Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: There was a.
Speaker 1: Piece on the Spectator website that came across my feet
Speaker 1: a few days ago. It was called modern Life Doesn't
Speaker 1: make Us Happy? By Tenneth Carrey. The subhead was when
Speaker 1: everything is designed to be pleasurable, nothing feels good. Carrie's
Speaker 1: thesis is that dopamine isn't a happiness chemical. It's a
Speaker 1: go out and survive chemical. But now we don't fight
Speaker 1: for our survival every day, so dopamine becomes this drug
Speaker 1: we chase. I looked her up and she's written some
Speaker 1: cool stuff on friendship and what kids are actually thinking,
Speaker 1: really up my alley, But I have to disagree with
Speaker 1: her a little bit about modern life not making us happy.
Speaker 1: She writes, quote, when your ancestors woke each morning feeling hungry,
Speaker 1: dopamine levels would have risen to motivate them to seek
Speaker 1: out a bird's nest from which to rade eggs, or
Speaker 1: bee high from which to gather honey in addition to
Speaker 1: the berries and nuts they foraged. But dopamine's effect is
Speaker 1: designed to be short lived once they've eaten and gotten
Speaker 1: the reward of the extra spurt of dopamine along with
Speaker 1: the release of feel good opioids, those levels quickly dropped
Speaker 1: and even dipped below baseline. After all, unless dopamine fell
Speaker 1: back down again, where would they have found the necessary
Speaker 1: motivation to seek out the next meal? And then she adds,
Speaker 1: and I find this part so interesting quote. Apart from
Speaker 1: some slight changes due to genetic selection over the years,
Speaker 1: you basically have the same brain as your ancient family members,
Speaker 1: powered by the same reward system. Do we chase that
Speaker 1: dopamine hit more than our ancestors did? Sure, but I'd
Speaker 1: argue that because our brains are largely the same, they
Speaker 1: would have chased the next dopamine hit the exact same
Speaker 1: way as us, except those far harder and didn't come
Speaker 1: in the form of Instagram likes. I also don't think that, Yes,
Speaker 1: it might have been the dopamine that would spur them
Speaker 1: to maybe go further and finding food, But you know
Speaker 1: what motivation would they have found to seek out the
Speaker 1: next meal? Hunger? Hunger would have been that motivation. She
Speaker 1: writes that people now expect to be happy all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure that's true. I think we probably
Speaker 1: have a lot more wallowing than our ancestors who lived
Speaker 1: constantly under threat. But the things that ultimately made us happy,
Speaker 1: having a good meal, warm bed, all of that really
Speaker 1: has stayed the same. Like have you ever worked a
Speaker 1: long day or been out all day and then you
Speaker 1: get home and you take a shower and you get
Speaker 1: into your nice, clean, warm bed and that feeling is
Speaker 1: so amazing. I mean, that's our ancestors having that same
Speaker 1: feeling getting into whatever comfortable position they had. I think
Speaker 1: about stuff like this, where, you know, we kind of
Speaker 1: look at modern life as like, oh this is you know,
Speaker 1: we chase this dopamine hit and it's so bad. But
Speaker 1: I really don't think it's that different than what our
Speaker 1: ancestors did. I once read a story about a therapist
Speaker 1: who work in a refugee camp. These people in the camp,
Speaker 1: she wrote, had lost everything and she was there to
Speaker 1: counsel them, but the eighteen year old girls still wanted
Speaker 1: to discuss how the boy she liked didn't like her
Speaker 1: back and instead preferred her cousin and that made her
Speaker 1: feel bad, and that's what she wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: this therapist about. People aren't that different than they were,
Speaker 1: And I hate the idea of treating our phones because
Speaker 1: we're so addicted to them, as if there's something other
Speaker 1: than a tool that we can use and put away. Look,
Speaker 1: I know people are addicted to their phones. I'm sometimes
Speaker 1: addicted to my phone. But we can acknowledge it and
Speaker 1: curtail our use. It's not heroin. I think about that
Speaker 1: all the time, that people compare it to like serious
Speaker 1: drugs that have like physical withdrawals, and people die sometimes
Speaker 1: from withdrawal. That's not what your phone is. Your phone
Speaker 1: can be put away. You can we don't have to
Speaker 1: keep scrolling for the dopamine hit. We can be like
Speaker 1: our ancestors and take that dopamine break. Coming up next
Speaker 1: and interview with Spencer. Join us after the break. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest
Speaker 1: today is Spencer Claven, author of the book How to
Speaker 1: Save the West, Ancient Wisdom for five Modern Crisises, and
Speaker 1: the host of the Young Heretics podcast. Hi Spencer, how
Speaker 1: are you, Carol?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. It's so nice to see you, and
Speaker 2: thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on. You have a
Speaker 1: lot of big words in there. Heretics, Crisises I you know,
Speaker 1: I did the best I could.
Speaker 2: Just beautiful. It rolls off the tongue.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So with your appearance on my show today,
Speaker 1: I'm actually concluding the Claven Moore trifecta. I've interviewed your dad,
Speaker 1: Andrew Claven, and your sister Faith more about their books.
Speaker 1: Although maybe I shouldn't say this is the end. What's
Speaker 1: your mom up to? Maybe we can schedule a chat.
Speaker 2: Well, we're like Pokemon, you know, got to catch them all.
Speaker 2: Thanks for thanks for collecting the full set. Unfortunately, however,
Speaker 2: I have disappoint you because my mother, who is by
Speaker 2: far the best person in my family, I mean, not
Speaker 2: even a competition miles and miles beyond us all, is
Speaker 2: also the only one that never does any media. She's
Speaker 2: extremely private.
Speaker 1: Boo. Yeah, sorry, all right, you know I might try
Speaker 1: anyway like she does it as a favor to us,
Speaker 1: part of the chase.
Speaker 2: Oh really good. Yeah, yeah, that's the appeal. No, she
Speaker 2: does as a favorite to us so that we won't
Speaker 2: look bad by comparison, because if she did have podcast
Speaker 2: or a book, then nobody would pay any attention to
Speaker 2: the rest of us.
Speaker 1: That's great. So you're also doing a new sub Stack
Speaker 1: with your dad. What is it called? Tell my listeners
Speaker 1: about it? How can they sign up? And they should
Speaker 1: sign up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, thank you. I'm really excited about this. It's
Speaker 2: called the New Jerusalem, which is a reference to the
Speaker 2: Book of Revelation when the New Jerusalem comes out of
Speaker 2: heaven and down to Earth, which should give you a
Speaker 2: sense of the project. It's about what it means to
Speaker 2: live in faith here and now, not in some imaginary
Speaker 2: before time, but in the world of the Internet and
Speaker 2: technology and all the many crises that we are currently
Speaker 2: basing down. We're doing it in the format of a
Speaker 2: father son conversation. So Andrew Claven, my dad, no relation,
Speaker 2: and I have been really just lucky and blessed in
Speaker 2: our relationship that we get to discuss these big ideas.
Speaker 2: And we used to go over long hikes together in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles when he lived there and just kind of
Speaker 2: ruminate on this stuff forever, and we wanted to invite
Speaker 2: people into that. So the Subtec is the way of
Speaker 2: doing that. It's the New Jerusalem dot substack dot com.
Speaker 2: And what it'll be. The way it'll work is we'll
Speaker 2: post an opening essay written by both of us and
Speaker 2: then every day. From then on, we'll just be writing
Speaker 2: back and forth to each other, kind of like letting
Speaker 2: you in on a series of emails between us. There
Speaker 2: will also be a list of our most cherished works
Speaker 2: of art and books that we kind of build gradually
Speaker 2: on Fridays, which is for paid subscribers. If you want
Speaker 2: to support us, you can send up for that, but
Speaker 2: the rest of it's free. And yeah, you can sign
Speaker 2: up at the New Jerusalem dot substack dot com and yeah,
Speaker 2: become moret of the journey with us.
Speaker 1: I'm going to sign up. I just I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I'm smart enough for all this, but I'll do my
Speaker 1: very best.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, okay, first of all, that's I don't know
Speaker 2: if I think this is in the book. I can't
Speaker 2: remember if I put this in the book or not.
Speaker 2: But I often have conversations that begin with somebody saying
Speaker 2: I'm not that smart or I'm not smart enough for
Speaker 2: X or y, And those are always the best conversations
Speaker 2: because it turns out people are actually much smarter and
Speaker 2: they are more philosophical they than they think. And I
Speaker 2: know that's actually true of you. So yes, come along,
Speaker 2: come join.
Speaker 1: But you guys, you know you just your whole family
Speaker 1: just comes off as you know, just a little smarter
Speaker 1: than the average people. So again, I'm going to sign
Speaker 1: up and I'm going to follow it, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'll do my best to keep up with the Clevens.
Speaker 1: I feel like keeping up with the Kardashians is maybe
Speaker 1: a little easier.
Speaker 2: I mean, you will not find, unfortunately, any of our
Speaker 2: like botox tips or.
Speaker 1: So. I have your book. I love your book, And
Speaker 1: one question that I ask all of my guests is
Speaker 1: what do you think is our largest cultural or societal
Speaker 1: problem in America? And is it solvable? In this case?
Speaker 1: I think that question takes us, you know, into the
Speaker 1: direction of your book. You write about five essential crisis
Speaker 1: and the crisis of reality, the body, the crisis of meaning,
Speaker 1: of religion, of the regime. Which do you think is
Speaker 1: the most pressing for us as a country right now?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to say the crisis of religion, which
Speaker 2: is really the heart of the book, and actually in
Speaker 2: particular right now, I think the most pressing social problem
Speaker 2: we're facing is anti Semitism. I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: this morning. We have seen, ever since October seventh, a
Speaker 2: profoundly dark resurgence of some of the leiest stereotypes, but
Speaker 2: also trends about in relationship to Jewish people. And the
Speaker 2: reason that I bring this up is not only because
Speaker 2: of my love for the Jews and my Jewish heritage,
Speaker 2: but because I think that anti Semitism represents now as
Speaker 2: it always has, a profound sickness in the spiritual heart
Speaker 2: of man. It is the oldest hatred, and the Jews
Speaker 2: are the most hated people throughout history, the reason for
Speaker 2: which is at least in part that as part of
Speaker 2: their role as the Chosen people, they really do. Jewish
Speaker 2: people really do stand in for us in relationship to God.
Speaker 2: And I believe, and I argue in the book, that
Speaker 2: the human heart can hardly bear to see itself in
Speaker 2: a true light in relation to God and to contemplate
Speaker 2: the nature of its inadequacies, and we do everything we
Speaker 2: can to look away and ignore our calling as divinely
Speaker 2: created beings. And I suspect that hatred of Jewish people,
Speaker 2: anti Semitism, these things that come up again and again,
Speaker 2: no matter how hard we try to erase them or
Speaker 2: resist them, this is an indicator that we are once
Speaker 2: again facing up to our own brokenness. And since we
Speaker 2: can't look at that we offload it all onto Jewish
Speaker 2: people and to the Jewish religion. And so you ask
Speaker 2: me if this is solvable In the deepest and most
Speaker 2: profound sense, I don't think it's ever possible to eradicate
Speaker 2: this problem. I think it's baked into the tragic nature
Speaker 2: of the world. But I believe, even still, even now,
Speaker 2: passionately that Americans perhaps uniquely are equipped to reckon with
Speaker 2: and to expunge this sickness from our hearts because of
Speaker 2: the nature of our creed and our founding documents that
Speaker 2: we actually do believe in this country. And there's still
Speaker 2: a deep into at war now with the worst elements
Speaker 2: of us and the worst angels of our nature, demons,
Speaker 2: I guess of our nature. There is still a deep
Speaker 2: instinct that we are in doubt by our creator, with
Speaker 2: inalienable rights, that we're created equal. And yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not a big predictor. I hate making predictions,
Speaker 2: which means that I'm neither a pessimist nor an optimist
Speaker 2: because I don't know what's going to happen. But I
Speaker 2: am a big advocate of hope. That's one of the
Speaker 2: three Christian virtues. Faith hope and love, and hope means
Speaker 2: where are you placing your efforts? Where you pouring your heart.
Speaker 2: I'm pouring it into that crisis of religion, hoping against
Speaker 2: hope and trying desperately to kind of call people back
Speaker 2: to these core truths of our creativeness in the image
Speaker 2: of God and the results, the political result, which is
Speaker 2: fundamental human equality and the truest and best sense.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean I think that I also have
Speaker 1: basically the biggest hope for America and Americans, especially where
Speaker 1: the issue of anti Semitism is concerned. I have more
Speaker 1: faith than the American people and in our system than
Speaker 1: I do in you know, any other country basically. But
Speaker 1: have you been surprised about the kind of spike and
Speaker 1: anti semitism since October seventh? I feel like even so,
Speaker 1: I am an optimist, I think, and I haven't been
Speaker 1: shocked because I think it's been heading in this direction
Speaker 1: for a number of years, and people have sort of
Speaker 1: looked away, including you know, my fellow Jews. I think
Speaker 1: they just didn't want to see it. But have you
Speaker 1: been like shocked at the kind of events that have
Speaker 1: happened since then?
Speaker 2: I've said for a while that we need a word.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's some great German word that means something that
Speaker 2: is shocking but not surprising. So whenever, right, I'm sure
Speaker 2: there is, you know, right, like whenever the sort of
Speaker 2: woke crowd comes up with something absurd, Like I don't
Speaker 2: know if you saw that video that's floating around the internet.
Speaker 2: It was like a Stacy Abrams choral performance about our
Speaker 2: rights depend on it, Like it was like this incredibly.
Speaker 1: No, I'm going to have to go find.
Speaker 2: That, Harold. Okay, wait, maybe I'll send it to you
Speaker 2: afterwards and you can link to it or something. But
Speaker 2: it's so cringe and over the top that you're like,
Speaker 2: I can't believe they're doing this, But also I actually
Speaker 2: totally can. And that's that feeling that I feel like
Speaker 2: we have all the time now, And that's how I
Speaker 2: feel about this hideous resurgence of just the most kind
Speaker 2: of atavistic and obvious and crude forms of anti Semitism.
Speaker 2: I am shocked and appalled by it, but I'm not
Speaker 2: actually all that surprised, in part for the reasons that
Speaker 2: you suggested. I think we've been toying with this stuff
Speaker 2: for a long time. We've been playing with fire poisoning
Speaker 2: our race relations, which always ultimately comes back to these
Speaker 2: sort of religious wars, and especially animists towards Jewish people.
Speaker 2: So I think this was kind of in the works.
Speaker 2: I also think that because our ruling classes think that
Speaker 2: they're immune from this sort of thing, they imagined themselves
Speaker 2: to be virtuous and pure, and never they thought that
Speaker 2: they were the grand white knights that were warring against
Speaker 2: the evil, racist, bad orange man people or the nasty deplorables.
Speaker 2: And that is the surest fire recipe for a return
Speaker 2: to the worst and most obvious forms of hatred that
Speaker 2: humanity is capable of, because if you think that you're
Speaker 2: kind of immune from that, then you're ultimately really vulnerable
Speaker 2: and just ignorant I think about the nature of human hatred.
Speaker 2: So no, I'm not surprised, but I am appalled.
Speaker 1: You say you're not an optimist, but your book is
Speaker 1: How to Save the West. I mean, isn't that sort
Speaker 1: of an optimistic vision for how we make things better,
Speaker 1: how we make the country and society.
Speaker 2: Better in a certain sense. And everyone thinks that I'm
Speaker 2: an optimist for sure. That's the word that GE's applied
Speaker 2: to me most often, and It's why I started thinking
Speaker 2: about well am I actually And the reason that I'm
Speaker 2: not an optimist is because I don't think anything is
Speaker 2: written in the stars. And I understand optimism and pessimism
Speaker 2: both to be convictions about what you're certain is going
Speaker 2: to happen in the future, and for that reason, they
Speaker 2: both lead to certain errors. So optimism tends toward complacency,
Speaker 2: I think, in its most extreme forms, if you think
Speaker 2: everything's going to go okay, you're not going to.
Speaker 1: Do anything about it.
Speaker 2: It's hard exactly. Pessimism also tends toward in action, but
Speaker 2: in the form of despair, which is an actual sin.
Speaker 2: Conservatives are so guilty of this, I think so much
Speaker 2: of the time we love to know that everything is
Speaker 2: going to go wrong. It makes us feel very special
Speaker 2: and makes.
Speaker 1: Us feel you can't do anything about it. So what
Speaker 1: are you going to do? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, complain complain online, I think, is the answer to
Speaker 2: that question. And so that's why I say that I'm
Speaker 2: neither of those things. Is because when I say that
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to happen, I genuinely mean
Speaker 2: I don't know, and I have faith I trust in
Speaker 2: God that ultimately the final answer to the whole of
Speaker 2: this history is going to be good. But in the meantime,
Speaker 2: my question is where are we in what is possible?
Speaker 2: And in what is possible? I'm looking for the best
Speaker 2: that can be thought and said, which is why my
Speaker 2: book is titled How to Save the West, and why
Speaker 2: it's written the way that it is, because it's not
Speaker 2: actually about how the West is absolutely going to be
Speaker 2: fine and everything's gonna be hunky dory. It's about how,
Speaker 2: even in bad times, the West has always endured, and
Speaker 2: people who carry it forward are people like you and
Speaker 2: meet people who start conversations by saying I'm not that smart.
Speaker 2: People that feel doubt and fear and all the normal
Speaker 2: things that we feel. Nevertheless wake up in the morning
Speaker 2: and put our socks on and feed our kids. I
Speaker 2: just attributed children to you that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do have told you. Yeah, you're old, you're good.
Speaker 2: For kids, right, I'm sorry of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my my youngest son went to school with your
Speaker 1: oldest nephew.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, okay, so that's and that's how faith. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Yeah, I just was like, no.
Speaker 1: I need to be sorry. I feel like I was
Speaker 1: going to say that I'm going to pressure you later
Speaker 1: on in this conversation that you clearly need to have
Speaker 1: children because we need little Spencer Cleveman's running around.
Speaker 2: Well, we certainly can get to that, but okay, so anyway,
Speaker 2: but my point was just that you know, the stuff
Speaker 2: that we do kind of in the morning and throughout
Speaker 2: our day in our neighborhoods like that is the stuff
Speaker 2: of saving the West. And it doesn't depend on making
Speaker 2: a grand pronouncement about everything that's going to go right
Speaker 2: or wrong like that. These things, this stuff has happened,
Speaker 2: that this tradition has been maintained through the sacking of
Speaker 2: Rome and the rise of the Soviet regime, and you know,
Speaker 2: in in gulags as well as in ivory towers. And
Speaker 2: I think that's something we have to remember so that
Speaker 2: we don't get disappointed in the reality of the world,
Speaker 2: which is often very messy and very difficult.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and be right
Speaker 1: back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. So when you say
Speaker 1: how we can save the West, what are some other
Speaker 1: than you know, the getting up every day and taking
Speaker 1: care of your kids and all of that. What are
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that you think that people should
Speaker 1: embrace in order to save our civilization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, the book big question. I'm sorry, no, no,
Speaker 2: I mean looking, I put myself on the hook for
Speaker 2: this when I wrote a book called How You Really
Speaker 2: Did Rest? Right? Yeah, there's there's no escaping it. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that do say at the outside
Speaker 2: of the book is that you're not going to open
Speaker 2: these covers and find a political program, which is by
Speaker 2: design because if our hope for salvation rests in a
Speaker 2: politician or law, we are in trouble. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: just no certainty to be had there. The kind of
Speaker 2: TLDR version of my book is log off and go
Speaker 2: to church. And that's not because I think that it's
Speaker 2: not because I think the technology is evil. I actually
Speaker 2: think that it's it. It doesn't matter whether it's evil
Speaker 2: or not. It is now kind of embedded in our lives,
Speaker 2: and you and I are currently having a conversation and
Speaker 2: an interaction that we would never have if the Internet
Speaker 2: didn't exist. So these are tools. You know, it doesn't
Speaker 2: pay to talk about them as if they we have
Speaker 2: no control over them or no choice in how we
Speaker 2: use them. But a major theme of my book is
Speaker 2: rooting ourselves back in the here and now. I think
Speaker 2: this kind of starts to emerge, well, it starts in
Speaker 2: the first chapter, which is the reality crisis is about
Speaker 2: kind of our disconnection from the obvious truths around us
Speaker 2: that we're able to experience and perceive, and our alienation
Speaker 2: from just the felt sense of life that actually our connections,
Speaker 2: our desires, our aspirations, our memories, our loves. These things
Speaker 2: aren't just brain farts or accidents of our biochemistry. They
Speaker 2: are the stuff of what we are. And so rerooting
Speaker 2: ourselves in that first and foremost and then the body
Speaker 2: crisis really does I think kind of drive this home
Speaker 2: when I start talking about the trans extremism that we've seen,
Speaker 2: but also kind of it's more advanced, like cutting edged stages,
Speaker 2: which are not just about sex and gender, but they're
Speaker 2: about transhumanism and people that hope to escape from humanity altogether.
Speaker 2: This is going to be a major theme by the
Speaker 2: way of the New Jerusalem. You could replace well not
Speaker 2: you couldn't replace go to church with go to the gym,
Speaker 2: but you could add to go to church to go
Speaker 2: to the gym, or join a softball team or you know,
Speaker 2: become part of some sort of physical activity that gets
Speaker 2: you in contact with other human beings. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of people that ask me when they listen to
Speaker 2: my podcast, like how do I cultivate relationships? How do
Speaker 2: I make friends? That sort of thing, And one.
Speaker 1: Of my favorite questions, you're going to answer, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I actually have an answer, and it comes
Speaker 2: from the Western canon, so it's even better. It's not
Speaker 2: my answer, it's Cistero's answer and an Aristotle's answer, and
Speaker 2: that is become the kind of person you would want
Speaker 2: to be friends with, especially become that person by seeking virtue.
Speaker 2: There are four they're called cardinal or you know, we
Speaker 2: might think of them as kind of the core virtues,
Speaker 2: the excellences of the soul, the way to be really
Speaker 2: good at being human, And they don't depend on being
Speaker 2: smart or even particularly you know, good in your raw form,
Speaker 2: and they depend on daily habits. So they are temperance,
Speaker 2: taking care of the way that you relate to your desires,
Speaker 2: not rejecting your desires, but managing them with your reason. Courage,
Speaker 2: which I think is one of the ones that's most
Speaker 2: lacking at the moment and one of the hardest really
Speaker 2: saying to just plunge in and undertake. But it's the
Speaker 2: excellence of the heart. Right courage is what enables you
Speaker 2: to follow through on your big grand ideas. Wisdom which
Speaker 2: is perhaps the most abstract, but is what enables you
Speaker 2: to make these choices about well, what am I gonna
Speaker 2: you know, what am I gonna do today? Of all
Speaker 2: the different possibilities, of all my different desires and impulses,
Speaker 2: which ones are I going to indulge? Wich On's I'm
Speaker 2: going to arrest? And we seek that through the tradition,
Speaker 2: right through the canon and through the kinds of works
Speaker 2: that I'm talking about in the book. And then finally
Speaker 2: justice dkay, which we think of as this sometimes we
Speaker 2: like outsource justice. We put it on the government. We're
Speaker 2: talking about social justice, which is another way of saying
Speaker 2: justice by people other than me, right justice by like
Speaker 2: a group of people that haven't do with me. But actually,
Speaker 2: the classical sense of justice is an individual virtue, and
Speaker 2: it's about right organization of all the parts, the right
Speaker 2: integration of the different parts of your soul and your person.
Speaker 2: And it starts there. It starts with the man in
Speaker 2: the mirror, as MJ would say, right, and then rose
Speaker 2: outward into the right relationship between cousin and wife, father
Speaker 2: and child, mother and child, so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: So I would say, like, if you want to know
Speaker 2: how to make friends, if you want to know how
Speaker 2: to get back into the game, how to get some
Speaker 2: agency in your life, start with those those cardinal virtues
Speaker 2: and start with becoming the kind of person that you
Speaker 2: want to meet. And you will be shocked at how
Speaker 2: quickly in that process run into exactly the people that
Speaker 2: you're looking for. But you won't find them by going
Speaker 2: out and trying to put it on them to be good.
Speaker 2: To be the people you want, you got to put
Speaker 2: on yourself first thing.
Speaker 1: So interesting, So now that you've solved Western civilization, what
Speaker 1: would you say? What would do? A question that I
Speaker 1: ask all of my guests, is your best tip for
Speaker 1: my listeners on how they can improve their individual lives.
Speaker 1: You've touched on making friends and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: improving yourself in that way. What's your best tip overall
Speaker 1: for how people can improve their daily lives.
Speaker 2: Okay, I wouldn't be me if I didn't answer this
Speaker 2: question with a quote from somebody who spoke Greek, and
Speaker 2: so I'm going to do that.
Speaker 1: I thought you're going to say. It wouldn't be me
Speaker 1: if I didn't say go to the gym, because I
Speaker 1: follow you on Twitter, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I am a gun. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of content, no question, but you know, I'm actually not
Speaker 2: going to say that, although you should go to the gym.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: So, Marcus Aurelius isn't one of the most famous names
Speaker 2: from the ancient worlds so many and people have heard
Speaker 2: of it's actually Julius Czily. People have heard of him,
Speaker 2: but they don't necessarily read his book Meditations, which is
Speaker 2: really still one of the best self help books in
Speaker 2: the world because it's not a list of prescriptions. It's
Speaker 2: a record of inner dialogue. It's about the thoughts of
Speaker 2: a man who's trying really hard to cultivate those virtues.
Speaker 2: And so the piece of advice that I'm going to
Speaker 2: give is lifted right out of the Meditations, and it's
Speaker 2: the obstacle is the way. This is one of his
Speaker 2: most famous statements. It essentially means the thing that you
Speaker 2: think is keeping you from your goals or interrupting your
Speaker 2: smooth path of life is actually what you're supposed to
Speaker 2: be dealing with right now. It's there for you to
Speaker 2: learn from. And I think that so much of the time,
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the misery that we inflict upon ourselves
Speaker 2: has to do with this picture in our heads of like,
Speaker 2: here's the path and the goal, the end of the
Speaker 2: path is in the future, and now this annoying thing,
Speaker 2: whatever it.
Speaker 1: Is, like twitter you okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, right, yes, love it or politics or whatever work
Speaker 2: you know, is getting in the way. And so now
Speaker 2: the path is here, and we're here, we're somewhere else.
Speaker 2: But Aurelius's brilliant insight, which I think will make you
Speaker 2: have and also more effective, which are two important things.
Speaker 2: Both matter. Is to give up on that line, that
Speaker 2: straight line you have in mind toward the goal, because
Speaker 2: it doesn't exist, that's in your that's a figment of
Speaker 2: your imagination. And what's happening to you right now, whether
Speaker 2: you like it or not, is the thing that merits
Speaker 2: your attention. And the minute you get like let go
Speaker 2: of the imaginary line, straight line toward the goal and
Speaker 2: turn yourself toward the actual situation, the minute solutions start
Speaker 2: to present themselves to you and you actually find that
Speaker 2: there might actually be enormous wisdom for you in the
Speaker 2: situation here.
Speaker 1: And now I really like that my husband recently reread Meditations.
Speaker 1: I haven't. I mean, I read it in high school,
Speaker 1: but I haven't. I haven't read it in a long time.
Speaker 1: I think it's I'm also due for reread you now, really.
Speaker 2: Can I plug something else in that? Gay?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Please? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay. So I last year wrote the forward to a
Speaker 2: collection of Stoic writings, including the complete Meditations. It's called
Speaker 2: the Gateway to this and I also have some translations
Speaker 2: in there of some letters by Seneca that are also bangers.
Speaker 1: So, my gosh, I'm going to order that right now.
Speaker 1: Tell me again what it's.
Speaker 2: Called Gateway to the Stoics.
Speaker 1: Gateway to the Stoics. I'm going to check it out.
Speaker 1: I'd advise all of my listeners to do the same,
Speaker 1: so we could be maybe as smart as Spenser someday.
Speaker 1: So you got married in the last year year plus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just a little over a year ago.
Speaker 1: A little over a year ago. You're insanely successful in
Speaker 1: all of these different ways. Do you feel like you've
Speaker 1: made it?
Speaker 2: You are so sweet, and this question is so hard.
Speaker 2: You're also very mean. I I ask everybody this, and
Speaker 2: I get such a range of answers.
Speaker 1: I love it, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I like the question because of how hard
Speaker 2: it is, because of the three that you posed, is
Speaker 2: the only one that I thought, like, I genuinely don't
Speaker 2: know how I would answer this. I can certainly say
Speaker 2: that every minute of every day, I'm doing exactly what
Speaker 2: I want to be doing. And maybe that's in part
Speaker 2: because of the whole obstacle is the way mindset, But
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think I'm very very lucky.
Speaker 2: I work hard, but I also have just been blessed
Speaker 2: beyond measure, and so you know, it's part of my
Speaker 2: joy in life that I don't see myself ever like retiring.
Speaker 2: I would like to work as long as I have breath,
Speaker 2: Like my work is my life. And you know I
Speaker 2: love my husband profoundly more and more each day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think, I think like I'm very satisfied, but I
Speaker 2: also am like part of my satisfaction is a deep,
Speaker 2: deep dissatisfaction, like a huge ambition. And I guess here's
Speaker 2: one last thing that I that I'll say about this.
Speaker 2: Not having answered your question, I feel like you.
Speaker 1: Did answer it, but yeah, okay, I think you've made it.
Speaker 1: I think maybe you've made it.
Speaker 2: Maybe, I guess yeah, I feel very very lucky and joyful.
Speaker 2: And I will say that the other day actually I
Speaker 2: was really grinding my gears as as I basically I'm
Speaker 2: always doing over like the project that I wanted to
Speaker 2: complete next and it's actually a new book. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm working on this thing and I going to be
Speaker 2: going to finish this thing. And there's this sense when
Speaker 2: you do that that like I just want to be
Speaker 2: finished with it, you know, like I want to get
Speaker 2: it out, I want to achieve the thing. And then
Speaker 2: and then I stopped and I had this thought like,
Speaker 2: don't kid yourself. You like this, like you're happy, right,
Speaker 2: you know, you're happy with the gears grinding. And I
Speaker 2: think if you can be happy with the gears grinding,
Speaker 2: then maybe in some sense you have made it.
Speaker 1: That is perfect. I really I've enjoyed talking to you
Speaker 1: so much. His book is How to Save the West
Speaker 1: Spencer Craven. You are fantastic. We will follow all of
Speaker 1: your different projects. And thank you so much for coming on, Carol.
Speaker 2: What a joy. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markoli Show.
Speaker 1: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts,