Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Eric from the one you feed. Happy
Speaker 1: Holidays to you. Whether you enjoy them or you hate them,
Speaker 1: I hope you're making the best of them. As a
Speaker 1: holiday gift and as preparation for the new year, we
Speaker 1: are rereleasing seven of the older episodes. If you're new
Speaker 1: to the show, all these episodes are over a year old,
Speaker 1: so you may not have heard these yet if you've
Speaker 1: only been listening for a year. I picked the episodes
Speaker 1: because either a I think it's a really great episode
Speaker 1: or B I think it talks about behavior change, which
Speaker 1: we're heading into the new year, and that's on a
Speaker 1: lot of people's mind. Speaking of which, we are going
Speaker 1: to try something this new year. We're going to try
Speaker 1: the first one You Feed Group Transformation program. It will
Speaker 1: be a hundred dollars for a month. We're gonna limit
Speaker 1: it to ten people. We will meet online four times
Speaker 1: that month, will discuss tips and tricks and different ways
Speaker 1: to ensure that you stay on track behavior wise. You'll
Speaker 1: be able to ask questions of me, and we'll do
Speaker 1: some things where you're paired up as a group so
Speaker 1: that you can get some support outside of the calls
Speaker 1: as well to make sure you get the new year
Speaker 1: off to a great start. So if you're interested, just
Speaker 1: send an email to me Eric at one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net. I hope you enjoy these episodes. I listened
Speaker 1: back to a couple of them, and um, let's just
Speaker 1: leave it at we are getting better at what we do.
Speaker 1: In the very first one, I sound very nervous and
Speaker 1: I was so. Anyway, it's still a great interview. Enjoy these,
Speaker 1: have a happy new year. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you soon. Bye. In order to
Speaker 1: be able to have peace at all with ourselves and
Speaker 1: with other people, we need to be able to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that there is contradiction and everything, and that is the
Speaker 1: beauty of life, and trying to resolve that contradiction is
Speaker 1: a fool's errand that's only ever going to make us
Speaker 1: feel disappointed, because one part is not going to seize
Speaker 1: existing because we try to will it to do. So.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 1: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Maria Popova, a writer, blogger, and
Speaker 1: critic living in Brooklyn, New York. She's best known for
Speaker 1: brain pickings dot org, which features her writing on culture,
Speaker 1: books and many other subjects. Brain Pickings has seen by
Speaker 1: millions of readers every month. Maria describes her work as
Speaker 1: a human power discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens
Speaker 1: on what matters in the world and why, bringing you
Speaker 1: to things you didn't know you were interested in until
Speaker 1: you are. Before we start the interview today, I wanted
Speaker 1: to let you know that we have a free download
Speaker 1: at one you feed dot net. It's a resource guide
Speaker 1: we can all use to keep us inspired, So don't
Speaker 1: forget to check that out. And here's Eric with a
Speaker 1: quick message followed by the interview. I believe we're all
Speaker 1: doing the best we can in our lives with the
Speaker 1: abilities that we have and the things that we know,
Speaker 1: but sometimes getting some new methods or getting some accountability
Speaker 1: and support can really help us in feeding our good
Speaker 1: wolf and moving our lives forward. If this is something
Speaker 1: you're interested in learning more about some of the program
Speaker 1: aims that we're offering, send an email to Eric at
Speaker 1: one you feed dot net. Thanks. I'm Maria, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Such a pleasure to be with you. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time. I know that
Speaker 1: you are not a big fan of interviews all the
Speaker 1: time and you are extremely busy, so I I genuinely
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking a few minutes. Well, I'm not a
Speaker 1: fan of interviews, but I am a big fan of
Speaker 1: human conversation. And what makes the one you feed so
Speaker 1: special to me, and I listened to it just on
Speaker 1: my own, is that you actually have conversations as opposed
Speaker 1: to Q and A type interviews, right right, Yeah. I
Speaker 1: usually I usually try and stay away from the word interview.
Speaker 1: It's what I used for a while, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not really what I want to be doing I
Speaker 1: want to be having conversations, which is certainly I got
Speaker 1: I got that that vibe more from from Krista Tippett,
Speaker 1: who I know you are also so sure we we
Speaker 1: had her on and that it was like cooking for
Speaker 1: Juliet Julia Childs to have to try and lead her
Speaker 1: in the conversation. But so you've been doing brain Pickings
Speaker 1: for about a little over eight years at this point,
Speaker 1: right yep. Turning nine in a few months, and so
Speaker 1: we've got a little intro about about, um, what brain
Speaker 1: pickings is, but maybe you could put it into your
Speaker 1: own words for our listeners, for you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of sentences. Um, it's mostly a record of my effort
Speaker 1: to figure out how to live and how to live
Speaker 1: a life that is meaningful and inspired and intelligent and
Speaker 1: uh that that makes me excited to get up basically,
Speaker 1: and that record comes in the form of all these
Speaker 1: different ideas that I that I encounter through reading mostly
Speaker 1: from very old books, and how they apply to our
Speaker 1: daily lives in a way that's both timely and timeless. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're I mean, I'm I'm such a fan of of
Speaker 1: what you do. I think you do it so well
Speaker 1: and I one of the things you've got out there
Speaker 1: that you say, and you're when you're talking about you're
Speaker 1: describing your show as you you say, the core ethos
Speaker 1: behind brain Pickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force.
Speaker 1: It's our ability to tap into our mental pool of
Speaker 1: resources and you know all the fragments, and I just
Speaker 1: am so amazed by you do that so well. You
Speaker 1: pull these these different pieces together in a really really
Speaker 1: elegant way. I'm curious, do you have like a list
Speaker 1: of ten or fifteen core themes that that you're that
Speaker 1: you're sort of scanning for when you're out there doing
Speaker 1: your reading? Could you define those in your own mind?
Speaker 1: Like these are the main things that I mean, I
Speaker 1: could probably pick some of them pretty easily, like creativity
Speaker 1: or um presence are some different things. But do you
Speaker 1: have that sort of list in your mind of the
Speaker 1: core themes and then as you read something, you go, yep,
Speaker 1: that fits in that bucket? This ties back to that?
Speaker 1: Is that sort of how your mind approaches that? Yes?
Speaker 1: And no, I would say all of these sort of
Speaker 1: things that you say are really grab bad terms that
Speaker 1: we have, things like happiness and love and creativity. I mean,
Speaker 1: they they're they're so vast and so broad that they're
Speaker 1: kind of empty of meaning unless you contextualize them in
Speaker 1: a way that actually adds dimension and and practical resonance
Speaker 1: at the same time. So I kind of try to
Speaker 1: stay away from things that are overly umbrella alike. But
Speaker 1: the reason why these themes are so recurring in in
Speaker 1: the history of humanity really is because, well, actually, when
Speaker 1: you think about it, the core human concerns, the core
Speaker 1: inquiries of just human life and the human experience are
Speaker 1: kind of cliche. And they're cliche because they matter to
Speaker 1: us so deeply and so repeatedly that they recur. And
Speaker 1: so it's a fine line between talking about these things
Speaker 1: that are so fundamental in a way that that actually
Speaker 1: enriches that conversation and talking about them in a way
Speaker 1: that just sort of regurgitates these used phrases. But I
Speaker 1: actually want to go back to something you said just
Speaker 1: a minute ago, when you were quoting from my about page,
Speaker 1: and you said my show. And I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: that you use that word because this sort of mental
Speaker 1: glitch of calling something that is textual a show, it
Speaker 1: actually reveals something which is goes back to this question
Speaker 1: of conversation and human conversation. And perhaps the reason I
Speaker 1: feel such a kinship of spirit with what you do
Speaker 1: and perhaps you with me by making that verbal mistake,
Speaker 1: is that actually brain Cookings is a kind of to me,
Speaker 1: a conversation between the present and the past through one
Speaker 1: person's life, but also through all these many lives. And
Speaker 1: so in a way there's almost this radio like experience
Speaker 1: for me being the radio coordinator in that conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it definitely does have that feel to it. So one
Speaker 1: of the posts that you have out there on brain
Speaker 1: Pickings is the seven things that you learned in seven
Speaker 1: years of of doing this project, and so I'd like
Speaker 1: to explore some of those, But I'd first like to ask,
Speaker 1: now that you're a little over eight years, have you
Speaker 1: got another thing to add to the list? An eighth things?
Speaker 1: I have many, many, many things that sort of were
Speaker 1: left off the list. Um. I think I touched on
Speaker 1: that a little bit in one of the points, which
Speaker 1: I don't right now off the top of my head
Speaker 1: remember the order of them, but I think and and
Speaker 1: back to this question of the most core things being
Speaker 1: kind of cliches but being vital, This quality be of kindness,
Speaker 1: I would say, and practicing it and recognizing it in
Speaker 1: others is increasingly it reveals itself as increasingly important as
Speaker 1: I'm learning more and more that ultimately, how intelligent a
Speaker 1: person is, how talented, how creative, how driven, can all
Speaker 1: be completely invalidated if they are not kind. Um, So
Speaker 1: that would be I guess the eighth one. Yeah, kindness
Speaker 1: is a is a good one. You've one of them
Speaker 1: that you have is be generous and one of the
Speaker 1: lines that you say to be to understand and be understood.
Speaker 1: Those are among life's greatest gifts, and every interaction is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to exchange them. And I love seeing the
Speaker 1: world through that, through that view mm hmm, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think very often for people who put any portion
Speaker 1: of themselves out there for the world to sort of
Speaker 1: experience and respond to. The hardest thing about criticism is
Speaker 1: not the people who disagree with you, because then you
Speaker 1: actually get to have a conversation and that can be
Speaker 1: very stimulating, and I'm all for sort of evolving and
Speaker 1: sometimes changing your point of view based on those types
Speaker 1: of conversations. But the most the kind of criticism that
Speaker 1: burns the most is from people that you feel profoundly
Speaker 1: misunderstood by because when you're not understood, there isn't any
Speaker 1: more that framework of agreement and disagreement because the very
Speaker 1: point you're trying to make is not the point that
Speaker 1: they're reading, and so the conversation is broken by default,
Speaker 1: it just can't happen. So I do think that mutuality
Speaker 1: of understanding is the prequisite for any kind of dialogue,
Speaker 1: whether it's in terms of affirming one another's point of
Speaker 1: view or disagreeing with them. And that's a really interesting
Speaker 1: way to think about that. Do you think that there
Speaker 1: are people that it's difficult to ever get to dialogue
Speaker 1: on because our core framework or our way of view
Speaker 1: in the world is so different that it sometimes can't
Speaker 1: be overcome. I think the majority of disagreement or sort
Speaker 1: of that hurdle that you're descriving, most of it comes
Speaker 1: not from being unable to overcome our differences, but being
Speaker 1: so impatient as to not consider the root of that
Speaker 1: difference and whether beneath that there might be some sort
Speaker 1: of shared value or shared aspiration. And we very much
Speaker 1: live in a culture of instant opinions. You know, people
Speaker 1: would rather be, would rather react than respond because it's faster.
Speaker 1: And actually was listening a couple of days ago to
Speaker 1: a very short episode you did on on Knowing Versus
Speaker 1: Acting and in which you basically say that there's this
Speaker 1: disconnect between what we know and how we're able to
Speaker 1: act in the world. And I both agree and disagree
Speaker 1: because I think what's happening that knowledge is this static place,
Speaker 1: and once people know something and are not willing to
Speaker 1: further that and transmute that into wisdom, which is a
Speaker 1: kind of dynamic understanding of the world, they're more likely
Speaker 1: to just assert their opinions the static knowing, and we've
Speaker 1: almost kind of lost the capacity for thinking, or have
Speaker 1: become bored with thinking. We want to instantly know, you know,
Speaker 1: which is why all these listicles ten ten of history's
Speaker 1: most expensive art paintings, you know, Why Why would you
Speaker 1: think about what makes great art and how it moves
Speaker 1: to it and and what makes a painting extraordinary when
Speaker 1: you can see a list of, you know, the ten
Speaker 1: most expensive ones. And so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that disconnect between knowing and understanding is actually at the
Speaker 1: root of conflict. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree
Speaker 1: with that. I think that is a the It's that
Speaker 1: old idea of when you're when you're having a conversation
Speaker 1: with someone is if you can it's again it's back
Speaker 1: to cliches, but if you can try and understand really
Speaker 1: where they're coming from and their view of the world,
Speaker 1: it makes it makes all those things happen so much better.
Speaker 1: But most of us, at least in a lot of
Speaker 1: meaningful conversations, I've certainly been this way and work on it.
Speaker 1: It becomes very much a defensive thing very quickly, versus
Speaker 1: an ability to really sort of stop and and and
Speaker 1: get under that person's skin and understand what's what is
Speaker 1: it that's driving what's happening there. That is a really
Speaker 1: hard thing to do sometimes, particularly with subjects that mean
Speaker 1: a lot to us, especially because we have a pretty
Speaker 1: core and sort of almost biological aversion and fear of
Speaker 1: being wrong. We are just we are incapable of being
Speaker 1: of wrong and and would go to extreme lens to
Speaker 1: avoid the just soul crushing feeling of that. And very
Speaker 1: often you know, when you actually come to understand, as
Speaker 1: you say, where a person is coming from and what
Speaker 1: are those more deep seated beliefs and issues and traumas
Speaker 1: and experiences that inform their point of view of the world,
Speaker 1: it might cause you to change your point of view.
Speaker 1: And of course, every time we change something, and you
Speaker 1: can even use user behavior on the internet as as
Speaker 1: a great sort of parable that every time we change.
Speaker 1: Implicit to that is the kind of awareness that the
Speaker 1: former way, the older way, was somehow inferior to the
Speaker 1: way that we're adopting now, which is why people hate
Speaker 1: every time Facebook redesigns. It's this or that. You know,
Speaker 1: we just don't like this being told that here's a
Speaker 1: better way to do something, because what we hear is, oh,
Speaker 1: the way you're doing it now is wrong. And I
Speaker 1: think that ties to one of your one of your
Speaker 1: other or seven things you learned, which is allowing yourself
Speaker 1: the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I'm always so fascinated by is in
Speaker 1: our culture, how much we hate the ultimate insult to
Speaker 1: call a politician is a is a flip flopper. And
Speaker 1: it always is interesting to me that we don't I
Speaker 1: mean it. I guess it's not that interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at our overall cultural mentality, it's not surprising that
Speaker 1: that's But I think that that is actually a good
Speaker 1: thing in a lot of I mean, depending on what's
Speaker 1: driving it. But I think if at least for me,
Speaker 1: if I'm not changing my mind on certain things, I'm
Speaker 1: probably not really being very open to the world. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1: And then the scariest part to me is there's a
Speaker 1: fair amount of behavioral research showing that the more intelligent
Speaker 1: people are, the better they're able to use that intelligence
Speaker 1: to rationalize and affirm their existing beliefs and sort of
Speaker 1: create these infrastructures supporting infrastructures around them as to bolster
Speaker 1: these sort of fixed beliefs, and the less likely they
Speaker 1: are to actually branch out and change their mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the studies that are out there on this more
Speaker 1: and more where we realize that we we decide emotionally
Speaker 1: and then use our brain to come up with a
Speaker 1: logical you know, so we can tell a logical story
Speaker 1: about what's happening. That's so so fascinating to me. And
Speaker 1: then you start getting into all the the biases, you know,
Speaker 1: the confirmation bias and and all these different things it
Speaker 1: is really to be in to be an open minded
Speaker 1: thinking person, I think takes an awful lot of effort.
Speaker 1: It goes against I think a lot of our our programming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially because it really begins being open minded, really
Speaker 1: begins by being open hearted, and and that implies a
Speaker 1: level of vulnerability that is often intolerable and vulnerable. Vulnerability
Speaker 1: as another one of these terms that have become kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, grab bag business world cliche, but
Speaker 1: but it's but it's a very core thing that that
Speaker 1: we experience, who experienced daily and all these things that
Speaker 1: we just talked about, you know, criticism, disagreement, the mutuality
Speaker 1: of understanding. There's always the higher the stakes are in
Speaker 1: terms of vulnerability, the more likely where to digger heels
Speaker 1: in and not be willing to change your minds. But
Speaker 1: of course the only way to do that is to
Speaker 1: be open hearted, and then we can be open minded.
Speaker 1: That's a great point, and it makes me think of
Speaker 1: You've got a really lovely posting about Alan Watts and
Speaker 1: the wisdom of of insecurity and this this um idea
Speaker 1: that the more we try and cling you know, we're
Speaker 1: really trying to cling to that not knowing is really
Speaker 1: can be really really scary, and that so we try
Speaker 1: and put things into a way that makes sense to us,
Speaker 1: because that I think Pemma, the Pema children, the Buddhist
Speaker 1: nun uses the word the groundlessness is if you really
Speaker 1: experience that is kind of unsettling. Oh yeah, and which
Speaker 1: is why I mean most world religions exist to alleviate
Speaker 1: that groundlessness. Yep. One of the things that is a
Speaker 1: is a very consistent theme on your blog that I
Speaker 1: want to talk about, and it is one of your
Speaker 1: It is one of your seven things that you learned,
Speaker 1: and it just it repeats throughout. I would say if
Speaker 1: I had to identify some of your core themes, and
Speaker 1: it's this idea that presence is far more intricate and
Speaker 1: rewarding and art than productivity. Can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 1: I think I know because I am part of it
Speaker 1: and culpable of it. We live in a culture that
Speaker 1: approaches life in general as a series of tasks to
Speaker 1: be accomplished. You know, go to school, you graduate, or
Speaker 1: you drop out, and you make a million dollars untiliconvow,
Speaker 1: you start a family, or you create a major work
Speaker 1: of cultural contribution. All these sort of checkpoint checklist items
Speaker 1: on what we think is a successful life. And the
Speaker 1: rub is that it becomes very easy to sort of
Speaker 1: keep showing up for these things for our our our
Speaker 1: own lives, while actually being absent from them to go.
Speaker 1: And you talk about autopilots a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: this notion of just cruising through what we think the
Speaker 1: course of a great life is, but not really experiencing
Speaker 1: each moment as it comes. And I had a very
Speaker 1: disorienting experience recently. I've been meditating for years, but I've
Speaker 1: never gone to a sort of retreat, like a formal
Speaker 1: organized meditation retreat. And I went, and first of all,
Speaker 1: I was very kind of aware in a way that
Speaker 1: was scarrier than and if a day life of privilege,
Speaker 1: and the fact that most people there were very wealthy
Speaker 1: white people, you know. And I went with my best
Speaker 1: friend actually, who was the only non white person on
Speaker 1: the entire state. And this was like probably a few
Speaker 1: thousand people, because there were multiple retreats going on at
Speaker 1: the place at the same time. And that was one thing.
Speaker 1: But the other thing one woman was talking about, Oh,
Speaker 1: I debated whether to take my Porsche down or not,
Speaker 1: and I decided against it. And it was kind of
Speaker 1: this moment. I don't doubt that some part of her
Speaker 1: has the genuine desire for um self transcendence or enlightenment
Speaker 1: or whatever whatever we call this, you know, this sort
Speaker 1: of thing that we seek by going to these places.
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that there was earnestness and that, but
Speaker 1: I also fear that perhaps there was a part of her,
Speaker 1: in a part of a lot of us, but in
Speaker 1: that place more more of a character or of that
Speaker 1: that sees that thing, the enlightenment or self transendors or whatever,
Speaker 1: as another checklist item on our conception of the good life,
Speaker 1: and not as a thing to be attained, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think when we approach these things in such
Speaker 1: a way, we're no longer present with the unfolding of
Speaker 1: our experience. We're just sort of performing another another kind
Speaker 1: of hedonic treadmill hamster wheel thing. Yeah, it's it's I've
Speaker 1: got a cup. I've got a bunch of thoughts about
Speaker 1: what you just said. But we had a guest on chosen,
Speaker 1: Jack Hobner, who wrote a book called Zen Confidential, which
Speaker 1: is a remarkable memoir of his time in a in
Speaker 1: a Zen monastery, funny and enlightening. But he's got a
Speaker 1: part in there that I think speaks to this, and
Speaker 1: he says, I had become largely a person who worked
Speaker 1: on changing themselves. That's what I was. I was my
Speaker 1: whole focus in life was always changing myself. And and uh,
Speaker 1: and I think that's an interesting you can find. You
Speaker 1: can find that sort of in the personal development, self
Speaker 1: help culture, whatever you want to call it. I think
Speaker 1: where we we can get so caught up in I
Speaker 1: need to be better, I need to be different. And
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by that. And I'd be interested in
Speaker 1: your thought on and how we find that that line
Speaker 1: or how we hold these two what sometimes feel like
Speaker 1: exclusive states of mind. One is the striving and the
Speaker 1: desire to to do better, to become better, to produce
Speaker 1: important things. And then the other is the acceptance and
Speaker 1: the presence of being right where we are and I
Speaker 1: I have gotten. I get caught up in my mind
Speaker 1: sometimes feeling like those things are they can that they're
Speaker 1: mutually exclusive. I don't think they are, as I've talked
Speaker 1: more about it. But I'm interested in your your thought
Speaker 1: on that, because it gets right to this productivity versus
Speaker 1: presence piece. Well, I think what's interesting is that you
Speaker 1: look at somebody like Alan Watts or any of the
Speaker 1: great teachers is Eastern philosophy in the West and the
Speaker 1: common theme as the sort of m HM dispelling the
Speaker 1: illusion of the self as an entity that's separate from
Speaker 1: the rest of everything, from the rest of the universe
Speaker 1: and all their beings, and that the self is sort
Speaker 1: of this this illusion. Right, But how we think in
Speaker 1: in the West and the traditional sort of Western psychology
Speaker 1: tradition of the improvement of the human experiences in terms
Speaker 1: of self improvement, So it doesn't just mean improving oneself
Speaker 1: as a person, it also means improving the self itself,
Speaker 1: the sense of self, the sort of this fortifying um
Speaker 1: of this essentially this illusion. And I think that's where
Speaker 1: it gets kind of toxic, because that feeds into our
Speaker 1: illusion of separateness, which is a phrase that Alan Wattson,
Speaker 1: Tara Brock and all these teachers used. It feeds in
Speaker 1: to our sense of dividedness from everybody else. And this
Speaker 1: extreme individualism is often the root of a lot of
Speaker 1: conflict and a lot of desire to be right. And
Speaker 1: even if you think about self righteousness, which goes back
Speaker 1: to all these things that we're talking about in terms
Speaker 1: of being wrong and seeing other's points of view, I
Speaker 1: mean self righteousness is also predicated on a strong, solid
Speaker 1: and static self. And so I think the only way
Speaker 1: to reconcile these conflicting drives is to constantly revisit this
Speaker 1: question of am I really such a separate self? And
Speaker 1: am am I so attached this experience of the self
Speaker 1: as an individual asked to miss nine of what's going
Speaker 1: on around me? As to cast other people is wrong?
Speaker 1: And all these all these things that's spring from just
Speaker 1: our very vulnerable feeling of if I don't fortify the self,
Speaker 1: then I don't matter that I don't exist. Boy, that's
Speaker 1: that idea of not being a distinct self, and that
Speaker 1: that is at the heart of a lot of Eastern
Speaker 1: philosophy is something that I have really I struggle with
Speaker 1: on and off over the years, because on one hand,
Speaker 1: I think that sounds like that's kind of the whole
Speaker 1: enchilada on some degree right, And then on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I go, boy, that feels so intangible to me. I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with that, Like even if
Speaker 1: I that's that's one for me, that feels like the
Speaker 1: real difference between an intellectual understanding and a deep wisdom
Speaker 1: or an emotional connection to it, because in my mind,
Speaker 1: I can think through that. But boy, this, this feeling
Speaker 1: of being, this separate self, is so strong and the
Speaker 1: evidence feels so compelling to to some degree that I always,
Speaker 1: as I look at sort of a spiritual practice, I
Speaker 1: always am wondering should I be spending more focused on
Speaker 1: that piece or should I be spending more focus on
Speaker 1: more tangible things like being kinder and um And not
Speaker 1: that those things are exclusive, it's just that as I
Speaker 1: as I think through those ideas, I I often get
Speaker 1: I get kind of lost in that one. Well, you see,
Speaker 1: I think actually part of our anguish comes from the
Speaker 1: very fact that we approach this question too with the
Speaker 1: goal oriented mindset of this needs to be resolved. And
Speaker 1: even I mean, we are creatures of contradiction and of
Speaker 1: constant flux. And that's really the notion of the self
Speaker 1: as an illusion isn't about saying that we don't exist
Speaker 1: or or denying our nature or spirit or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it. It's more about being able to
Speaker 1: hold multiple things together at the same time. And even
Speaker 1: if you look at Alan Watts, I mean, he died
Speaker 1: an alcoholic, and he was also wonderfully wise and witty,
Speaker 1: but also kind of arrogant and he had all these contradictions,
Speaker 1: and I think the immature and a sort of snap
Speaker 1: judgments the way to talk about these things just to say, well,
Speaker 1: he was a hypocrite, you know, how could he teach
Speaker 1: all these things and not practicing in his life. But
Speaker 1: and we do that a lot in culture, by the
Speaker 1: way we point the fingers the finger at other people's
Speaker 1: so called hypocrisy. But what really is happening is that
Speaker 1: in order to be able to have peace at all
Speaker 1: with ourselves and with other people, we need to be
Speaker 1: able to acknowledge that there is contradiction in everything, and
Speaker 1: that is the beauty of life. And trying to resolve
Speaker 1: that contradiction is a fool's errand that's only ever going
Speaker 1: to make us feel disappointed because one part is not
Speaker 1: going to seize existing because we try to will it
Speaker 1: to do. So, Yeah, boy, I love what you just said.
Speaker 1: They're about that being a fool's errand of trying to
Speaker 1: resolve those those contradictions, or or the inability to embrace
Speaker 1: paradox because it seems to be right at the heart
Speaker 1: of a lot of this end And yet as a
Speaker 1: as a thinking person, I tend to try very often
Speaker 1: to um to find. You know, I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that's been interesting me as I as I've
Speaker 1: done the show longer is I think I thought, I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask all these people some of these questions
Speaker 1: and there's gonna be some answer, and uh, I was.
Speaker 1: I think I knew on some level that wasn't true.
Speaker 1: But it's become more and more clear to me that
Speaker 1: there there are not answers to a lot of these things.
Speaker 1: It's it's the human condition. This is what being human is,
Speaker 1: and it's it's about relaxing into that. And I know
Speaker 1: that you are. You have a lot of stuff about
Speaker 1: Rilka on your site, and uh, you know, certainly that's
Speaker 1: one of those there that learning to love the questions
Speaker 1: and live the questions. Maybe we could talk about Rocca
Speaker 1: for a second, because I think there's so much, there's
Speaker 1: so much in there. What would be the first thing
Speaker 1: besides that quote that I that I brought up there,
Speaker 1: that that you have gotten from from his work? Um.
Speaker 1: I love a lot of what he says about this
Speaker 1: sort of another another inability to embrace opposites right body
Speaker 1: and soul um and he basically says that it's foolish
Speaker 1: to try to prioritize one at the expense of the
Speaker 1: other to sort of, um, make make yourself be the
Speaker 1: sort of soulful creature by denying the body. And then
Speaker 1: he has this one really beautiful line where he says
Speaker 1: something like, um, I am not a person who neglects
Speaker 1: the body in order to make it a sacrificial offering
Speaker 1: to the soul, since my soul was thoroughly dislike being
Speaker 1: served in such a fashion. And he's sort of being
Speaker 1: again witty and wise, which is I think these are
Speaker 1: qualities that a lot of the great enduring thinkers have
Speaker 1: where they are very clear in in their beliefs, beliefs
Speaker 1: that are bar the way constantly evolving. But they're also
Speaker 1: are reluctant to take themselves too seriously because I think
Speaker 1: that's when we stop evolving. And so a lot of
Speaker 1: them have a level of humor about things that are
Speaker 1: actually very deep and very important, but they're not articulated
Speaker 1: in a in a preachy and sort of self righteous way.
Speaker 1: I think cliches are a theme of this conversation. But
Speaker 1: there's always that idea of the zen monks who are
Speaker 1: who are off laughing, um, you know when they when
Speaker 1: they really finally, you know, achieve some degree of insight.
Speaker 1: You know, often it seems that that's accompanied by a
Speaker 1: certain degree of laughter humor. I certainly think levity is
Speaker 1: a underappreciated virtue. Oh absolutely. And even you know Ky Guard,
Speaker 1: the great non humorist of philosophy, actually um said that
Speaker 1: basically the task of the of He said something like,
Speaker 1: it's it's man's destiny to amuse himself. Um. And and
Speaker 1: that's in a long, long essay on boredom that he
Speaker 1: hadn't either or and which is very grave and very uh,
Speaker 1: sort of grumpy and serious. But then he has this
Speaker 1: weird oddball line which actually reminds you, wait, that's why
Speaker 1: most people tussle with ideas, because they want to not
Speaker 1: only enlighten themselves, but also feel the levity of life
Speaker 1: in that enlightenment. Yeah, that that article or that I
Speaker 1: don't know what what what do you call what you
Speaker 1: put out there opposed a story and article? Uh? Do
Speaker 1: you ever? Is there a particular term for it? I
Speaker 1: don't particularly care. I guess I call it an article
Speaker 1: because it's what I've missed you from sort of magazines
Speaker 1: and stuff. Um, I guess I don't define things by
Speaker 1: the technology and which they live, which is why posts
Speaker 1: is a little kind of neither here nor there exactly exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll call them. I'll think of him as articles. Or
Speaker 1: I think Danielle Report has things she calls truth bombs.
Speaker 1: You could you could call your own truth bombs, which
Speaker 1: might be that's that has certain hubris do it, but
Speaker 1: it is uh, it's it's a question question. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yours are are definitely that. So that that Guard article
Speaker 1: was interesting because you you explored along with him the
Speaker 1: ideas of boredom versus idleness, and and we sort of
Speaker 1: flew by this idea of presence and you know, being
Speaker 1: more important than productivity, and then I think we we
Speaker 1: spiraled out somewhere from there. So I'll use that as
Speaker 1: a way to sort of to bring us back because
Speaker 1: I think he made a distinction and there is a
Speaker 1: distinction between boredom and the term he used is idleness,
Speaker 1: which I think semantically probably doesn't culturally fit with what
Speaker 1: we're doing. But he had a very different meaning. And
Speaker 1: I think again it gets back to presents. Can you
Speaker 1: go off that for a minute. Yeah, Well, so, first
Speaker 1: of all, the reason I remembered this reading this many
Speaker 1: years ago. Is that actually last night I did this
Speaker 1: little event with w n y C, which is the
Speaker 1: NPR affiliate here in New York, UM called Board and Brilliant,
Speaker 1: and they have this project, I guess, ongoing project about
Speaker 1: boredom and how we can break free from the tyranny
Speaker 1: of our devices and just be more present. And so
Speaker 1: I did a little thing with them and remember this
Speaker 1: and thinking, because a lot of what I write about
Speaker 1: is really all of it is really what I think
Speaker 1: about to the day before, I was thinking about boredom.
Speaker 1: And I've covered that many times before, and mostly from
Speaker 1: the perspective of people like Adam Phillips and and and
Speaker 1: Susan slan Hug, who basically say boredom is essential to creativity,
Speaker 1: to contemplation, it's it's Adam Phillips calls it a developmental
Speaker 1: achievement for the child. Um. And then I remembered Carricter
Speaker 1: Guard who and distinctly remembered the line boredom is the
Speaker 1: root of all evil, and I thought, wait, there must
Speaker 1: be more depth to that. It can just bet he
Speaker 1: can't just be this. I mean, he's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest thinkers of humanity. He can just be that absurdly
Speaker 1: no pun intended, you know, narrow, And so I went
Speaker 1: back to this work it comes from either or, And
Speaker 1: sure enough he goes on this very very long rant
Speaker 1: on boredom, in which he basically also talks about why
Speaker 1: distraction uh doesn't work in alleviating boredom, which he defines
Speaker 1: as a sort of existential emptiness, a sense of emptiness.
Speaker 1: And I love that for for a separate sort of reason,
Speaker 1: which is that it actually explains why all the cat's
Speaker 1: life shows on the internet are not gonna fix your
Speaker 1: existential empt and as for you, you know, and I
Speaker 1: love that he a hundred fifth years ago could peer
Speaker 1: into these issues that we're dealing with today. But then
Speaker 1: after his massive rant, he actually says idleness is not
Speaker 1: the root of all evil, and in fact, it's its
Speaker 1: cautterpoint uh. And he says that idleness is not evil,
Speaker 1: and it can be said that it's the greatest, the
Speaker 1: most divine good, uh, if one is not bored. And
Speaker 1: the way that he uses idleness is very much as
Speaker 1: we would today use presence, which is now on the
Speaker 1: verge of becoming another one of those grab bag terms,
Speaker 1: you know, or stillness or contemplation, and it's not the
Speaker 1: sort of passive just droning, you know. But but he
Speaker 1: makes a case for how creating these pockets of stillness
Speaker 1: right into our own lives are actually is actually essential
Speaker 1: to to being able to to to raise ourselves, he says,
Speaker 1: to the human level, because those who are not able
Speaker 1: to do that are at the animal level of just
Speaker 1: driven by a basic need and an instinct. Um. So
Speaker 1: I am very much a proponent of this, of this
Speaker 1: deliberate engineering of stillness into everyday life. And uh, I
Speaker 1: think we don't do it enough, and we don't do
Speaker 1: it enough for reasons that are pretty trivial and easily
Speaker 1: resolved if we actually decide to resolve it. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are kind of these micro compulsive behaviors that
Speaker 1: we have. And one thing I learned from that w
Speaker 1: NYC event. They have some sort of app called Moments
Speaker 1: that tracks how people are using their phones, and apparently
Speaker 1: the average person spent two hours a day looking at
Speaker 1: their phone, and most of it is for no specific purpose.
Speaker 1: It's not like they're writing an email to their mother.
Speaker 1: It's just checking the time, or just mindlessly scanning Instagram
Speaker 1: feeds and things that we do as a as a
Speaker 1: habit that we've formed. But I'm very much with William
Speaker 1: James on the point about habit, that that's how we
Speaker 1: weave our destinies, and some of these habits are actually
Speaker 1: not that hard to change. Yeah, I have been I
Speaker 1: have been wrestling with that one a little bit, trying
Speaker 1: to be more cognizant of that. Those those small chunks
Speaker 1: of time that it seems easy to just pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and look at at you know, at Twitter
Speaker 1: or Facebook or whatever and go it's just a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, those really add up. And I think the
Speaker 1: other thing that I really liked about that Cure Guard
Speaker 1: article is that I think that those things actually increase
Speaker 1: my uh, existential emptiness, Like I'm doing it to fill
Speaker 1: that whole and it's having it has I don't know
Speaker 1: that I can articulate what it is, but it weakens
Speaker 1: me in some way that I don't I don't quite
Speaker 1: have the words for um. But so I've recently gone
Speaker 1: to you know, all right, I'm just taking that stuff
Speaker 1: off the phone, and then the question becomes, Okay, now
Speaker 1: I've got two and a half minutes, right, I'm standing
Speaker 1: in line at a place I've got two and a
Speaker 1: half minutes. Boy, I don't even know that I know
Speaker 1: what to do with that time anymore, you know. And
Speaker 1: if I'm not using Facebook, maybe I'm reading a book
Speaker 1: on the kindle, which you know, on one hand, I go, well,
Speaker 1: that's you know, there's something good about that. But it
Speaker 1: is that inability to sort of be present for any time.
Speaker 1: And so I'm right in the midst of of exploring
Speaker 1: that more for myself right now and seeing because I've
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've I think about productivity wise,
Speaker 1: is that those small chunks of time, I tend to
Speaker 1: write them off like I've only got four minutes still
Speaker 1: the next thing I need to do. But boy, if
Speaker 1: I if I focus, you know, you I can I
Speaker 1: can get a lot done. I can use those four
Speaker 1: minutes in a valuable way versus just saying, uh, well
Speaker 1: they're just four minutes, I'll just kind of throw them away. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely true. But there's also the parallel
Speaker 1: question of do we really need to get something done
Speaker 1: every four minutes of our lives like that? Are we
Speaker 1: really that compulsively, you know, addicted to producing as opposed
Speaker 1: to just living? And I am very much. Again, we're
Speaker 1: all woman of these contradictions. I'm culpable of myself, and
Speaker 1: you're actually implicated in that because I listened to podcasts
Speaker 1: primarily when I commute on my bike, which I do
Speaker 1: a lot here in New York. That's just how I
Speaker 1: get around. But I even though most of the podcast
Speaker 1: all of the podcasts I listened to have a very
Speaker 1: strong element of contemplation and sort of philosophical thought and
Speaker 1: Christa's you know, on Being and the One you See
Speaker 1: It and things like this, but I found myself at
Speaker 1: one point feeling like the second sometimes the length the
Speaker 1: duration of an episode of shorter than the duration of
Speaker 1: my ride. And then it ends, and I feel this too,
Speaker 1: of sense of panic at the silence, and that frightened
Speaker 1: me because I don't want to be I don't want
Speaker 1: to live that way. And uh So, now I've been
Speaker 1: making an effort to sort of deliberately not listen to
Speaker 1: things on some of my rides and some of my commutes,
Speaker 1: because I think four minutes put towards answering another email
Speaker 1: or some other productivity task is not nearly as valuable
Speaker 1: as four minutes with their own mind and just seeing
Speaker 1: what your inner life says to you in those four minutes. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this idea of presence versus productivity, and I think
Speaker 1: it's something I think we all wrestle with if we
Speaker 1: are both. UM feel feel a desire to contribute something
Speaker 1: in the world, and yet also I feel like being present.
Speaker 1: And I know that you. I'll use the term work
Speaker 1: um a lot. Right. You put a lot of effort
Speaker 1: and time into the reading and writing that you do
Speaker 1: for brain pickings, And I'm curious, do you see a
Speaker 1: lot of that time as present? Where do you see
Speaker 1: that time as productivity? Or is it both? Sometimes? And
Speaker 1: where's the distinction? It can be both um one thing
Speaker 1: and again, all of that stuff is a constant case
Speaker 1: of dialing in with your own sense of where you
Speaker 1: are and trying to readjust course if it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1: And so in the beginning of this year, one thing
Speaker 1: I actually realized I was doing is transforming what is
Speaker 1: or should be, or has been historically a very present
Speaker 1: thing for me, which is reading and thinking and text,
Speaker 1: which is really you know, what bring pickings is for me,
Speaker 1: Transforming that into some sort of quotea feeling filling activity
Speaker 1: for no reason, because there really is no reason. I
Speaker 1: have no boss I have. I don't run ads on
Speaker 1: my site, so it's not like I pay. I played
Speaker 1: the page view aim, which is, you know what the
Speaker 1: ad supported internet does, and it's not. It doesn't. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any difference other than to my own
Speaker 1: very compulsive I am a uh there, I have a
Speaker 1: compulsive personality, I guess um. And so I had created
Speaker 1: the structure for myself that was just completely unreasonable because
Speaker 1: in in when I made a very deliberate choice to
Speaker 1: no longer do any freelance writing for anybody, anybody else
Speaker 1: at the time I was writing for Wired and Business
Speaker 1: Week and design observing things like that, and to reallocate
Speaker 1: that time into my own labor of love, into brain pickings.
Speaker 1: I started doing three articles a day Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: going from one a day. But they were very short,
Speaker 1: you know, there were at the time. I didn't have
Speaker 1: many books because I had lived on two continents, three coasts,
Speaker 1: six cities, and like twelve apartments over the course of
Speaker 1: two years. So it's point being I just I didn't
Speaker 1: have any physical stillness in my life to have mental
Speaker 1: and spiritual stillness. So there were very short sort of
Speaker 1: little snippets of what I was looking at. But over time,
Speaker 1: when I settled in New York and I got all
Speaker 1: my old books back, and I started getting more and
Speaker 1: more and more. My apartment is now infested with books.
Speaker 1: The articles became longer, and I mean seriously longer. They
Speaker 1: went from maybe a couple of hundred words to now,
Speaker 1: on average two thousand words. Um. And I didn't adjust
Speaker 1: the pace for that. I kept doing three a day
Speaker 1: of those, and you know, January one this year, I
Speaker 1: just found myself thinking, oh my god, why why do
Speaker 1: I do this? I mean, I don't have time to
Speaker 1: breathe and to live. And granted, I'm very stimulated by
Speaker 1: what I do and excited by it, but there comes
Speaker 1: a tipping point past which it's actually draining, because you know, um,
Speaker 1: and so I've been trying to dial back to this
Speaker 1: place where it does feel like a present activity, a
Speaker 1: present a present thing. And I'm sure I will keep
Speaker 1: sort of playing around with the actual pace and schedule
Speaker 1: until it works better. But I think there's always this
Speaker 1: interplay for people who have a very strong integration between
Speaker 1: so called work and so called life, when their work
Speaker 1: is their life and vice versa. It's it's a constant
Speaker 1: osmosis between these two, you know, the present and the
Speaker 1: productive part. And again back to the not having to
Speaker 1: resolve it right away thing. Um, it just constantly tinkering
Speaker 1: with it and really listening to what your inner voice
Speaker 1: says about isn't working? Is it charging me? Or is
Speaker 1: it draining me? And in either case, how do I
Speaker 1: you know, retune the dial on that? Yep, And that
Speaker 1: gets to one of your other seven things you learned,
Speaker 1: which is doing nothing for prestige or status or money
Speaker 1: or approval alone. And uh, and so I think that
Speaker 1: ties right into that. And I can tell you as
Speaker 1: a reader that there is no I can't There's no
Speaker 1: way I can even keep up as a reader. So
Speaker 1: you I don't think you need to feel pressured to
Speaker 1: get three of those out there, because there is I'm
Speaker 1: not even in the neighborhood to keep it up. So
Speaker 1: you know, look, even my partner, who is the most
Speaker 1: dedicated reader of the site obviously cannot reasonably read everything
Speaker 1: every day. And there comes a point in which I think,
Speaker 1: will wait a minute, If my partner can't read all
Speaker 1: of it, who would? But I mean it's it's a
Speaker 1: fine line too, because I have often said, and I
Speaker 1: still really believe that I actually write for myself, whether
Speaker 1: it's some sort of I don't know, psychoanalyze me, you know,
Speaker 1: some kind of hedge against immortality and trying to keep
Speaker 1: a record of my thought and trying to not forget,
Speaker 1: you know, because a large part of why I write,
Speaker 1: so I don't forget what I read and what I
Speaker 1: think about. I don't know. I mean, there's that there's
Speaker 1: how what chunk of it am I doing for me?
Speaker 1: And do I do? I doesn't matter that other people
Speaker 1: don't keep up if I keep up, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely was all I was saying is I
Speaker 1: don't think that if there's any external pressure that enters
Speaker 1: your equation, I don't. I don't think it needs to
Speaker 1: be there. Thank you. I appreciate the assurance, and I
Speaker 1: could I could use it. I've heard you say that
Speaker 1: before about that you do the site largely for yourself,
Speaker 1: and this podcast for me, that was sort of the
Speaker 1: um you know, there's certainly a big part of that
Speaker 1: for me too. It was a combination of things. One
Speaker 1: was I just wanted to It's a way to keep
Speaker 1: myself off autopilot, spiritual autopilot. And also, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just gonna make the show that I
Speaker 1: wish I could listen to. And I think that's such um.
Speaker 1: There's such a freedom in in in doing that, and uh,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm grateful to to be able to have
Speaker 1: that mindset. And and I can almost always recognize it
Speaker 1: when I see somebody else who's doing something and I
Speaker 1: think none of us are there's no you know, back
Speaker 1: to that, there's a blend. None of us are so pure.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I don't you know, I don't care
Speaker 1: what you know. I put it out into the world
Speaker 1: whatever happens. I have no preference. I don't think anybody's
Speaker 1: that ideologically pure, but but certainly they're the for me.
Speaker 1: The more that I can stay on the why I'm
Speaker 1: doing this and tying it back to what's going on
Speaker 1: inside me, the more of it remains something that is
Speaker 1: um gives me energy and gives me strength first as
Speaker 1: the other way around. Well, Austin Cleon, who is a
Speaker 1: friend and an artist and just a kindred spirit he has,
Speaker 1: he likes to say, you know, make the thing you
Speaker 1: want to see in the world right right, the books
Speaker 1: that you want to read, do the art you want
Speaker 1: to see, make the music you want to hear, and
Speaker 1: all of that, and I very much believe it. But
Speaker 1: I also think really what's at the root of that
Speaker 1: is put the values into the world that you would
Speaker 1: like to see thrive and persevere. And so when you
Speaker 1: frame it that way, then yes, absolutely you're doing it
Speaker 1: for yourself. But there's also this element of I actually
Speaker 1: want to help other people live in a in a
Speaker 1: in a way that is somehow better, somehow better and
Speaker 1: not I don't mean better and by my own self
Speaker 1: righteous standard, you know, but better or for humanity in
Speaker 1: some way. And this actually goes back to your the
Speaker 1: parable after which your show is titled. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I do believe that we have a choice in which
Speaker 1: will we feed, especially in a culture in which snark
Speaker 1: and cynicism rain rampants and are frequently rewarded, and in
Speaker 1: which people do truly horrible things to one another from
Speaker 1: behind the veil of anonymity, and in which is just
Speaker 1: generally easier to be a critic than than a celebrator.
Speaker 1: And I believe that we have choices in this, both
Speaker 1: large existential ones by which we resolved to live our
Speaker 1: lives a certain way, but also small daily ones by
Speaker 1: which we affirm that direction. And so I choose, for
Speaker 1: myself varied deliberately when I started bring pickings nearly nine
Speaker 1: years ago now, and also every day to to feed
Speaker 1: the celebrator rather than the critics, both in myself and
Speaker 1: in my readers. That's great, And I completely forgot. I
Speaker 1: completely forget to ask you the wolf question, didn't I.
Speaker 1: I think I was so excited to talk to you
Speaker 1: that I completely missed the intro. And uh wow, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you you you you nailed it right there,
Speaker 1: so that's good. I may end up having to move
Speaker 1: that earlier in the interview. We'll see to that end, though.
Speaker 1: I have to say another thing about how the Wolf
Speaker 1: parable applies to my life, which is a more a
Speaker 1: more metaway, which I actually think is perhaps even more important,
Speaker 1: which is that much of what I do deals with
Speaker 1: archival and historical materials and coming from them, all of
Speaker 1: these enduring ideas and how to live. And this requires
Speaker 1: both understanding those ideas in the original context and re
Speaker 1: contextualizing them in our present culture. At this intersection, you
Speaker 1: know of the timeless and the time. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Our present culture is very much one of short termism,
Speaker 1: and it's very often divorced from historical context. And we
Speaker 1: assume that if something isn't on the Internet, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter or doesn't exist at all. And what is in
Speaker 1: the Internet is we assume accurate and valid. But what's
Speaker 1: on the Internet is often misattributed quotes and fragmentary ideas,
Speaker 1: stripped of original context and reclaimed in a different way,
Speaker 1: which doesn't necessarily preserve the integrity of the original idea.
Speaker 1: And so the metaway is this that take, for instance,
Speaker 1: this parable about the jew Wolves. Now the Internet is
Speaker 1: rife with citations of it, regurgitating it as this old
Speaker 1: Cherokee legend, but in fact, as you know, it first
Speaker 1: appeared in that book the eight I think, was booked
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit by an evangelical Christian minister named Billy Graham.
Speaker 1: And now this context might change things for some people.
Speaker 1: It can make the parable all the more compelling for Christians,
Speaker 1: for instance, or be off putting to those of us
Speaker 1: who have a disc faced for organized religion. And yet
Speaker 1: the message, the core message of that little fable is
Speaker 1: an important one. But I believe the role of a
Speaker 1: great writer or editor or podcaster or museum curator is
Speaker 1: to equip people with the appropriate context and critical tools
Speaker 1: to make a decision both inspired and informed about which
Speaker 1: aspects of an idea or ideology they want to subscribe
Speaker 1: to and carry forward. Well, you do that very well.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as do you well? Thank you so Um,
Speaker 1: we're pastime. I could probably do this for about six hours,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to end with one one more of
Speaker 1: your seven lessons. And you just talked about it, which
Speaker 1: is this idea and it's one that that comes up
Speaker 1: in in what I talk about all the time, and
Speaker 1: you just referred to it in the in the way
Speaker 1: of our culture. But this short term um mentality that
Speaker 1: things should be quick, they should be easy. Um. And
Speaker 1: you you've got a quote from Debbie Millman that says,
Speaker 1: expect anything worthwhile to take a long time. And can
Speaker 1: you give us maybe just a couple thoughts on that
Speaker 1: before we end? Sure? I mean, first of all, Debbie
Speaker 1: is my partner, which is why I quote her in
Speaker 1: my life learning as one should. Um, I think she
Speaker 1: kind of she nails this thing that it really bespeaks
Speaker 1: an idea that's that's very deep in our culture. But
Speaker 1: to which we have such resistance, which is that you can't.
Speaker 1: You cannot make it overnight. And whatever your definition of
Speaker 1: make it is, and the more um, sort of spiritual
Speaker 1: and less material your definition of make it is, the
Speaker 1: more true that is. Because perhaps you can have an
Speaker 1: overnight success by building a really successful startup and selling
Speaker 1: it off to Google in a year and a half.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a certain kind of success. But if
Speaker 1: you're after things like the things that character guard was
Speaker 1: talking about, like filling that existential emptiness and living with
Speaker 1: the sense of presence and purpose and again back to
Speaker 1: all those kind of cliche but kind of inevitably true
Speaker 1: things that we all want, then you can't do it overnight.
Speaker 1: And yet so much of our cultural mythology is focused
Speaker 1: on that, even if you look at what kinds of
Speaker 1: people are being spotlighted in the mainstream media, and um,
Speaker 1: how the people who achieve success by their own measure,
Speaker 1: how their stories are told. Um. I don't remember which
Speaker 1: writer it was. I read an interview with his son
Speaker 1: in The Guardian maybe five or six years ago. It
Speaker 1: was a UK writer and the father had just won
Speaker 1: the National Book Award or some other major honor, and
Speaker 1: he had said to his send, Well, twenty two years
Speaker 1: of writing, and they're calling me an overnight success, you know,
Speaker 1: and we have that It's funny, but it's at least
Speaker 1: sad because we have that mentality that either you make
Speaker 1: it right away or or you make it after a
Speaker 1: long stretch of time, and that long stretch is completely
Speaker 1: erased from your history, and you're hailed as an overnight success. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think in addition to being an ill informed
Speaker 1: way to look at the world, I think the other
Speaker 1: thing that comes out of that is that when we
Speaker 1: embark on something new, we tend to think that we
Speaker 1: should be as good as what we're seeing out there
Speaker 1: without and if we don't realize how long, you know,
Speaker 1: how long it took, you know. I bet if we
Speaker 1: went back and looked at the first few articles you
Speaker 1: wrote for right, right, we'd say and and and a
Speaker 1: lot everything dreadful. Yeah, And and yet that wasn't a
Speaker 1: measure of your competence or your capability. It was a
Speaker 1: measure of your current skill level, which can be improved. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing related to that was actually very important in
Speaker 1: something that I get so many young people, I assume
Speaker 1: young people asking me about is the very very recurring question.
Speaker 1: Please tell me does the donation based model work. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like because my site is like public radio.
Speaker 1: It's just it's all of it. It's free, it's ad free,
Speaker 1: and it's supported by people volunteering to donate whatever they
Speaker 1: feel like the ques. The answer to that question is
Speaker 1: yes and no. It works really well now nine years
Speaker 1: into it, and I'm at a point where I can
Speaker 1: actually afford very fancy servers which I actually need, you know,
Speaker 1: and all these things that I can pay my rent.
Speaker 1: I can do things that you can say in a
Speaker 1: valid way. It works. But for the first six years
Speaker 1: that was beyond broke, you know, I was, and not
Speaker 1: only beyond broke, but beyond broke, and without any kind
Speaker 1: of assurance that this would ever quote unquote work, you know,
Speaker 1: And and so I do know. I never I never
Speaker 1: know what to tell people in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: mislead them to think it's all plus. But also it's
Speaker 1: very clear in letting them know that if you want
Speaker 1: to make it work, you have to be willing to
Speaker 1: kind of suffer through a bunch of stuff and mostly
Speaker 1: suffer through uncertainty for a long period of time before
Speaker 1: even have your own answer. And that goes back to
Speaker 1: the overnight success thing that even I mean, look, Kickstarter,
Speaker 1: I think has done tremendous things for creative culture today,
Speaker 1: and I am a regular and very sort of avid
Speaker 1: supporter of projects and Kickstarter, But I also think it's
Speaker 1: breeding a certain mentality in people that they want the
Speaker 1: safety net, the assurance before they even begin. And for
Speaker 1: certain things, that's great when it's a product based thing,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's perfect. But if it's a long term commitment,
Speaker 1: there is no safety net. You weave your own safety net,
Speaker 1: like a little spider chipping away every single morning when
Speaker 1: you wake up, and not everybody has a tolerance for that.
Speaker 1: But back to the point of putting into the world
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that you want to see. I
Speaker 1: would love to see more people do that. And I
Speaker 1: actually keep this list of sites that I love that
Speaker 1: I come across somehow randomly because I rarely read the
Speaker 1: Internet anymore, who seemed to be doing similar things and
Speaker 1: just doing writing about what they feel matters, right, And
Speaker 1: because that's what writers do for people, They help us
Speaker 1: figure out what matters in the world and why it matters.
Speaker 1: And doing that and having to be donation based and
Speaker 1: doing it quietly and with perseverance and just doing it
Speaker 1: and not knowing where it's going to go. And some
Speaker 1: of them. There's a wonderful site. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know, it's called weight but Why U, which I
Speaker 1: discovered only recently because I live under a cultural rock
Speaker 1: the size of the moon. But but this guy who
Speaker 1: runs it, his name is Tim urban uh answers questions
Speaker 1: about sort of science psychologist fal blosophy in a very
Speaker 1: thoughtful way, very long form, and he's been doing it
Speaker 1: for a while and it's tipping now into a point
Speaker 1: where it quote unquote works. It's also donation based, uh
Speaker 1: And I just love seeing that because I believe it's possible.
Speaker 1: But when these young people ask me in an email
Speaker 1: does it work, it's very hard to say it will
Speaker 1: work in nine years, because to any one year old,
Speaker 1: nine years is eternity. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: it is. And I think that's I mean, that's the
Speaker 1: number one question I get asked by people about the show.
Speaker 1: You know, we've had some success with iTunes pickiness is
Speaker 1: one of the best and all that, And the question
Speaker 1: I get asked all the time is nothing about the show.
Speaker 1: It's nothing about the ideas of the questions that I
Speaker 1: get that are from other people in the business is
Speaker 1: what's your monetization plan? And oh my god, I don't
Speaker 1: break out kind of I don't really have one now.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fortunate that I have other things that I
Speaker 1: also do in addition to this that enable me not
Speaker 1: to need this to make money to survive. I've got
Speaker 1: other things that I do that I like doing that
Speaker 1: are but it's just not where my mind has been
Speaker 1: with it. And it's always I always say I'll think
Speaker 1: about that, and then it never really happens, um more
Speaker 1: than in passing. But but I'm just I'm I'm. I
Speaker 1: think podcasts right now are culturally very hot, and so
Speaker 1: it's the gold rush, right and everybody's rushing in and
Speaker 1: it's about how they're going to make money doing it,
Speaker 1: and you know, the vast, vast, vast majority of aren't
Speaker 1: to start with, and the rest that do will probably
Speaker 1: do it over you know, a substantial period of time
Speaker 1: by doing something similar to what what you've done, which
Speaker 1: is building something that's worth supporting. Well, here's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: One reason why what you've done has become what it is,
Speaker 1: And why you know people like Austin Cleon are who
Speaker 1: they are is that you can tell that it doesn't
Speaker 1: that it didn't originate from a place of me, makes
Speaker 1: some content the word I hate most in the world,
Speaker 1: and make some money with it. You know, it's you
Speaker 1: can tell the spirit in which it comes into the world.
Speaker 1: And I think the only way that things like this
Speaker 1: cultural material really have enduring an and meaningful impact is
Speaker 1: if the question of monetization or whatever system is is
Speaker 1: secondary and and only when it's a byproduct, because that's
Speaker 1: the only and And of course that does require that
Speaker 1: you do it for a while with no pay and
Speaker 1: probably no money to live on, and depending on your
Speaker 1: tolerance for that. But I guess one one reason you
Speaker 1: say you know you have another way of making a living.
Speaker 1: But I bet you that if today you put a big,
Speaker 1: big old donate button on the site, people would actually
Speaker 1: do it and it would become a living. And the
Speaker 1: difference that the crucial difference and culturally between the things
Speaker 1: that matter and the things that don't, and back to
Speaker 1: Carcy Guards boredom and idleness and meaningless distraction, is that
Speaker 1: if buzz seed were to put a donate button on
Speaker 1: their site, nobody in the world would pay if nobody
Speaker 1: would pay, and they know that, which is why AD
Speaker 1: supported sites are the awfulness that most of them are,
Speaker 1: you know, And I say this very mindfully as a critic,
Speaker 1: because I also don't believe the whole celebrator critic equation
Speaker 1: should be to the detriment of being able to discern
Speaker 1: between what is good and what is bad in the
Speaker 1: world and the kind of values that you want to support.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to have critical judgment, which
Speaker 1: is not the same as being a critic in the
Speaker 1: saints of a in the sense of a hater. Right,
Speaker 1: it's in that generous part that I keep coming back
Speaker 1: to your seven lists. There's a there's a theme here,
Speaker 1: but the generous part, which is that behind every work
Speaker 1: of creation is a real human But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff out there that you'd be stretching a little
Speaker 1: bit to call it a work of real thoughtful creation, right.
Speaker 1: You know, I do music and addition, and and I
Speaker 1: have a hard time criticizing people who who put out,
Speaker 1: you know, a full record, because there's a certain amount
Speaker 1: of effort that has gone into that and they've chosen
Speaker 1: to spend that time in a certain way, but ten
Speaker 1: Easy Ways to make your Cat Smile is a little
Speaker 1: bit different. Brought to you by Liturgy. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we've gone an hour, which is far further than uh
Speaker 1: normally we take these shows. And I know you've got
Speaker 1: time constraints. Like I said, I could probably do this
Speaker 1: for another two hours, but I am gonna wrap it
Speaker 1: up here. So thank you so much, Maria for taking
Speaker 1: the time. This has been a really fun conversation. Like
Speaker 1: I've said, they'll be links to to brain pickings and
Speaker 1: and I am I'm a big fan. It's one of
Speaker 1: the very few places that I actually go to on
Speaker 1: any kind of regular basis. So thanks so much for
Speaker 1: what you're doing with that. And thank you Eric for
Speaker 1: being kind of a horse of goodwill hidden valley in
Speaker 1: the world. It really means a lot, and I don't
Speaker 1: speak just for myself. Well, thank you so much, have
Speaker 1: a great afternoon. Bye. As a reminder, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in doing some one on one work with me, send
Speaker 1: an email to Eric at one you feed dot net. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Maria Popova and this podcast
Speaker 1: at one you feed dot net slash Maria