WEBVTT - Kelly Corrigan and David Brooks on the Art of Conversation

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Katie Couric and this is next question. Hi everybody, welcome.

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<v Speaker 1>Once again, it's Katie plus one and I'm so thrilled

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<v Speaker 1>with my date today. This time it's Kelly Corrigan. She's

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<v Speaker 1>an author journalist. She's the host of the podcast Kelly

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<v Speaker 1>Corrigan Wonders. She has written four New York Times bestselling

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<v Speaker 1>memoirs in the last decade, earning her the title of

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<v Speaker 1>the Poet Laureate of the Ordinary from the Huffington Post

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<v Speaker 1>and the Voice of a Generation from Oh Magazine.

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<v Speaker 2>Wow.

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<v Speaker 1>Kelly Yeah. She's worked in nonprofits for ten years. That

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<v Speaker 1>decade created her worldview, which goes people are struggling, make

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<v Speaker 1>yourself useful. She paints almost every day in her garage,

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<v Speaker 1>often in her pj's like a crazy person, but a

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<v Speaker 1>happy crazy person, and that's what's working, so she keeps

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<v Speaker 1>doing it. Kelly, thank you for being my plus one

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<v Speaker 1>on this podcast.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh I'm so happy to be with you the last

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<v Speaker 2>time you were my interview subject on the PBS Show.

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<v Speaker 1>That's right, that's right, And I actually should have mentioned

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<v Speaker 1>the PBS Show, which is wonderful as well. And Kelly,

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<v Speaker 1>I think you do have this every woman wisdom that

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<v Speaker 1>people just gravitate to, and so that's why I thought

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<v Speaker 1>you'd be the perfect partner for me to talk with

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<v Speaker 1>David Brooks, who I have long admired, You've long admired.

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<v Speaker 1>But before we open up the conversation and let David in,

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<v Speaker 1>let's just talk very briefly about how we know each other,

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<v Speaker 1>which is kind of a fun story because it dates

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<v Speaker 1>back to the Today's Show. Can you tell everyone how

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<v Speaker 1>we first connected.

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<v Speaker 2>It's two thousand and four. I had just finished a

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<v Speaker 2>year of cancer treatment. My hair was just starting to

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<v Speaker 2>grow back. I was thirty seven, two little kids, and

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<v Speaker 2>my dad had cancer at the same time I did.

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<v Speaker 2>And it was the first day of Breast cancer Awareness Month.

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<v Speaker 2>So the Today Show always does a big, full coverage

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<v Speaker 2>of that topic, and so I was invited to come

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<v Speaker 2>on with my dad. And it was so funny, Katie,

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<v Speaker 2>because we were in the green room and we're all

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<v Speaker 2>made up and fancy and I and my dad's a

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<v Speaker 2>big character, like he really lets it rip. And I

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<v Speaker 2>was like, you know that, this is like keep it,

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<v Speaker 2>keep it in the pocket at first, like let's just

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<v Speaker 2>try to like, you know, play it.

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<v Speaker 3>Tighten it up down, Yeah, tighten it up, brother.

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<v Speaker 2>And we get out there and you came right across

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<v Speaker 2>the room like it was your home like that. That

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<v Speaker 2>was my immediate sense was like, Oh, you're going to

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<v Speaker 2>take care of us, like you're welcoming us into your space.

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<v Speaker 2>You came all the way across the studio. You didn't

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<v Speaker 2>sit in your chair and look at the teleprompter and

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<v Speaker 2>get ready. You came to us, which I just thought

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<v Speaker 2>was really lovely and doesn't always happen. And you said Hi,

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<v Speaker 2>I'm Katie, and I was like, Hi, I'm Kelly. This

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<v Speaker 2>is my dad, George. And my dad instantly said, Katie,

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<v Speaker 2>my son went to Washington and Lee, which is where

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<v Speaker 2>your husband, your first husband went, And he said, right,

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<v Speaker 2>and he played for coach so and so, and you said,

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<v Speaker 2>I don't think my husband really, I don't think Jay

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<v Speaker 2>really liked him. And my father Zach Emmer right, and

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<v Speaker 2>my father said, oh, he's a dick. And I was

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<v Speaker 2>like Oh my god, Dad, this is exactly what I

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<v Speaker 2>told you not to do, like we're keeping it in

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<v Speaker 2>the pocket.

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<v Speaker 3>And then we walked out.

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<v Speaker 2>You'd laughed so hard, and we walked over and sat

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<v Speaker 2>on the little sofa. And then you know, when you

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<v Speaker 2>go on the Today Show, like they try to get

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<v Speaker 2>it organized for you in advance, where they give you

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<v Speaker 2>the questions and you practice answering them, and you know,

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<v Speaker 2>they give you a little window of content. And the

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<v Speaker 2>very first question you went off script, and I was like, Oh,

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<v Speaker 2>this is so cool, Like she's just going to talk

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<v Speaker 2>to us because you know so much like to me.

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<v Speaker 2>I was like, it would be so rude of me

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<v Speaker 2>to be nervous right now because I'm talking to someone

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<v Speaker 2>who has lost two people, You're two dearest people to cancer,

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<v Speaker 2>and so I'm just going to talk to you like

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<v Speaker 2>I would if there were no cameras, because heart to heart,

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<v Speaker 2>there aren't any cameras, like this is my story, this

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<v Speaker 2>is your story, this my dad's story, like and it

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<v Speaker 2>was so wonderful, and I think we were on for

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<v Speaker 2>like seven minutes or something like I remember after it

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<v Speaker 2>was over all my cousins were like, oh my god,

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<v Speaker 2>that was insane.

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<v Speaker 1>Uh, and you were brilliant, and I think you know,

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<v Speaker 1>your voice maybe emerged that day and led to so

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<v Speaker 1>many other wonderful opportunities because of your honesty and your heart.

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<v Speaker 1>So I feel like I was there when it all started.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm so glad you're doing well and are in good health,

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<v Speaker 1>and I'm so proud of what an important person you've

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<v Speaker 1>become in the world. So many people, Kelly, Honestly, it's

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<v Speaker 1>a wonderful thing to witness. Okay, Kelly, Before we go

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<v Speaker 1>on and on, because it's a mutual admiration society, here,

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<v Speaker 1>let's bring in David Brooks to talk about his new book,

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<v Speaker 1>How to Know a Person, The Art of Seeing Others

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<v Speaker 1>Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. David Brooks, Welcome, Kelly, and

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<v Speaker 1>I both welcome you to the podcast.

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<v Speaker 4>This is a double barrel of fun and willing and

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<v Speaker 4>able look out.

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<v Speaker 3>Mister.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm really excited to talk to you about this, and

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<v Speaker 1>I think it's something that interests Kelly a great deal too. Kelly,

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<v Speaker 1>when you heard about David's book, How to Know a Person,

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<v Speaker 1>The Art of Seeing Others Deeply, Being Deeply Seen, what

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<v Speaker 1>interested you about it?

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<v Speaker 2>Well, I'm a little bit curious about David's journey, because

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<v Speaker 2>I once heard him say that in his house the

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<v Speaker 2>ethos was think Yiddish, act British, and that I know

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<v Speaker 2>you to be, you know, a journalist of the highest order,

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<v Speaker 2>and a specific kind of journalist, which is to say,

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<v Speaker 2>not like Katie, whose job it is to ask questions,

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<v Speaker 2>but rather someone who's supposed to summon an opinion and

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<v Speaker 2>present it, which is sort of the opposite of what

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<v Speaker 2>you're asking people to do in this book. So that

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<v Speaker 2>my deepest curiosity was how funny that you should come

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<v Speaker 2>to this urgent message after a somewhat aloof life where

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<v Speaker 2>you could be in a cerebral space nine days out

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<v Speaker 2>of ten and not really have to operate on this level.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and thought about that way. But my whole life

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<v Speaker 4>has been a journey to being more like Katie. And

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<v Speaker 4>I'm totally cool with that.

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<v Speaker 3>By the way, It's not a bad trajectory.

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<v Speaker 4>Right, because I grew up, as you say, in a

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<v Speaker 4>super intellectual world with my family, my answer professors, and

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<v Speaker 4>then when I got to be eighteen, the admissions officers

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<v Speaker 4>at Columbia, Wesleyan, and Brown decided should go to the

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<v Speaker 4>University of Chicago.

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<v Speaker 2>I laughed, at that, Lie David also.

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<v Speaker 4>A super heavy place, and I fit right in.

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<v Speaker 2>My joke is our fun goes to die right right.

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<v Speaker 4>The best saying about Chicago it's a Baptist school where

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<v Speaker 4>atheist professors teach Jewish students. Saint Thomas Aquinas so super intellectual,

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<v Speaker 4>and I fit right in my joke is I had

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<v Speaker 4>a double major in history and celibacy while I was

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<v Speaker 4>at Chicago.

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<v Speaker 3>Not a lot of connection, not a.

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<v Speaker 4>Lot of connection going on there, and so I was

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<v Speaker 4>cerebral and it, you know, it worked for me. But

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<v Speaker 4>at some point you just want to get wise, right, Like,

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<v Speaker 4>smart people know about things, but whise people know about

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<v Speaker 4>people and life and life and the circumstances we find

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<v Speaker 4>ourselves in. And so, you know, whise people have a

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<v Speaker 4>sorehouse of knowledge about human nature. They're curious about other people.

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<v Speaker 4>They're good at having conversations people remember for a long time.

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<v Speaker 4>They're good at sitting with someone who's suffering. And so

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<v Speaker 4>I just wanted to be more like that. I mean,

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<v Speaker 4>one of the dualisms in the book is in every

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<v Speaker 4>community there are some people who are diminishers and some

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<v Speaker 4>people who are illuminators. And diminishers make you feel small

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<v Speaker 4>and unseen and not curious about you. They stereotype you,

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<v Speaker 4>and illuminators light you up with their care and they're

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<v Speaker 4>just really good at making people feel seen, heard and understood.

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<v Speaker 4>And now I'm intimidated. I'm in the presence of two

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<v Speaker 4>pretty good illuminators. So that's when my life journey.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, it's interesting, you know, David. I mean, I've so

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<v Speaker 1>much to talk to you about. I really enjoyed your book,

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<v Speaker 1>and I think you're very funny in it. I like

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<v Speaker 1>when you said when it comes to spontaneous displays of emotion,

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<v Speaker 1>I had the emotional capacity of a head of cabbage.

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<v Speaker 2>And you really talk about how.

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<v Speaker 1>Closed off you were to feelings, emotions, connections, and it

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<v Speaker 1>made me wonder frankly, and I think Kelly and I

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<v Speaker 1>both I don't know. I'd love to hear about your childhood, Kelly.

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<v Speaker 1>I have been always extremely empathetic and attuned to the

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<v Speaker 1>emotional well being of people around me, to a point

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<v Speaker 1>where it's a lot. You know, if I see someone

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<v Speaker 1>by themselves, I always go and talk to them. When

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<v Speaker 1>there was only one African American girl in my piano group,

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<v Speaker 1>I said to my teacher, I hope she wins the

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<v Speaker 1>prize today because I felt that she felt lonely and different.

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<v Speaker 1>So I've always been that way, and it made me

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<v Speaker 1>wonder is empathy the result of nurture or nature because

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<v Speaker 1>your parents obviously were not particularly touchy feely. But I

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<v Speaker 1>feel like it's more than that. It's almost something you're

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<v Speaker 1>hardwired to be. And I'm curious what you found out

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<v Speaker 1>about that, David.

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<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think empathy is like it's like athletic ability.

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<v Speaker 4>Some people are born with more of it others, but

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<v Speaker 4>everybody needs training and everybody does better if they work

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<v Speaker 4>on it. And so to me, empathy is three skills.

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<v Speaker 4>The first is mirroring, and that's catching the emotion right

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<v Speaker 4>in front of you, and that's the natural you're comfortable

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<v Speaker 4>with your body, you send somebody else emotions and you

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<v Speaker 4>share it, you feel it. That's mirroring. The next one

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<v Speaker 4>is mentalizing, and that's the ability to see, Oh, I

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<v Speaker 4>had an experience like she's going through, so I sort

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<v Speaker 4>of know what she's going through. So like on the

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<v Speaker 4>first day of the job, I remember, Oh, on my

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<v Speaker 4>first day of the job, I was nervous, I was excited,

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<v Speaker 4>I was overwhelmed. I had all these scattering of different emotions,

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<v Speaker 4>so I'm mentalizing, I'm projecting what I think. And then

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<v Speaker 4>the third thing is caring, the ability to accurately care

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<v Speaker 4>and so kids like, if you come home from work crying,

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<v Speaker 4>your two year old will hand you a band aid,

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<v Speaker 4>which is sweet, but it's not what you want. So

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<v Speaker 4>you have to effectively care. And so there's a guy

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<v Speaker 4>named Rabbi Elliot Kukla who wrote about a woman who

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<v Speaker 4>had a brain injury. So she fell on the floor.

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<v Speaker 4>She just fell down sometimes, and she said people are

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<v Speaker 4>always rushing to lift me up because they're uncomfortable seeing

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<v Speaker 4>an adult on the floor. Sometimes they just need to

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<v Speaker 4>get down on the ground with me. And so empathy

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<v Speaker 4>is knowing sometimes you just have to get down on

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<v Speaker 4>the ground with someone. And I put in the book,

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<v Speaker 4>I'm going to read out a little empathy test so

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<v Speaker 4>you can tell how naturally talented you are at empathy.

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<v Speaker 4>And I'll read you a few statements and see if

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<v Speaker 4>you agree with them. First, is I find it hard

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<v Speaker 4>to know what to do in social situations. It doesn't

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<v Speaker 4>bother me when I show up late, people say I

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<v Speaker 4>went too far and driving home. My point, if those

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<v Speaker 4>apply to you, you probably you're naturally a little lower

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<v Speaker 4>on empathy. Interesting, here's some other statements. Interpersonal conflict is

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<v Speaker 4>painful to me. I mimic the mannerisms of those around me.

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<v Speaker 4>When I make a social blunder, I'm extremely disturbed. And

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<v Speaker 4>so if you say yes, this sort of applas to me,

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<v Speaker 4>that's a sign you probably have higher empathy. And so

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<v Speaker 4>we have it. We're born with a certain level, but

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<v Speaker 4>we on need training to get better at it.

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<v Speaker 3>I have two questions.

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<v Speaker 2>One is do you think that life experiences accelerate change,

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<v Speaker 2>Like you had a really hard period in your life,

0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.800
<v Speaker 2>your marriage fell apart, and you did a little self

0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.559
<v Speaker 2>evaluation and didn't really like the results. Katie has obviously

0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:25.200
<v Speaker 2>been through a terrible loss twice over sister husband. I

0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.880
<v Speaker 2>had cancer in my thirties. It took two years to

0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.000
<v Speaker 2>get rid of. So I wonder about those big moments,

0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.240
<v Speaker 2>and then I want to drill down on mentalizing. But

0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.480
<v Speaker 2>first I'm curious do you think that if you are

0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.640
<v Speaker 2>sort of not a great empathizer by nature, do you

0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.280
<v Speaker 2>think that an ordinary life can get you there or

0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:46.959
<v Speaker 2>it takes something extraordinary?

0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.360
<v Speaker 4>Well, I have a pretty ordinary life or really a

0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.040
<v Speaker 4>blessed life. But I've had moments of suffering. I used

0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.920
<v Speaker 4>to tell my kids, my students, you know, you can

0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.520
<v Speaker 4>be knowledgeable with other people's knowledge, but you can't be

0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.240
<v Speaker 4>wise with other people's wisdom. You have to live through it,

0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.880
<v Speaker 4>and you know, suffering. One of my favorite sayings about suffering,

0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.680
<v Speaker 4>it's from Paul Tillic in nineteen fifties theologian. He said, suffering,

0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.320
<v Speaker 4>moments of suffering, phases of suffering interrupt your life and

0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.360
<v Speaker 4>remind you you're not the person you thought you were,

0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.360
<v Speaker 4>and that he says, they carved down through the basement

0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.640
<v Speaker 4>of what you thought was the floor of your soul,

0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.120
<v Speaker 4>and they carve through that and reveal a cavity below.

0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:25.880
<v Speaker 4>Then they carve through that and reveal a cavity below.

0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.600
<v Speaker 4>So you see, at least I think most people do.

0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.920
<v Speaker 4>They see into depths of themselves they didn't know existed

0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.080
<v Speaker 4>in moments of suffering, and they know only spiritual and

0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.520
<v Speaker 4>relational food will fill those depths. And so people have

0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.120
<v Speaker 4>a choice, which is they can be broken or broken open.

0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.240
<v Speaker 4>And some people are broken, they get bitter, they get hard,

0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.360
<v Speaker 4>they close in on themselves. But some people get broken

0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.920
<v Speaker 4>open and they feel more, they get more vulnerable, they

0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.640
<v Speaker 4>have greater empathy. And I do think that after you've

0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.480
<v Speaker 4>been through suffering, you'd come out of it if you

0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.000
<v Speaker 4>use those horrible moments well with a certain sort of knowledge.

0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.800
<v Speaker 4>There's a phrase quotation I left from Thornton Wilder, which is,

0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.040
<v Speaker 4>without your wound, where would your power be? It's your

0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.880
<v Speaker 4>very remorse that makes your low voice tremble in the

0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:16.000
<v Speaker 4>hearts of men in love service only Wounded Soldiers conserves.

0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.280
<v Speaker 2>That Thornton Wilder, he could write that guy.

0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.280
<v Speaker 3>You get a nice twist of phrase that one.

0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.640
<v Speaker 1>Before you talk about mentalizing, though, I'm curious, David, so

0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.880
<v Speaker 1>it seems to me this has been a life long

0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:34.120
<v Speaker 1>something that you have wanted to improve for some time.

0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:40.560
<v Speaker 1>Or was it exacerbated by, as Kelly said, a life event,

0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.320
<v Speaker 1>the fact that your marriage didn't work out, or was

0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.360
<v Speaker 1>there an event or a series of events that really

0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.240
<v Speaker 1>precipitated this longing and this search, or is it just

0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.920
<v Speaker 1>something that you felt was missing in your being?

0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.560
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? I felt something was missing so frankly, and the

0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.920
<v Speaker 4>story of telling the book Big Baseball Fan, and I

0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.640
<v Speaker 4>never all the big games I've gone to, I've never

0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:06.400
<v Speaker 4>gotten a foul ball, And.

0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.040
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, right, This is a funny story.

0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.480
<v Speaker 4>I go to the game in Baltimore with my youngest

0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.040
<v Speaker 4>son and the batter loses control of the bat and

0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:16.760
<v Speaker 4>it lands at my feet. It flies in the stands,

0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.480
<v Speaker 4>and I've got a bat, And any normal human being

0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:23.080
<v Speaker 4>would be jumping up and down, high fiving, hugging everybody

0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.520
<v Speaker 4>around me, getting on the JumboTron. But I just put

0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.600
<v Speaker 4>the bat at my feet and like sit there like inert,

0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:29.280
<v Speaker 4>like a turtle.

0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.480
<v Speaker 2>That's when you would describe you having the emotional capacity

0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:34.480
<v Speaker 2>of ahead of cabbage.

0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.480
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, so I'm like show a little joy man. And

0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.920
<v Speaker 4>so that that's the aloof reticent version of me. And

0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.880
<v Speaker 4>I did it. I tried to improve myself for change

0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.360
<v Speaker 4>the universe Chicago way. I write books about it. So

0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:49.840
<v Speaker 4>I wrote a book about emotion. Then I wrote a

0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.840
<v Speaker 4>book about a character formation, and I wrote a book

0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.400
<v Speaker 4>about suffering. And this book is really about how to

0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.760
<v Speaker 4>be wise about people and how to make them feel

0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.880
<v Speaker 4>lit up. And so that's you know, I have, you

0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.520
<v Speaker 4>know work. Writers are usually working out their stuff in public,

0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.160
<v Speaker 4>and I'm working on my stuff and I'm trying to

0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.840
<v Speaker 4>share what I learned with others. One of my favorite

0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.200
<v Speaker 4>phrases of writing is we're beggars who tell other beggars

0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:15.160
<v Speaker 4>where we found bread. And so when I find something

0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.080
<v Speaker 4>that's useful, I shared, and that's like my highest satisfaction.

0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.040
<v Speaker 4>And I'm going to name drop to show that I've

0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:23.240
<v Speaker 4>made progress in life.

0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:24.760
<v Speaker 2>Oh I know this story?

0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:26.960
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, so Oprah?

0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah all right, so you're gonna pull out the big

0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:31.720
<v Speaker 2>oh whatever.

0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:34.160
<v Speaker 3>Special to David.

0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:38.560
<v Speaker 4>If you ladies want to praise me, I'm happy to

0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.040
<v Speaker 4>put your story in place.

0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:44.200
<v Speaker 2>Go ahead, David.

0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:45.760
<v Speaker 4>I didn't know I was going to walk into this

0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.040
<v Speaker 4>amount of rivalry now.

0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.960
<v Speaker 3>Never, you know, just being honest, He goes a thing.

0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:57.520
<v Speaker 4>Okay, So the Oprah story that one, Sorry I missed it.

0:16:57.520 --> 0:16:59.320
<v Speaker 4>Maybe I'll tell my Anne Hathaways for instead.

0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:01.440
<v Speaker 2>That's funny.

0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.160
<v Speaker 3>I know we like that one.

0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.560
<v Speaker 4>So the Oprah story is that she interviews me two times,

0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:09.119
<v Speaker 4>once in twenty fourteen and once in twenty nineteen, and

0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:12.000
<v Speaker 4>after twenty nineteen, after the taping, she pulls me aside

0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.879
<v Speaker 4>and said, I've rarely seen someone change so much in

0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:18.359
<v Speaker 4>middle age. You were so emotionally blocked before. So that

0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.000
<v Speaker 4>was for me, that was like graduation day. I can

0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.879
<v Speaker 4>show that, you know, I've made some progress in much.

0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.200
<v Speaker 1>That is I all kidding aside I think. I mean,

0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.960
<v Speaker 1>obviously she's so highly perceptive and intuitive. Just you know

0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.520
<v Speaker 1>that goes without saying. But I think for her to

0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.160
<v Speaker 1>recognize it, And did you feel obviously, as you said,

0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.240
<v Speaker 1>you felt validated. But do you think she was right?

0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:44.040
<v Speaker 1>I mean, do you think there's a way you carry

0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.880
<v Speaker 1>yourself differently, that you talk to people differently, that your

0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:52.800
<v Speaker 1>body language, that everything about you has opened in some way.

0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.639
<v Speaker 4>I think that's accurate. I do. I hope it's accurate.

0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:58.480
<v Speaker 4>I'm still not all the way there. I'm not like

0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.639
<v Speaker 4>the most since I'm not a naturally gregarious person, as

0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:05.040
<v Speaker 4>you know. But if you come up to me with

0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.680
<v Speaker 4>a problem, I'm comfortable enough with your pain to sit

0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.159
<v Speaker 4>with you in your pain a little more. And so

0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:13.440
<v Speaker 4>I used to like freeze and fear because I didn't

0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.960
<v Speaker 4>know what to do. And I've learned to storify life

0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.000
<v Speaker 4>to try to get stories. So there are two ways

0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.520
<v Speaker 4>of thinking. There's the paradigmatic mode, which is making an argument,

0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:25.480
<v Speaker 4>which is what we do if we're making a strategy

0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.240
<v Speaker 4>memo or writing a newspaper column. And then there's the

0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.360
<v Speaker 4>narrative mode, which is getting people to tell your stories

0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.880
<v Speaker 4>and so like, even in political journalism, I'd only ask

0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.960
<v Speaker 4>people what do you believe about this? I ask people,

0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.760
<v Speaker 4>how did you come to believe this? And that way

0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.840
<v Speaker 4>they're telling me about somebody who shape their values or

0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.400
<v Speaker 4>some experience they have. There we're in story mode.

0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.600
<v Speaker 2>I asked Sarah Palin that question, David, and she didn't

0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.520
<v Speaker 2>have a very getting right.

0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.080
<v Speaker 1>I said, what newspapers and magazines do you read? And

0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.400
<v Speaker 1>actually all of them, honestly, I know all Kitdting decaught.

0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.719
<v Speaker 1>It was looking for some kind of deep answer that

0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.960
<v Speaker 1>helped me understand what shaped her, what shaped her values,

0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.800
<v Speaker 1>what shaped her outlook, her worldview? And you know, it

0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.000
<v Speaker 1>was an unsuccessful inquiry, but it's interesting because that's really

0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:20.680
<v Speaker 1>I was genuinely curious about what leads someone to have

0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:25.480
<v Speaker 1>a certain political ideology. You know, sometimes your parents sometimes

0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.120
<v Speaker 1>I thought she could say William F. Buckley or you know, honestly,

0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.879
<v Speaker 1>even the Bible. I just was looking for what was

0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.399
<v Speaker 1>a very formative experience that made her the woman she

0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:37.919
<v Speaker 1>is today.

0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.760
<v Speaker 4>It's very curious that she couldn't answer that question. Well,

0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:45.520
<v Speaker 4>was she genuinely lack a story about the values that

0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.520
<v Speaker 4>formed her. Did she think, oh, I can't tell that

0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:52.080
<v Speaker 4>in public, it might not be helped me politically, or

0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.480
<v Speaker 4>maybe nobody had ever asked her and so she didn't.

0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.880
<v Speaker 4>A lot of people no one's ever asked them those

0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:57.840
<v Speaker 4>basic questions.

0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.919
<v Speaker 1>Well, remember when Roger Mudd asked to Kennedy why he

0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.600
<v Speaker 1>wanted to be president and Teddy Kennedy was speechless.

0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:07.680
<v Speaker 4>I was just thinking exactly of that episode, Yeah, exactly.

0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.399
<v Speaker 1>I think she just didn't read much and had no

0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:13.919
<v Speaker 1>intellectual curiosity, honestly, and I think she got tripped up

0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.159
<v Speaker 1>on naming things and I kind of left it wide open.

0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:23.960
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, it's really interesting. I'll be right back with

0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.960
<v Speaker 1>David Brooks and my special Plus one guest Kelly Corrigan.

0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:35.560
<v Speaker 1>With no fees or minimums. Banking with Capital one is

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0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.400
<v Speaker 1>Kelly and I are back with David Brooks.

0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:08.480
<v Speaker 2>So I just wanted to loop back on mentalizing, because

0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.720
<v Speaker 2>what you were suggesting is that if a person comes

0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.639
<v Speaker 2>through with a certain shape of a problem that you

0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:18.199
<v Speaker 2>could identify and say, oh, I've had something similar, I

0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.080
<v Speaker 2>know what that might feel like. But that bumps up

0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.960
<v Speaker 2>against the UT research that you unearthed for the book,

0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:33.040
<v Speaker 2>which is pointing us toward this terrible interpersonal arrogance where

0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:37.120
<v Speaker 2>we have too much confidence in our ability to read

0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:42.919
<v Speaker 2>body language and expression and gesture. And it brings up

0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.720
<v Speaker 2>one of my all time favorite concepts. We did a

0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:51.120
<v Speaker 2>series on it on my pod last year about intellectual humility.

0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:54.199
<v Speaker 2>So can you talk about the UT research and what

0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:59.240
<v Speaker 2>it points out about our over estimation of our own

0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:00.600
<v Speaker 2>perceptive skills.

0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:03.400
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. First, I love that phrase interpersonal arrogance.

0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:08.760
<v Speaker 3>That's that is what were yours. Take it run with it.

0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:13.720
<v Speaker 4>It was stolen about thirty seconds ago. So the research

0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.960
<v Speaker 4>is guy named William Mikes who's at the University of Texas, Arlington,

0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.359
<v Speaker 4>and he finds that when we meet a stranger and

0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.920
<v Speaker 4>have a conversation with him for the first time, we're

0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:25.760
<v Speaker 4>accurately reading each other's minds only twenty percent of the time,

0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.359
<v Speaker 4>and some people when we are with friends and family.

0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:31.639
<v Speaker 4>We are accurately reading each other thirty five percent of

0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.439
<v Speaker 4>the time, and so some people are pretty good at

0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:36.919
<v Speaker 4>it fifty five percent they're accurate. Some people are terrible

0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:40.000
<v Speaker 4>zero percent and they think they're one hundred percent. But

0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.240
<v Speaker 4>the point is we're all sort of creative. We all

0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:44.720
<v Speaker 4>have our own distinct point of view. We all see

0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.800
<v Speaker 4>the world in our own way. And while it's important

0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:51.600
<v Speaker 4>to mentalize to try to think, well, I've shared this experience,

0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.399
<v Speaker 4>you probably have to. We have to be humble and

0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.840
<v Speaker 4>know we probably can't imagine our way into somebody else's mind.

0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.600
<v Speaker 4>The only way in is ask. And that's why to

0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.480
<v Speaker 4>me that the central humanistic skill is the ability to

0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.719
<v Speaker 4>be a great conversationalist, not just a good one, but

0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:10.639
<v Speaker 4>a really great one. And this is another area where

0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:13.000
<v Speaker 4>we're not as good as we think we are. We

0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:17.000
<v Speaker 4>all think we're good conversationalists, but being a conversationalist, I mean,

0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.240
<v Speaker 4>you guys do it for a living. But it's a

0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:22.120
<v Speaker 4>high art form. And I've been in over the last

0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.119
<v Speaker 4>year I think back, I've been in some phenomenal conversations,

0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:27.560
<v Speaker 4>and I've been in some terrible ones that I don't

0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.639
<v Speaker 4>really remember. And the phenomenal ones invariably revolved around some

0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.040
<v Speaker 4>big question. Somebody put a big question on the table

0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:37.240
<v Speaker 4>and it allowed us to explore it altogether.

0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.640
<v Speaker 2>I think about that bringing intellectual humility into our most

0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.080
<v Speaker 2>important relationships. So I have a twenty year old and

0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.440
<v Speaker 2>a twenty two year old, and I think my job

0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.560
<v Speaker 2>is to say, tell me more, what else? Go on

0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.600
<v Speaker 2>until we unearth the thing behind the thing behind the thing,

0:23:55.200 --> 0:24:00.280
<v Speaker 2>because otherwise they're presenting and you're speeding to a point

0:24:00.320 --> 0:24:05.280
<v Speaker 2>of view, and you're advising with your clever advice, and

0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.560
<v Speaker 2>as soon as you start talking, they're tuning out. They're like,

0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:11.040
<v Speaker 2>she literally doesn't even know what I'm talking about. I

0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:14.560
<v Speaker 2>haven't even told her that the real reason I'm upset

0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:16.680
<v Speaker 2>is because parents weekend is coming up and I don't

0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:18.760
<v Speaker 2>know who we're having dinner with on Saturday night. But

0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:20.639
<v Speaker 2>what I told her is I felt a little anxious

0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:23.320
<v Speaker 2>in mad class, and now she's talking to me about caffeine.

0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:25.240
<v Speaker 3>You know what I mean.

0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:30.439
<v Speaker 4>That's fantastic, that's fantastic. Yeah, the rule is asked three times,

0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:33.639
<v Speaker 4>like your job is to stand in their standpoint, is

0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.639
<v Speaker 4>to say, Okay, what was that? And then ask it

0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:39.560
<v Speaker 4>the same question different phrasing than the third time. The

0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:42.000
<v Speaker 4>third time you actually are beginning to get some answers.

0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.240
<v Speaker 1>In many ways, I think this book is a blueprint

0:24:45.280 --> 0:24:47.880
<v Speaker 1>for everyone on how to be a better person, how

0:24:47.880 --> 0:24:50.240
<v Speaker 1>to be a better partner, how to be a better friend,

0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:53.919
<v Speaker 1>how to be a better parent. And I think everybody

0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:57.399
<v Speaker 1>wants that. And what do you think are some of

0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:01.600
<v Speaker 1>the you know, obviously we can't view the whole book, David,

0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:05.520
<v Speaker 1>but what are some of the key things that you

0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:10.280
<v Speaker 1>need to do to really know someone to make sure

0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:13.639
<v Speaker 1>that person is really seen just parenthetically. I don't know

0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:16.200
<v Speaker 1>about you all, but whenever I go to a funeral,

0:25:17.680 --> 0:25:21.960
<v Speaker 1>I leave and I think, Gosh, I wish I had

0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:26.359
<v Speaker 1>known this person better. I never knew this. I never

0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:30.240
<v Speaker 1>asked them about that. A friend of mine recently died,

0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:34.200
<v Speaker 1>and I have to say she believed nothing should be

0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:38.440
<v Speaker 1>left unsaid. She always told me, we always told each

0:25:38.480 --> 0:25:41.520
<v Speaker 1>other how important we were to each other in our lives.

0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:45.520
<v Speaker 1>And she saw me and knew me deeply, and I

0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:48.720
<v Speaker 1>think I knew her deeply too. I didn't have that

0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.919
<v Speaker 1>feeling at her service, but so many other times I

0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:56.679
<v Speaker 1>feel like Gosh, I had such a superficial relationship with

0:25:56.720 --> 0:26:01.160
<v Speaker 1>this person? Why didn't I know them better? And I'm

0:26:01.160 --> 0:26:03.960
<v Speaker 1>just curious a if you guys ever feel that way

0:26:04.000 --> 0:26:08.760
<v Speaker 1>when you go to funerals And again be David, what

0:26:08.920 --> 0:26:13.120
<v Speaker 1>are some of the ways we can we can feel closer,

0:26:13.200 --> 0:26:17.200
<v Speaker 1>more connected and see people who are important to us?

0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:20.280
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? I mean the nicely about funerals is they talk

0:26:20.280 --> 0:26:23.920
<v Speaker 4>about people talk about what matters. And when I had

0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:26.080
<v Speaker 4>this earlier book where I made a distinction between the

0:26:26.080 --> 0:26:28.919
<v Speaker 4>resume virtues and the eulogy virtues right right, and the

0:26:28.920 --> 0:26:30.480
<v Speaker 4>resume virtues of the things that make you good at

0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:32.240
<v Speaker 4>your job, and nobody talks about that at a funeral.

0:26:32.720 --> 0:26:35.600
<v Speaker 4>They talk about whether you're a courageous, honest, capable of

0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:39.080
<v Speaker 4>great love. And so you know, I think, as I say,

0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:41.520
<v Speaker 4>big questions are the way you get to know somebody,

0:26:41.560 --> 0:26:44.320
<v Speaker 4>Like you're having coffee with someone, you're at a dinner table, whatever,

0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:48.760
<v Speaker 4>And we're shy about asking questions, but there's some questions

0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:50.600
<v Speaker 4>you can ask that lift people out of their day

0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:52.600
<v Speaker 4>to day life and get them seeing themselves from thirty

0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:56.080
<v Speaker 4>thousand feet. So it's like, what crossroads are you at?

0:26:56.320 --> 0:26:58.680
<v Speaker 4>Often we're at a moment of transitional life it's interesting

0:26:58.720 --> 0:27:02.479
<v Speaker 4>to ask what crossroads you at. Other questions are like,

0:27:02.880 --> 0:27:04.760
<v Speaker 4>if this five years is a chapter in your life,

0:27:04.800 --> 0:27:08.359
<v Speaker 4>what's the chapter about, what's the commitment you've made that

0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:11.080
<v Speaker 4>you no longer really believe in. I was at a

0:27:11.160 --> 0:27:14.040
<v Speaker 4>party with a political scientist. He said, I'm eighty, what

0:27:14.080 --> 0:27:16.119
<v Speaker 4>do I do with the rest of my life? And

0:27:16.160 --> 0:27:20.200
<v Speaker 4>that was a great conversation about his interests or how

0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:22.520
<v Speaker 4>you do old age well and what you should do

0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:24.800
<v Speaker 4>in the year's approaching death. And so we went on

0:27:24.840 --> 0:27:27.400
<v Speaker 4>for like ninety minutes talking about Wow, various things that's

0:27:27.400 --> 0:27:30.280
<v Speaker 4>spun off from that, and it's just like you think, oh,

0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:33.280
<v Speaker 4>it's just a memorable conversation, But I'll never see him

0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:36.480
<v Speaker 4>the same way. I know a lot more about that guy,

0:27:37.119 --> 0:27:39.280
<v Speaker 4>and I had the pleasure of really seeing into the

0:27:39.320 --> 0:27:41.440
<v Speaker 4>interior of a very wise person's life.

0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:44.639
<v Speaker 1>You know, it would be fun to do a game.

0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:48.399
<v Speaker 1>I think they have this like conversation starters or something.

0:27:48.480 --> 0:27:50.600
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. I never I've been given it and

0:27:50.640 --> 0:27:53.280
<v Speaker 1>I've never used it, which may be part of the problem.

0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:57.840
<v Speaker 1>But maybe do a list of big questions that will

0:27:57.880 --> 0:28:01.480
<v Speaker 1>open up a conversation. So actually, when you're at a

0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:06.080
<v Speaker 1>dinner party, it becomes much more meaningful and worth your

0:28:06.160 --> 0:28:09.320
<v Speaker 1>time than a bunch of small talk with the person

0:28:09.359 --> 0:28:09.960
<v Speaker 1>to your right.

0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:14.680
<v Speaker 2>I think it's almost like there's an awkwardness. You feel

0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:17.320
<v Speaker 2>like a goon. Like we used to do those conversation

0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:19.960
<v Speaker 2>cards and put one under each plate, and then at

0:28:20.000 --> 0:28:22.199
<v Speaker 2>any point during dinner you could lift your plate and

0:28:22.200 --> 0:28:24.080
<v Speaker 2>take the card and ask somebody next to you, like

0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:28.160
<v Speaker 2>what's your biggest fear? Or if your high school did superlatives,

0:28:28.240 --> 0:28:30.440
<v Speaker 2>what would yours have been? Or if your mother wrote

0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:33.240
<v Speaker 2>a book about you, what would it be called? Is

0:28:33.280 --> 0:28:35.360
<v Speaker 2>there anyone you would like to apologize too? Like there's

0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:40.640
<v Speaker 2>so many juicy questions, and most people have like a

0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:44.600
<v Speaker 2>little bit of a guard up and they feel goofy

0:28:44.640 --> 0:28:47.840
<v Speaker 2>trying to take it from like you know, the kid's

0:28:47.920 --> 0:28:53.200
<v Speaker 2>soccer game or your Christmas plans to something much deeper. Well, David,

0:28:53.240 --> 0:28:57.080
<v Speaker 2>I think David writes Kelly that we're not taught how

0:28:57.120 --> 0:29:00.560
<v Speaker 2>to do this, and I think that they're in life

0:29:00.320 --> 0:29:03.840
<v Speaker 2>the rub right totally. And there's whole generations who think

0:29:03.880 --> 0:29:07.320
<v Speaker 2>asking these types of questions is completely rude. Like my

0:29:07.480 --> 0:29:10.080
<v Speaker 2>mother would say, oh, for God's sake, like, you know

0:29:10.200 --> 0:29:12.600
<v Speaker 2>you know how every now and then on Instagram or TikTok,

0:29:12.640 --> 0:29:16.000
<v Speaker 2>it's like, ask your mother these seven questions before she dies. Like,

0:29:16.080 --> 0:29:18.680
<v Speaker 2>I can't even I sent that to my daughter recently.

0:29:20.080 --> 0:29:22.880
<v Speaker 2>I couldn't even ask one question before my mom's cut

0:29:22.920 --> 0:29:24.200
<v Speaker 2>me off and said, oh, for god.

0:29:24.120 --> 0:29:25.760
<v Speaker 3>Sake, Kelly, who wants to talk about that?

0:29:26.560 --> 0:29:29.840
<v Speaker 2>So, like, not everybody's playing the same game here, and

0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:33.720
<v Speaker 2>not every generation is used to operating on this level.

0:29:34.000 --> 0:29:38.000
<v Speaker 2>But we do have this million dollar opportunity where many

0:29:38.040 --> 0:29:41.400
<v Speaker 2>many more people have read many many more of these

0:29:41.440 --> 0:29:44.200
<v Speaker 2>types of books, have been to therapy, have sat on

0:29:44.240 --> 0:29:47.000
<v Speaker 2>dorm room floors like bearing their Soul. We're just more

0:29:47.080 --> 0:29:50.920
<v Speaker 2>practiced in it, and hopefully it will lead to like

0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:54.920
<v Speaker 2>a different kind of societal conversation, although it sure doesn't

0:29:54.920 --> 0:29:56.320
<v Speaker 2>seem to be trending that way.

0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:59.440
<v Speaker 4>David Brooks, Yeah, well I do agree with you and

0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:01.959
<v Speaker 4>I you know, obviously you've got to pace it so

0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:03.920
<v Speaker 4>you don't want to walk in meet somebody, you know,

0:30:03.920 --> 0:30:05.360
<v Speaker 4>how do your ancestor show up in your life?

0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:09.640
<v Speaker 3>Like, Hi, I'm David. When was the last time you cried?

0:30:10.800 --> 0:30:14.840
<v Speaker 4>You know? I start just with like, uh, where'd you

0:30:14.840 --> 0:30:17.400
<v Speaker 4>grow up? And we just want to get people talking

0:30:17.440 --> 0:30:20.160
<v Speaker 4>about their childhood. People are fantastic talking about their childhood.

0:30:20.600 --> 0:30:22.720
<v Speaker 4>And so I travel a lot, so I've probably have

0:30:22.760 --> 0:30:24.680
<v Speaker 4>been to the place and we can have a conversation

0:30:25.200 --> 0:30:27.400
<v Speaker 4>or even like where'd you get your name? Like gets

0:30:27.440 --> 0:30:30.400
<v Speaker 4>people talking about their family and stuff like that, and

0:30:30.440 --> 0:30:33.920
<v Speaker 4>then you know the shallow conversations like I once asked

0:30:33.920 --> 0:30:36.280
<v Speaker 4>a group of people, tell me about your most enjoyable,

0:30:36.400 --> 0:30:39.920
<v Speaker 4>unimportant thing about yourself. And so I learned this austere

0:30:39.960 --> 0:30:43.520
<v Speaker 4>academic guy loves trashy reality TV. So it was like

0:30:43.560 --> 0:30:45.560
<v Speaker 4>a window into them, and I got to talk about

0:30:45.600 --> 0:30:48.480
<v Speaker 4>my obsession with early Taylor Swift's albums.

0:30:48.800 --> 0:30:53.560
<v Speaker 2>Really wait, slow down, mister, give us a leerless, give

0:30:53.640 --> 0:30:54.720
<v Speaker 2>us a lyric or two.

0:30:55.240 --> 0:30:58.000
<v Speaker 4>Hey, you're cheercime. I'm on the bleachers. You're the cheer captain.

0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:00.040
<v Speaker 2>Did you relate? Did you meet that?

0:31:00.840 --> 0:31:04.600
<v Speaker 4>That's so you know I'm a what's her lyric? I'm

0:31:04.640 --> 0:31:06.480
<v Speaker 4>your nightmare dressed as a day dreams?

0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:09.920
<v Speaker 2>I so relate, I thought, so, well, my god, it

0:31:09.960 --> 0:31:13.080
<v Speaker 2>all goes back to Taylor Swift. Here's what David Brooks

0:31:13.120 --> 0:31:16.240
<v Speaker 2>is a swifty like just yeah, let's stop the presses.

0:31:16.280 --> 0:31:18.760
<v Speaker 3>We're breaking news. David Brooks is a.

0:31:18.680 --> 0:31:21.920
<v Speaker 1>Swifty A good friend of mine today said Taylor Swift

0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:23.600
<v Speaker 1>isn't a singer, she's a lifestyle.

0:31:23.800 --> 0:31:26.360
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, she's a religion at this point she is.

0:31:27.480 --> 0:31:30.080
<v Speaker 4>She has a lyric that from her new album Let's

0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:33.840
<v Speaker 4>See if I can redress it. That's it's narcissism dressed

0:31:33.880 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 4>up like altruism, like some sort of congressman. I think

0:31:36.640 --> 0:31:38.120
<v Speaker 4>that's a fantastic, pretty good.

0:31:39.280 --> 0:31:40.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, she's brilliant.

0:31:40.600 --> 0:31:44.080
<v Speaker 1>Well wait, so so you're talking about interesting ways in

0:31:44.560 --> 0:31:47.120
<v Speaker 1>to get to know people, and I love it. And Kelly,

0:31:47.200 --> 0:31:49.520
<v Speaker 1>I imagine you and I probably do stuff like that

0:31:49.600 --> 0:31:55.560
<v Speaker 1>because we are just naturally curious and interested in other people.

0:31:56.080 --> 0:31:58.760
<v Speaker 1>But I feel like you could always I could always

0:31:58.760 --> 0:32:03.120
<v Speaker 1>hone those skills even more. And to pick up on

0:32:03.240 --> 0:32:06.480
<v Speaker 1>Kelly's last point, David, I think you know when she

0:32:06.520 --> 0:32:11.160
<v Speaker 1>said things aren't trending this way. Society is not making

0:32:11.400 --> 0:32:15.920
<v Speaker 1>this easy, these deep connections, meaningful relationships. And you talk

0:32:15.960 --> 0:32:19.000
<v Speaker 1>a lot about that, how the way we live is

0:32:19.040 --> 0:32:25.040
<v Speaker 1>almost antithetical to creating these deep friendships where people feel seen.

0:32:25.920 --> 0:32:28.040
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean that was in some ways they impetus

0:32:28.080 --> 0:32:30.000
<v Speaker 4>by the book. Not only might desire to personally grow

0:32:30.040 --> 0:32:32.600
<v Speaker 4>but looking at society around me, and we're in the

0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:35.960
<v Speaker 4>middle of some sort of social and emotional and relational crisis,

0:32:36.760 --> 0:32:40.320
<v Speaker 4>and so you know, rising mental health problems, rising suicide rates.

0:32:40.840 --> 0:32:42.840
<v Speaker 4>Fifty four percent of Americans say that no one knows

0:32:42.920 --> 0:32:45.000
<v Speaker 4>them well. The number of people who say they have

0:32:45.000 --> 0:32:47.280
<v Speaker 4>no close personal friends is up by four times in

0:32:47.320 --> 0:32:50.280
<v Speaker 4>the last twenty years. Thirty six percent of Americans say

0:32:50.320 --> 0:32:53.960
<v Speaker 4>they feel persistently lonely. Forty five percent of teenagers say

0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:58.240
<v Speaker 4>they feel persistently hopeless and despondent. The number of people

0:32:58.320 --> 0:33:00.480
<v Speaker 4>that are not in a romantic relationship is up by

0:33:00.520 --> 0:33:03.240
<v Speaker 4>a third. It's just like one statistic after another where

0:33:03.280 --> 0:33:06.640
<v Speaker 4>we're just in an emotional and relational recession. And I

0:33:06.640 --> 0:33:10.959
<v Speaker 4>think it's caused by this rising cycle of distrust, and

0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.959
<v Speaker 4>distrust has caused because people haven't been trustworthy, and especially

0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:17.920
<v Speaker 4>young people feel that others have betrayed them. And I

0:33:18.040 --> 0:33:20.600
<v Speaker 4>used to talk about the levels of distrust with my students,

0:33:20.600 --> 0:33:23.320
<v Speaker 4>my college students, and one woman said to me, well,

0:33:23.360 --> 0:33:26.200
<v Speaker 4>have you seen our social life like you can imagine

0:33:26.280 --> 0:33:28.760
<v Speaker 4>you go through life, you're getting ghosted by somebody who

0:33:28.760 --> 0:33:31.800
<v Speaker 4>thought was your boyfriend or your girlfriend, you're getting savaged

0:33:31.840 --> 0:33:35.440
<v Speaker 4>on social media. People are cruel to you, and so

0:33:35.520 --> 0:33:38.080
<v Speaker 4>you have this rising level of distrust and to me,

0:33:38.160 --> 0:33:40.480
<v Speaker 4>the only way to fight it is with the skills

0:33:40.480 --> 0:33:43.040
<v Speaker 4>I'm talking about in the book. And some people think,

0:33:43.160 --> 0:33:45.400
<v Speaker 4>like the stuff we're talking about is like woo woo

0:33:45.400 --> 0:33:48.959
<v Speaker 4>and squishy, but to me, it's the only practical way out. Like,

0:33:49.560 --> 0:33:52.880
<v Speaker 4>it's not woo woo to like, lead with curiosity, it's

0:33:52.880 --> 0:33:56.920
<v Speaker 4>not woo woo to lead with respect. And the only

0:33:56.960 --> 0:33:58.640
<v Speaker 4>way you get out of our social mess is by

0:33:58.680 --> 0:33:59.480
<v Speaker 4>acting in this way.

0:34:00.080 --> 0:34:03.440
<v Speaker 1>Can you talk about I guess you were giving a talk, David,

0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:07.040
<v Speaker 1>and you've got a question on an index card that

0:34:07.120 --> 0:34:10.040
<v Speaker 1>you said has haunted you for a very long time.

0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:11.960
<v Speaker 1>Can you tell us about that?

0:34:12.560 --> 0:34:14.399
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I was in Oklahoma and it's one of those

0:34:14.400 --> 0:34:16.640
<v Speaker 4>talks where at the end of the talk they don't

0:34:16.640 --> 0:34:18.920
<v Speaker 4>ask questions face to face, they just give you index cards.

0:34:19.440 --> 0:34:22.400
<v Speaker 4>So I'm running through the cards and most of the

0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:25.560
<v Speaker 4>questions are like politics or something, and then I turned

0:34:25.600 --> 0:34:27.600
<v Speaker 4>to one card and says, what do you do if

0:34:27.640 --> 0:34:30.680
<v Speaker 4>you no longer want to be alive? And that to

0:34:30.719 --> 0:34:32.880
<v Speaker 4>me was like a window into a lot of the

0:34:32.920 --> 0:34:35.879
<v Speaker 4>pain that's out there in America, and at the moment,

0:34:35.960 --> 0:34:37.920
<v Speaker 4>I didn't know what to say, and so I let

0:34:38.000 --> 0:34:40.719
<v Speaker 4>it go without even answering or without even acknowledging it.

0:34:41.680 --> 0:34:44.840
<v Speaker 4>And I think if I could go back, I would say,

0:34:45.000 --> 0:34:47.480
<v Speaker 4>first of all, I want to salute you for your

0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:50.680
<v Speaker 4>courage and your endurance, because you are still here, and

0:34:50.719 --> 0:34:52.439
<v Speaker 4>you're in a lot of pain, but you're still here.

0:34:53.320 --> 0:34:55.600
<v Speaker 4>And then I would like to repeat to you something

0:34:55.680 --> 0:34:58.960
<v Speaker 4>Victor Frankel said in Man Search for Meeting, which is

0:34:59.000 --> 0:35:03.080
<v Speaker 4>that life is not stopped expecting things of you, and

0:35:03.120 --> 0:35:05.319
<v Speaker 4>that there are still many good things you can do

0:35:05.440 --> 0:35:08.000
<v Speaker 4>in the world. And then I would say, and I

0:35:08.440 --> 0:35:10.320
<v Speaker 4>mentioned I have a chapter in the book about losing

0:35:10.360 --> 0:35:15.560
<v Speaker 4>my oldest friend to depression. And you know, I would say, listen,

0:35:16.000 --> 0:35:18.520
<v Speaker 4>there's no words I can utter that can heal your pain,

0:35:19.239 --> 0:35:22.319
<v Speaker 4>but I can assure you that we're never leaving. We're

0:35:22.320 --> 0:35:25.360
<v Speaker 4>here for you. And I think when you're dealing with

0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:28.719
<v Speaker 4>someone who's suffering from that much pain and depression, all

0:35:28.719 --> 0:35:31.920
<v Speaker 4>you can say is I acknowledge the reality of the situation.

0:35:32.640 --> 0:35:34.879
<v Speaker 4>I'm here for you. I'm not leaving. I'm just here.

0:35:35.520 --> 0:35:38.719
<v Speaker 2>When you described your embarrassment at a dinner the very

0:35:38.760 --> 0:35:40.160
<v Speaker 2>next night. What happened.

0:35:40.840 --> 0:35:43.640
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, the woman who was at our house for dinner said, well,

0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:47.080
<v Speaker 4>my brother committed suicide a few months ago, and then

0:35:47.080 --> 0:35:49.400
<v Speaker 4>I mentioned it. I have my bunch of buddies and

0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:51.360
<v Speaker 4>I get on a zoom call every Thursday, and I

0:35:51.400 --> 0:35:53.200
<v Speaker 4>mentioned it to that group, and like half the people

0:35:54.000 --> 0:35:56.879
<v Speaker 4>had some sort of suicide in their family and their life.

0:35:58.000 --> 0:36:01.919
<v Speaker 4>And then, you know, as I mentioned later, I lost

0:36:01.960 --> 0:36:04.799
<v Speaker 4>my best friend to it. And it just feels like

0:36:05.440 --> 0:36:08.720
<v Speaker 4>the pain in society is something pervasive that it's touched

0:36:08.760 --> 0:36:14.280
<v Speaker 4>everyone who has lost someone to addiction, to suicide, someone

0:36:14.280 --> 0:36:16.760
<v Speaker 4>who has a kid who's suffering with mental health issues.

0:36:17.400 --> 0:36:20.520
<v Speaker 4>It's just like rivers of pain in society. And it's

0:36:20.560 --> 0:36:23.279
<v Speaker 4>hard to have a healthy democracy when your society is

0:36:23.400 --> 0:36:26.399
<v Speaker 4>rotting from the foundation. And this is what I worry

0:36:26.440 --> 0:36:28.480
<v Speaker 4>about most, this social fragmentation.

0:36:29.040 --> 0:36:35.920
<v Speaker 2>I think about sometimes the increase in therapy and antidepressant

0:36:36.000 --> 0:36:39.399
<v Speaker 2>medications and the decrease in mental health, like those two

0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:43.080
<v Speaker 2>lines are not working together to take us to a

0:36:43.120 --> 0:36:43.720
<v Speaker 2>better place.

0:36:43.960 --> 0:36:46.760
<v Speaker 1>I think David talks about that Kelly, because he says

0:36:47.280 --> 0:36:52.400
<v Speaker 1>looking within can lead people to become vulnerable narcissists and

0:36:52.440 --> 0:36:55.200
<v Speaker 1>I've wondered about that too, because when you look at

0:36:55.239 --> 0:36:59.920
<v Speaker 1>surveys about happiness, it's really and I've interviewed people about this,

0:37:00.080 --> 0:37:02.840
<v Speaker 1>so I'm sure all of us have. It's really about

0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:07.520
<v Speaker 1>service to others and not being so self absorbed and

0:37:07.600 --> 0:37:11.240
<v Speaker 1>self focused that leads you to happiness. And I thought,

0:37:11.880 --> 0:37:14.520
<v Speaker 1>you know, David, you could talk about what happened after

0:37:15.000 --> 0:37:17.520
<v Speaker 1>World War Two and how sort of the focus on

0:37:17.560 --> 0:37:21.360
<v Speaker 1>the individual and now the uber focus on our own

0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:26.160
<v Speaker 1>quote unquote well being has impacted our ability to form

0:37:26.200 --> 0:37:27.240
<v Speaker 1>deep relationships.

0:37:28.000 --> 0:37:28.160
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:37:28.200 --> 0:37:29.920
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I think we've just got a much more

0:37:29.920 --> 0:37:33.719
<v Speaker 4>individualistic culture. I mean when America was founded, that the

0:37:33.760 --> 0:37:36.160
<v Speaker 4>founding fathers had a pretty realistic view of human nature

0:37:36.200 --> 0:37:40.359
<v Speaker 4>that we're generous, well, we're also self centered, and so

0:37:40.400 --> 0:37:41.879
<v Speaker 4>they had the idea that if we're going to build

0:37:41.920 --> 0:37:44.439
<v Speaker 4>a country, a democracy out of these people, we need

0:37:44.440 --> 0:37:48.120
<v Speaker 4>to do moral formation. And moral formation is a pretentious word,

0:37:48.160 --> 0:37:51.120
<v Speaker 4>but it's really three basic things. One is it gives

0:37:51.120 --> 0:37:54.479
<v Speaker 4>you tips for how to control your natural selfishness. Two,

0:37:54.640 --> 0:37:56.880
<v Speaker 4>it helps you find a purpose in life and ideal

0:37:56.960 --> 0:37:59.960
<v Speaker 4>to organize your life around. And three it teaches you

0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:03.120
<v Speaker 4>the skills of being considered in the complex circumstances of life,

0:38:03.800 --> 0:38:06.960
<v Speaker 4>and so how do you ask for an offer forgiveness?

0:38:07.320 --> 0:38:09.600
<v Speaker 4>How do you break up with someone without crushing their heart?

0:38:10.160 --> 0:38:14.280
<v Speaker 4>These are basic social skills, and I think we've forgotten

0:38:14.280 --> 0:38:16.759
<v Speaker 4>how to teach them, how to pass them along to generations.

0:38:17.200 --> 0:38:19.440
<v Speaker 4>And then we just live in a much more individualistic

0:38:19.440 --> 0:38:22.400
<v Speaker 4>culture where people decide I don't need to pay attention

0:38:22.440 --> 0:38:24.400
<v Speaker 4>to some external morality. I just need to get in

0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:28.760
<v Speaker 4>touch with myself. And my basic rule is you're happier

0:38:28.760 --> 0:38:30.959
<v Speaker 4>when you're thinking about other people, and you're less happy

0:38:30.960 --> 0:38:34.400
<v Speaker 4>when you're thinking about yourself. It's just like that simple.

0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:37.800
<v Speaker 4>And a lot of our happiness industrial complex gets people

0:38:37.800 --> 0:38:41.279
<v Speaker 4>thinking about themselves, and I think it's self destructive. And

0:38:41.640 --> 0:38:44.600
<v Speaker 4>there is research that show that people who spend their

0:38:44.600 --> 0:38:46.760
<v Speaker 4>most time thinking about happiness are least happy.

0:38:47.320 --> 0:38:48.719
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, I know.

0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:53.200
<v Speaker 2>And so this is my mom's whole opinions. So my

0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:56.920
<v Speaker 2>dad sold ad space in women's magazines, and so we

0:38:56.960 --> 0:38:58.880
<v Speaker 2>had women's magazines in our house, going back to like

0:38:58.960 --> 0:39:01.640
<v Speaker 2>McCall's and then Get how Keeping whatever, and she would

0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:04.000
<v Speaker 2>look at them, and even though her whole life was

0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:08.320
<v Speaker 2>being underwritten by these magazines, they drove her bananas, because

0:39:08.360 --> 0:39:11.840
<v Speaker 2>she was like, the answer is go to church and volunteer.

0:39:12.239 --> 0:39:15.520
<v Speaker 2>That's the answer. Like what is all this nonsense, all

0:39:15.560 --> 0:39:20.360
<v Speaker 2>this lumination, all this self focus, all this me me me,

0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:22.440
<v Speaker 2>and I need a bath every day and I need

0:39:22.480 --> 0:39:26.000
<v Speaker 2>to have my massage massageer for my shoulders. She's like,

0:39:26.040 --> 0:39:29.200
<v Speaker 2>that is nonsense, Like, get your ass in church and

0:39:29.239 --> 0:39:30.120
<v Speaker 2>go help somebody.

0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:32.799
<v Speaker 1>Well, I do think there's a happy medium, you know.

0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:38.080
<v Speaker 1>I do think kind of quote unquote self care. You know,

0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:41.360
<v Speaker 1>the idea of putting your oxygen mask on first so

0:39:41.520 --> 0:39:44.080
<v Speaker 1>you can be a better person to those you love.

0:39:44.280 --> 0:39:46.880
<v Speaker 1>I do think there's some legitimacy to that, but I

0:39:46.920 --> 0:39:50.160
<v Speaker 1>do think the pendulum has swung a little too far,

0:39:51.000 --> 0:39:54.160
<v Speaker 1>and I think it's honestly, I think it's kind of

0:39:54.880 --> 0:39:59.279
<v Speaker 1>a modern day medicine for loneliness that if you can

0:39:59.320 --> 0:40:03.720
<v Speaker 1>spend your time worrying about your pores, then it's actually

0:40:03.840 --> 0:40:08.240
<v Speaker 1>just taking time that it makes you feel better because

0:40:08.280 --> 0:40:10.760
<v Speaker 1>you're thinking about something other than your own misery.

0:40:10.880 --> 0:40:16.000
<v Speaker 4>Right, Yeah, No, it's just loneliness is a perversity because

0:40:16.040 --> 0:40:18.520
<v Speaker 4>no one wants to be lonely. And yet now, as

0:40:18.560 --> 0:40:21.319
<v Speaker 4>I said, thirty six percent are persistently lonely. Why don't

0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:23.600
<v Speaker 4>they just get together with the other loner people. But

0:40:24.120 --> 0:40:27.000
<v Speaker 4>one of the problems is loneliness distorts your view of

0:40:27.040 --> 0:40:29.880
<v Speaker 4>reality and it makes you suspicious of other people. So

0:40:30.040 --> 0:40:32.640
<v Speaker 4>you begin to fear what you long for most, which

0:40:32.680 --> 0:40:33.440
<v Speaker 4>is human connection.

0:40:33.880 --> 0:40:37.440
<v Speaker 1>But also our sense of community has unraveled, David. I

0:40:37.480 --> 0:40:40.880
<v Speaker 1>know with your Whole Weave project, you're looking at people

0:40:40.920 --> 0:40:44.279
<v Speaker 1>who are developing a sense of community. But you think

0:40:44.320 --> 0:40:48.759
<v Speaker 1>about church attendance and religious services. The attendance has declined

0:40:49.520 --> 0:40:53.920
<v Speaker 1>a lot, and there aren't like rotary clubs and Kuwanas clubs,

0:40:54.000 --> 0:40:58.200
<v Speaker 1>and you know, people don't seem to get together as much.

0:40:58.280 --> 0:41:00.880
<v Speaker 1>So these things that gave us a sense of community.

0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:05.480
<v Speaker 1>Of course, it was exacerbated by the pandemic. So I

0:41:05.520 --> 0:41:10.360
<v Speaker 1>think bringing some of those institutional structures back is really

0:41:10.440 --> 0:41:14.000
<v Speaker 1>important too, Because you say, I'm curious, you say loneliness

0:41:14.719 --> 0:41:18.840
<v Speaker 1>leads to meanness, so you know it's not only distrust,

0:41:18.920 --> 0:41:20.240
<v Speaker 1>but it's actually meanness.

0:41:20.280 --> 0:41:23.319
<v Speaker 4>How So, well, if you feel invisible to the world,

0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:26.840
<v Speaker 4>there's nothing crueler than indifference, and so if you feel

0:41:27.000 --> 0:41:29.759
<v Speaker 4>you're not seen by the world, you regard that as

0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:32.480
<v Speaker 4>an injustice, which it is, and so you want to

0:41:32.560 --> 0:41:35.200
<v Speaker 4>lash out. You decide the world's a very dangerous place,

0:41:35.239 --> 0:41:37.279
<v Speaker 4>and you want to lash out. And I think what

0:41:37.320 --> 0:41:39.440
<v Speaker 4>a lot of people have done is they've taken loneliness

0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.279
<v Speaker 4>and they've taken really a moral vacuum they find themselves in,

0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:45.840
<v Speaker 4>and they've tried to fill it with politics. And so,

0:41:46.239 --> 0:41:48.840
<v Speaker 4>in a healthy society, we have the politics of distribution,

0:41:48.960 --> 0:41:50.759
<v Speaker 4>like where should we put the resources of money, how

0:41:50.800 --> 0:41:52.520
<v Speaker 4>hi shad taxes be, what should we spend money on?

0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:55.920
<v Speaker 4>That's a healthy society. We have the politics of recognition,

0:41:56.560 --> 0:41:59.320
<v Speaker 4>where we want to have a politics where my side

0:41:59.640 --> 0:42:03.160
<v Speaker 4>is elevated and respected and your side is shamed and destroyed.

0:42:03.960 --> 0:42:07.719
<v Speaker 4>And so politics gives you the illusion that you are

0:42:07.760 --> 0:42:10.360
<v Speaker 4>living in a moral landscape. There's us good guys and

0:42:10.400 --> 0:42:13.640
<v Speaker 4>those bad guys. Gives you the illusion you're doing moral action.

0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:16.680
<v Speaker 4>I'm getting indignant about those people who are ruining the country.

0:42:17.040 --> 0:42:19.680
<v Speaker 4>It gives you the illusion of community, like you're in

0:42:19.719 --> 0:42:22.719
<v Speaker 4>a party. But these are just illusions, like you're not

0:42:22.760 --> 0:42:25.080
<v Speaker 4>really in the community. You're not getting to know somebody,

0:42:25.160 --> 0:42:28.120
<v Speaker 4>you're just hating the same people together, and you're not

0:42:28.200 --> 0:42:31.439
<v Speaker 4>really in a moral landscape, which is about the line

0:42:31.480 --> 0:42:33.600
<v Speaker 4>between good and evil runs through every human heart, not

0:42:33.680 --> 0:42:37.960
<v Speaker 4>between groups, and so you've traded your moral vacuum for

0:42:38.280 --> 0:42:40.919
<v Speaker 4>sort of culture war and moral war. And I think

0:42:40.920 --> 0:42:43.400
<v Speaker 4>that's one of the reasons why everything in society has

0:42:43.400 --> 0:42:45.160
<v Speaker 4>gotten so politicized.

0:42:44.960 --> 0:42:48.719
<v Speaker 1>But also so black and white and so lacking of nuance.

0:42:48.800 --> 0:42:52.759
<v Speaker 1>You quote a researcher named Ryan Streeter, he's director of

0:42:52.880 --> 0:42:57.759
<v Speaker 1>Domestic Policy Studies at the AI American Enterprise Institute that

0:42:57.960 --> 0:43:00.919
<v Speaker 1>lonely young people are seven times more likely to say

0:43:00.960 --> 0:43:04.400
<v Speaker 1>they are active in politics and young people who aren't lonely.

0:43:05.040 --> 0:43:08.600
<v Speaker 1>And I think this is elaborating on what you just said.

0:43:08.960 --> 0:43:12.319
<v Speaker 1>It gives them some sense of community to be with

0:43:12.600 --> 0:43:16.560
<v Speaker 1>like minded people. It's almost their little tribe of people

0:43:16.640 --> 0:43:20.280
<v Speaker 1>who they can feel connected to. But what you're saying

0:43:20.400 --> 0:43:22.120
<v Speaker 1>is they're not really connected to them.

0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:26.400
<v Speaker 4>They're just sharing their Twitter feeds, and you know, they're

0:43:26.480 --> 0:43:29.240
<v Speaker 4>not really doing good. They're not sitting with the poor,

0:43:29.840 --> 0:43:33.120
<v Speaker 4>serving a widow. They're just registering their feelings or their

0:43:33.120 --> 0:43:36.799
<v Speaker 4>emotions about some political issue. And so to me, it's

0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:40.279
<v Speaker 4>like a very impoverished way to live. Cover politics. We

0:43:40.360 --> 0:43:44.400
<v Speaker 4>care about politics, but politics is not more important than family.

0:43:44.480 --> 0:43:47.839
<v Speaker 4>Politics not more important than your friendships and your relationships.

0:43:48.400 --> 0:43:50.440
<v Speaker 4>And when I look at the rise of misery in

0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:53.520
<v Speaker 4>this country, I could tell a lot of stories, Like Katie,

0:43:53.520 --> 0:43:56.040
<v Speaker 4>you told the sociology story, we just aren't active in

0:43:56.080 --> 0:43:59.680
<v Speaker 4>civic life. I could tell the social media story, which is,

0:44:00.000 --> 0:44:02.640
<v Speaker 4>you know, social media's driving us all crazy, which I

0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:05.799
<v Speaker 4>was also a true story. I could tell economic inequality story,

0:44:05.800 --> 0:44:09.120
<v Speaker 4>we're just more separated from one another. I can even

0:44:09.160 --> 0:44:13.399
<v Speaker 4>tell the coddling story, where overprotective parenting leads to kids

0:44:13.400 --> 0:44:16.080
<v Speaker 4>who are not resilient in the face of challenge. But

0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:17.960
<v Speaker 4>to me, the core story, and the one I addressed

0:44:17.960 --> 0:44:20.479
<v Speaker 4>in the book, is we're just not treating each other well.

0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:23.560
<v Speaker 4>I mean, we're just at a basic human level. We

0:44:23.600 --> 0:44:26.719
<v Speaker 4>find ourselves in the world that's distrustful and brutal, and

0:44:26.760 --> 0:44:28.319
<v Speaker 4>the meanness comes up. You know. I was at a

0:44:28.320 --> 0:44:31.200
<v Speaker 4>restaurant in New York a couple months ago, and I

0:44:31.239 --> 0:44:33.000
<v Speaker 4>happened to be chatting with the owner and he said,

0:44:33.040 --> 0:44:34.680
<v Speaker 4>I have to throw people out of this restaurant every

0:44:34.719 --> 0:44:38.640
<v Speaker 4>week now for rude behavior. A friend who's a nurse,

0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:41.360
<v Speaker 4>and she said, I have trouble keeping staff because the

0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:44.120
<v Speaker 4>patients have gotten so abusive, that the nurses want to

0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:47.240
<v Speaker 4>leave the profession, and so there's just been this rising

0:44:47.320 --> 0:44:50.959
<v Speaker 4>tide of hate crimes. You know, the incidents on airplanes.

0:44:51.600 --> 0:44:54.799
<v Speaker 4>COVID made it all worse. But loneliness leads to meanness.

0:44:55.280 --> 0:44:59.440
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, an accompaniment like in the Pote Francis way, is

0:44:59.480 --> 0:45:02.759
<v Speaker 2>a very advanced move, like for a human being to

0:45:02.800 --> 0:45:06.960
<v Speaker 2>be able to do that, because accompaniment is sort of

0:45:07.600 --> 0:45:11.200
<v Speaker 2>antithetical to the fix. What do you mean by accompaniment?

0:45:11.680 --> 0:45:13.480
<v Speaker 2>It's just like, I'm just gonna sit with you. Like

0:45:13.520 --> 0:45:16.160
<v Speaker 2>you can just tell me your weirdest, hardest thing. You

0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:18.200
<v Speaker 2>can say I think my marriage is ending. You can

0:45:18.239 --> 0:45:20.120
<v Speaker 2>say I don't. I'm as much money as I pretend

0:45:20.200 --> 0:45:23.640
<v Speaker 2>like I have. You can say I think that my

0:45:23.760 --> 0:45:28.320
<v Speaker 2>daughter is suicidal. You can say these horribly difficult things,

0:45:28.640 --> 0:45:33.200
<v Speaker 2>and I will not dive in with my smarty pants solution.

0:45:33.680 --> 0:45:36.080
<v Speaker 2>I'll just sit with you. I'll just sit right down

0:45:36.120 --> 0:45:39.920
<v Speaker 2>with you in it. But that is like very advanced,

0:45:40.120 --> 0:45:42.560
<v Speaker 2>Like not that many people I know in my life

0:45:43.120 --> 0:45:48.320
<v Speaker 2>are that good at biting their tongue because it's so uncomfortable.

0:45:48.520 --> 0:45:52.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm not. I always try to fix things, yes, people,

0:45:52.200 --> 0:45:55.960
<v Speaker 1>or that's my immediate impulse. How can I fix this

0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:59.439
<v Speaker 1>problem for you? Yeah, and I think you're right.

0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:01.719
<v Speaker 3>Let's tell me more. What else go on?

0:46:01.800 --> 0:46:05.440
<v Speaker 2>Like those seven words will take you so far, And

0:46:05.520 --> 0:46:09.480
<v Speaker 2>it's so relaxing to be like, I'm actually not formulating,

0:46:09.520 --> 0:46:13.319
<v Speaker 2>we're not taking turns talking. I'm actually just absorbing and

0:46:13.360 --> 0:46:15.840
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna let Like I remember talking to Claire, my daughter,

0:46:16.280 --> 0:46:18.719
<v Speaker 2>during the pandemic, and she was such a she was

0:46:18.760 --> 0:46:21.000
<v Speaker 2>so bright eyed the whole time she was baking and

0:46:21.080 --> 0:46:24.000
<v Speaker 2>learning Spanish and like doing the pandemic, like getting an

0:46:24.000 --> 0:46:27.440
<v Speaker 2>a and pandemic. And then she cracked one day and

0:46:27.520 --> 0:46:30.000
<v Speaker 2>I said, what else? And she said lacrosse? Like we

0:46:30.040 --> 0:46:32.880
<v Speaker 2>can't play lacrosse, which means I'm not getting any exercise,

0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:35.160
<v Speaker 2>which means like I'm sluggish all day. I'm like, what else?

0:46:35.440 --> 0:46:37.480
<v Speaker 2>She's like, there are no parties, like I just watched

0:46:37.520 --> 0:46:39.960
<v Speaker 2>fash times at Ridgemont High. None of that is like

0:46:39.960 --> 0:46:42.440
<v Speaker 2>my high school experience. My high school experience is sitting

0:46:42.440 --> 0:46:46.160
<v Speaker 2>in my bedroom. What else go on? Everybody's fighting over

0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:47.760
<v Speaker 2>who can go to parties and who can't?

0:46:48.080 --> 0:46:49.279
<v Speaker 3>What else? I mean?

0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:53.239
<v Speaker 2>She must have had twenty five things and all we

0:46:53.280 --> 0:46:57.560
<v Speaker 2>did was let them surface and I had no answers

0:46:57.600 --> 0:46:59.959
<v Speaker 2>at all. It was just like let the river run

0:47:00.000 --> 0:47:02.480
<v Speaker 2>and Claire like say it all. I don't care. I'm

0:47:02.480 --> 0:47:04.360
<v Speaker 2>not going to stop you. We need to talk to

0:47:04.440 --> 0:47:05.400
<v Speaker 2>Kelly Moore. David.

0:47:05.760 --> 0:47:09.040
<v Speaker 4>I know, I know there's a thing called the midwife

0:47:09.080 --> 0:47:11.920
<v Speaker 4>model that your job in some conversations when somebody's hurting

0:47:12.600 --> 0:47:14.279
<v Speaker 4>is your job is not to be the You're not

0:47:14.280 --> 0:47:16.760
<v Speaker 4>giving birth, You're just the midwife. You're helping the person

0:47:16.760 --> 0:47:17.239
<v Speaker 4>give birth.

0:47:17.400 --> 0:47:18.719
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:47:18.800 --> 0:47:24.080
<v Speaker 2>Accompanyment is a noble aspiration person to person. I've never

0:47:24.120 --> 0:47:26.480
<v Speaker 2>even heard of that, so I'm going to think about that.

0:47:26.800 --> 0:47:30.000
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, it's like a pianist accompanying a singer, Like the

0:47:30.040 --> 0:47:32.719
<v Speaker 4>pianist is paying attention to the singer and he knows

0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:34.640
<v Speaker 4>he's not the star, but he's doing what he can

0:47:34.680 --> 0:47:36.719
<v Speaker 4>to make her shiney.

0:47:36.080 --> 0:47:37.160
<v Speaker 2>Like coming up underneath.

0:47:37.200 --> 0:47:38.160
<v Speaker 3>It's so beautiful.

0:47:38.280 --> 0:47:41.000
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.

0:47:41.040 --> 0:47:44.600
<v Speaker 1>After this shortbreak, David, Kelly and I get very pragmatic

0:47:44.680 --> 0:47:47.960
<v Speaker 1>when it comes to having a good conversation about thorny

0:47:48.200 --> 0:47:56.120
<v Speaker 1>tough subjects, including current events. With no fees or minimums.

0:47:56.160 --> 0:47:59.279
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<v Speaker 1>Capital one NA member fdic Kelly and I are back

0:48:24.239 --> 0:48:28.440
<v Speaker 1>with David Brooks. I wanted to ask you, I just

0:48:28.640 --> 0:48:33.759
<v Speaker 1>you know, everything you've talked about, of course, is surfacing

0:48:34.080 --> 0:48:39.560
<v Speaker 1>in the aftermath of those horrific barbarian attacks in Israel

0:48:39.880 --> 0:48:43.960
<v Speaker 1>that were just honestly so unspeak I don't even I

0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:47.640
<v Speaker 1>think words failed to even describe what happened in Israel,

0:48:48.239 --> 0:48:52.480
<v Speaker 1>and now of course the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding

0:48:52.560 --> 0:48:57.120
<v Speaker 1>and Gaza. I think words failed there as well. But

0:48:57.239 --> 0:49:04.440
<v Speaker 1>the reaction, David has been so intense, so angry, so

0:49:04.680 --> 0:49:08.520
<v Speaker 1>lacking in humility. You know that maybe you don't have

0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:12.879
<v Speaker 1>all the answers, And I'm curious how you've seen that

0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:17.960
<v Speaker 1>in light of writing this book and are afraid social relationships,

0:49:18.800 --> 0:49:23.239
<v Speaker 1>how you've used your lens to watch this and analyze it.

0:49:24.239 --> 0:49:26.319
<v Speaker 4>Thank you for asking that. It's obviously been a very

0:49:26.320 --> 0:49:30.080
<v Speaker 4>intense period. I guess at first I've sometimes had the

0:49:30.120 --> 0:49:32.400
<v Speaker 4>thought that we're in this epic battle between the forces

0:49:32.440 --> 0:49:37.239
<v Speaker 4>of dehumanization and the forces of humanization. And if you

0:49:37.280 --> 0:49:40.880
<v Speaker 4>want to know dehumanization, the ultimate form is somebody who

0:49:40.880 --> 0:49:44.720
<v Speaker 4>can go to a music festival and murder and rape

0:49:44.719 --> 0:49:47.680
<v Speaker 4>innocent teenager, very young people. I mean, that is the

0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:49.000
<v Speaker 4>essence of dehumanization.

0:49:49.640 --> 0:49:53.359
<v Speaker 2>It's like they were characters in a video game or something, right.

0:49:53.360 --> 0:49:56.319
<v Speaker 4>It's the failure recognized the humanity of the people right

0:49:56.360 --> 0:49:59.000
<v Speaker 4>in front of you, and to cackle while you're killing them.

0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:03.040
<v Speaker 4>And then, Frank, I saw the Israeli defense ministers say

0:50:03.040 --> 0:50:06.520
<v Speaker 4>we're going to war against animals, and I think Hamas

0:50:06.600 --> 0:50:09.840
<v Speaker 4>is evil, but they are human beings and we just

0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:13.160
<v Speaker 4>shouldn't call human beings animals. First of all, it's not

0:50:13.160 --> 0:50:15.840
<v Speaker 4>fair to the animals. They're not going around committing genocide.

0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:19.480
<v Speaker 4>But also it's just we should always respect there's another

0:50:19.560 --> 0:50:21.440
<v Speaker 4>human being on the side here.

0:50:21.719 --> 0:50:25.480
<v Speaker 1>Well, I think more importantly is that Palestinians are you know,

0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:29.040
<v Speaker 1>Hamas doesn't represent all Palestinians. I mean, honestly, the way

0:50:29.080 --> 0:50:32.440
<v Speaker 1>they behaved, and maybe this is wrong. I had no

0:50:32.560 --> 0:50:36.080
<v Speaker 1>issue with him calling the people who committed these crimes

0:50:36.239 --> 0:50:40.880
<v Speaker 1>animals because they were subhuman. To your point, David, But

0:50:40.960 --> 0:50:45.560
<v Speaker 1>I think the mistake is tarrying all Palestinians living in

0:50:45.600 --> 0:50:47.560
<v Speaker 1>Gaza as such.

0:50:48.200 --> 0:50:50.200
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and some people, you know, you have to fight

0:50:50.239 --> 0:50:52.880
<v Speaker 4>iron with iron. You can't like reason with hamas like,

0:50:53.320 --> 0:50:56.040
<v Speaker 4>you just have to fight them. And that's the grim reality.

0:50:56.400 --> 0:50:58.640
<v Speaker 4>But you know, I was late at night one night,

0:50:58.680 --> 0:51:01.680
<v Speaker 4>I was doom scrolling through Twitter or whatever whatever's left

0:51:01.719 --> 0:51:05.400
<v Speaker 4>of it, and I was seeing all the videos of

0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:08.160
<v Speaker 4>the kids were killed in Israel, the bombings and Gaza,

0:51:08.280 --> 0:51:12.800
<v Speaker 4>just ream of dehumanization. And then I scroll and somehow

0:51:12.800 --> 0:51:15.359
<v Speaker 4>in my Twitter feed there I come across a video

0:51:15.400 --> 0:51:17.760
<v Speaker 4>of a short interview with James Baldwin, the great novelist

0:51:17.840 --> 0:51:21.759
<v Speaker 4>from the fifties and sixties, and he's saying, there's not

0:51:21.840 --> 0:51:24.480
<v Speaker 4>as much humanity in the world as one would like,

0:51:25.160 --> 0:51:28.040
<v Speaker 4>but there's more than you think there's enough. And you

0:51:28.080 --> 0:51:29.799
<v Speaker 4>have to remember when you walk down the street and

0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:32.000
<v Speaker 4>you look at the other people, you have to remember

0:51:32.040 --> 0:51:35.520
<v Speaker 4>you're looking at you. That could be you. You could

0:51:35.520 --> 0:51:38.560
<v Speaker 4>be the cop, you could be the monster, you could

0:51:38.560 --> 0:51:40.759
<v Speaker 4>be the cruel person. And you just have to make

0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:44.120
<v Speaker 4>a conscious choice to decide not to be that. And

0:51:44.160 --> 0:51:47.040
<v Speaker 4>so in the midst of all this dehumanization. When you

0:51:47.080 --> 0:51:52.080
<v Speaker 4>see Baldwin, you see a defiant humanist, a person who's

0:51:52.120 --> 0:51:53.879
<v Speaker 4>not going to put away as humanity in the midst

0:51:53.920 --> 0:51:58.239
<v Speaker 4>of conflict, in the midst of racism, which is dehumanization,

0:51:58.800 --> 0:52:00.640
<v Speaker 4>who's going to try to extend end up for the

0:52:00.719 --> 0:52:04.000
<v Speaker 4>human dignity in the human mind. And I just found

0:52:04.040 --> 0:52:08.360
<v Speaker 4>that defiant humanism in the face of dehumanizing circumstances is

0:52:08.360 --> 0:52:10.719
<v Speaker 4>so inspiring. It's like Mendela coming out of prison in

0:52:10.760 --> 0:52:13.400
<v Speaker 4>South Africa. It's like gold in my ear in Israel,

0:52:13.480 --> 0:52:16.160
<v Speaker 4>in the Middle East, it's like Gandhi in India, like

0:52:16.280 --> 0:52:21.160
<v Speaker 4>in brutal circumstances, discovering your humanity. And I'm a big

0:52:21.160 --> 0:52:23.759
<v Speaker 4>fan of a woman named Eddie Hillissom who was a

0:52:23.840 --> 0:52:27.440
<v Speaker 4>Jewish woman and grew up in Amsterdam the thirties and forties,

0:52:28.280 --> 0:52:31.799
<v Speaker 4>and when the Nazis occupied Germany. At that point she

0:52:31.840 --> 0:52:34.680
<v Speaker 4>was twenty five and frankly self indulgent and a little spoiled.

0:52:35.719 --> 0:52:38.560
<v Speaker 4>But over the next few years she was transformed into

0:52:38.600 --> 0:52:41.719
<v Speaker 4>someone who was basically a human saint who spent her

0:52:41.760 --> 0:52:45.239
<v Speaker 4>time caring for those other Jews in Amsterdam who are

0:52:45.239 --> 0:52:48.759
<v Speaker 4>in danger of getting shipped to Auschwitz, and she was

0:52:48.800 --> 0:52:54.080
<v Speaker 4>remembered as this warm, glowing, other centered person, and her

0:52:54.160 --> 0:52:58.160
<v Speaker 4>biographer wrote of her, she changed by paying attention. She

0:52:58.280 --> 0:53:01.560
<v Speaker 4>paid close attention to the people who were suffering, and

0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:04.640
<v Speaker 4>by power of that attention, she sort of grew by looking.

0:53:05.640 --> 0:53:08.280
<v Speaker 4>And so she understood the anxiety in some of these voice,

0:53:08.360 --> 0:53:11.440
<v Speaker 4>the fear in somebody else's, and in that way she

0:53:11.560 --> 0:53:14.720
<v Speaker 4>was transformed. And I've always found her example of somebody

0:53:14.719 --> 0:53:18.280
<v Speaker 4>who refused to get numb by bitterness, and who insisted

0:53:18.320 --> 0:53:23.120
<v Speaker 4>on being open and available and giving and accompanying people

0:53:24.040 --> 0:53:25.560
<v Speaker 4>even in the most brutal time.

0:53:25.960 --> 0:53:28.840
<v Speaker 2>I actually think that goes to the single most important

0:53:28.840 --> 0:53:31.560
<v Speaker 2>line in your book, which is that our greatest moral

0:53:31.600 --> 0:53:33.000
<v Speaker 2>act is the quality of our attention.

0:53:34.320 --> 0:53:38.560
<v Speaker 1>You also quote Peggy Noonan saying people are proud of

0:53:38.600 --> 0:53:39.440
<v Speaker 1>their bitterness.

0:53:39.520 --> 0:53:43.040
<v Speaker 4>Now, yeah, in every one of Peggy's columns there are

0:53:43.080 --> 0:53:44.960
<v Speaker 4>like three or four sentences you want to clip out

0:53:44.960 --> 0:53:45.680
<v Speaker 4>and say forever.

0:53:46.160 --> 0:53:49.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's true, isn't it? But it is depressing. And

0:53:50.440 --> 0:53:55.800
<v Speaker 1>you know, I have been chagrined that this whole idea

0:53:55.800 --> 0:54:01.879
<v Speaker 1>of practicing dialectical thinking holding two opposing views at once. Yes,

0:54:02.560 --> 0:54:08.680
<v Speaker 1>the Israeli policies towards Gaza have been in some cases inhumane,

0:54:09.480 --> 0:54:17.359
<v Speaker 1>and this attack was unconscionable and deserves universal condemnation. And

0:54:17.520 --> 0:54:20.359
<v Speaker 1>it just doesn't seem like people can hold those two

0:54:20.480 --> 0:54:25.080
<v Speaker 1>thoughts at once. Some people can, but they're even being

0:54:25.120 --> 0:54:29.040
<v Speaker 1>accused of being complicit if they're holding these two thoughts.

0:54:29.080 --> 0:54:33.120
<v Speaker 1>And for me as a journalist, honestly, it's been very,

0:54:33.239 --> 0:54:37.840
<v Speaker 1>very difficult to cover this because I get angry DMS

0:54:37.960 --> 0:54:42.160
<v Speaker 1>twenty four to seven from both sides. And do you

0:54:42.239 --> 0:54:46.359
<v Speaker 1>think they're people who are able to try to look

0:54:46.400 --> 0:54:52.640
<v Speaker 1>at to have empathy for both places or are those

0:54:52.680 --> 0:54:53.839
<v Speaker 1>people in the minority?

0:54:54.320 --> 0:54:57.680
<v Speaker 2>And could we potentially gin up some empathy for the

0:54:57.719 --> 0:55:01.359
<v Speaker 2>people who are so drawn to certainty, Like could we

0:55:01.440 --> 0:55:05.240
<v Speaker 2>say to all the people in your DMS, of course

0:55:05.280 --> 0:55:07.479
<v Speaker 2>you want it to be black and white. Of course

0:55:07.520 --> 0:55:10.399
<v Speaker 2>you want it to be clear as day. Of course

0:55:10.440 --> 0:55:12.799
<v Speaker 2>you want it to be unequivocal, Like we want that

0:55:13.280 --> 0:55:18.080
<v Speaker 2>every time everything comes across our transom, that's what we do.

0:55:18.320 --> 0:55:20.680
<v Speaker 2>We're sorting as fast as we can good or bad,

0:55:20.719 --> 0:55:21.560
<v Speaker 2>good or bad, good or bad.

0:55:21.880 --> 0:55:23.680
<v Speaker 1>But things aren't good or bad. I mean, I think

0:55:23.719 --> 0:55:27.719
<v Speaker 1>you're talking about factor fiction, but things are messy right,

0:55:27.760 --> 0:55:33.560
<v Speaker 1>they're nuanced, They're complicated totally. And people are so righteous, yes,

0:55:34.239 --> 0:55:37.040
<v Speaker 1>and you can understand that. And I want to be empathetic,

0:55:37.080 --> 0:55:40.400
<v Speaker 1>as you say, Kelly, to those who are righteous, because

0:55:40.440 --> 0:55:44.279
<v Speaker 1>I think they are bearing the burden of, you know,

0:55:45.000 --> 0:55:51.799
<v Speaker 1>decades of oppression or decades of fear, decades of anti Semitism,

0:55:51.920 --> 0:55:56.920
<v Speaker 1>or decades of being thought you're less than because of

0:55:56.960 --> 0:56:01.040
<v Speaker 1>your circumstances. So I get it. It's just so hard

0:56:01.080 --> 0:56:01.880
<v Speaker 1>to navigate.

0:56:02.000 --> 0:56:02.360
<v Speaker 2>David.

0:56:02.760 --> 0:56:06.120
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you know, I covered it for twenty years or so,

0:56:06.600 --> 0:56:09.439
<v Speaker 4>and it was the hardest thing to write about because

0:56:09.440 --> 0:56:11.680
<v Speaker 4>people are so polarized about that as issue. But I

0:56:11.719 --> 0:56:13.919
<v Speaker 4>remember once I was at a dinner at when Shimo

0:56:14.000 --> 0:56:15.960
<v Speaker 4>and Peiz was president of Israel. Heated dinner with like

0:56:16.000 --> 0:56:19.440
<v Speaker 4>forty or fifty people, and he invited the Palestinian leadership

0:56:19.560 --> 0:56:22.279
<v Speaker 4>was there. I remember Abu Allah, who was a lead

0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:26.120
<v Speaker 4>Palestinian negotiator, and then the Israeli people who had been

0:56:26.120 --> 0:56:28.480
<v Speaker 4>in the peace process for all their lives. It was

0:56:28.520 --> 0:56:31.359
<v Speaker 4>a un named Dan Meridor and others, and a bunch

0:56:31.400 --> 0:56:34.200
<v Speaker 4>of journalists were invited, and there was such a warmth

0:56:34.280 --> 0:56:36.920
<v Speaker 4>in the room that it was as if everybody in

0:56:37.000 --> 0:56:38.600
<v Speaker 4>the room was like a bunch of old guys who

0:56:38.640 --> 0:56:41.480
<v Speaker 4>were in the peace process business, and they had been

0:56:41.520 --> 0:56:45.120
<v Speaker 4>through crises, they'd been through years and decades of negotiation,

0:56:45.960 --> 0:56:48.520
<v Speaker 4>and I remember that warmth and there. This was back

0:56:48.560 --> 0:56:51.799
<v Speaker 4>in the nineties when it really did seem like peace

0:56:51.880 --> 0:56:54.520
<v Speaker 4>was at hand, and those were people who were just

0:56:54.560 --> 0:56:57.520
<v Speaker 4>dealing with the complexities of the situation, like how do

0:56:57.560 --> 0:57:01.480
<v Speaker 4>we have a settlement where the Palestine get sovereignty over

0:57:01.560 --> 0:57:05.080
<v Speaker 4>the Aluxeamosque and the Jews get sovereignty over the Western Wall?

0:57:05.680 --> 0:57:07.840
<v Speaker 4>How do you do that? How practicality is how you

0:57:07.880 --> 0:57:12.400
<v Speaker 4>do it? Now, nobody's talking about practicalities. Frankly, it's all theater.

0:57:12.760 --> 0:57:16.040
<v Speaker 4>It's all terror theater, and people are just trying to

0:57:16.040 --> 0:57:19.800
<v Speaker 4>get their message and their narrative across without just the

0:57:20.240 --> 0:57:22.600
<v Speaker 4>elements of like how actually would you have a two

0:57:22.640 --> 0:57:26.000
<v Speaker 4>state solution? And I think what's happened is that both

0:57:26.000 --> 0:57:31.400
<v Speaker 4>sides have given up on practical thinking. They just have decided, well,

0:57:31.480 --> 0:57:34.240
<v Speaker 4>we'll postpone when we get but we're going to get

0:57:34.240 --> 0:57:36.240
<v Speaker 4>it all. Someday we're going to get it all. We're

0:57:36.280 --> 0:57:38.960
<v Speaker 4>going to wish that the other side didn't exist. And

0:57:39.000 --> 0:57:41.000
<v Speaker 4>that's just not true, and the other side is going

0:57:41.040 --> 0:57:43.200
<v Speaker 4>to be there forever and ever, and yet we're into

0:57:43.280 --> 0:57:45.760
<v Speaker 4>the just I want to make a statement on Instagram

0:57:46.080 --> 0:57:48.480
<v Speaker 4>and that's how I wage my politics these days.

0:57:48.240 --> 0:57:51.120
<v Speaker 2>And that's what wins. I mean nobody. I have this

0:57:51.520 --> 0:57:54.360
<v Speaker 2>scientist friend, Lisa Feldman Barrett, who I think you know, David,

0:57:54.560 --> 0:57:57.080
<v Speaker 2>and she's often quoted. She's like one of the top

0:57:57.160 --> 0:58:00.480
<v Speaker 2>one percent of scientists quoted in other people's reach, but

0:58:00.560 --> 0:58:02.880
<v Speaker 2>she's never in the paper. And I said, why aren't

0:58:02.880 --> 0:58:04.600
<v Speaker 2>you in the paper? And she said, because I won't

0:58:04.640 --> 0:58:08.080
<v Speaker 2>say unequivocal things. And that's not what anyone wants to hear.

0:58:08.120 --> 0:58:10.720
<v Speaker 2>So the journalists hang up and they call another scientist

0:58:10.720 --> 0:58:13.600
<v Speaker 2>who will say, oh, yes, it's always this or it's

0:58:13.640 --> 0:58:18.560
<v Speaker 2>always that, like black and white cells, and nuance is exhausting,

0:58:19.400 --> 0:58:24.040
<v Speaker 2>like vitriol is very energizing. Righteousness you talk faster, you

0:58:24.080 --> 0:58:26.800
<v Speaker 2>sit up higher, you draw people to you. It's like

0:58:26.880 --> 0:58:30.880
<v Speaker 2>a total ego buzz and like sitting around saying like, Eh,

0:58:31.000 --> 0:58:33.360
<v Speaker 2>this is really complicated. Look what are you going to

0:58:33.440 --> 0:58:33.960
<v Speaker 2>do about that?

0:58:34.120 --> 0:58:37.480
<v Speaker 1>Well, it's an engagement through enragement, right, I mean exactly

0:58:37.560 --> 0:58:40.160
<v Speaker 1>the whole name of the game. These days, you know,

0:58:40.280 --> 0:58:42.280
<v Speaker 1>David Kelly, and I I think could talk to you

0:58:42.360 --> 0:58:45.440
<v Speaker 1>all day. But I'm curious as you look to the

0:58:45.480 --> 0:58:50.880
<v Speaker 1>future because i hate to say it, but I'm very pessimistic.

0:58:51.200 --> 0:58:56.120
<v Speaker 1>I mean, I guess, you know, in terms of solving

0:58:56.440 --> 0:59:00.520
<v Speaker 1>these issues and changing it on a macro level. So

0:59:01.680 --> 0:59:04.120
<v Speaker 1>when all is said and done, is the best thing

0:59:04.200 --> 0:59:07.800
<v Speaker 1>you can say to people is change your life on

0:59:07.840 --> 0:59:13.080
<v Speaker 1>a personal level. That developing these bonds and these friendships

0:59:13.160 --> 0:59:17.120
<v Speaker 1>will somehow bubble up and make the world a kinder,

0:59:17.240 --> 0:59:21.240
<v Speaker 1>gentler place. To paraphrase George Bush Senior.

0:59:22.520 --> 0:59:24.720
<v Speaker 4>You know, I think we need top down change, Like

0:59:24.760 --> 0:59:26.560
<v Speaker 4>it's very hard to have a calm society when your

0:59:26.600 --> 0:59:29.200
<v Speaker 4>political leaders are ripping it apart, ripping it to shreds

0:59:29.200 --> 0:59:31.600
<v Speaker 4>from the top. But we also need bottom up And

0:59:31.640 --> 0:59:34.280
<v Speaker 4>when you look at moments in world history where in

0:59:34.360 --> 0:59:37.840
<v Speaker 4>societies have really turned themselves around, and there are examples

0:59:37.840 --> 0:59:40.160
<v Speaker 4>of this and written in the between eighteen thirty and

0:59:40.200 --> 0:59:42.800
<v Speaker 4>eighteen forty eight. In eighteen thirty, it was like a

0:59:42.840 --> 0:59:47.120
<v Speaker 4>totally screwed up society where alcoholism was rampant, domestic violence

0:59:47.200 --> 0:59:50.120
<v Speaker 4>was rampant, poverty and cruelty, and by eighteen forty eight,

0:59:50.400 --> 0:59:52.800
<v Speaker 4>you know, it was suddenly no longer acceptable to get

0:59:52.920 --> 0:59:55.360
<v Speaker 4>drunk and beat your wife the way it was acceptable

0:59:55.360 --> 0:59:57.840
<v Speaker 4>thirty years before that, And so you had the beginnings

0:59:57.840 --> 1:00:02.160
<v Speaker 4>of Victorian morality. And this country between eighteen ninety and

1:00:02.360 --> 1:00:05.360
<v Speaker 4>nineteen twenty or so, we took a society that was

1:00:05.440 --> 1:00:08.840
<v Speaker 4>pretty brutal, filled with economic uncertainty, and we became a

1:00:08.920 --> 1:00:13.360
<v Speaker 4>much more trusting society. And so you need top down

1:00:13.440 --> 1:00:16.480
<v Speaker 4>political change, like in the our case, the progressive movement

1:00:16.480 --> 1:00:19.520
<v Speaker 4>in nineteen tens, but you also need bottom up civic

1:00:19.520 --> 1:00:22.800
<v Speaker 4>and relational change and cultural change. And so to me,

1:00:22.880 --> 1:00:26.320
<v Speaker 4>you can't have a society at the top with democracy

1:00:26.920 --> 1:00:29.919
<v Speaker 4>if you don't have trust at the bottom. And two

1:00:29.960 --> 1:00:32.840
<v Speaker 4>generations ago, if you ask people do you trust your neighbors,

1:00:33.600 --> 1:00:37.200
<v Speaker 4>it's sixty percent say yeah, people my Neighborho's are pretty trustworthy.

1:00:37.640 --> 1:00:40.760
<v Speaker 4>Now that's down to thirty percent and nineteen percent of

1:00:40.800 --> 1:00:43.840
<v Speaker 4>millennials and Gen Z. And so the only way to

1:00:43.880 --> 1:00:47.000
<v Speaker 4>fix that is trustworthy behavior, showing up for each other,

1:00:47.680 --> 1:00:49.480
<v Speaker 4>having a sense that as I go through my life

1:00:49.480 --> 1:00:53.240
<v Speaker 4>in the casual encounters of life at grocery store, at

1:00:53.240 --> 1:00:55.800
<v Speaker 4>a coffee shop with somebody buying a cash register. There's

1:00:55.840 --> 1:00:58.840
<v Speaker 4>a little hint of recognition with each other, and then

1:00:59.160 --> 1:01:01.960
<v Speaker 4>better relationships with my neighbors, better still relationships with my

1:01:01.960 --> 1:01:06.280
<v Speaker 4>close friends. And so I'm enmeshed in this dance, this

1:01:06.440 --> 1:01:09.200
<v Speaker 4>dance of people who are looking at me and are

1:01:09.240 --> 1:01:12.280
<v Speaker 4>hearing me in big ways in little ways, and then

1:01:12.360 --> 1:01:14.440
<v Speaker 4>you begin to feel calm. Then you really kind of

1:01:14.520 --> 1:01:18.080
<v Speaker 4>establish a trusting work relationship. But it requires those minute,

1:01:18.120 --> 1:01:19.560
<v Speaker 4>daily interactions of life.

1:01:20.000 --> 1:01:23.680
<v Speaker 1>When I ask the barista, how are you, she says,

1:01:23.880 --> 1:01:28.120
<v Speaker 1>I'm good, Thank you for asking. I mean, it really

1:01:28.240 --> 1:01:34.520
<v Speaker 1>only takes very simple interactions to have an open heart

1:01:34.560 --> 1:01:38.600
<v Speaker 1>and to actually care in big ways but small ways

1:01:38.640 --> 1:01:41.480
<v Speaker 1>as well, you know, to smile at the person on

1:01:41.560 --> 1:01:45.440
<v Speaker 1>the street, or I don't know, I've always been that person.

1:01:45.640 --> 1:01:48.280
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what it is about me, but I

1:01:48.360 --> 1:01:51.480
<v Speaker 1>see part of my job is to make somebody's day

1:01:51.520 --> 1:01:54.640
<v Speaker 1>a little bit better. And I sound like Shirley Temple

1:01:54.760 --> 1:01:55.080
<v Speaker 1>right now.

1:01:55.640 --> 1:01:56.520
<v Speaker 4>No, that's why we love you.

1:01:56.600 --> 1:01:59.840
<v Speaker 2>Kaddun with you and you are making so many people.

1:02:00.360 --> 1:02:02.920
<v Speaker 1>But Kelly, you too, and now David you too. I

1:02:02.960 --> 1:02:06.040
<v Speaker 1>think it takes a little bit of effort. It takes

1:02:06.720 --> 1:02:09.360
<v Speaker 1>a second, you know, And John gets mad at me

1:02:09.440 --> 1:02:12.800
<v Speaker 1>sometimes when people occasionally approach me or they want a

1:02:12.840 --> 1:02:16.680
<v Speaker 1>selfie or whatever. He says, exit question exit questions, because

1:02:16.720 --> 1:02:19.600
<v Speaker 1>I do end up sort of hearing their life story

1:02:19.720 --> 1:02:22.720
<v Speaker 1>in some cases. But I think, you know, if I

1:02:22.800 --> 1:02:26.320
<v Speaker 1>can make someone happy or feel seen coming back to

1:02:26.360 --> 1:02:31.040
<v Speaker 1>the book and feel important and they are by the way,

1:02:31.680 --> 1:02:34.760
<v Speaker 1>I feel like that small amount of effort is so

1:02:35.080 --> 1:02:37.160
<v Speaker 1>worth it. Plus I don't want them telling their friends

1:02:37.160 --> 1:02:38.120
<v Speaker 1>I was a real bitch.

1:02:39.960 --> 1:02:44.320
<v Speaker 2>They're sad as well. All altruism is self servey.

1:02:44.440 --> 1:02:47.360
<v Speaker 3>You see, Taylor was riped. It all goes back to swift.

1:02:48.840 --> 1:02:52.520
<v Speaker 2>Isn't there some great social science around the value of

1:02:52.560 --> 1:02:53.240
<v Speaker 2>weak ties?

1:02:53.720 --> 1:02:57.320
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there's. First, as Katie was talking, when my youngest

1:02:57.320 --> 1:02:59.680
<v Speaker 4>son was nine, somebody came up to me on the

1:02:59.720 --> 1:03:02.240
<v Speaker 4>street to say that my work whatever. And my son

1:03:02.280 --> 1:03:03.960
<v Speaker 4>looks at me afterwards and said, you know, they come

1:03:03.960 --> 1:03:05.040
<v Speaker 4>for you, but they stay for.

1:03:05.080 --> 1:03:10.400
<v Speaker 3>Me, so right, So right? Is he a stand up?

1:03:11.040 --> 1:03:13.000
<v Speaker 4>He wanted to be at that age he wanted to

1:03:13.040 --> 1:03:13.680
<v Speaker 4>be a stand up.

1:03:13.760 --> 1:03:15.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's funny.

1:03:15.520 --> 1:03:17.800
<v Speaker 4>There is. Yeah, the strength of weak ties is like

1:03:18.040 --> 1:03:20.120
<v Speaker 4>if you want a job or you want an opportunity,

1:03:20.440 --> 1:03:22.400
<v Speaker 4>the people you know well know all the things you know,

1:03:22.680 --> 1:03:24.400
<v Speaker 4>but the people you don't know well know things you

1:03:24.400 --> 1:03:28.160
<v Speaker 4>don't know, and so it's it's those weak connections. And conversely,

1:03:28.680 --> 1:03:31.520
<v Speaker 4>you were talking about being nice to the barista. If

1:03:31.920 --> 1:03:34.320
<v Speaker 4>if somebody at a cash register is cruel to me

1:03:34.440 --> 1:03:38.120
<v Speaker 4>or aloof or cold and clearly pissed off at the world,

1:03:38.680 --> 1:03:42.360
<v Speaker 4>it dampens your day. I mean, these these minute interactions

1:03:42.800 --> 1:03:46.080
<v Speaker 4>are weirdly powerful and shaping how you go through, you know, life.

1:03:46.480 --> 1:03:48.960
<v Speaker 2>Sometimes I have to nudge myself to look someone right

1:03:49.000 --> 1:03:52.360
<v Speaker 2>in the eyes, Like I just did it yesterday, taking

1:03:52.360 --> 1:03:55.920
<v Speaker 2>this oil painting class, and it was the last class,

1:03:56.000 --> 1:04:01.080
<v Speaker 2>and I wanted to thank the instructor, and rather than

1:04:01.120 --> 1:04:02.640
<v Speaker 2>I put a lot of words on it and do

1:04:02.680 --> 1:04:04.680
<v Speaker 2>a big show, I just made sure that I had

1:04:04.720 --> 1:04:08.200
<v Speaker 2>her eyes, you know, for two or three seconds, and

1:04:08.240 --> 1:04:10.320
<v Speaker 2>I just said thank you so much. I've loved this

1:04:11.840 --> 1:04:15.560
<v Speaker 2>and it was like a thing like eye contact, like

1:04:15.680 --> 1:04:19.960
<v Speaker 2>real eye contact. Iyebought eyeball is more rare than I

1:04:20.000 --> 1:04:24.400
<v Speaker 2>wish it was, because it's way more impactful than a

1:04:24.400 --> 1:04:25.640
<v Speaker 2>whole bunch of words.

1:04:26.360 --> 1:04:30.280
<v Speaker 1>Well, I love this book, and David, you know, I'm

1:04:30.320 --> 1:04:31.200
<v Speaker 1>a huge fan.

1:04:32.680 --> 1:04:34.160
<v Speaker 2>And I always have been.

1:04:34.240 --> 1:04:38.600
<v Speaker 1>I find you're writing more often than not, Like Peggy

1:04:38.680 --> 1:04:42.680
<v Speaker 1>Noonan's more than a phrase. I find the things you

1:04:42.720 --> 1:04:47.760
<v Speaker 1>say really profound and really influenced me in a positive way.

1:04:47.920 --> 1:04:50.800
<v Speaker 1>So I would like to say thank you for all

1:04:50.840 --> 1:04:53.760
<v Speaker 1>your writing, thank you for being so vulnerable and honest

1:04:53.840 --> 1:04:57.040
<v Speaker 1>about your desire to grow as a person, because I

1:04:57.080 --> 1:05:00.760
<v Speaker 1>think all of us want that despite all the societal

1:05:00.840 --> 1:05:03.880
<v Speaker 1>things that are swirling around us that are actually working

1:05:03.960 --> 1:05:07.880
<v Speaker 1>against that. And you know, all I can say is

1:05:08.080 --> 1:05:11.680
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to try to see people even more because

1:05:11.720 --> 1:05:15.320
<v Speaker 1>I think we can always do better at that. And

1:05:15.960 --> 1:05:19.120
<v Speaker 1>I think I'm also going to focus on my really

1:05:19.680 --> 1:05:23.160
<v Speaker 1>deep relationships because I think for me, I have so

1:05:23.280 --> 1:05:27.160
<v Speaker 1>many friends and so many acquaintances, and because I'm interested

1:05:27.160 --> 1:05:31.200
<v Speaker 1>in everyone, sometimes I'm spread too thin and I can't

1:05:31.200 --> 1:05:34.720
<v Speaker 1>be a good friend to the people who really really matter.

1:05:35.280 --> 1:05:38.640
<v Speaker 1>So I think that's important too, because there just aren't

1:05:38.760 --> 1:05:42.400
<v Speaker 1>enough hours in the day to have this kind of

1:05:42.440 --> 1:05:43.720
<v Speaker 1>relationship with people.

1:05:44.400 --> 1:05:46.280
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that things were of being spread too thin. I

1:05:46.320 --> 1:05:47.840
<v Speaker 4>was just talking to my wife about this, Like, we

1:05:47.920 --> 1:05:51.080
<v Speaker 4>have a friend who her marriage split up, and we

1:05:51.160 --> 1:05:52.800
<v Speaker 4>learned about it a couple weeks so, and we like,

1:05:53.200 --> 1:05:55.240
<v Speaker 4>you should break everything and be there for her at

1:05:55.280 --> 1:05:58.080
<v Speaker 4>that moment. But then we got this obligation in that obligation,

1:05:58.640 --> 1:06:01.320
<v Speaker 4>and so I think we were thinking, you just have

1:06:01.360 --> 1:06:03.920
<v Speaker 4>to be ruthless. Like whatever obligation we're going to have

1:06:03.920 --> 1:06:06.520
<v Speaker 4>to break, we won't remember it, but we will remember

1:06:06.640 --> 1:06:10.160
<v Speaker 4>being there for her at that moment, and I will say,

1:06:10.560 --> 1:06:12.800
<v Speaker 4>it's just such a pleasure to be with you. Guys.

1:06:12.800 --> 1:06:15.320
<v Speaker 4>You guys are the superstars of this skill I'm trying

1:06:15.320 --> 1:06:17.720
<v Speaker 4>to learn. And Katie, where you just did there? Like

1:06:18.160 --> 1:06:19.720
<v Speaker 4>one way one of the things I learned is how

1:06:19.720 --> 1:06:22.480
<v Speaker 4>to end a conversation is you thank somebody for their time,

1:06:22.480 --> 1:06:26.480
<v Speaker 4>but then you specify something you really appreciated they told you,

1:06:27.360 --> 1:06:29.600
<v Speaker 4>and then you say it thanks, it's been great to

1:06:29.600 --> 1:06:31.760
<v Speaker 4>be with you. And when they end the conversation gracefully

1:06:31.760 --> 1:06:33.840
<v Speaker 4>in that way, it's like they put a cherry on

1:06:33.920 --> 1:06:36.240
<v Speaker 4>top you feel. You feel, oh yeah, what they liked

1:06:36.280 --> 1:06:38.800
<v Speaker 4>about me is when I said that interesting thing about

1:06:39.040 --> 1:06:41.320
<v Speaker 4>or told that interesting story and you think, wow, that

1:06:41.960 --> 1:06:45.480
<v Speaker 4>person's a great listener. So another discreete tip on how

1:06:45.480 --> 1:06:46.960
<v Speaker 4>to end conversations gracefully.

1:06:47.040 --> 1:06:49.240
<v Speaker 2>All right, so here's my ending for you. I was

1:06:49.280 --> 1:06:51.440
<v Speaker 2>gonna say, I don't want it to end go ahead, Kelly.

1:06:52.160 --> 1:06:53.959
<v Speaker 3>I like that you've been willing to.

1:06:55.480 --> 1:07:00.680
<v Speaker 2>Modulate in public, Like I think that there's real fear

1:07:00.720 --> 1:07:03.560
<v Speaker 2>of people public figures saying I was wrong or I

1:07:03.640 --> 1:07:06.040
<v Speaker 2>changed my mind, and I think it's to the great

1:07:06.040 --> 1:07:08.640
<v Speaker 2>detriment of society. Like people should change their mind as

1:07:08.680 --> 1:07:12.240
<v Speaker 2>new information becomes available, as new evidence surfaces, we should

1:07:12.280 --> 1:07:17.280
<v Speaker 2>adjust accordingly, of course, And for some reason, it's sort

1:07:17.320 --> 1:07:21.560
<v Speaker 2>of not done with public figures. And the way that

1:07:21.600 --> 1:07:26.040
<v Speaker 2>your feelings about your party, the Republican Party have evolved

1:07:26.320 --> 1:07:29.200
<v Speaker 2>over time for all of us to see, I think

1:07:29.320 --> 1:07:33.160
<v Speaker 2>is a model for other people whose feelings might similarly

1:07:33.200 --> 1:07:38.520
<v Speaker 2>be evolving over time. And it's essential that we set

1:07:38.720 --> 1:07:40.400
<v Speaker 2>each other free in this way.

1:07:41.520 --> 1:07:43.560
<v Speaker 3>So thanks, thank you.

1:07:43.560 --> 1:07:46.720
<v Speaker 4>You know, I've always thought politics is a competition between

1:07:46.800 --> 1:07:51.240
<v Speaker 4>partial truths, that in most issues both sides have something right,

1:07:52.160 --> 1:07:54.120
<v Speaker 4>and the key is to try to find the balance

1:07:54.160 --> 1:07:57.840
<v Speaker 4>in that circumstance. And you never, I found you never

1:07:57.880 --> 1:07:59.920
<v Speaker 4>want to be too especially as a journalist, to be

1:08:00.160 --> 1:08:03.080
<v Speaker 4>too associated with one party or not. And so I

1:08:03.160 --> 1:08:06.240
<v Speaker 4>was conservative. I was never really Republican because I didn't

1:08:06.280 --> 1:08:07.840
<v Speaker 4>want to be part of a team, because that like

1:08:07.920 --> 1:08:10.400
<v Speaker 4>limits your thinking. And now one of my heroes is

1:08:10.440 --> 1:08:13.840
<v Speaker 4>this guy at Philosopher, Isaiah Eberlyn. He said, I'm on

1:08:13.880 --> 1:08:16.960
<v Speaker 4>the right word edge of the left word tendency, and

1:08:17.040 --> 1:08:19.120
<v Speaker 4>so that's where I am these days. I'm on the

1:08:19.160 --> 1:08:21.599
<v Speaker 4>right word edge of the left wore tendency. So happy

1:08:21.600 --> 1:08:22.040
<v Speaker 4>to be there.

1:08:22.600 --> 1:08:26.360
<v Speaker 1>Oh my god, a whole other podcast about what the

1:08:26.360 --> 1:08:29.439
<v Speaker 1>hell is happening with the GOP, David, But that'll have

1:08:29.600 --> 1:08:32.719
<v Speaker 1>to be for your next book or your next column,

1:08:32.800 --> 1:08:36.439
<v Speaker 1>because what a mess. But we'll lend on a happier note.

1:08:36.479 --> 1:08:39.360
<v Speaker 1>Good luck with the book, David. I really hope people

1:08:39.400 --> 1:08:42.000
<v Speaker 1>will read it because I do think it'll improve their lives.

1:08:42.160 --> 1:08:44.559
<v Speaker 1>And are you doing a big book tour? Are you

1:08:44.640 --> 1:08:46.559
<v Speaker 1>talking to a lot of people? How are you getting

1:08:46.560 --> 1:08:47.120
<v Speaker 1>the word out?

1:08:47.360 --> 1:08:49.439
<v Speaker 4>Yeah? I get to go on a tour of America.

1:08:49.479 --> 1:08:51.840
<v Speaker 4>I tell my musician friends, imagine a rock tour with

1:08:51.880 --> 1:08:55.720
<v Speaker 4>all the fun taken out, and so it's like, I mean,

1:08:55.760 --> 1:08:57.760
<v Speaker 4>the fun part is I get to meet people and

1:08:57.800 --> 1:08:59.760
<v Speaker 4>give talks and you know, do signings.

1:09:00.240 --> 1:09:03.200
<v Speaker 2>Thank you so much, and Kelly, what a treat to

1:09:03.240 --> 1:09:04.840
<v Speaker 2>have you with me anytime.

1:09:05.080 --> 1:09:08.760
<v Speaker 1>David, You're the best. My love to Anne and thank

1:09:08.800 --> 1:09:10.040
<v Speaker 1>you for writing this book.

1:09:10.640 --> 1:09:13.360
<v Speaker 4>Thank you for doing this. Of course, deeply appreciate both

1:09:13.360 --> 1:09:14.080
<v Speaker 4>of you, LEAs.

1:09:20.920 --> 1:09:23.840
<v Speaker 2>So Kelly, that was so fun. That was so fun.

1:09:24.000 --> 1:09:25.759
<v Speaker 2>I know, I loved it. It was great.

1:09:26.280 --> 1:09:29.280
<v Speaker 1>Thank you for doing this with me. I loved that conversation,

1:09:29.360 --> 1:09:31.760
<v Speaker 1>and I honestly I loved having it with you.

1:09:31.960 --> 1:09:34.519
<v Speaker 2>Well, I'll do it anytime. I loved it too, and

1:09:34.560 --> 1:09:37.519
<v Speaker 2>I love seeing your little face. I was just thinking

1:09:37.560 --> 1:09:40.439
<v Speaker 2>that the one question that we didn't get to fall

1:09:40.479 --> 1:09:43.200
<v Speaker 2>into was the male female side of this, which is

1:09:43.240 --> 1:09:47.000
<v Speaker 2>to say, it's really quite different in terms of potential

1:09:47.040 --> 1:09:51.360
<v Speaker 2>impact for this kind of content to be coming from

1:09:51.400 --> 1:09:59.439
<v Speaker 2>a conservative male columnist rather than say, a female psychologist, right.

1:10:00.000 --> 1:10:03.840
<v Speaker 2>And I was also laughing sometimes when I was reading it.

1:10:03.880 --> 1:10:05.240
<v Speaker 2>I was thinking, Oh, this is going to be so

1:10:05.360 --> 1:10:07.160
<v Speaker 2>funny for Katie and I to be talking to him

1:10:07.160 --> 1:10:09.799
<v Speaker 2>about this, because you and I are like holding people

1:10:09.800 --> 1:10:13.479
<v Speaker 2>in the supermarket checkout line, you know, because they're telling

1:10:13.600 --> 1:10:18.200
<v Speaker 2>us things on a street corner that he is just

1:10:18.360 --> 1:10:21.920
<v Speaker 2>now learning how to elicit from a person. And I

1:10:22.080 --> 1:10:27.920
<v Speaker 2>just wonder if many female listeners will agree that we

1:10:28.120 --> 1:10:33.840
<v Speaker 2>have a tremendous amount of practice in this kind of conversation.

1:10:34.240 --> 1:10:38.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and a distinct advantage yeah, and well, I think

1:10:38.560 --> 1:10:43.360
<v Speaker 1>men are conditioned to keep a type less emotionally attuned

1:10:43.400 --> 1:10:46.280
<v Speaker 1>to people. So I think I hope men read this book.

1:10:47.280 --> 1:10:51.000
<v Speaker 1>And although I really think everyone could use it, I

1:10:51.040 --> 1:10:55.040
<v Speaker 1>think yes, women are I think more emotionally available. Although

1:10:55.080 --> 1:10:57.840
<v Speaker 1>you can't generalize too much, but I think all of

1:10:57.920 --> 1:11:00.800
<v Speaker 1>us could learn. I mean, I feel like I could

1:11:00.840 --> 1:11:04.280
<v Speaker 1>be better. And I also think the bottom line of

1:11:04.320 --> 1:11:08.320
<v Speaker 1>what David talked about, which is kind of captain obvious here,

1:11:08.360 --> 1:11:12.240
<v Speaker 1>but I'm going to say it anyway, is is ask questions.

1:11:12.720 --> 1:11:17.120
<v Speaker 1>You know, if you're in a social situation, or you

1:11:17.240 --> 1:11:21.080
<v Speaker 1>are out on a date or with people. If you

1:11:21.320 --> 1:11:25.760
<v Speaker 1>ask questions, if you are interested, people love to tell

1:11:25.800 --> 1:11:30.880
<v Speaker 1>you their story. They love to talk about themselves. And conversely,

1:11:31.600 --> 1:11:35.000
<v Speaker 1>if somebody doesn't ask you a question, you know, if

1:11:35.040 --> 1:11:37.479
<v Speaker 1>you're out on a date or something, you know, I

1:11:37.560 --> 1:11:40.360
<v Speaker 1>say this to people I know who are single and

1:11:40.439 --> 1:11:46.240
<v Speaker 1>the person doesn't ask you a question, check please, because bbye,

1:11:46.840 --> 1:11:51.400
<v Speaker 1>you know no kind of empathy or interest or curiosity

1:11:51.439 --> 1:11:54.760
<v Speaker 1>about you. So I think whenever you find yourself in

1:11:54.800 --> 1:11:58.760
<v Speaker 1>a sticky situation or you're at a party, just ask

1:11:58.920 --> 1:12:04.960
<v Speaker 1>questions and everything else will follow. It's so simple. But

1:12:05.120 --> 1:12:09.760
<v Speaker 1>something that I think people are not necessarily taught. So

1:12:10.080 --> 1:12:16.639
<v Speaker 1>that would be my closing observation and instruction to everyone listening,

1:12:17.560 --> 1:12:20.200
<v Speaker 1>be interested, be curious, and ask questions.

1:12:20.600 --> 1:12:22.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, I think I would double down on that,

1:12:23.000 --> 1:12:25.880
<v Speaker 2>which is is you're you're like one great question away

1:12:26.840 --> 1:12:32.280
<v Speaker 2>from something new, Like you're one question away from learning

1:12:32.320 --> 1:12:35.400
<v Speaker 2>something that you don't understand right now, or from a

1:12:35.479 --> 1:12:39.120
<v Speaker 2>feeling that you haven't had in a while, or the

1:12:39.160 --> 1:12:42.160
<v Speaker 2>beginning of a friendship like it's you're literally.

1:12:41.840 --> 1:12:42.639
<v Speaker 3>One question away.

1:12:42.800 --> 1:12:46.479
<v Speaker 2>It couldn't be simpler or cheaper, and it couldn't be

1:12:46.560 --> 1:12:47.360
<v Speaker 2>more impactful.

1:12:55.640 --> 1:12:58.840
<v Speaker 1>Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for me,

1:12:59.240 --> 1:13:01.720
<v Speaker 1>a subject you want us to cover, or you want

1:13:01.760 --> 1:13:05.120
<v Speaker 1>to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world,

1:13:05.479 --> 1:13:08.400
<v Speaker 1>reach out. You can leave a short message at six

1:13:08.560 --> 1:13:12.240
<v Speaker 1>oh nine five point two five five five, or you

1:13:12.280 --> 1:13:14.960
<v Speaker 1>can send me a DM on Instagram. I would love

1:13:15.000 --> 1:13:18.000
<v Speaker 1>to hear from you. Next Question is a production of

1:13:18.040 --> 1:13:22.400
<v Speaker 1>iHeartMedia and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me,

1:13:22.760 --> 1:13:27.479
<v Speaker 1>Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Marx,

1:13:28.040 --> 1:13:32.919
<v Speaker 1>and our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian

1:13:32.960 --> 1:13:38.080
<v Speaker 1>Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,

1:13:38.280 --> 1:13:40.639
<v Speaker 1>or to sign up for my newsletter, wake Up Call,

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<v Speaker 1>go to the description in the podcast app, or visit

1:13:44.120 --> 1:13:47.280
<v Speaker 1>us at Katiecuric dot com. You can also find me

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<v Speaker 1>on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more

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<v Speaker 1>podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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