July 16, 2019 • 27 mins
Mark Manson gave millions of readers a pretty brutal reality check on how to get through the toughest times in his New York Times bestselling book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.” His work has been described as much of a slap in the face as it is a pat on the back. In this interview, Mark reveals the meaning behind his brand new book that he says is about hope, called “Everything is F*cked.”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I guess one way to describe my work is it's
pessimistic self help, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I
actually find it to be a lot more liberating. And
the whole thing with the coffee cup. It's it's a
joke early on in the book that I said that,
you know, I wouldn't write people's names, I would write
you and everyone you know is one day is going
to die. And other than a few things, nobody's gonna
(00:26):
remember any of this. Hi, I'm Dr Oz and this
(00:48):
is the Doctor Oz podcast. Mark Manson gave millions of
readers a pretty brutal reality check on how to get
through the toughest times in his New York Times bestselling
book The Subtle Art. I'm not been well. A funk
is what he said. His work has been described but
as much of a slap in the face, as much
as that is a pat in the back, I think
(01:08):
it's right. I think we've overreacted to the use of
not not non savee rewords, But there's so much wisdom here.
I wanted to have Mark On. He's back at it
again with his brand new book. They says It's all
about hope. It's called everything is well, you want to
say it fucked exactly, So it's fairly counterintuitive. A lot
of moms wouldn't want their kids reading this book. In fact, Uh,
it would scare of a lot of spokes away. Yet
(01:29):
is exactly the book you want people to read? Whose
folks are whose? Whose parents trying to protect them? Yeah?
It's Um, it's funny that the profanity is probably the
most common criticism I get, and I've gotten it for years.
But the point I keep making as I say that
profanity exists for a reason. It's the shock value. It's
there is a value in it. You know, it causes
(01:51):
you to let down your defenses and maybe consider other
perspectives that you wouldn't otherwise. You say you want to
take us to a place of happiness. Um, that right?
Or is it more? Is it more hopefulness? I would
say actual psychological healthiness, because I think you can all
you can be a healthy person psychologically without necessarily being
(02:13):
happy all the time. And I think that sometimes we
conflate those two things. Um, and people start because they're
not happy all the time, they start blaming themselves and
they make themselves feel worse. And which what's role of happiness.
I asked this a leading question because I have concerns
about it as well. But it is the goal for many.
It's it's not that there's anything wrong with it, but
(02:34):
I don't think it it can't be the goal itself. Um. No,
matter what you do with your life, reality is going
to hand you your ass sometimes, and that's just that's normal.
That in fact, that's actually that's where we develop a
sense of meaning and purpose is through overcoming obstacles and struggles.
And so if you're constantly looking for happiness, you're not
(02:56):
going to be willing to engage those obstacles and struggles
as well as you should be. Do you think I'm
too happy, Lisa, too happy, go lucky? Happy surgeon if
that's your new title, a happy surgeon. Yeah, No, you
just become so risk averse because that's uncomfortable, and I
think people see discomfort as the opposite of happiness. Now,
(03:21):
if what you really search you for his hope, hopefulness,
how do you find a life where you're not all fucked?
Is what your heart searching for? Hope? Is that what
your premises? Uh, my premise is that we need to
be careful about our hopes Um. So when subtle art,
I kind of attacked happiness. I I made the point
(03:41):
that we all assume that happiness is good, that we
should always be pursuing it. I do the same thing
here with hope. Um. I point out that hope has
a destructive side to it. Hope has a side that's
uncompromising and can potentially hurt others. Um And So the
same way we need to be skeptical if we're being
(04:02):
happy for the right reasons, we should be asking ourselves, um,
if we're hoping for the right things. So it's both
books seem to have a theme of personal psychological dishonesty.
Both with because your first one you made people reevaluate
their values um and so that they would place time
on what they truly valued, not and if there's values
(04:24):
were actually lousy, they would shift them. Yes, um. And
this one is I guess about misguided placement of hope.
So it's both reassessment of your it's still reassessment of values,
it's it's another side of the value equation. Yeah, well
I'm wrapped that a little bit though. So if if
I'm hopeful about an outcome, how how was that disservice
to others. Is that because I should have challenged them
(04:45):
and said, no, you know, we're headed in the wrong direction.
We got to turn back. It's not necessarily a disservice
to others. It's just that you can hope for things.
So we tend to always assume that our hopes are
positive and they're good for the world. You know that
that is by definition what a hope is hope the
other team fails. Yeah, but it's it's there. Are there
(05:07):
if you look at every destructive force in the world.
If you you take extremists or somebody like terrorists or
something like, they're motivated by hope as well. Uh. And
so it's I have a I have a quote in
the middle of the book that I talked about the
same way. We we tend to assume that love is
always a beautiful and healthy thing. Um, they're actually very
(05:28):
damaging and unhealthy forms of love. Love can cause the
most destruction in your life as well as give it
the most value and meaning. Um. Hope is kind of
the same way. If we're not careful, hope can become
incredibly destructive and damaging, both to ourselves and the people
around us that take it. A step back you wrote
that if you could do on every Starbucks coffee cup,
(05:49):
which like chonically what we're all walking and one round,
everything is fucked. So give us a limit of the
philosophy about how that frees us, how that guests us
past to the vapid search for happiness, the misguided search
for the wrong kinds of hope. So I kind of
I guess one way to describe my work is it's
(06:12):
pessimistic self help, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I
actually find it to be a lot more liberating. And
the whole thing with the coffee cup. It's a joke
early on in the book that I said that, you know,
I wouldn't write people's names. I would write you know,
you and everyone you know is one day is going
to die. And other than a few things, nobody's gonna
remember any of this. And it's like, it's just this
(06:33):
very bleak and dark statement. Um, can I just read
this because I wrote it down, Go for it, Go
for it. One day, you and everyone you love we'll die.
This isn't the book, by the way, this is read
a best selling book. Blunt honesty and beyond a small
group of people for an extremely brief period of time.
(06:54):
This is the ultimate insult, extremely brief period of time.
Little of what you say and do will ever matter.
We imagine our own importance, we invent our purpose. We
are nothing. Enjoy your fucking coffee. So this is why
I'm not very employable. It's it's this, It's this dark focus.
(07:16):
Yeah right. Um so it's I call that the uncomfortable
truth in the book, and it's something that I talked
about in subtle art as well. It said, you know,
most people they avoid thinking about their own mortality, thinking
about the vastness of the universe and how insignificant most
of their life seems in comparison, because it's it's frightening,
(07:39):
and it's we're afraid to let go of all of
the meaning and hope that we place on certain things
in our lives. Um. I come at it from the
other angle, and that if none of this really matters,
then there's absolutely no excuse to not act with courage
and integrity. There's no reason to not love of people
(08:00):
close to you fiercely. There's no reason not to sacrifice
yourself for causes that are greater than yourself. Um, it's this.
It's almost like this kind of nihilistic idea is actually
a liberating force for us to choose at all times
what is most important in our lives. Why though, because
(08:22):
if you have no reason not to do it, you
have no reason to do it either, Right, But it's
it's those are the things that at least give you
the feeling and the perception that your life is matters
and is important. So the motivation is an illusion. Yeah,
well it's the knowledge is an illusion essentially, like that
the knowledge that you know, we all we all think
(08:44):
what we do is very important and it's gonna last
for a long time. That's an illusion. But knowing that
that sort illusion helps us not buy into the wrong illusions.
So so let me look, nothing matters at all. If
you go completely nihilistic and go full own Nietzsche on us,
why get out of bed? Why not get out of bed?
(09:05):
So then just stay okay, but you it's it's going
to be you know, why not because it's easier because
if nothing matters, inertia is a bigger force, right, Yeah,
So you need something to counterbalance the inertia because inertia
will win if there's no other force. Sure, and so
and that's what our hopes do is we create these
hopes for ourselves and that's what gets us out of
(09:27):
bed in the morning. But I thought our hopes are fucked,
Well they are fucked, but it's important to know that
they that they are inventions, their psychological inventions, designed to
get us out of bed um. And that way, when
we when we recognize that this is kind of the
game that our brain is playing, it's much easier to uh,
(09:47):
look at our hopes, understand, be critical of them, understand
which ones are are helpful, which ones are hurting us,
and then switch them out for each other. So basically
you're saying this whole thing is made up. If you're
making up any way, make up a better game. Pretty
much pretty much. That that's one way to put it.
There's lots more. Will we come back. So you're walking
(10:17):
down the street and say you have a nice day,
which is something that probably most people listening have said today.
You don't like that, you do, right? You say, why
why would you have Why would you bother say you
have a nice day? What's wrong with that? What what
should be the greeting day? Well, I my problem with
have a nice day is it's like pent of the time.
You don't actually care. You're just it's just the thing
(10:39):
you say. It's just it's a it's an empty pleasantry,
you know, it's um. I would say, have a meaningful day,
m hm um, have a have an impactful day. Um.
You know, nice can mean a million things. I could
I could go shoot up a bunch of arrowine. That'd
be a nice day. Burn brightly, but briefly. You consider
(11:02):
yourself a Stoic. Uh, what do you think about the
Stoicism movement? I think so. I think that this this
whole revival with the Stoicism stuff is super interesting. I
don't personally, I'm not hugely into it, but a lot
of my beliefs and values kind of map onto it. Um.
My background is more Zen Buddhism, um, and there's a
(11:23):
lot of similarities and ideas. But I think it's the
Stoicism stuff is great because I think, uh, you know,
there's so much noise and craziness going on in the
world today with the Internet and social media that I
think these philosophies like Stoicism are helping us simplify and
get back to first principles and helping us manage our
(11:46):
expectations and our values a little bit better. Did did
you mentioned your background? Did were you? Did you live this?
Were you like, what's your life fun? And you figure
this out? Or did you come across this philosophy through studying?
How did you? How did you come up with this
news and philosophy? Well, you know, I practiced zen for
(12:06):
a number of years and I still I still meditate
on and off quite a bit. But um, you know,
I've always I've struggled with depression on and off throughout
my life. And um, this book. I started writing this
book and one of those plays, I had a very
weird experience where uh, subtle art became astronomically successful, and
(12:32):
that that messed with my head. Uh, it was. It
was There's a line in the new book where I
say that the only way for the only way to
truly destroy a dream is for it to have it
come true. And so basically all my dreams came true
within like two or three months, and uh, I freaked out.
I was like, what the hell do I hope for now?
And um, and so it was a very strange experience
(12:54):
and that I outwardly I was experiencing the most material
success in my life, but inwardly, I felt completely lost
and became a little bit depressed. And so that's what
got me thinking about these ideas of hope and meaning. Um,
you know, is any of this gonna last? Is any
of it permanent? Uh? And I started writing this book,
and I kind of wrote myself out of a depression.
(13:17):
Essentially can be cathartic putting words on paper, in part
because you have to tell yourself the truth usually part
a lot of yourself in print. Yeah, And and it's
a lot of very I think a lot of very
difficult truths that I had to own up to to
get out of that place came out in the book.
For example. For example, it's you know, it's you can
(13:40):
be a best selling author, but it's you know, two
hundred years from now, chances are nobody's gonna remember any
of this, um, you know. And so it's this thing
that I've I've dedicated my life too, and then and
then getting and then hitting hitting the top of the
mountain and realizing that there's just it doesn't matter at all. Um.
(14:01):
You know that that is that is definitely a shock
to the system. Um. And so a lot of this
stuff that I write about the coffee cup and the
uncomfortable truth like that's me wrestling with that fact of
my own life. Um of that it's no matter how
successful you get, no matter how hard you work, you know,
no matter how many awards and credentials you get, you're
(14:25):
still just this temporary consciousness running around inventing stories for yourselves.
Is that the paradox of progress? No, well, so this
ties into the paradox progress in a in a little
bit different way. I think it's the the whole. The
thing that really surprised me about my experience was this
idea that being more comfortable and secure can actually make
(14:49):
you give you a crisis of meaning and make it
more difficult to find meaning and hope in your life. Um.
And at the same time, I was doing a lot
of research around this. You know, there's a lot of
talk these days about the rise in mental health issues, depression, anxiety, suicides,
drug overdoses, and one thing that I found that was
(15:11):
particularly interesting is that it's it's in the safest and
most comfortable and most developed parts of the world that
you see these kind of crises of meaning or crises
of hope the most often, And so there seems to
be something about reaching a certain level of comfort and
uh convenience that makes it more difficult to answer these
(15:33):
questions of what do I hope for? What's the point
of all this? You know, why get out of bed
in the morning? You know you can just have uber
give bring food to your bed, like so I get up.
Do you have a technique to walk through food people
through so they can figure out what those things are
for them when they're staring at the ceiling? Write a book,
(15:57):
write a best selling book, right to it them. You're
you're good to go. Let's solve everything. Not really, Um,
I think it's it's hard because it's it's such a
personal thing. Um. The first half of the book really
maps out I think, how what are the psychological mechanisms
(16:17):
that construct these narratives for ourselves? And and and it
helps people see where their narratives perhaps failed them, um,
where their hopes failed them. Um, But it's there. You know,
we have as many hopes as we do people. So
it's hard to you know, just give like a one
to three uh, step by step thing. Would you say
(16:40):
a goal is different from a hope because the hope
is so passive and it's just kind of like like wishing.
It's almost like, you know, like Santa Claus, I hope
Santa will bring me a select Christmas. Whereas a goal
is something you have to actively strive for or do
you not differentiate between them? I would say a goal
is a type of hope, okay that you try to control. Yeah,
(17:03):
you could say a goal is maybe like an a
hope oriented towards some some sort of action. You know,
It's like I hope I uh sell X many books,
so I'm gonna go tour. That's my goal. Um, Whereas
I can just hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow, but
there's nothing I can do. If life is about suffering,
(17:26):
you're gonna suffer a lot anyway. You're gonna feel pain.
How do you suffer successfully? How do you suffer away
that that builds at least a sense of contentment in
your existence? You suffer for good reasons? Basically is it's ah,
we all have to suffer, like It's just it's part
(17:46):
of our human wiring is that we we are going
to constantly find problems, perceive problems, and perceive things that
we wish were better or different. H question, So the
question is you're never going to reach a place where
you don't have problems. The question is how do you
find the problems that you feel are worth solving? How
do you find the struggles that you are happy you
(18:08):
have that struggle? UM. I think probably the most common
and most relatable example is like children. Children are obviously
a huge struggle. It's like one of the probably the
hardest thing anybody does in their life. But it's also
the most meaningful struggle for most people. UM, And so
it's not a struggle that they want to get rid of. UM.
(18:31):
So the goals to find meaningful struggles in the same
vein more questions after the break. I'm gonna go go
back to storism a bit because some of the things
you you speak to when you write about take me
(18:53):
in through that pathway again. For example, you speak about
the power of self limitation and this something Lisa has
been talking to me about are tire married life that
you're the only time you have freedom is when you
have the power of self limitation. Can you unwrap that
for the listeners? So I think I think culturally we
kind of assume that, uh, more freedom equals more options.
(19:17):
It's just having the ability to do more stuff. But
what's interesting is I think in terms of making choices
or brand only as a certain certain amount of bandwidth.
You know, once there are too many options, are too
much information. Um. The options don't make us feel more free.
They actually make us feel more anxious. We start freaking
(19:37):
out that, oh well, if I picked this thing, then
maybe I picked the wrong one. Maybe these other twenty
things could have been better. We start experiencing things like
fomo um, and it's it's only by very consciously deciding like,
this is the thing I'm committed to, and I'm I'm
giving up all of these other options, I'm giving up
(19:58):
the right to uh, to do all these other things
that that actually gives us the real sense of freedom.
Having more options doesn't improve our ability to make choices.
It actually confuses our ability to make choices. And freedom
is the ability to make conscious choice at least. You
(20:19):
often argue that if you're doing drugs, you're not free,
right because you're locked into doing drugs. You can we
assume that the the shore the freedom exists in the
choice itself, but when you make the compelled choice, there
is no freedom. So it's like with say potato chips,
if you're on a diet you choose to you say,
(20:40):
I'm choosing to the potatoships. There's no choice there. You're
compelled through addiction. Same thing with drugs. You're only in
freedom when you make the you the choice that you
want to make without the compulsion. I don't even know
how to differentiate those parts of yourself. But freedom only
exists in the right choice, which is like, I see
you have a wedding band on there not I hear you,
like when you're describing all your options, he's talking about girls. Well,
(21:04):
it's it's true though, I mean marriage is absolutely a
great example. But I mean it's it's true and a
lot of different things. I mean, it's health is another one.
You know, It's like giving up foods actually gives you
more freedom to be healthy. Um, job opportunities, career opportunities.
It's it's giving up opportunities to do other things is
(21:25):
actually what gives you the freedom to excel and what
you focus on. UM. And so it's really it's the
free The real choice is what to give up, not
what to to experience or indulge. It's a fundamental teaching
teaching of all the faith based enter teach you can
(21:46):
get exposed. So you mentioned that Buddhism, but you hear
it in Catholicism, Judaism, which is all about the struggle.
Islam is also about servitude, so yoga, mus yoke, right,
So it's it comes up in all these different flavors,
and yet it somehow got lost in a world. And
this is not without you know, this is not a
(22:07):
deep insight to say that you're tempting, tempted by many
more things. Ever before, how does the how does the
mind of a human, which usually changes over thousands of years,
not over weeks, cope with the world that's changing as
quickly as we are now. I think that's that's the
million dollar question right now. Um. I think there seems
(22:27):
to be a lot of evidence suggesting that the amount
of variety and uh options and experiences of our culture
today is outpacing our our mind's ability to process and
handle everything effectively. UM that that essentially is kind of
the root of the crisis of hope, that that the richest,
(22:50):
wealthiest countries are experiencing right now. It's just that it's
everything so quick and easy, and there's so many options
that we we don't know what I handle it. It
actually makes us more anxious and calls in the question
more what the point of everything is than ever before. Um.
One of the there are a few there are a
few points I make throughout the book. One is, I
(23:11):
think we the same way I think about years ago
we made the realization that, uh, we have to be
and we have to go on nutritional diets, like you
can't just sit around eat cupcakes all day like that
didn't We didn't really figure that out as a culture
until probably the sixties or seventies. Um. I think we're
going to go through a process that we've just started
(23:32):
now where we need to go on information diets, where
we need to be very strict and conscious of the
information that we're consuming, and also the relationships that were
fostering with other people and with other groups. UM. I
think another thing that that is also becoming I think,
and I really think this is why my work has
(23:55):
resonated so much, is I think people are realizing that comfort,
it inconvenience, is not always a good thing. Like the
same way, if you don't stress your your muscles with
some regularity, uh, they become weak and fragile. Like our
our mental and our emotional health needs some consistent amount
(24:16):
of stress applied to it UM for it to remain
strong and resilient. And so you're seeing a lot of
movements and groups and discussions about like leaning into UH
struggles and pain and conflict and and and doing doing
those things consciously but also doing them better. UH. And
(24:36):
then the last thing I call for at the very
end of the book is is I make the point
that I feel like, up until now, technological innovation has
essentially been geared at, uh taking advantage of our psychological weaknesses, UM,
leveraging our psychological flaws to get more user engagement or
(24:59):
drive profits whatever. And I kind of make a call
that our technology needs to start reorienting itself to compensating
for our psychological flaws. We know where our weaknesses are now,
we know what we're susceptible to, and we were definitely
capable of developing the technology to UH help us, you know,
(25:21):
overcome those What would that look like? What would the
app look like if you were going to post hope
world app? How do you do that? I have no idea,
UM thing. I can't be everything. I mean, there are
there are a lot of billionaires in Silicon Valley with
who are much smarter than I am. But it's you know,
I'm here to point out the problem, and uh and
(25:42):
I hope somebody takes it up. And you can't hope
hope of our post hope world here, don't even hope
someone doesn't do it? Or don't you know what my
life is like? Market markets, they see what it's like
to be me, encouraging him not to wait on and
wait for some more on brilliant, I don't think and
(26:03):
Valley to think up an app. You need to like
come up with a solution. Okay, yourself, I'll get on it. Actually,
actually the profit motive works against you. But the profit
motive works against you because there's been a lot of
money spent on doing exactly what you're describing happened. How
do you have the human brain? How do you take
advantage of the naturally addictive elements to a brain that
(26:23):
allowed our species to survive and thrive for seventy thousand
years since you left Africa? And that's you know, it's
just just the way you mentioned the food metaphor that
the same researchers done in the food industry in the
fifties and sixties and seventies what foods can you add.
They give it the right mouth field, the right addictive hit,
to the to the to the to the parts of
the brain that's also stimulated by cigarettes. That was all
(26:45):
done on you know, in a very thoughtful way. If
you worked in those businesses, you do that. In technology,
you do these. Actually it's not evil and nefarious. It's
just you're running a business. You want people to use
your appers to someone else's. You're gonna build tools and
the notify you at the right time. So I don't
know if it's a big profit. Without a profit motivation,
there's no reason for someone development app that will fail
(27:05):
on purpose. I and I agree, and I think that's
a very deep and fundamental problem. Um and I don't
know how we solve that. A better dating apple. My
third book will Solve Everything. There's no preface to our
speaking books. You can hear that's what will be called
I Solved Everything by part that Mark's new book called
(27:26):
I've Solved Everything. Is Everything is Fucked? A book about hope,
interesting juxtaposition awards. What's been a pleasure having? You want
thanks
I guess one way to describe my work is it's
pessimistic self help, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I
actually find it to be a lot more liberating. And
the whole thing with the coffee cup. It's it's a
joke early on in the book that I said that,
you know, I wouldn't write people's names, I would write
you and everyone you know is one day is going
to die. And other than a few things, nobody's gonna
(00:26):
remember any of this. Hi, I'm Dr Oz and this
(00:48):
is the Doctor Oz podcast. Mark Manson gave millions of
readers a pretty brutal reality check on how to get
through the toughest times in his New York Times bestselling
book The Subtle Art. I'm not been well. A funk
is what he said. His work has been described but
as much of a slap in the face, as much
as that is a pat in the back, I think
(01:08):
it's right. I think we've overreacted to the use of
not not non savee rewords, But there's so much wisdom here.
I wanted to have Mark On. He's back at it
again with his brand new book. They says It's all
about hope. It's called everything is well, you want to
say it fucked exactly, So it's fairly counterintuitive. A lot
of moms wouldn't want their kids reading this book. In fact, Uh,
it would scare of a lot of spokes away. Yet
(01:29):
is exactly the book you want people to read? Whose
folks are whose? Whose parents trying to protect them? Yeah?
It's Um, it's funny that the profanity is probably the
most common criticism I get, and I've gotten it for years.
But the point I keep making as I say that
profanity exists for a reason. It's the shock value. It's
there is a value in it. You know, it causes
(01:51):
you to let down your defenses and maybe consider other
perspectives that you wouldn't otherwise. You say you want to
take us to a place of happiness. Um, that right?
Or is it more? Is it more hopefulness? I would
say actual psychological healthiness, because I think you can all
you can be a healthy person psychologically without necessarily being
(02:13):
happy all the time. And I think that sometimes we
conflate those two things. Um, and people start because they're
not happy all the time, they start blaming themselves and
they make themselves feel worse. And which what's role of happiness.
I asked this a leading question because I have concerns
about it as well. But it is the goal for many.
It's it's not that there's anything wrong with it, but
(02:34):
I don't think it it can't be the goal itself. Um. No,
matter what you do with your life, reality is going
to hand you your ass sometimes, and that's just that's normal.
That in fact, that's actually that's where we develop a
sense of meaning and purpose is through overcoming obstacles and struggles.
And so if you're constantly looking for happiness, you're not
(02:56):
going to be willing to engage those obstacles and struggles
as well as you should be. Do you think I'm
too happy, Lisa, too happy, go lucky? Happy surgeon if
that's your new title, a happy surgeon. Yeah, No, you
just become so risk averse because that's uncomfortable, and I
think people see discomfort as the opposite of happiness. Now,
(03:21):
if what you really search you for his hope, hopefulness,
how do you find a life where you're not all fucked?
Is what your heart searching for? Hope? Is that what
your premises? Uh, my premise is that we need to
be careful about our hopes Um. So when subtle art,
I kind of attacked happiness. I I made the point
(03:41):
that we all assume that happiness is good, that we
should always be pursuing it. I do the same thing
here with hope. Um. I point out that hope has
a destructive side to it. Hope has a side that's
uncompromising and can potentially hurt others. Um And So the
same way we need to be skeptical if we're being
(04:02):
happy for the right reasons, we should be asking ourselves, um,
if we're hoping for the right things. So it's both
books seem to have a theme of personal psychological dishonesty.
Both with because your first one you made people reevaluate
their values um and so that they would place time
on what they truly valued, not and if there's values
(04:24):
were actually lousy, they would shift them. Yes, um. And
this one is I guess about misguided placement of hope.
So it's both reassessment of your it's still reassessment of values,
it's it's another side of the value equation. Yeah, well
I'm wrapped that a little bit though. So if if
I'm hopeful about an outcome, how how was that disservice
to others. Is that because I should have challenged them
(04:45):
and said, no, you know, we're headed in the wrong direction.
We got to turn back. It's not necessarily a disservice
to others. It's just that you can hope for things.
So we tend to always assume that our hopes are
positive and they're good for the world. You know that
that is by definition what a hope is hope the
other team fails. Yeah, but it's it's there. Are there
(05:07):
if you look at every destructive force in the world.
If you you take extremists or somebody like terrorists or
something like, they're motivated by hope as well. Uh. And
so it's I have a I have a quote in
the middle of the book that I talked about the
same way. We we tend to assume that love is
always a beautiful and healthy thing. Um, they're actually very
(05:28):
damaging and unhealthy forms of love. Love can cause the
most destruction in your life as well as give it
the most value and meaning. Um. Hope is kind of
the same way. If we're not careful, hope can become
incredibly destructive and damaging, both to ourselves and the people
around us that take it. A step back you wrote
that if you could do on every Starbucks coffee cup,
(05:49):
which like chonically what we're all walking and one round,
everything is fucked. So give us a limit of the
philosophy about how that frees us, how that guests us
past to the vapid search for happiness, the misguided search
for the wrong kinds of hope. So I kind of
I guess one way to describe my work is it's
(06:12):
pessimistic self help, which sounds like an oxymoron, but I
actually find it to be a lot more liberating. And
the whole thing with the coffee cup. It's a joke
early on in the book that I said that, you know,
I wouldn't write people's names. I would write you know,
you and everyone you know is one day is going
to die. And other than a few things, nobody's gonna
remember any of this. And it's like, it's just this
(06:33):
very bleak and dark statement. Um, can I just read
this because I wrote it down, Go for it, Go
for it. One day, you and everyone you love we'll die.
This isn't the book, by the way, this is read
a best selling book. Blunt honesty and beyond a small
group of people for an extremely brief period of time.
(06:54):
This is the ultimate insult, extremely brief period of time.
Little of what you say and do will ever matter.
We imagine our own importance, we invent our purpose. We
are nothing. Enjoy your fucking coffee. So this is why
I'm not very employable. It's it's this, It's this dark focus.
(07:16):
Yeah right. Um so it's I call that the uncomfortable
truth in the book, and it's something that I talked
about in subtle art as well. It said, you know,
most people they avoid thinking about their own mortality, thinking
about the vastness of the universe and how insignificant most
of their life seems in comparison, because it's it's frightening,
(07:39):
and it's we're afraid to let go of all of
the meaning and hope that we place on certain things
in our lives. Um. I come at it from the
other angle, and that if none of this really matters,
then there's absolutely no excuse to not act with courage
and integrity. There's no reason to not love of people
(08:00):
close to you fiercely. There's no reason not to sacrifice
yourself for causes that are greater than yourself. Um, it's this.
It's almost like this kind of nihilistic idea is actually
a liberating force for us to choose at all times
what is most important in our lives. Why though, because
(08:22):
if you have no reason not to do it, you
have no reason to do it either, Right, But it's
it's those are the things that at least give you
the feeling and the perception that your life is matters
and is important. So the motivation is an illusion. Yeah,
well it's the knowledge is an illusion essentially, like that
the knowledge that you know, we all we all think
(08:44):
what we do is very important and it's gonna last
for a long time. That's an illusion. But knowing that
that sort illusion helps us not buy into the wrong illusions.
So so let me look, nothing matters at all. If
you go completely nihilistic and go full own Nietzsche on us,
why get out of bed? Why not get out of bed?
(09:05):
So then just stay okay, but you it's it's going
to be you know, why not because it's easier because
if nothing matters, inertia is a bigger force, right, Yeah,
So you need something to counterbalance the inertia because inertia
will win if there's no other force. Sure, and so
and that's what our hopes do is we create these
hopes for ourselves and that's what gets us out of
(09:27):
bed in the morning. But I thought our hopes are fucked,
Well they are fucked, but it's important to know that
they that they are inventions, their psychological inventions, designed to
get us out of bed um. And that way, when
we when we recognize that this is kind of the
game that our brain is playing, it's much easier to uh,
(09:47):
look at our hopes, understand, be critical of them, understand
which ones are are helpful, which ones are hurting us,
and then switch them out for each other. So basically
you're saying this whole thing is made up. If you're
making up any way, make up a better game. Pretty
much pretty much. That that's one way to put it.
There's lots more. Will we come back. So you're walking
(10:17):
down the street and say you have a nice day,
which is something that probably most people listening have said today.
You don't like that, you do, right? You say, why
why would you have Why would you bother say you
have a nice day? What's wrong with that? What what
should be the greeting day? Well, I my problem with
have a nice day is it's like pent of the time.
You don't actually care. You're just it's just the thing
(10:39):
you say. It's just it's a it's an empty pleasantry,
you know, it's um. I would say, have a meaningful day,
m hm um, have a have an impactful day. Um.
You know, nice can mean a million things. I could
I could go shoot up a bunch of arrowine. That'd
be a nice day. Burn brightly, but briefly. You consider
(11:02):
yourself a Stoic. Uh, what do you think about the
Stoicism movement? I think so. I think that this this
whole revival with the Stoicism stuff is super interesting. I
don't personally, I'm not hugely into it, but a lot
of my beliefs and values kind of map onto it. Um.
My background is more Zen Buddhism, um, and there's a
(11:23):
lot of similarities and ideas. But I think it's the
Stoicism stuff is great because I think, uh, you know,
there's so much noise and craziness going on in the
world today with the Internet and social media that I
think these philosophies like Stoicism are helping us simplify and
get back to first principles and helping us manage our
(11:46):
expectations and our values a little bit better. Did did
you mentioned your background? Did were you? Did you live this?
Were you like, what's your life fun? And you figure
this out? Or did you come across this philosophy through studying?
How did you? How did you come up with this
news and philosophy? Well, you know, I practiced zen for
(12:06):
a number of years and I still I still meditate
on and off quite a bit. But um, you know,
I've always I've struggled with depression on and off throughout
my life. And um, this book. I started writing this
book and one of those plays, I had a very
weird experience where uh, subtle art became astronomically successful, and
(12:32):
that that messed with my head. Uh, it was. It
was There's a line in the new book where I
say that the only way for the only way to
truly destroy a dream is for it to have it
come true. And so basically all my dreams came true
within like two or three months, and uh, I freaked out.
I was like, what the hell do I hope for now?
And um, and so it was a very strange experience
(12:54):
and that I outwardly I was experiencing the most material
success in my life, but inwardly, I felt completely lost
and became a little bit depressed. And so that's what
got me thinking about these ideas of hope and meaning. Um,
you know, is any of this gonna last? Is any
of it permanent? Uh? And I started writing this book,
and I kind of wrote myself out of a depression.
(13:17):
Essentially can be cathartic putting words on paper, in part
because you have to tell yourself the truth usually part
a lot of yourself in print. Yeah, And and it's
a lot of very I think a lot of very
difficult truths that I had to own up to to
get out of that place came out in the book.
For example. For example, it's you know, it's you can
(13:40):
be a best selling author, but it's you know, two
hundred years from now, chances are nobody's gonna remember any
of this, um, you know. And so it's this thing
that I've I've dedicated my life too, and then and
then getting and then hitting hitting the top of the
mountain and realizing that there's just it doesn't matter at all. Um.
(14:01):
You know that that is that is definitely a shock
to the system. Um. And so a lot of this
stuff that I write about the coffee cup and the
uncomfortable truth like that's me wrestling with that fact of
my own life. Um of that it's no matter how
successful you get, no matter how hard you work, you know,
no matter how many awards and credentials you get, you're
(14:25):
still just this temporary consciousness running around inventing stories for yourselves.
Is that the paradox of progress? No, well, so this
ties into the paradox progress in a in a little
bit different way. I think it's the the whole. The
thing that really surprised me about my experience was this
idea that being more comfortable and secure can actually make
(14:49):
you give you a crisis of meaning and make it
more difficult to find meaning and hope in your life. Um.
And at the same time, I was doing a lot
of research around this. You know, there's a lot of
talk these days about the rise in mental health issues, depression, anxiety, suicides,
drug overdoses, and one thing that I found that was
(15:11):
particularly interesting is that it's it's in the safest and
most comfortable and most developed parts of the world that
you see these kind of crises of meaning or crises
of hope the most often, And so there seems to
be something about reaching a certain level of comfort and
uh convenience that makes it more difficult to answer these
(15:33):
questions of what do I hope for? What's the point
of all this? You know, why get out of bed
in the morning? You know you can just have uber
give bring food to your bed, like so I get up.
Do you have a technique to walk through food people
through so they can figure out what those things are
for them when they're staring at the ceiling? Write a book,
(15:57):
write a best selling book, right to it them. You're
you're good to go. Let's solve everything. Not really, Um,
I think it's it's hard because it's it's such a
personal thing. Um. The first half of the book really
maps out I think, how what are the psychological mechanisms
(16:17):
that construct these narratives for ourselves? And and and it
helps people see where their narratives perhaps failed them, um,
where their hopes failed them. Um, But it's there. You know,
we have as many hopes as we do people. So
it's hard to you know, just give like a one
to three uh, step by step thing. Would you say
(16:40):
a goal is different from a hope because the hope
is so passive and it's just kind of like like wishing.
It's almost like, you know, like Santa Claus, I hope
Santa will bring me a select Christmas. Whereas a goal
is something you have to actively strive for or do
you not differentiate between them? I would say a goal
is a type of hope, okay that you try to control. Yeah,
(17:03):
you could say a goal is maybe like an a
hope oriented towards some some sort of action. You know,
It's like I hope I uh sell X many books,
so I'm gonna go tour. That's my goal. Um, Whereas
I can just hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow, but
there's nothing I can do. If life is about suffering,
(17:26):
you're gonna suffer a lot anyway. You're gonna feel pain.
How do you suffer successfully? How do you suffer away
that that builds at least a sense of contentment in
your existence? You suffer for good reasons? Basically is it's ah,
we all have to suffer, like It's just it's part
(17:46):
of our human wiring is that we we are going
to constantly find problems, perceive problems, and perceive things that
we wish were better or different. H question, So the
question is you're never going to reach a place where
you don't have problems. The question is how do you
find the problems that you feel are worth solving? How
do you find the struggles that you are happy you
(18:08):
have that struggle? UM. I think probably the most common
and most relatable example is like children. Children are obviously
a huge struggle. It's like one of the probably the
hardest thing anybody does in their life. But it's also
the most meaningful struggle for most people. UM, And so
it's not a struggle that they want to get rid of. UM.
(18:31):
So the goals to find meaningful struggles in the same
vein more questions after the break. I'm gonna go go
back to storism a bit because some of the things
you you speak to when you write about take me
(18:53):
in through that pathway again. For example, you speak about
the power of self limitation and this something Lisa has
been talking to me about are tire married life that
you're the only time you have freedom is when you
have the power of self limitation. Can you unwrap that
for the listeners? So I think I think culturally we
kind of assume that, uh, more freedom equals more options.
(19:17):
It's just having the ability to do more stuff. But
what's interesting is I think in terms of making choices
or brand only as a certain certain amount of bandwidth.
You know, once there are too many options, are too
much information. Um. The options don't make us feel more free.
They actually make us feel more anxious. We start freaking
(19:37):
out that, oh well, if I picked this thing, then
maybe I picked the wrong one. Maybe these other twenty
things could have been better. We start experiencing things like
fomo um, and it's it's only by very consciously deciding like,
this is the thing I'm committed to, and I'm I'm
giving up all of these other options, I'm giving up
(19:58):
the right to uh, to do all these other things
that that actually gives us the real sense of freedom.
Having more options doesn't improve our ability to make choices.
It actually confuses our ability to make choices. And freedom
is the ability to make conscious choice at least. You
(20:19):
often argue that if you're doing drugs, you're not free,
right because you're locked into doing drugs. You can we
assume that the the shore the freedom exists in the
choice itself, but when you make the compelled choice, there
is no freedom. So it's like with say potato chips,
if you're on a diet you choose to you say,
(20:40):
I'm choosing to the potatoships. There's no choice there. You're
compelled through addiction. Same thing with drugs. You're only in
freedom when you make the you the choice that you
want to make without the compulsion. I don't even know
how to differentiate those parts of yourself. But freedom only
exists in the right choice, which is like, I see
you have a wedding band on there not I hear you,
like when you're describing all your options, he's talking about girls. Well,
(21:04):
it's it's true though, I mean marriage is absolutely a
great example. But I mean it's it's true and a
lot of different things. I mean, it's health is another one.
You know, It's like giving up foods actually gives you
more freedom to be healthy. Um, job opportunities, career opportunities.
It's it's giving up opportunities to do other things is
(21:25):
actually what gives you the freedom to excel and what
you focus on. UM. And so it's really it's the
free The real choice is what to give up, not
what to to experience or indulge. It's a fundamental teaching
teaching of all the faith based enter teach you can
(21:46):
get exposed. So you mentioned that Buddhism, but you hear
it in Catholicism, Judaism, which is all about the struggle.
Islam is also about servitude, so yoga, mus yoke, right,
So it's it comes up in all these different flavors,
and yet it somehow got lost in a world. And
this is not without you know, this is not a
(22:07):
deep insight to say that you're tempting, tempted by many
more things. Ever before, how does the how does the
mind of a human, which usually changes over thousands of years,
not over weeks, cope with the world that's changing as
quickly as we are now. I think that's that's the
million dollar question right now. Um. I think there seems
(22:27):
to be a lot of evidence suggesting that the amount
of variety and uh options and experiences of our culture
today is outpacing our our mind's ability to process and
handle everything effectively. UM that that essentially is kind of
the root of the crisis of hope, that that the richest,
(22:50):
wealthiest countries are experiencing right now. It's just that it's
everything so quick and easy, and there's so many options
that we we don't know what I handle it. It
actually makes us more anxious and calls in the question
more what the point of everything is than ever before. Um.
One of the there are a few there are a
few points I make throughout the book. One is, I
(23:11):
think we the same way I think about years ago
we made the realization that, uh, we have to be
and we have to go on nutritional diets, like you
can't just sit around eat cupcakes all day like that
didn't We didn't really figure that out as a culture
until probably the sixties or seventies. Um. I think we're
going to go through a process that we've just started
(23:32):
now where we need to go on information diets, where
we need to be very strict and conscious of the
information that we're consuming, and also the relationships that were
fostering with other people and with other groups. UM. I
think another thing that that is also becoming I think,
and I really think this is why my work has
(23:55):
resonated so much, is I think people are realizing that comfort,
it inconvenience, is not always a good thing. Like the
same way, if you don't stress your your muscles with
some regularity, uh, they become weak and fragile. Like our
our mental and our emotional health needs some consistent amount
(24:16):
of stress applied to it UM for it to remain
strong and resilient. And so you're seeing a lot of
movements and groups and discussions about like leaning into UH
struggles and pain and conflict and and and doing doing
those things consciously but also doing them better. UH. And
(24:36):
then the last thing I call for at the very
end of the book is is I make the point
that I feel like, up until now, technological innovation has
essentially been geared at, uh taking advantage of our psychological weaknesses, UM,
leveraging our psychological flaws to get more user engagement or
(24:59):
drive profits whatever. And I kind of make a call
that our technology needs to start reorienting itself to compensating
for our psychological flaws. We know where our weaknesses are now,
we know what we're susceptible to, and we were definitely
capable of developing the technology to UH help us, you know,
(25:21):
overcome those What would that look like? What would the
app look like if you were going to post hope
world app? How do you do that? I have no idea,
UM thing. I can't be everything. I mean, there are
there are a lot of billionaires in Silicon Valley with
who are much smarter than I am. But it's you know,
I'm here to point out the problem, and uh and
(25:42):
I hope somebody takes it up. And you can't hope
hope of our post hope world here, don't even hope
someone doesn't do it? Or don't you know what my
life is like? Market markets, they see what it's like
to be me, encouraging him not to wait on and
wait for some more on brilliant, I don't think and
(26:03):
Valley to think up an app. You need to like
come up with a solution. Okay, yourself, I'll get on it. Actually,
actually the profit motive works against you. But the profit
motive works against you because there's been a lot of
money spent on doing exactly what you're describing happened. How
do you have the human brain? How do you take
advantage of the naturally addictive elements to a brain that
(26:23):
allowed our species to survive and thrive for seventy thousand
years since you left Africa? And that's you know, it's
just just the way you mentioned the food metaphor that
the same researchers done in the food industry in the
fifties and sixties and seventies what foods can you add.
They give it the right mouth field, the right addictive hit,
to the to the to the to the parts of
the brain that's also stimulated by cigarettes. That was all
(26:45):
done on you know, in a very thoughtful way. If
you worked in those businesses, you do that. In technology,
you do these. Actually it's not evil and nefarious. It's
just you're running a business. You want people to use
your appers to someone else's. You're gonna build tools and
the notify you at the right time. So I don't
know if it's a big profit. Without a profit motivation,
there's no reason for someone development app that will fail
(27:05):
on purpose. I and I agree, and I think that's
a very deep and fundamental problem. Um and I don't
know how we solve that. A better dating apple. My
third book will Solve Everything. There's no preface to our
speaking books. You can hear that's what will be called
I Solved Everything by part that Mark's new book called
(27:26):
I've Solved Everything. Is Everything is Fucked? A book about hope,
interesting juxtaposition awards. What's been a pleasure having? You want
thanks
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