Alright final final segment of the show three interesting things This is where we take three things that I found interesting that you have sent to me in my interesting at Cal Newport comm email address that all relate to the general theme here of trying to live a deep life and I take three I like and we look at them.

So if you are Listening to this show You might want to jump over to the YouTube version of the episode because the three things are visual That's youtube.com slash Cal Newport media We launch a video of the full episode of each podcast usually the same day that it comes out I'll explain in words what's on the screen here, but it's it's better than what so it's a good chance to jump over to YouTube All right.

The first interesting thing I want to talk about is the director Guillermo del Toro or as I've discovered his fans Call him GDT his so-called bleak house All right, so I've loaded on the screen now an article. There's a lot of articles about this This happens to come from a Southern California Radio station and the headline here is bleak house a tour inside Guillermo del Toro's creative man cave there is a picture of him in a Victorian decorated room with a terrifying monster Statue so here's the subhead.

I'll read this on the screen right now The director behind pans labyrinth and hellboy owns a house filled with artifacts. He has collected throughout his life Now the reason why we're hearing about this is there's a exhibit they're now doing where you can come in a museum exhibit We can see a lot of these things, but the key thing is before this exhibit He has a two-story house filled with more than 10,000 items artwork sculptures artifacts books movies collected over a lifetime But he insists he's not collecting for collecting sake So let's dive a little deeper.

Here's a Guillermo quote This is a religious place for me. See to me everything that surrounds us is not a collection It's a relics its relics or its talent talismans, whatever you want to call them They have a spiritual hold of who I am. Essentially this goes right back to the question.

We talked about before the break About the the value of having symbolic symbolic objects to capture your values GDT is getting right to the core of this. He sees these things he collects as relics. It's it's a power is being captured in there Where is the bleak house? It's a in the suburbs.

He just bought a house in the suburbs of LA near his existing house and he gets into it Later in this article he gets into how this came about He was collecting this stuff because if you know GDT he does these these beautiful Fantastical movies that often have the macabre or terrifying in them So he was collecting these somewhat disturbing objects and at some point his wife very reasonably said this cannot be in our house Like we have young kids if you want to know what I'm talking about and you're watching on YouTube I have an example on the page of something that's in his bleak house.

It's um It's a man's face that has been ripped open and there's like jaws coming out of it It's not the type of stuff you want in your house So he said fine, I'll buy another house and that's we're gonna store my collection So he has the second house.

Here's another big picture. I put on the screen. It's cool. Jesse. Look at this It's a there's a monster a giant Frankenstein head The whole thing is done up Victorian red walls. All the pictures are covered in framed art, but it's like weird macabre Sort of Hieronymus Bosch style artwork like it's it's a old lamps and bookcases so Here's the quote by the way his wife said that's too close to the kitchen the kids are gonna get freaked out and He GDT said inside of me something cracked and I said I'm gonna get my own place He has a haunted mansion room based off the Disney thing.

He has a room that simulates a rainstorm outside He has 13 libraries. So each room has a different library. He's that as a research area So like he this one opens you're in a room. That's a haunted mansion But the haunted mansion room has a library that's all about mythology folklore fairy tales and myths Etc.

So he uses this house not just to capture things that are valuable to him, but also as a Source of creative inspiration so he's not just reading about fairies when he's working on pans labyrinth. He's in a haunted mansion room Taking these old volumes off of the shelf I think this stuff really matters and I talked about this a lot on the show if you do any sort of creative endeavor Where you're trying to alchemize value out of the stuff in your mind environment metal rituals matter objects matter If you're an accountant, you might say this is crazy.

You bought a second house just to store stuff how indulgent or whatever But this is at the core of what GDT does for a living these fantastical Incredibly creative inspired visual masterpiece style movies. This is just a completely pragmatic investment And I think people might say something similar about the deep work HQ But for what I do for a living It's an investment that makes a huge amount of sense to have a place to come to that I'm specifically decorating to celebrate what I care about in terms of cognitive work that have the ritual of coming here versus somewhere else The the lab we're building in here and Jesse's Saul today when he came back from vacation I bought a lot more electronics equipment because Me and my oldest son are Building things and that's really important to me and having that connection to so it seems completely crazy to you know I don't know like my brother But to me because of what I do it's like, of course, I'm gonna invest in this, you know, it matters Symbolic value matters ritual matters location matters.

So anyways, I just think this is cool here's a I like this picture so for those who are watching there's a picture of a a Incredibly scary looking doll on an old Victorian Shay's lounge and I just I want to pull this up because of the photo caption Which just reads a couch piled with books and a demonic doll an awesome photo caption Here's the freaks room that guy's there I'm just sure if you're you're listening I'm just showing like terrifying pictures on the screen There's a simulated rainstorm room.

Anyways, I put the link to this article in the show notes So there's Frankenstein drinking tea now Frankenstein's monster. I should be precise here drinking tea film room Anyways, I love that stuff Jesse who wins GDT's bleak house Brandon Saranson's underground lair Seems like GT had more stuff to look at I think he has to I think it's right I think he has the cooler house.

It's Oregon is bigger. I love the idea of having themed rooms for different libraries Sanderson just wins on the coolness factor of being underground. Yeah, but it's yeah I'm gonna give I'll give this one that you also might just be upset because he has an answer, you know Door-knocking when you're outside is how it's just me shirtless Sanderson So now you're just knocking this.

Yeah screw his lair *outro music* (upbeat music) (upbeat music)