.520 | We have time, let's do a call.

00:00:04.500 | Let's do one more call

00:00:06.080 | and then we can call it quits for today.

00:00:08.400 | - Sounds good, we got a call from a monk.

00:00:10.400 | - Cal, I'm inspired by your work, thank you.

00:00:14.000 | My name is Etienne and I'm a Benedictine monk

00:00:17.480 | in the United States.

00:00:20.080 | The idea of deep work and the deep life

00:00:23.100 | is really resonant with me.

00:00:27.320 | Part of my work is educating and forming young men

00:00:31.160 | to become leaders in the Catholic church.

00:00:33.920 | I wish to model and teach them deep work,

00:00:37.920 | slow productivity, the deep life,

00:00:41.320 | digital minimalism, et cetera.

00:00:43.600 | Do you have thoughts on how I might be a good mentor

00:00:48.040 | and teacher for these principles to these young men?

00:00:52.360 | Again, thank you very much.

00:00:56.720 | - Well, it's a good question.

00:00:58.920 | I mean, certainly young men as a demographic

00:01:03.200 | are often in this day and age hungry for guidance.

00:01:07.480 | So it is a demographic group that is open

00:01:12.360 | to being inspired, open to being guided.

00:01:15.080 | And when they're not, when they're left adrift,

00:01:18.440 | negative things happen as a consequence.

00:01:20.920 | I'm glad you're involved in being a guiding light

00:01:25.280 | to this particular group.

00:01:26.660 | I think one thing that's helpful,

00:01:29.920 | so I'm thinking about, I mean, I advise,

00:01:31.400 | when I get messages from a lot of people,

00:01:34.200 | but when I'm thinking about the advice I give

00:01:35.680 | to young men in particular,

00:01:37.700 | I think having the frame of the deep life

00:01:41.060 | is a helpful starting place.

00:01:43.020 | So saying, okay, you're committing to this goal

00:01:46.080 | that you want to live a deep life.

00:01:48.360 | You don't wanna live a life that is haphazard.

00:01:50.940 | You don't wanna live a life that is arbitrary

00:01:52.640 | or at the whims of distraction

00:01:54.560 | or the noise of our culture,

00:01:56.080 | that you instead wanna live a life that is intentional

00:01:58.080 | and considered and remarkable in the sense

00:02:00.080 | that it makes people turn their head

00:02:01.960 | and catch their attention.

00:02:02.920 | Oh, that's something, that's something.

00:02:05.500 | That is highly appealing to a lot of young men.

00:02:08.080 | And I think laying out that framework,

00:02:09.280 | okay, how do we do this?

00:02:10.300 | And making it clear that this is gonna require discipline

00:02:12.280 | and hard work, that is all fantastic.

00:02:15.220 | That is a charge we want.

00:02:17.760 | Give me a challenge.

00:02:20.320 | I wanna have to rise to a challenge.

00:02:22.660 | So that is all good.

00:02:23.960 | The other part of the deep life framework

00:02:25.960 | that I think is for good men,

00:02:27.240 | good for young men is that it has

00:02:29.440 | these multiple elements to it.

00:02:32.220 | We often get stuck on just one aspect of good living.

00:02:37.220 | We neglect the others.

00:02:38.660 | We get obsessed about career,

00:02:40.480 | but we fall behind on our philosophical

00:02:44.560 | or theological growth.

00:02:45.720 | We fall behind on leadership or community.

00:02:48.000 | Or we get really obsessed about theology.

00:02:51.920 | We're going through the process of becoming a monk

00:02:54.160 | and forget the importance of community

00:02:56.360 | or the importance of craft.

00:02:57.440 | So this notion that we have various areas of life

00:03:00.040 | that all require service, I think that is very useful.

00:03:02.740 | And we know the areas I often talk about is craft.

00:03:05.880 | So what you actually do and create is community,

00:03:08.820 | being a leader and sacrificing non-trivial time

00:03:11.880 | and energy on behalf of other people.

00:03:14.400 | Constitution, that is your health, that is your fitness.

00:03:16.880 | Contemplation, that's gonna be philosophy.

00:03:18.680 | That's gonna be theology,

00:03:20.760 | really making that important,

00:03:22.200 | making that important part of your life.

00:03:23.560 | And then I often do throw in celebration,

00:03:25.600 | the ability to build up taste and kind of stewardship

00:03:28.800 | and just gratitude for things that are good in the world

00:03:31.160 | and in your life and things you can go

00:03:32.620 | and just get pure enjoyment out of.

00:03:34.140 | Breaking that down, here are five things.

00:03:35.760 | Each of these requires attention.

00:03:37.560 | Each of these requires cultivation.

00:03:40.320 | Is a message that young people and young men in particular

00:03:45.040 | really resonate with.

00:03:46.280 | And then you work through,

00:03:47.120 | let's do keystone habits in each

00:03:48.560 | and let's go through each of these one by one

00:03:50.360 | and we can spend six weeks in each

00:03:52.000 | and do a preliminary overhaul of that part of your life.

00:03:54.320 | Let's overhaul your eating

00:03:56.040 | and get some real serious fitness going here,

00:03:58.160 | have some discipline there.

00:03:59.680 | How about your theological mind?

00:04:01.000 | How about your philosophical mind?

00:04:02.040 | You need to start reading books.

00:04:03.000 | You need to stop, you can get off that phone.

00:04:04.880 | You need to read, you need a half hour a day.

00:04:07.200 | Here's what you're gonna read.

00:04:08.720 | We're gonna talk about it.

00:04:09.800 | You have to expand your mind.

00:04:12.160 | You have to open, okay, there we go.

00:04:13.880 | We're working on that as well.

00:04:14.880 | Leadership and community.

00:04:15.740 | What are you doing to make the life

00:04:17.160 | of people around you better?

00:04:18.680 | Are you spending time thinking about it every day?

00:04:20.200 | Do you lead anything?

00:04:21.320 | Where are you leading other people

00:04:24.320 | towards somewhere better

00:04:25.320 | where you're sacrificing your own time and energy?

00:04:28.240 | These things are important

00:04:29.320 | and it's all different areas you're focusing on.

00:04:31.720 | When you focus on the craft piece,

00:04:33.160 | that's where deep work and concentration

00:04:35.280 | and focus and diligence and all of that comes into play,

00:04:38.120 | slow productivity.

00:04:38.960 | So as you move through these different buckets,

00:04:41.340 | these different areas,

00:04:42.240 | all sorts of different learning can happen.

00:04:44.320 | But it's that overall pursuit.

00:04:46.160 | I want with discipline and intention

00:04:49.480 | to make my life into something deep and remarkable.

00:04:51.360 | That pursuit is like water

00:04:55.520 | to the explorer lost in the desert

00:04:57.200 | when we're talking about young men in today's culture.

00:05:01.220 | So I think that's the way I would go about it

00:05:04.040 | and I would really challenge them in each of these areas.

00:05:08.680 | Don't just do the easy, do the hard.

00:05:10.160 | And I'll tell you, there are so many positive side effects

00:05:13.380 | of systematically trying to cultivate this life,

00:05:16.480 | especially if you're young

00:05:17.680 | and especially if you're adrift.

00:05:19.340 | The excessive video game playing,

00:05:22.540 | the excessive phone scrolling,

00:05:25.520 | the pornography, the excessive drinking,

00:05:28.000 | all of these things that can afflict the 23 and adrift,

00:05:32.000 | they naturally just start to dissipate

00:05:34.160 | when you have these more important things

00:05:36.840 | that you're starting to work on,

00:05:38.240 | you're getting that feeling of success on them,

00:05:40.340 | you're getting that feeling of efficacy,

00:05:42.500 | you're getting that feeling of autonomy and meaning,

00:05:46.440 | and it transforms the whole way you think about the life.

00:05:49.080 | It transforms the troll on the Twitter

00:05:53.240 | who's just angry and looking for attention

00:05:57.120 | into a leader in their town,

00:05:59.560 | into a real deep thinker who ends up contributing

00:06:01.840 | something really interesting to the world of ideas,

00:06:03.760 | to someone who is in good shape

00:06:05.080 | so they can be there for their family,

00:06:06.520 | for their community through thick and thin,

00:06:09.200 | into older age.

00:06:10.040 | There's so many things good to come out of it.

00:06:11.400 | So I'm glad you're thinking about this.

00:06:13.140 | That's how I would do it.

00:06:15.060 | Challenge, discipline, intention,

00:06:16.880 | all aimed towards the deep life.

00:06:18.360 | Break into the categories, do my whole framework there.

00:06:21.680 | I think young men are hungry for it,

00:06:24.160 | and I think they will be quite receptive.

00:06:27.760 | (upbeat music)

00:06:30.340 | (upbeat music)

How To Rescue Young Men From Shallowness And Despair | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

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