WEBVTT - Powerful Lessons From the Intersection of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy, with Dr Daniel Chapelle 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:11.480 Doctor Don Chappelle. Welcome to the podcast. 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:13.760 Thank you, happy to be here. 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:19.680 So we have a Belgian living in the States talking 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.079 to an Irishman living in Australia. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:25.200 This could be quite an interesting journey for people. 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:34.920 Yeah, yeah, should we call somebody in Kennedy emergency or yeah? 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.800 So Dad, you are a You've got a really interesting background. 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.200 So you're background kind of you're. 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:45.600 A clinical psychologist by trade, but also a bona fide 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:51.760 philosopher who's interested in religion as well. So you you 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.200 have a really interesting journey. Tell us, first of all, 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.160 how did you get into what was the what was 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:03.200 the first driver of your study? Was it philosophy, was 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.880 it psychology or was it kind of a dual interest 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:07.720 right from the get go? 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.480 Yeah, it was probably It started off with psychology. I 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.160 discovered a book on psycho analysis when I was in 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:17.840 my teens in my father's library and I tried to 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.360 read it. Of course, didn't understand much of it, but 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.960 I kept reading, you know, unlike many of my friends 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.040 who sort of gave up on those things. You know, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.039 they you know a lot of people I think they 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.000 say philosophy, I don't know. I can't get into it. Well, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.759 I just didn't give up. I kept on reading, and 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:42.840 so eventually I developed simultaneous or you know, equal interest 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:48.480 in psychology and philosophy, with the initial emphasis on depth psychology, 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.800 you know, psychology of the unconscious Freud and Young, and 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:57.720 then archetypal psychology that means anything. And I was I'm 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.760 a student of James Hillman, who was a primary student 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:06.200 of care Jung and so wow, yeah, so I got 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.639 into archetypal psychology and what we called and what is 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:15.000 still called phenomenological psychology, that is to say, trying to 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:19.800 understand human experience from the basis of human experience itself, 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:25.440 not from models from physics or from physiology or biology, 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:30.800 but sort of straight from direct experience and to sort 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.239 of make a great leap already into the connections with philosophy. 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:40.960 I think the original phenomenologist and phenomenological psychologist was the 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:45.800 Buddha of all people. And this was, you know, the 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.919 West didn't have something called psychology until about the sixteenth 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.320 or seventeenth century. The Buddha spelled out two thousand and 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:59.160 five hundred years ago a very comprehensive, sophisticated psychology of 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:06.040 everyday life. And so the other person who is much 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:10.040 closer to home for us, who is I think also 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:15.280 a phenomenological philosopher and psychologist, is Nietzsche. So to make 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.840 sort of a kind of a long journey long story short, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.799 I went from Freud and company, you know, Young and Helen, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.880 to Nietzsche, and from Nietzsche I went to, of all people, 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:31.440 the Buddha, and from the Buddha I eventually ended up 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:36.119 with a Taoist, you know us, first Confucius, and then 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.480 a Laudza who is very well known in the West, 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.000 and then someone who's not at all known in the West, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:46.360 which is a philosopher who came a couple of generations 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:54.040 after Laudze. And his name is Zwangzhu, and he's a very, 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:59.760 at least when you first encounter him, very bizarre sounding guy. 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:06.960 Like all these these ancient Chinese philosophers, they operate in 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.480 a very different way from the way we do. You know, 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.760 we are essentially Greeks by origin in philosophy, and we 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:19.120 became you know, first you were Greek philosophers, then we 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.080 became European philosophers, and then on top of that we 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.880 became Christian philosophers. And it's all very discursive. You know, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.320 one thing follows from another, one thing argues for another 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:35.440 from another, and the Chinese are very different in style, 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.000 and that takes some serious getting used to. They'll start 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.960 with a little anecdote to figure off. Let's say two 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.720 men fishing in the river and they have a conversation 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.400 that is no more than one page long, and you go, 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:53.800 what so, it takes quite some introduction. But once you 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.479 get past that, and you need help getting past that, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.200 you know, help from from western skul of uh Chinese philosophy, 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.080 then you begin to see, like some very bizarre and 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.040 shocking things, Like one of the things you discovered is 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:15.800 this Chinese philosopher Zumangzhu. He is, in more than just 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:20.359 one way, a kind of a Nietzschean philosopher before Nietzsche, 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.640 two five hundred years before Nietzsche. And you go, what so, 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.880 once you begin to see these connections, that opens up 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.920 a world so wide and the windows so wide that 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:37.520 it is just unbelievable. And so that's that's the that's 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.360 that's the the ground that I plow, so to speak, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.760 you know, the area that I work in. And so 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:50.680 my last book, which is called a Minimalist ethic, a 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.640 minimalist ethic for everyday life. It is, it's it goes. 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.440 It starts with Socrates and it ends up all the 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.080 way with the Chinese, and it includes things like the 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:07.440 celebration of the Sabbath and and and Buddhism and Taoism 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.960 and what have you. And you begin to see I 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:14.000 I am. Originally I was sort of an academic type, 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.960 but I got away from academia and being a practicing psychologist, 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.800 I had to learn to talk the language of people 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.159 with whom I said, need to need so to speak. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.040 That's very different from it. It's very different from an 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:31.760 academic audience. And so I write for that audience. And 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:34.719 this last little book is my shortest, but I think 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.719 my best and actually most important and most original book, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:44.680 which is that that minimalist ethic from for everyday life. 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.400 I don't know if you're familiar with somebody named it's 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.520 a Scottish person, Ian McGilchrist. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.680 Ian McGilchrist, yes, yes, yes, says he's a neuroscientist, isn't 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:56.200 he Yeah? 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:02.039 Neuroscientists, psychiatrist, philosophy, literary critic, you name it, he does 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:06.200 it all. He wrote this book two major works, the 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:08.599 last one is a two volume thing. It's too big 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.720 to publish in one volume. It's like sixteen hundred pages 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.120 or something like that. But he covers very similar kind 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.480 of ground, but he does it in a very different way. 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:23.800 He starts off with a critique of Western habits of 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:29.080 philosophying from what he calls the left brain type approach. 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:30.600 And it's not a simplicity. 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:33.480 Can you explain what you done? Can you just explain 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:35.680 what you mean by that to people? 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:42.960 Yeah, okay, left brain, right brain. All animals, all mammals 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.640 have their brains are made of two parts, the left 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:51.200 side and the right side, and the different parts control 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.160 different parts of our functioning. For example, the left brain, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.160 am I pointing at my left rain. Now we're in 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:03.320 reverse here. The left brain controls the muscles of the 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:06.760 right side of the body, and the other way around, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.120 the right side of the brain controls the left side 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.200 of the muscles of the body. But there's not only that. 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:18.080 The more important part is that the left brain and 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.520 the right brain they're sort of phenomenologically different. They do 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:30.480 different functions. The left brain is more the analytic, rational, focused, scientific, argumentative, 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.880 logical kind of approach to things. It's the thing that 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.040 with which we focus our attention on something that's right 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.080 under our nose, you know, like under the microscope. The 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.600 right brain knowledge has to do with a more comprehensive 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.440 knowledge of the entire world around. It's not so focused 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.240 on one specific thing or and it's sort of more 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.080 comprehensive in the sense that it involves like intuitive ways 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:04.320 of knowing, in the effective importance of the elements of 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.520 knowing and so on. And these two brain hemispheres they 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.320 work together. You can't be if your one side of 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.320 your brain is seriously damaged, and then one side of 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:19.800 your personality so to speak, is damaged as well, doesn't 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:26.200 function as well. So his critique being a neurophysiologist, which 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.680 I am not at all. I'm like the Buddha, you know, 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:30.800 the Buddha never heard of the brain, so to speak, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.440 but he did very well for himself. Nonetheless, you know, 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.480 he wasn't a scientific researcher, but he came up with 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:47.720 this fantastic, fantastically sophisticated psychology. This guy, Ian McGilchrist would 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:53.280 absolutely worth checking out. He sort of argues that our culture, 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.640 largely since the Enlightenment, has focused has has sort of 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:04.319 given the rain of governing our lives and our decisions 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:09.920 and whatever to the more left brain part of our person. 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.239 And again, you can't be too literal or too simplistic 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.439 about these things, because these these two brain hemispheres, they overlap, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:19.880 they work together, they compensate for each other, and what 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:24.160 have you. But anyway, his argument is, and there's no argument, 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.920 no arguing with that argument, that ever since the Enlightenment, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:35.120 we've become like super weighted on the side of rationalism scientism. 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.760 Religion is out the window. Religious experiences, bull religious dogmas, 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.880 certainty out of the window, you know, introspection, you can't 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.080 rely on it. Really, So it's behavioral science is what 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.400 we want. And that's how a psychology is how we 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.840 got where we are too, because all of science is 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.440 sort of in that sense. And his argument, and it 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.839 is mine, well, although I commented very differently, and I 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.840 ad I skipped the brain altogether, so to speak. But 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:12.680 his argument is that the whole person we need to 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:17.120 develop the right side of existence more. That's why I 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:22.640 think so many people are into yoga and meditation and 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:28.920 spirituality and and uh earth, you know, earth awareness and 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.160 so on. That's that's more right, brain kind of stuff. 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:38.480 It's funny here I am talking about McGilchrist's book instead 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:42.920 of my own. But the point is that we end 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.720 up in the same place. And I actually recently wrote 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.600 to him and I hope that I'll hear back from him, 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.640 is that, you know, we both end up with what 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.680 he calls and what I also call religious experience, direct 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:03.640 religious experience, you which is different from religion. Hume has 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:10.080 a fantastic line which says, religion is a defense against 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:16.040 religious experience. You know, religion is the stuff handled with 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:21.320 left brain materials, you know, Catholic theologian arguments and you 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.720 will believe this and dogma in whatever. That's a defense 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:33.319 against the directness of phenomenological experience because you know, very 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.360 few of us are really interested in religious dogma, but 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.679 all of us are interested in what we might call 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.400 religious experience. And that doesn't have to be something fantastic, great, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:48.280 you know, something biblical, although you know, biblical literature, of course, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:53.800 is full of the material of religious experience. You know, 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.240 like people allow Dawkins and whatever who poo pooh religion. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.520 I think they're missing the boat entirely. They they think 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.040 that religions is about gods. You know, like these supernatural 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.200 things which are easy to to do away with, you know, 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:15.679 with some clever, you know arguments. But the point of 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.040 real religion, a real religious study, is not it's not 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.080 about God, it's about who we are. It's about humans. 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.480 Religion is about what it is like to be human. 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.200 And so these people they forget that day sort of, 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.080 you know, Dawkins, you know, they they think they do 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.839 away with religious religious dogma, and they have thereby done 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:40.760 away with all of religious tradition and religious experience, which 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.200 is of course not true. And so my book ends 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:50.680 up the little one, you know, the medal, the minimalists, 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:56.000 I think in everyday life ends up in the with 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:03.480 with with the Sabbath. I'm not Jewish. You don't have 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.560 to be you don't have to be Jewish, you don't 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.679 even have to be religious to really get the idea 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.920 of what the Sabbath is, you know, in the mythology 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:17.000 of Judeo Christian tradition, in Genesis, the Book of Creation, 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.440 you know. And again you don't have to believe these things, 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.520 but they nonetheless they say something about something, and what 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.600 you hear them say depends largely on how you tend 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.480 to listen. And so in any case, we all know, 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.040 we all grew up learning that it took God six 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.120 days to create the universe and the world, and then 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.880 he saw that it was all good, very good. And 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.800 then on the seventh day, what does he do? Nothing? 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.240 Now he leaves at the west then and we do 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:51.200 a pretty good job. So he rests and he says, 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.880 you know, it's all good, it's very good. And I 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.400 think the Sabbath is that capacity to rest, to come 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.840 to a place rest in your own life after all 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.920 the week, the week of the kind of work that 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.280 you do, and you come to a Sunday or a 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.200 rest day, or a day on the golf course or 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.120 whatever it may be, mountain climbing, where you reach a 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.520 point where you say, ah, this is what it's all about. 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:22.040 You know, some an experience that that that adds to 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.440 the usual. You know, you can have good food on 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:31.000 a daily basis, but that does not really satisfy. There 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.400 are a few things in our life that satisfy us, 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.040 and the Sabbath is one of those. And that's God's invention. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.720 And again I'm not a religious person. I'll talk about 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:47.720 Einstein about that, but I've lost my train of thought 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:49.120 here that also comes. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.760 With you were you were talking about this, that the 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:54.440 concept of the Sabbath. 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:59.520 Yes, it's the it's it's God inventing. And I learned 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:04.160 it from a a friend of mine, acquaintance rabbi. He said, 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.760 on the seventh Day, God doesn't rest because he's tired. 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.840 It's not like the rest of us, you know, or 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.320 because he's gotten lazy or something. On the seventh Day. No, 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:18.720 he discovers or he creates the felt sense of the sacred, 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.720 the felt sense of holiness. He looks at the whole creation, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.240 that all that has come into being, and he says, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:32.200 pretty good, you know, amazing. And that's what celebrating or 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.200 keeping the Sabbath, as they put it, is about that. 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.120 It's about finding ways through ritual behavior or through any 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.920 other behavior. Buddhists do it through meditation. They reach that 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:48.360 point of shedding all their usual thoughts, you know, and 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:55.160 coming to a place of profound peace. Not peace after war, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.120 not peace when you make up with your spouse, but 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.080 a piece that is that income is the whole world, 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:06.119 and that is what the Sabbath is, and that is 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.080 what meditation aims at, you know, similar to God, the creator. 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.680 There's the legend of the Buddha. Has it that when 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.639 he reached the enlightenment, you know, he had been meditating 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:21.280 for six years and then one day he wasn't getting 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.320 where he wanted to get. One day he decided, I'm 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:28.360 not leaving this seat here until until I'm enlightened. And 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.760 guess what he got enlightened haliloja. And so what happened 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.720 after that is he took I think it's seventy four 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:41.399 days forty seven days of complete rest. He didn't do anything, 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.840 and he said, everything has done nothing else needs to 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.879 be done. That's the same thing that God said on 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:54.359 the seventh day. Everything has good, everything has done nothing else. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.760 We don't need to worry about anything else that has 0:17:56.800 --> 0:17:59.879 to be done. And that's the kind of experience that 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.720 all of us are capable of in the smallest ways perhaps, 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:08.439 but the essential dimension is the same. You know, Like 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.760 one time I wrote that in one of my books, 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:15.360 I think, or in two. Well, one day I fell 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.879 in love with a paper clip. Excuse me, Yes, I 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:24.200 did some moment where all of a sudden the paper 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.199 clip struck me. I wasn't just using it, although I 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.639 needed a paper clip or whatever. But when I reached 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.720 for the paper clip, it struck me as a wonderfully 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:39.199 miraculous little thing. What an invention it, what a humble 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.760 job it does, but how well he does it? And 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.439 I didn't think all those words with it. When you 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.520 start adding words to your experience, you're done. You know 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:53.200 your experience done. That's sort of like trying to explain 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.720 a poem. If you have to explain a poem, you've 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:00.320 lost a poem. And the same thing with my paper clip, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.080 And distinctly remember that day when I fell in love 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.280 with that darn little paper clip, And so small things 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.800 like that, A moment of quiet, of like real silence 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.679 can do the same thing, and. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.880 So donad But can I just I want to take 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:25.840 this into a practical application perspective, right, And so the 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:32.080 Western for me, Western thought in general, Western society is 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:38.280 overly focused on the idea of happiness and and for 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:43.120 me often not always, but but some types of modern 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.639 psychology I don't think are helpful because I describe it 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:48.960 as the psychology of. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.400 Me, me, me, me, me, absolutely right. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.040 So so both Nietzsche and and the Buddha they talked about. 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:58.000 I mean, if you think of the. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:02.240 First noble truth of Buddhism life is suffering, which I 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.040 think is a bit of a misquote, isn't it that 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:08.240 that I give duca is kind of better translated of 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:09.840 life is hard to do. 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:15.200 Yes, that's what I learned. After decades of practicing psychology, 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:17.240 I learned life is difficult. 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:23.880 Yes, And for me this needs to be the fundamental 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:29.240 thing that every person is taught. Life can be amazing, 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.879 but it's also hard, and it was never meant to 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.440 be easy. And he ever told you that life was 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.840 meant to be easy and you're entitled to happiness. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.159 I'm sorry, but they've lied to you. 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.240 And to talk about the importance because I know you're 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:50.520 a fan of that as well as unhappiness as necessary 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:56.520 living absolutely, rather than a pathology that has to be medicated. 0:20:56.720 --> 0:21:00.960 Hello, yep, yeah we're still here. 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:02.800 Yeah, yeah, we're still here. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.320 So so so please talk to us about this idea 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:11.040 of unhappiness is necessary absolutely. 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:14.520 First of all, starting with the Buddha he you know, 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.920 as you pointed out, you know, his first novel, noble 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.639 truth is life is unhappiness. That's not sort of like 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.879 a simple complaint or being sort of in a bitchy 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:28.600 mood or something like that. It is a fact that 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.639 the things we pursue in life, none of those will 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:38.080 ever deeply truly satisfy us. That's all he meant that 0:21:38.720 --> 0:21:42.240 what whatever we pursue, it's not going to make us happy. 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.280 The best career in the world, the best fortune in 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.080 the world, the best test line in the world, the 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.560 best wife. You know, none of it is going to 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:55.280 make you happy. That's a realization you have to make, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.720 and a lot of us don't make that until we're 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.520 like in the middle of our life. You know, when 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.720 you're young, you think, oh, you're going to do it. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:05.960 It's sort of like it applies to other people, but 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:12.600 not to me. You know. One popular teacher of Buddhist teachings, 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:14.960 he was at a conference and he talked about that, 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.840 and he said, you know, we have to start here 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:24.920 with the idea that life is sort of unsatisfactory as 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.119 they also call it, instead of suffering, you know. And 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.280 he said, well, there will be some people here who 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:35.000 say will say, well, yeah, that applies to most people maybe, 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.120 but not for me. I just got a new girlfriend. 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.960 I'm as happy as one can get. And he said, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:45.080 I'll see you next year, you know. But it is true. 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.399 So I did write a book about that, the Necessity 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.160 of Unhappiness, and it talks about you unhappiness of four figures, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:58.880 first the Buddha, secondly Nietzschee, who also realized that he 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.919 as a philosopher, he noticed that everybody was after truth, 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:07.119 you know, all traditional Western philosopher daring the truth. He says, 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:09.760 one not other tru one not rather untruth or even 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:14.159 illusion or something else. And he said, the basis, you know, 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:16.760 we have to start with the fact that existence is 0:23:17.000 --> 0:23:21.679 very tough, very hard. It's difficult. It is you know, 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:26.639 it's suffering, you know, and we're not made for this 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:29.359 sort of you know, one day we'll have land, the 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.520 perfect job will be happily. Ever after no, he said, 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.199 you know, happiness is Unhappiness is necessary. And I have 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:42.439 a third figure, which is the Book of Job, from 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.200 the biblical figure of the Book of Job. Also he 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:50.400 I don't know if you listeners are familiar, but Job 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.840 is sort of a saintly figured like a real good. 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.120 What is it Old Testament Job? 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.600 It is Old Testament. Yes, it belongs with the Testament, 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.400 although it appears also in other non Jewish traditions. It's 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:07.600 older than the Jewish tradition, I think, but it is 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:12.520 an essential part of the wisdom writings in Judaism. Job 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:17.000 who is, you know, perfect perfectly devoted to his God. 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:20.560 And one day his God plans, you know, decides to 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:24.800 test him, and he inflicts all kinds of pains on him. 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:30.320 He burns down his holdings, he kills all his workers, 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:34.080 and he kills all his children, and you know, when 0:24:34.080 --> 0:24:37.440 there's nothing left to take away from him, he inflicts 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.600 him with boils that are untreatable, incurable. But at the 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:44.000 same time he won't let him die or commit suicide. 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.600 So he's stuck there, you know. And so he goes 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:51.760 from being the most devoted person you know, to being 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:55.360 the most blasphemous person more than nietzs you and Nietzsche. 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:58.800 Everybody knows God is dead. We have murdered him. That 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:01.080 is niets you he's famous or from his line, Job 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:05.200 does some he says something far more blasphemous. He says, 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:10.720 once he really can't handle his suffering anymore, he gets 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.000 enraged and he yells out. He says, goddamn, the day 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:18.720 I was born, let it never have been If you 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:22.000 look carefully at that is goddamned today I was born. 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:23.880 Let it not have been. Let it never have been. 0:25:24.240 --> 0:25:28.960 That is sort of a counter creation myth, you know, 0:25:29.240 --> 0:25:32.040 wishing not to have been created, which of course none 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:34.199 of us can do. If you're wishing not to have 0:25:34.280 --> 0:25:38.120 been created, you too late, because you're already fully involved 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:42.320 in life. If you you say you wish you know, 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:46.440 I wish you had died at birth, too late again, 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:48.959 because you're, you know, by the time you realize that 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:51.840 you're you're you're too old, you know, to be dying 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:55.800 in her as a baby, and and so on. And 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:59.560 so Job goes through all these faces, and each of 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:05.120 those makes him feel even worse. And so he says, God, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:08.560 damn the day I was born. And then he goes 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:10.960 on blaspheming so called blasts feaming. I don't think it's 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:13.840 blest feeming at all. And actually, at the end of 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:16.240 the book of Job, God himself comes out and he 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:20.960 says to Job, you have spoken the truth about me 0:26:21.440 --> 0:26:24.720 and your friends who said you must have done something wrong, 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:28.480 otherwise God wouldn't have punished you. They were absolutely wrong. 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:32.120 So God sides with Job. And so what Job does. 0:26:32.160 --> 0:26:35.240 Then what God does is he gives them like a 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:39.879 panoramic overview of all of creation. He says, look around, 0:26:39.960 --> 0:26:46.240 you know, bird feathers, the wind, you know, seasons. How 0:26:46.280 --> 0:26:48.760 does the cow know when it's time to have her calf? 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:52.560 Where is the wind when it doesn't blow? Who tells you? 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:57.880 Who calls the lightning for you? And Job is sort 0:26:57.880 --> 0:27:00.919 of it's some people describe that's one of some of 0:27:00.920 --> 0:27:06.840