May 7, 2024 • 63 mins
In this episode, A.J. Jacobs sets out on a journey of “living constitutionally” for a year! With a unique blend of humor and curiosity, A.J. and Eric dive into a discussion and exploration of the Constitution that offers many thought-provoking ideas to deepen the understanding of its historical significance and relevance in contemporary society.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover the historical significance of Election Day and its impact on our democracy
- Explore the overlooked modern conveniences that can shed light on the conveniences we take for granted today
- Uncover the timeless virtues embodied by the Founding Fathers and their relevance to our understanding of the Constitution.
- Dive into the intriguing world of 18th-century traditions and their relevance in today’s context
To learn more, click here!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think as a society we should reward people who
say I was wrong instead of saying, oh, you're a
flip flopper or have a spine. No, the true courage,
the true vulnerability, is thing you know I was wrong
about that. I've grown, I've changed, I've evolved.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
(00:43):
or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
what we do. We think things that hold us back
and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
to make a life worth living. This podcast asked is
about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
(01:03):
how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Our guest on this show is aj Jacobs, a journalist, lecturer,
(01:25):
and human guinea pig who has written four best selling books,
including the much loved The Year of Living biblically. He
blends memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self help.
AJ is a contributor to NPR, The New York Times,
and Esquire, among other media outlets. Today, Aj and Eric
discuss his book, The Year of Living Constitutionally, One Man's
(01:48):
Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Hi, Aj, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I am so happy to be back.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
If anybody is watching this, they are going to immediately
notice that we are in person, which is a good thing.
They're going to notice some other odd things. We're both
wearing tricorn.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hats, very true.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
We have pewter mugs. We have goose.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They are goose.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes wills to write with absolutely. And the reason we're
doing that is because you have a new book called
The Year of Living Constitutionally, One Man's Humble Quest to
follow the Constitution's Original meaning. And so, in addition to
exploring the Constitution and what it means and how it's interpreted,
you also attempted to live as if you were living
(02:34):
in seventeen ninety. Hence the props that we have here exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And you are a great sport for wearing the tracorn mat.
I think you look very handsome. I think you look terrific.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So I was sort of leaning towards powdered wig. Did
they wear powdered wigs?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Then?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Oh, yeah, and I do have one, But I thought
that might be a bridge too far.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Bridge too far. Well, I don't know, So welcome back.
Great to be here, and we'll get in to the
book in a minute, but will start like we always
do with the Parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent
who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
there are two wolves inside of us that are always
at battle. One it's a good wolf, which represents things
like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
(03:15):
bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a
second and looks up at their grandparents says which one wins,
And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
like to ask what that means to you in your
life and in the latest work that you've done here.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, as you know, I love the Parable, and last
time I was on I talked about how it related
to gratitude for me and how you can feed the
good wolf by focusing on the hundreds of things that
went right every day, Like I pressed the elevator button
and the elevator came, and I got in and I got.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Out, and I got getting out the important part there,
Like really, I mean, that's the part I'm grateful for
that is right.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yes, there was no it didn't plummet and break my
collar bone. So yeah, But this time I wanted to
do something different. So I thought about the words, and
I drilled down on the word feed and it made
me think of where it's like news feed and information diet,
(04:22):
and I was like, maybe there's something there, because what
we feed our brain is then fed to the good
or the bad wolf, and there is a lot of
bad food out there information wise. I mean, there's a
lot of junk food on social media in the news,
(04:42):
and if I choose to do that, if I choose
to click on, oh look there's someone throwing chairs at McDonald's,
you know that feels good in the moment, like junk
food does, like a twinkie does, feels good going down,
but in the long term it's top. So I really
(05:03):
try to make a choice in my information diet to
have more good information than bad. And you can do
that by first of all, reading books and little self serving.
But I do books. Good new books are good and
they go deeper on a topic. They give you more perspective.
(05:25):
I also feel when I read something, I don't want
to be totally out of the news cycle. I want
to know what's going on. But if I read something negative,
the news has a very negative bias because it's much
more interesting. Layoffs are more interesting than hires, for instance.
So I try to be aware of the negative bias.
(05:47):
So if I read an article, I did this just
last week. I read an article about homelessness and how
prevalent it is, and then I googled solutions to homelessness
and I read all of these articles and studies about
how are people addressing this? Because the media often lays
out the problem and forgets to talk about possible solutions.
(06:11):
So that is feeding my good wolf. Reading about the
solutions and reading about the problems is feeding my bad wolf.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So something I'm going to be doing a little more
often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
only if combined with action and integration. So before we
move on, I'd like to ask you what's coming up
for you as you listen to this. Are there any
things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
(06:40):
might make sense to remove, or any things you could
do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing.
So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love
if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
feed my good wolf. Whatever your thing is, a really
useful strategy can be had. I mean something external, a
(07:01):
prompt or a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges
you back towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year,
I've been sending little Goodwolf reminders to some of my
friends and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two
times per week that give them a little bit of
wisdom and remind them to pause for a second and
come off autopilot. If you want, I can send them
(07:22):
to you too. I do it totally for free, and
people seem to really love them. Just drop your information
at oneufeed dot net slash SMS and I can send
them to you. It's totally free, and if you end
up not liking the little reminders you can easily opt out.
That's one you feed dot net slash sms and now
back to the episode. Is another way of relating to
(07:44):
the news. As part of this book, you I believe
spend a fair amount of time reading newspapers from seventeen
ninety would that be correct, seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Absolutely, yeah, Ben Franklin's newspaper in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, what sort of fun things did you find?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Well? It was fascinating because, first of all, it relates
to what we were just talking about. Newspapers only came
out twice a week, so you did not have the
sixteen hour fire hose of negative stories in your face.
It allowed you to process it and have some distance.
One part I loved about reading these newspapers from the
(08:21):
seventeen nineties was seeing all of the things I totally
take for granted that did not exist. So there was
an article about this crazy new idea that they should
put numbers on the houses in Philadelphia so that you
wouldn't have to say, oh, you go down that street
(08:42):
and make a left at the big manure pile, and
then that's the big blue house, like you could say, oh,
it's seven eighty seven Washington Street.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's amazing that, Like, when things like that are invented,
you're always like, how did it take that long for
anybody to think of that?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Right? And I just would never have even thought that
this was something to be grateful for. This was not reading.
But I also became very grateful for elastic, because, as
you can see, I tried to dress. The part of
what I do as a writer is I really get
into the lifestyle and try to get into the mindset
(09:18):
of the founding father. So I would wear my buckle
shoes and my stockings, and if you wear real stockings
made in the style of the seventeen nineties, there's no elastic,
so they slipped down your leg. You have to put
on little tiny belts. They're not even garters. They didn't
even have garters, They're these little belts. The amount of
time that I spent putting on sock belts and adjusting
(09:42):
my socks, you know, I'll never get that time back.
So it made me very grateful for elastic, which I
had never given much thought to before.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Me neither, but I can see the obvious upside to.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It, Yeah, literal upside.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, Yeah, it is amazing how we do take so
many of the modern conveniences for granted. I think we
all know that that's sort of a common thing to say,
but I think I love what you're doing because you're
sort of taking those away from yourself right for a
period of time. And that is one of the ways
that psychologists will talk about sort of getting out of
(10:20):
that habituation loop where you just take everything for granted.
Is you take whatever it is away for a little
while and you suddenly have a whole new appreciation for.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It, right. It's sort of like lent. I'm not Catholic myself,
but I think that is a nice idea, or like
the Sabbath and just taking a rest and taking yourself
away so you appreciate the things.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, So your book talks about the Constitution a lot,
and I really appreciated it because I felt like it
was a very fair and balanced book that allowed me
to see the different constitutional arguments really with very little
bias on your part. And I really appreciated that. Like,
(11:04):
I just don't think that I get that many opportunities
in modern day society to hear both sides of an
argument laid out really sort of eloquently. Mostly what I
hear is the opponent's argument laid out in sort of
a straw man character way, so we just tear it down. Yeah,
but you resisted that temptation.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, thank you. That is lovely to hear. Have you
ever heard of the opposite of a straw man is
a steel man, so like the metal steel, and that's
people I disagree with. I try to present their argument
in the steel man case, because otherwise we're never going
to get anywhere. We're never going to actually figure out
what we can do to agree and move forward. So
(11:47):
thank you. I am delighted to hear that. I will say,
just to back up, this book is a semi sequel
to a book I wrote many years ago called The
Year of Living Biblically, and that book was similar in
that I tried to understand the Bible by following all
the rules, so the ten commandments, but also the obscure
rules like I couldn't shave the corners of my beard.
(12:10):
I didn't know where the corners were, so the whole
thing I just looked like zz top to use a
very old reference. And also, yeah, stoning adulterers.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So all right, we got a pause on stoning adulterers.
I heard you just mention that in passing that you
were attempting to stone an adulterer in Central Park with
really small stones. Right, accurate? That is, did you identify
said adulterer?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, good question. I listen. As with this book, I
was very much getting into it. So I had the robe,
I had the sandals, I had my beard. And a
guy came up to me and he said in Central Park.
He said, what's going on? Why do you look like that?
And I said, well, I'm trying to do this experiment
(12:57):
where I follow all the rules of the Bible, from
the Ten Commandments to stoning adulters. And he said, well,
I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And
I said that would be wonderful. Thank you. What a
nice offer. And as you mentioned, I had been carrying
around stones, very small, pebble size, in my pocket, hoping
(13:19):
I would run into an adulter. So here he was.
I took the stones out to show them that they
were small, and he was very aggressive. He grabbed the
stones and threw them at my face. So I thought, yes,
thank you for that look of disbelief. Yeah, so I
thought I could throw one back at him. Sort of
an eye for an eye situation. So part of the
(13:40):
book was to show that we should not take the
Bible literally, that there's lots of wisdom in the Bible,
and I feel this Constitution book was similar. And then
I wanted to show the good and the bad. I
wanted to show there is so much wisdom in the Constitution,
and then there are parts that are two hundred thirty
years that need some updating. So I try to be,
(14:03):
as you say, as balanced as possible.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, and we're not really a show that goes into
things like the constitutional whole lot. So I think we're
going to focus more on the wisdom that perhaps some
of the founding fathers had. But there is one aspect
that I wanted to talk about, and I was really
intrigued by the idea of constitutional rights versus constitutional virtues. Oh,
(14:27):
can you just sort of share what that means and
how it applies when we look at how we interpret
the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Absolutely that was one of my favorite areas, and I
think that is very relevant to this show because the Constitution,
as you know, has a bill of rights. The most
famous ones about freedom of speech, right to bear arms,
and all the others. But at the same time. Back then,
there was a lot of stress on virtue and responsibility
(15:00):
and duty to your community, to your country, to your family.
No one wrote a bill of responsibilities into the Constitution.
But that was just because it was so ingrained and
so assumed that you would contribute to your community, that
you would self sacrifice, that you would sacrifice your own
(15:24):
time and energy for the common good. It was also
biblical love your neighbor. So I think that that is
something that we are missing today because rightly, there is
a lot of emphasis on our individual rights, which are
so important, but I think we've lost a little sense
of that. Along with rights come responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah, you talk about freedom of speech, right. We tend
to think freedom of speech means we can say whatever whenever,
any time, But that's not exactly how it was imagined
and even implemented in the early days. Say a little
more about that.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, freedom of speech was much more constrained in the
Founding era. I don't want to go back to the
Founding era in that case, because it wasn't like Stalinist Russia,
but it was much more constrained. You had laws in
many states that were considered constitutional that were blasphemy laws
or laws against cursing. In New York in the late
(16:23):
seventeen hundreds, you would be charged thirty seven and a
half cents for every time you cursed or said the
word damn. I tried to institute that with my family.
I have teenage sons, and I was like, this is
a good idea to try to kint them to clean
up their language. It didn't work out great because they
(16:43):
found this loophole. Oh, we don't have half a cent,
so we'll just wait until it's seventy five cents, and
then it got to seventy five cents and then they.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Would curse again a cent.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, So they found the loophole. But there was much
more of a sense that rights are not absolute trump cards.
They talk about the social contract. When you are part
of society, you are part of the social contract, and
part of that is thinking about other people and not
focusing solely on your rights, but also how it affects others.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, and that's kind of what struck me in reading
the book was that idea that in addition to the
focus on the rights, as you said, there was the
interpretation of these things through the common good, and you know,
it seems that restrict adherence to the Constitution, that latter
element is often left out.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I think so. I think so, and it's been brought
up throughout history. I mean that was John F. Kennedy's
speech is inauguration speech. I believe where he said, ask
not what you can do for your country.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Ask what your country can do for you.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I got it exactly backwards. Yes, ask not what your
country can do for you, Ask what you can do
for your country. You could substitute community, you could stop
institute whatever the world or people for that. But I
think that idea has been lost a lot and we
need to reclaim it. And I'm not saying I'm a
perfect citizen at all, but it is something when I'm
(18:14):
making decisions that is something I try to consider. And
in fact, Ben Franklin my favorite of the Founding fathers.
He is sort of the first self help author, so
he like spawned you and me like and he had
a sample of his daily schedule and when he woke up,
(18:34):
the first thing he did was to ask himself, what
good shall I do today? So it wasn't like, you know,
what can I accomplish for myself? It was like, what
can I do for others today, and then at the
end of the day, he would say, what good did
I accomplish today? What can I do better? I love that.
I wrote it out with my little quill pen and
(18:56):
put it over my desk as sort of a moral
compass to like, what good can I do today? And
when I get frustrated like that editor rejected my article,
I'm outraged. I'm like, you know what, that is not
the main goal I should be focusing on, like getting
into every magazine. No, I should be like, what good
(19:16):
can I do today?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah? When I originally got sober in twelve step programs,
that is a hugely emphasized part of recovery is what
can you do for the alcoholic who's still suffering?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I love that, And that translates into little things like,
you know, washing coffee cups or making the coffee, being
the person who shows up early to open the meeting,
all the way to you know, showing up for people
who need it. You know, but it's baked in and
it's foundational, and early on I lived that better than
I've ever lived it since interesting, and I was probably
(19:53):
happier in many ways than living out of that, Like
being the central question of every day, right, how can
I serve others? Right? As an orientation really changes things.
And early on I had nothing else in my life
except recovery. Right. I had burned it all to the ground. Right,
(20:14):
So it was pretty easy to be like, well, if
I'm going to orient around something, you know, I don't
have a job. I'll just go to meetings all day. Like.
It was a different life than right. But I sometimes
look back on and I'm like, I could move more
in that direction, sure, and it would be a positive.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I love that. And I think what you said is
it's a delightful coincidence whatever it is, that when you
are serving others, that is a path to happiness.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And in fact, the constitutional scholar Jeff Rosen, who's he's
head of the National Constitution Center, he talks about the
mindset of the founding fathers was there's the famous phrase
pursuit of happiness, But back then, the pursuit of happiness
was not sort of this hedonistic approach. The pursuit of
happiness wasn't about feeling good. It was about doing good,
(21:03):
and by doing good you start to feel good.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
YEP. One of my favorite phrases that I've used a
thousand times on this show. Well, I couldn't have used
it a thousand times. I have seven hundred episodes. There's
some exaggeration. The uh. Sometimes you can't think your way
in the right action. You have to act your way
into right thinking. Right, that's the exact same thing. By
doing good, you actually feel good. And you talk about
that behavior changes emotion.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
You and I both love that quote so much. I
think about it all the time, right, And if I'm
feeling depressed, I try to act like what would a
happy person do? If I'm feeling pessimistic, what would an
optimistic person do? And your mind catches up with your
actions with your behavior.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, you talk about in the book your own attempt
to not swear, and yes, you know, using funny words
instead of the swear words it changed you.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right, Yeah, so I would use instead of the F word,
I would say fudge, and my wife would make fun
of me and that you know, what are you?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is the Andy Griffith Show, what's going on? But
it did have like we talked about, the behavior actually
changes them all because I would say that word out loud,
and I would hear myself say it. And I'd be like,
that is so ridiculous, but it took me away from
that momentary anger.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And I think that was very helpful.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So Ben Franklin, I want to see how much this
is the Ben Franklin quiz. No, but I've often heard
of Ben Franklin. I think he had his was it
thirteen virtues? Or and talk to me about how he
cultivated those did he work on one at a time?
Like what was his method of cultivating those virtues?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I knew this at one point, and I can't remember
whether he did it like week by week. I will say,
I'm going to pivot. Pivot yep, because and it's actually
a very appropriate pivot because Ben Franklin was very humble
about what he knew, and he was okay with not
(23:04):
knowing things, and he said we should all be more
open and vulnerable and say, you know what I don't know?
He during the Constitutional Convention said that, and the older
he gets, the less certain he is of his own opinions.
And he also told this great story at the convention.
(23:25):
He said it was sort of like a joke. He said,
there's a tale of the French lady and she tells
her sister, why is it. It's so strange that I
have never met anyone except for myself who is right
in every instance. And his point was, we are all
(23:46):
that French lady. We all think that we are right.
And he was saying, have some epistemic humility and be
okay with learning and change.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It's a good pivot. That's a good pot Thank you,
good pivot.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And I will say one I just want to and
that is one of my favorite pieces of wisdom from
the eighteenth century, is this idea that they were, I
feel more flexible in their thinking. We are so intransitent
and dug into our opinions and nothing can sway us.
They were much more open and you read the Constitutional Convention.
(24:21):
There were ideas flying around. There was three presidents. Was
very popular for a while, and James Madison was famous
for changing his mind and it's not a negative, it's
a positive to evolve. And his last words, according to Law,
at least his last words on his deathbed where he
(24:42):
made a face and his niece said what's going on
and he said, oh, I just changed my mind, and
then he died. It could be about the bi camera legislature.
It could be about soup. Who knows what he.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Changed could be about the nature of reality.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I saw something at the last second of his exactly. Yeah,
I love that story. I'm glad you brought that up,
and I agree. I think being able to reflect on
where we're wrong. I interviewed Will Schwalby earlier, and a
fair amount of the conversation we talked about it's in
context of his friendship with this gentleman Chris Maxie, who
(25:18):
apparently your son went to his school, but about how
wrong he was about that friend because they were so
radically different early in their lives. Right, Chris Maxie was
a little bit of a jock, you know, and Will
Shwawby was a frightened gay kid, right, and he was
so wrong about him.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, you know, I think as a society we should
reward people who say I was wrong instead of saying, oh,
you're a flip flapper, have a spine. No, the true courage,
the true vulnerability is thing you know, I was wrong
about that. I've grown, I've changed, I've evolved.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, you know. Embedded in zen is the core idea
(26:19):
of beginner's mind, right about just you know, thinking, I
don't know all the answers, you know, how do I
approach this thing fresh? And that's one of the things
that the book really did for me was allow me
to look at the opposing constitutional arguments in a fresh
way to actually go, oh hmm, okay, I can see
(26:41):
that that makes sense. I'm not sure I still fully agree,
but I can understand. I can see how you would
arrive at that conclusion at least, and that feels really important.
And I mean it's sort of a cliche to talk
about the polarization, but that's part of the core problem.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Oh yeah, I think the ability to take people at
their word that they're not being evil, that they truly
believe this, and maybe once you acknowledge that, you can
present evidence and try to have a rational discussion. I mean,
at the end, I am on the side that the
Constitution needs to evolve and change, but I don't want
(27:21):
to demonize the other side because then we're never going
to get anywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right, Yeah, nobody's mind gets changed in the way we
currently have dialogue. Right, it just never happens. Well, it's
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I mean, the Founding Father said a lot, and they
said some wise things. Alexander Hamilton, in the very first
Federalist paper, which are these essays about the Constitution, said
that in politics and religion, no one's mind has ever
been changed by persecution. And it's true, you cannot persecute
(27:53):
someone into converting. And I mean they'll say there, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Let's talk a little bit about other sort of virtues
that the Founding fathers would have had that we could
learn from.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, one huge one for me was the idea of
thinking slow. So we love our hot takes. They were
cold takes. And it was partly the technology. I mean,
I wrote with a quill pen, and it's a very
different experience.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I've been looking at this thing, thinking my handwriting is
nearly illegible with modern technology. This is going to be
something else when I try and write with it, because
it's I mean, we're not talking about fountain pen. Like
when you first started writing, it was like thinking fountain pen.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about
a feather that you dip an ink.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, a feather. You carve it into a sharp point
and you dip it in ink. I found it actually
a very lovely experience, the sort of asmr the sound
of it scratching.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
But your wife, on the other hand, a long suffering woman,
did not like it, despise it. I have to have
the chance to give her a public apology for everything
you've done over the years. Would that be helpful?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Absolutely? And yes, I am sorry Julie. She has put
up with a lot. But I do contend I put
myself through these crazy things and her. But in the end,
I hope I'm a better person and we have a
better It's worth it, that's the hope. Yes, who will
have to ask her if that's true? But yeah, I
(29:28):
feel that when you're writing long hand, you don't have
to write with a quill, but writing long hand provides
a different experience. First of all, you don't have all
the pings and dings and the lure of the internet,
so you can focus more fully. And you also, when
you're writing long hand, you can't just press send. You
(29:49):
can't write a couple of acronyms and then press send.
I would actually send letters, so I would have to
fold them, put them in an envelope, and it gives
you a way period for your thoughts. Sometimes I would
write an angry letter and then that send it. But
I felt better. I felt, I felt better, I got
(30:09):
my sort of my point out, and I'm like, I
don't really need to send this. I think that it
leads to a less impulsive, more profound style of thinking,
and that is something I would love to recover.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the angry letter that
never gets sent. It's a useful tool, you know, for
me if I realize, like anything I say is not
going to make this situation better. Sometimes when you're angry,
it makes sense in a reasonable way to address the
issue right, right, because to not address it as sort
of avoidance, right, But there are times that it just
(30:45):
shouldn't be addressed at all. Right, But I'm still angry, right,
you know, And so I would just find writing really
angry letters would be great. Now I just tear them up.
I also used to have a rule that I could
not send any email about anything important after five pm.
Interesting because I realized as the day went on, I'm
(31:06):
sort of now I'm rushing, right, and so it can
be like four fifty five or whatever, five minutes before
I'm going to knock off for the day, whether it's
five pm or seven pm, and I'm rushing, and I'm
addressing something important and I'm rushing to do it. Yeah,
And I'm like, I just set myself a rule like
don't send it.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Im back in the.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Morning and see, And many, many, many times I would
come back in the morning and be like, either the
way I'm responding to this is I'm overly angry, I'm
overly frustrated, or I'm not responding with enough care in
the way that I'm like, I'm just sort of being
terse when this calls for something different than terse because
(31:44):
I'm not rushing. So I kind of agree with you.
I don't know if I'm going to go to again.
My writing is so bad. The computer saved me, Like
you know, it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yes, I don't think we should fully return to quill pens.
And I certainly the computer during the years, because I
ordered these quill pens over a computer. I ordered my
candles over a computer. But whenever possible, I would try
to see what are some of the advantages. And I
love what you say about having that time. And a
(32:16):
lot of times back then, if they were writing a
letter overseas, the boats would go out maybe once every
two weeks, so you would have two weeks to write
a letter and then yeah, if you wrote something crazy,
you could bear it back.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I recently started a pen pow relationship with a former
guest of the show where we write each other actual letters,
and I'm always like, why am I doing this? Like
I would do this far more easily. I would not
lag so long between letters if I actually could just
do it on my computer. And then I get a
letter and I'm like, I love it, right, Like I
(32:52):
just love opening a letter and reading the thing, and
so I'm glad we're doing it that way.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Do you feel that you think and write differently when
you're writing the letter or not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
A little bit. What I would like to get away
from is the feeling like I have to get it
done quickly, got it That mentality that is embedded in
modern day culture follows itself into that process. I would
like to wall it off in some way, right right,
you know, I mean we're both of an age where
letters were how you communicated. Yeah, you know, I used
(33:24):
to love writing letters with my friends and getting letters
in the mail, and like it was just a it's
a different world.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I was just thinking they did write letters, but they
they did have their own acronyms like we have on
textos so y hos is how you would end a
letter your humble and obedient servant A J. Jacobs so
so yeah. They had their shortcuts, but overall it was
a much more appropriate.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Would you say that to like a friend, like who
are you saying?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Oh? Yeah? And it's it is a little odd, but
I do like the stress on humility, that is, you
know what we were talking about, being able to say
I don't know. And that was a big virtue. That
was one of Franklin's thirteen virtues was humility.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Highly stressed in twelve step programs.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There you go. The other sort of the parallel to
writing by hand, I feel is meeting face to face,
and that is something I tried to do a lot,
because that is our right peaceably to assemble is right
there in the first Amendment. And I felt that I
(34:31):
shouldn't peaceably assemble over zoom, I should peaceably assemble have people.
And one of the most meaningful experiences was I threw
an eighteenth century dinner party where we had eighteenth century
food like beef stew, and we didn't do turtle soup,
even though that was a popular meal. I decided that
(34:53):
was hard to source. We had beef stew and we
had people from all different ideological backgrounds, ethnic and geographical
backgrounds come together and we had a lovely discussion. We
disagreed about a lot, but it was a lovely, civil
and productive discussion. And actually, one thing that it reminds
me of because I was just listening to your lovely
(35:16):
episode with Chris about your friendship and how you loved
to play guitar together. Yes, and that was very eighteenth
century because there was no stereo. If you wanted music,
you played music, and that was how they entertained themselves.
It was very much you were active. You were an
(35:37):
active participant. You weren't sitting back watching a show. You
were singing, you were dancing, you were having a discussion.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I wish there was more of that for me, more
of like playing music versus listening to it. I mean,
I love listening to music, don't get me wrong, with
one of my great joys in life. Sure the balance
is a little off currently agree exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
And they didn't have a choice. I mean, yeah, it
is amazing we can listen to That's another thing. Just
we should not take for granted that we can hear
the greatest musicians of all playing in our house. I
mean that was not true for ninety nine percent of
human history.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
(36:36):
how can you put it into practice in your life. Seriously,
just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
(36:57):
insightful little prompts and wisdom from guests. They are a
nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life,
and they're a helpful way to not get lost in
the busyness and forget what is important. You can join
at oneufeed dot net, slash sms and if you don't
like them, you can get off a list really easily.
So far there are over one and seventy two others
(37:20):
from the one you Feed community on the list, and
we'd love to welcome you as well. So head on
over to oneufeed dot net slash sms and let's feed
our good wolves together. Early on, you began to go
to reenactment battles as a way of immersing yourself more
fully in what it was like to be there. But
one of the very first experiences you went to a
(37:42):
battle that wasn't really exactly a battle, the Battle of
Fort Lee, right. Share some about that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, So to really get into the mindset of the
founding fathers, I decided to join the New Jersey Third
Regiment of Revolutionary War re Enactors. I would have preferred
to join a reenactment group that reenacted the Constitutional Convention,
but that doesn't really exist. People prefer the muskets and the.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Form a constitutional reenactment group. I don't know how many
people would come, but you could give it a shot.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I might be the only delegate, that's true, But yes,
I loved these people meeting them, and one thing that
was actually quite moving I had always seen reenactments is
kind of silly and something, you know that was funny
to watch on The Simpsons, but I would never do
it myself. After talking to them, I saw why it
(38:37):
was meaningful for them. One man said he became a
reenactor after reading this amazing book which I read. It
was the diary of a Revolutionary War soldier from Connecticut,
and it was basically just how difficult life was as
a revolutionary, how cold you were, hungry you were. I
(39:01):
remember he even talked about how he couldn't sleep because
the whipper wheels were tweeting all night and it was
keeping him up. So they had no shoes in the snow.
And this man said, I just feel that I should
honor them somehow for their sacrifice, and this is the
way I'm going to try to honor them, to try
(39:22):
to keep this alive. Another one of the reenactors said,
what I love about it is that when I go
to a work party, what do we talk about, you know,
the baseball game or the weather. Here we do actually
talk about history and philosophy, and they debate the issues.
And they realized these founders were flawed people. You know,
(39:42):
we don't want to worship them, but they did have
some virtues in addition to their flaws. And I found
it quite moving. And my wife, my long suffering wife,
actually got into it and she put on the dress
and the bonnet, and she actually it was not a
great time for women because one of the many problems
(40:05):
was a corset. She had to wear a corset so
which is not comfortable, and she hated the corset. And
she said, that makes me more grateful for my life.
It is another way to become more grateful for modern life.
We have a lot of problems now, and I don't
want to downplay that. But at the same time, we
should not think the good old days were good, because
(40:27):
they were not. The good old days were dangerous, smelly, racist, sexist, homophobic. Well,
let's not have this nostalgia for some past that didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I agree. I think you do a nice job of
balancing that in the book about sort of pointing out
some things that maybe in the past were useful that
maybe we think about carrying forward, and then all the
things that clearly were not. And I think we've talked
about this before, this idea that misplaced nostalgia. You could
go back to nearly any year in the past. You know,
(40:57):
if you were like, throw me in a time machine,
it would be a bad time to show up generally,
you know, and even as a white male, but as
a white male, it would even be better for me
in most time frames than the other person, right, than
the other people. And so you're trying to balance in
the book this aspects of the Constitution that feel valuable
(41:20):
and the parts of it that feel like they are wrong,
just plain wrong, right, right, you know, racism, slavery, sexism, right,
And you talk about two figures in history who were
fighting for the end of slavery and they took radically
different approaches to using the Constitution. Yeah, can you share that?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Absolutely? And it's a fascinating story because it's about framing,
which is something that we have talked about before and
I love when you talk about it on the show.
And the two figures are William Lloyd Garrison, who was
an abolitionist and Frederick Douglass, who was a former enslaved
man who then got free and became one of the
(42:05):
great orators of all time. And William Lloyd Garrison, who
was white, said the Constitution is a packed with the devil.
He said, this is so far gone, it's so evil
because it endorses slavery or allows slavery, that he burned it.
He literally burned it in front of a crowd, and
(42:26):
he would denounce it. At first, Frederick Douglas was on
his side. He was an ally. But at some point
in the eighteen fifties Frederick Douglas took a totally different tack.
He changed. He said, you know what, it would probably
be more productive if instead of burning the Constitution, we
saw it as a promissory note. That's the phrase he used,
(42:51):
because it does promise equality and liberty for all, and
obviously at the time and still today, is not true.
So his thought was, let's try to make America live
up to those words in the Constitution. So the founding
followers had flaws, but what they wrote was better than
(43:13):
how they acted. Sometimes these are the seeds in the Constitution.
It contains the seeds of freedom equality. Let's build on that.
It's a very influential way of looking at the world
and the Constitution. That's what Martin Luther King used that phrase.
The Independent Declaration and the Constitution are promisory notes. Obama
(43:34):
gave a famous speech on race where He had the
same thing that the solution to the problems of racism
were in the Constitution itself. You just have to make
the Constitution live up to its ideals, and I found
that very inspiring. I like the idea of framing it
as a promissory note. It's an ideal. You're always trying
(43:55):
to make it more perfect. That's in the preamble more perfect.
Are never going to be perfect. But I mean, you
look at the Constitution. When it was ratified, it was
white men were the ones who could vote, and then
over the years people have had to fight so that
black men can vote, black women, women, indigenous people. That
kind of makes me more optimistic. Also, it's very easy
(44:18):
to be pessimistic when you read but seeing the grand
arc of American history and that we have had progress
and maybe not enough, of course, but women can vote
and that is something they had to fight for, So
it makes me optimistic that we can get through these
difficult times.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I think it's very useful to be able to look
at progress. It's sort of what you're trying to do
with the Constitution. It's like to be able to look
at the way things have really changed for the better,
right and to say we still need to continue moving right,
And it's both those things, But I feel like if
you embrace either one of those only, yeah, it's problematic.
(45:27):
I know a lot of people who embrace You know,
people have more rights than they used to. They should
just be happy with what they have. And that's short sighted, right,
It's missing the fact that we're not equal yet. Right,
there's lots of ways in which we're not right. But
on the other hand, to only see the current problems
without recognizing how far we've come, to me, makes me
(45:49):
lose hope. It makes me not want to do anything.
You know, I'm referencing another conversation, but we were talking
about gay rights and this person, you know, live through
the AIDS crisis. Right, I've been fighting for gay rights forever,
and we sort of having the same discussion about how
far things have come. Right. You know, how different the
world is than nineteen eighty four, Right, and we still
(46:11):
need to continue to work on that equality package. But
it's both to me.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I love that you say that, Amen, is all I
can say. It is inspiring to see the progress that's
been made. If you deny that there has been any progress, then,
like you say, you lose hope. It's like, what's the point.
But seeing that we are able to change for the better,
then I feel is like, Okay, that's good, let's keep going.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Yeah, I mean again, burn it all down again. Gay rights,
I think, is an interesting one to look at because
it's probably the one that has changed the most in
my lifetime. Right it's the one I've had the sort
of front row seat to to some degree. And there
are still some gay kid being bullied somewhere at this
very second, right, so you know, for that person, this
(46:57):
is a very real and still present and prominent problem.
But I think about like I watched TV now and
I'm like, there are gay couples, there are inter racial
gay couples featured in mainstream commercials, and I love it
because it makes me go, that was unthinkable right twenty
years ago, Right Like, if you told me that would happen,
(47:20):
I would have been like you, no, it's not like
even being optimistic, that's it. We're not going to get there, right,
And yet we.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Have, and it happens so fast, I mean not fast enough.
But the change from there's no way gay marriage will
ever be legal, to gay marriage the majority of Americans
being in favor of gay marriage. Yeah, was remarkably fast.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Ye. And so I just I really love that because
it shows me the areas I feel like we're doomed, right,
Like the one for me is climate primarily these days,
where I'm just like, we're never going to get it
together enough to make a difference, and yet we could.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah. There's a great documentary about the ozone layer, which
we have not fully solved, but mostly solved through international cooperation.
And it was during the Reagan era that we did it,
that we were able to stop people from using those
fluorocarbons or whatever. And Reagan was actually the one who
(48:22):
did it. He is like, in some senses, an environmentalist
hero because he was the one who pushed forward on this,
let's make the ozone hole, let's get an agreement, an
international agreement. You watch that and you're like, oh my god,
we can solve worldwide problems. It is possible. It's not crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, I would love to see that. I think that
would be inspiring. Reagan does not make me think environmental
hero at first at first glance, right, you know. And
one of the things I thought was interesting in the book.
I mean, I just I feel like I could just
talk about the funny parts for our entire interview, but
that's not the whole point. But you are in Central
Park fishing water of a pond. Right, because if you
(49:03):
follow a strict interpretation of the Constitution, agencies like the
FDA would be unconstitutional. Right because the Constitution says only
Congress should make laws, and now we have all these
regulatory agencies making laws, which I would in general say
I'm very in favor of right. But first, it cracks
me up that you actually tried to do that. I
don't think that experiment lasted very long, but it made
(49:26):
me see like, oh, okay, you know there is a
constitutional argument that makes sense that maybe there is overreach here.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Right. You're a very careful reader. I am very impressed.
Thank you for that. Yes, this is a huge debate
that I didn't really see both sides of it is
one that's going to become more and more important. It's
how much regulation should there be. One side basically sees
red tape, the bureaucracy, the regulations as saving our lives.
(49:54):
You know, otherwise we could drink water and it could
be filled with lead. The other sides the red tape
as strangling us, strangling small business. How can you start
a small business when you have to hire someone to
design a website that's for colorblind people as well as
other sited people. There's too many regulations. So those are
(50:16):
the two sides. I think it was instructive because it's
not like one side is greedy or one side is stupid.
They just have these different world views. It's whether you
think partly if people act without regulation, will that be
beneficial for society or do we need some sort of
(50:39):
governance so that we don't say, destroy the environment.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
And it's got a little of the old Hobbes Rousseau
exisiting to it. And I hate to say that I,
being a generally optimistic person and believing the best in people,
fall on the side of we need regulation or people
will do awful things, you know, Like I just think
that's been shown kind of again and again. If we
don't fight for workers' rights or clean water or you know,
(51:07):
you can't dump your waist in the public sewer, that
people will take the expedient, cheapest path. But I don't
like that. I think that because I want to think
the best of people.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
I totally agree. I relate it to myself because I
feel I have very little willpower. You know, if I
have the candy right at eye level in my pantry,
I'm going to eat it. Yeah, And I think that's
most humans. We don't have great willpower. So you have
to set up structures so that you have to plan ahead,
(51:40):
so put the candy out of sight, and that, as
you've talked about on the show, the Odysseus strategy, because
in the Odyssey, Odysseus was on a ship and he
was going to be going through the sirens who would
sing these beautiful women, and he would be tempted to
dive in and then he would die. He would drown,
(52:01):
so he bound himself to the mask. He had his
sailors tie himself to the mask, put wax in his
ears so he couldn't hear the sirens. And that to
me is what I have to do on a personal level,
so that I don't just eat the worst food and
do no exercise. I have to set up these structures
(52:22):
so that I act in a better way than I am.
And I feel that that is partly what government is about,
and that's the founding fathers too. They talked a lot
about the importance of self governance. You can't have a
good government of the nation unless the citizens are able
to govern themselves and govern their worst passions and their
(52:43):
most base anger, and able to rise above that. And
the founders were actually I know that you are also
a fan of the Stoics and Marcus Aurelius and writers
like that. They were very much passionate. Well, that's ironic passionate.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
About as you were saying that, it made me think, well,
Odyssey's the strategy did work, and he was at the
same time bound right, like he wasn't able to do
very much. He wasn't going to respond to another situation,
And that points to the balance that we're trying to do.
As a small business owner, I get the frustrations with
(53:20):
some of the laws, how complicated the tax code is,
and I mean, you know, there are things I'm like,
this is just preposterous, right, And I'm really glad that
I don't have to think too much about my drinking water. Right,
I'm really glad that I don't have to think too
much about the food that I eat, and I don't
have to worry that this laptop is going to catch
on fire. Right, you know, I mean, there's lots of
(53:41):
things that I do. I'm really glad that there is
the regulation for well.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
I think it's what we were talking about before, which
is a very founding Follower's idea, the idea of balance.
They were obsessed with balance in every part of their lives.
So there is the balance of powers, which is why
we have the President, the Congress, and Supreme Court. Because
they didn't want one to become all powerful and the
(54:07):
same in their lives. They tried to balance reason and passion.
And the way they thought about health was the balance
of bodily humors. That turned out not to be scientifically valid,
but there is an homeostasis is still a very important
idea in modern health. So I am a fan of balance.
(54:27):
I try to have balance in my life and my
family life, so you know, work life balance, that's a
big thing. So yeah, balance, I think is an underrated virtue.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
One of my favorites. Yeah, I'm a huge believer in
the middle way. Right as an addict, I don't follow
the middle way because I couldn't, so I am in
that way. I'm an all or nothing thing. But I
think in general, any opportunity, the best solution often lies
in some sort of balance.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Right, right, although there is the I think it's the
Oscar Wild quote, which is you should be moderate and
everything including moderations. So absolutely, sometimes you want to have
that Thanksgiving meal where you just like Gorge and.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Like Chris and I at ten thirty last night after
a magnetic Field show, walked to a carry out and
got two pints of ice cream and took it back
to the hotel, and we're like, screw it, let's just
let's tie ice cream. I had chocolate chip cookie dough.
He had regular chocolate. I think I made the better choice.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'm living.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Yes, it was. It was a moment of in moderation,
but again once in a while, right, I would be
remiss if I did not bring up the one you
feed's very own Nicole Zefino, who is prominently featured in
your book. Why why is she in your book?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
She is a great American hero. I am a huge
fan of Nicole. Hello, Nicole, if you're listening. We talked
about some things from the eighteenth century that are worth reviving,
and one of them is the idea that we should
celebrate elections. Elections should be a festive. Back then, they
were as big as Thanksgiving. Election Day was something to
(56:11):
celebrate this new idea of democracy. Now it's very constrained
democracy because only white men folks, but it was still
the idea that you could choose your leader and they
would have it was like a music festival that you
would have farmers market, you would.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Have lots of booze.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
It was a little. Yes, it went way too hard
on the booze.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
It was the era.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
They were the Ta day drinkers. But they also in
a more wholesome way. They had election cakes and some
of them were huge. Some of them were the whole town.
You would have seventy pound election cakes, bigger than a human.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
And they were made with cloves and fig So maybe
not the kind of cakes we love today, but the
idea of a cake at election, where you bake it
at home, you bring it into the community, you share,
you share in the sweetness of democracy. I was like,
this is a great idea that we need to revive.
So I started on Facebook, which I know is not
(57:09):
very eighteenth century, but I put out the word I
want to revive this and have someone in all fifty states,
at least one person in every state make an election
cake and bring it to the polls and people responded.
It was my favorite part of the whole. It was
so heartening and inspiring because people were so hungry. No
(57:31):
pun intended for some positivity, something you could actually do.
And people would make these cakes that were themed to
the state, so you would have peach cake in Georgia
and you would pray. And the very first cake I
received was from Nicole because she had to leave the
country during election day, so she sent it in early.
(57:54):
She didn't send me the cake. I asked for photos,
so I got these photos and it's a gorgeous cake.
She lives in Illinois, and it had a Lincoln silhouette
and it had stars and stripes. She did a magnificent job.
And so yeah, she's a character in the book because
she was the first to send in photos for the
(58:15):
election cake project and we did get to all fifty
states thanks to Nicole and other bakers like her.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
That's amazing. I'm going to have to ask her whether
she used figs and clothes in it. But I think
in general, I think that kind of circles us all
the way back to kind of where we started, which
is not taking certain things for granted, right, and celebrating
the fact that, even though our system has many flaws,
it is a system. You know, what's the old saying
(58:44):
about democracy. It's the best of the worst solutions. That's
not it.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
But what is the right I know what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (58:49):
It was basically it's like, it's democracy is terrible, but
it's better than all the alternatives, something to that extent. Right,
But I love that idea of celebrating something that we
do now take for granted.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Absolutely, And yeah, I almost see voting, or I have
seen voting as a sort of pain in the butt, like, oh,
I have to wait in line. But really it is
something to celebrate, and it's fragile. It is not something
that is guaranteed to survive. Most of human history has
not been a democracy of any kind, even a flawed
(59:23):
democracy like the world has now. So yeah, fighting for
that and making sure we keep it you, whether it's
with cakes or with other bigger structural changes like gerrymandering.
And then I found that inspiring and it was a
great way to end because it was a positive. So,
like we were talking about before, it's so easy to complain,
(59:44):
so easy to find faults, but let's look for solutions.
Let's look for how we can make this better.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
So listener and thinking about all that and the other
great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
would not your top ten, not the top five? Just one?
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Think about it? Got it?
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Now?
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
thing you can do today to put it in practice?
Or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
heroic effort. If you're not already on our Good Wolf
Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool
(01:00:28):
you can leverage to remind you to take those vital
baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed
dot net slash SMS. It's totally free, and once you're
on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a
week with little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently
shared to give you an idea of the type of
stuff I send. Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless.
(01:00:49):
Don't strive for perfection. Aim for consistency and no matter what,
keep showing up for yourself. That was a great gem
from recent guests Light Watkins. And if you're on the
fence about joining, remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe.
If you want to get in, I'd love to have
you there. Just go to oneufeed dot net slash SMS.
All right, back to it. You and I are going
(01:01:12):
to continue in the post show conversation. We might talk
about some eighteenth century toasts. Maybe we'll do one together
we should have done in the main interview, but we
will also talk about whether you actually were authorized by
the US Congress to become a pirate or not. That's
not exactly accurate, but it's close. It's club listeners. If
(01:01:32):
you'd like access to this fun post show conversation AD
free episodes and you want to become part of what
we're doing here and support something that I think is
valuable and I hope you do too, you can go
to oneufeed dot net slash join and become part of
the community. AJ thank you so much for coming on.
It's always a blast.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Oh thank you for wearing the tricorn at which you
look spectacular in and for drinking out of the pewter tankards.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
We'll have to take a picture of the try corn
hats for the huzza huzza.
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
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(01:02:42):
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the show.
I think as a society we should reward people who
say I was wrong instead of saying, oh, you're a
flip flopper or have a spine. No, the true courage,
the true vulnerability, is thing you know I was wrong
about that. I've grown, I've changed, I've evolved.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
(00:43):
or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
what we do. We think things that hold us back
and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
to make a life worth living. This podcast asked is
about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
(01:03):
how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Our guest on this show is aj Jacobs, a journalist, lecturer,
(01:25):
and human guinea pig who has written four best selling books,
including the much loved The Year of Living biblically. He
blends memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self help.
AJ is a contributor to NPR, The New York Times,
and Esquire, among other media outlets. Today, Aj and Eric
discuss his book, The Year of Living Constitutionally, One Man's
(01:48):
Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Hi, Aj, welcome back.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I am so happy to be back.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
If anybody is watching this, they are going to immediately
notice that we are in person, which is a good thing.
They're going to notice some other odd things. We're both
wearing tricorn.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Hats, very true.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
We have pewter mugs. We have goose.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
They are goose.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yes wills to write with absolutely. And the reason we're
doing that is because you have a new book called
The Year of Living Constitutionally, One Man's Humble Quest to
follow the Constitution's Original meaning. And so, in addition to
exploring the Constitution and what it means and how it's interpreted,
you also attempted to live as if you were living
(02:34):
in seventeen ninety. Hence the props that we have here exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And you are a great sport for wearing the tracorn mat.
I think you look very handsome. I think you look terrific.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So I was sort of leaning towards powdered wig. Did
they wear powdered wigs?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Then?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Oh, yeah, and I do have one, But I thought
that might be a bridge too far.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Bridge too far. Well, I don't know, So welcome back.
Great to be here, and we'll get in to the
book in a minute, but will start like we always
do with the Parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent
who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
there are two wolves inside of us that are always
at battle. One it's a good wolf, which represents things
like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
(03:15):
bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a
second and looks up at their grandparents says which one wins,
And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd
like to ask what that means to you in your
life and in the latest work that you've done here.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, as you know, I love the Parable, and last
time I was on I talked about how it related
to gratitude for me and how you can feed the
good wolf by focusing on the hundreds of things that
went right every day, Like I pressed the elevator button
and the elevator came, and I got in and I got.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Out, and I got getting out the important part there,
Like really, I mean, that's the part I'm grateful for
that is right.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yes, there was no it didn't plummet and break my
collar bone. So yeah, But this time I wanted to
do something different. So I thought about the words, and
I drilled down on the word feed and it made
me think of where it's like news feed and information diet,
(04:22):
and I was like, maybe there's something there, because what
we feed our brain is then fed to the good
or the bad wolf, and there is a lot of
bad food out there information wise. I mean, there's a
lot of junk food on social media in the news,
(04:42):
and if I choose to do that, if I choose
to click on, oh look there's someone throwing chairs at McDonald's,
you know that feels good in the moment, like junk
food does, like a twinkie does, feels good going down,
but in the long term it's top. So I really
(05:03):
try to make a choice in my information diet to
have more good information than bad. And you can do
that by first of all, reading books and little self serving.
But I do books. Good new books are good and
they go deeper on a topic. They give you more perspective.
(05:25):
I also feel when I read something, I don't want
to be totally out of the news cycle. I want
to know what's going on. But if I read something negative,
the news has a very negative bias because it's much
more interesting. Layoffs are more interesting than hires, for instance.
So I try to be aware of the negative bias.
(05:47):
So if I read an article, I did this just
last week. I read an article about homelessness and how
prevalent it is, and then I googled solutions to homelessness
and I read all of these articles and studies about
how are people addressing this? Because the media often lays
out the problem and forgets to talk about possible solutions.
(06:11):
So that is feeding my good wolf. Reading about the
solutions and reading about the problems is feeding my bad wolf.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So something I'm going to be doing a little more
often is ask you, the listener, to reflect on what
you're hearing. We strongly believe that knowledge is power, but
only if combined with action and integration. So before we
move on, I'd like to ask you what's coming up
for you as you listen to this. Are there any
things you're currently doing or feeding your bad wolf that
(06:40):
might make sense to remove, or any things you could
do to feed your good wolf that you're not currently doing.
So if you have the headspace for it, I'd love
if you could just pause for a second and ask yourself,
what's one thing I could do today or tonight to
feed my good wolf. Whatever your thing is, a really
useful strategy can be had. I mean something external, a
(07:01):
prompt or a friend, or a tool that regularly nudges
you back towards awareness and intentionality. For the past year,
I've been sending little Goodwolf reminders to some of my
friends and community members, just quick, little SMS messages two
times per week that give them a little bit of
wisdom and remind them to pause for a second and
come off autopilot. If you want, I can send them
(07:22):
to you too. I do it totally for free, and
people seem to really love them. Just drop your information
at oneufeed dot net slash SMS and I can send
them to you. It's totally free, and if you end
up not liking the little reminders you can easily opt out.
That's one you feed dot net slash sms and now
back to the episode. Is another way of relating to
(07:44):
the news. As part of this book, you I believe
spend a fair amount of time reading newspapers from seventeen
ninety would that be correct, seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Absolutely, yeah, Ben Franklin's newspaper in Philadelphia.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah, what sort of fun things did you find?
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Well? It was fascinating because, first of all, it relates
to what we were just talking about. Newspapers only came
out twice a week, so you did not have the
sixteen hour fire hose of negative stories in your face.
It allowed you to process it and have some distance.
One part I loved about reading these newspapers from the
(08:21):
seventeen nineties was seeing all of the things I totally
take for granted that did not exist. So there was
an article about this crazy new idea that they should
put numbers on the houses in Philadelphia so that you
wouldn't have to say, oh, you go down that street
(08:42):
and make a left at the big manure pile, and
then that's the big blue house, like you could say, oh,
it's seven eighty seven Washington Street.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's amazing that, Like, when things like that are invented,
you're always like, how did it take that long for
anybody to think of that?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Right? And I just would never have even thought that
this was something to be grateful for. This was not reading.
But I also became very grateful for elastic, because, as
you can see, I tried to dress. The part of
what I do as a writer is I really get
into the lifestyle and try to get into the mindset
(09:18):
of the founding father. So I would wear my buckle
shoes and my stockings, and if you wear real stockings
made in the style of the seventeen nineties, there's no elastic,
so they slipped down your leg. You have to put
on little tiny belts. They're not even garters. They didn't
even have garters, They're these little belts. The amount of
time that I spent putting on sock belts and adjusting
(09:42):
my socks, you know, I'll never get that time back.
So it made me very grateful for elastic, which I
had never given much thought to before.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Me neither, but I can see the obvious upside to.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It, Yeah, literal upside.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, Yeah, it is amazing how we do take so
many of the modern conveniences for granted. I think we
all know that that's sort of a common thing to say,
but I think I love what you're doing because you're
sort of taking those away from yourself right for a
period of time. And that is one of the ways
that psychologists will talk about sort of getting out of
(10:20):
that habituation loop where you just take everything for granted.
Is you take whatever it is away for a little
while and you suddenly have a whole new appreciation for.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
It, right. It's sort of like lent. I'm not Catholic myself,
but I think that is a nice idea, or like
the Sabbath and just taking a rest and taking yourself
away so you appreciate the things.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Yeah, So your book talks about the Constitution a lot,
and I really appreciated it because I felt like it
was a very fair and balanced book that allowed me
to see the different constitutional arguments really with very little
bias on your part. And I really appreciated that. Like,
(11:04):
I just don't think that I get that many opportunities
in modern day society to hear both sides of an
argument laid out really sort of eloquently. Mostly what I
hear is the opponent's argument laid out in sort of
a straw man character way, so we just tear it down. Yeah,
but you resisted that temptation.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Well, thank you. That is lovely to hear. Have you
ever heard of the opposite of a straw man is
a steel man, so like the metal steel, and that's
people I disagree with. I try to present their argument
in the steel man case, because otherwise we're never going
to get anywhere. We're never going to actually figure out
what we can do to agree and move forward. So
(11:47):
thank you. I am delighted to hear that. I will say,
just to back up, this book is a semi sequel
to a book I wrote many years ago called The
Year of Living Biblically, and that book was similar in
that I tried to understand the Bible by following all
the rules, so the ten commandments, but also the obscure
rules like I couldn't shave the corners of my beard.
(12:10):
I didn't know where the corners were, so the whole
thing I just looked like zz top to use a
very old reference. And also, yeah, stoning adulterers.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
So all right, we got a pause on stoning adulterers.
I heard you just mention that in passing that you
were attempting to stone an adulterer in Central Park with
really small stones. Right, accurate? That is, did you identify
said adulterer?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, good question. I listen. As with this book, I
was very much getting into it. So I had the robe,
I had the sandals, I had my beard. And a
guy came up to me and he said in Central Park.
He said, what's going on? Why do you look like that?
And I said, well, I'm trying to do this experiment
(12:57):
where I follow all the rules of the Bible, from
the Ten Commandments to stoning adulters. And he said, well,
I'm an adulterer. Are you going to stone me? And
I said that would be wonderful. Thank you. What a
nice offer. And as you mentioned, I had been carrying
around stones, very small, pebble size, in my pocket, hoping
(13:19):
I would run into an adulter. So here he was.
I took the stones out to show them that they
were small, and he was very aggressive. He grabbed the
stones and threw them at my face. So I thought, yes,
thank you for that look of disbelief. Yeah, so I
thought I could throw one back at him. Sort of
an eye for an eye situation. So part of the
(13:40):
book was to show that we should not take the
Bible literally, that there's lots of wisdom in the Bible,
and I feel this Constitution book was similar. And then
I wanted to show the good and the bad. I
wanted to show there is so much wisdom in the Constitution,
and then there are parts that are two hundred thirty
years that need some updating. So I try to be,
(14:03):
as you say, as balanced as possible.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, and we're not really a show that goes into
things like the constitutional whole lot. So I think we're
going to focus more on the wisdom that perhaps some
of the founding fathers had. But there is one aspect
that I wanted to talk about, and I was really
intrigued by the idea of constitutional rights versus constitutional virtues. Oh,
(14:27):
can you just sort of share what that means and
how it applies when we look at how we interpret
the Constitution.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Absolutely that was one of my favorite areas, and I
think that is very relevant to this show because the Constitution,
as you know, has a bill of rights. The most
famous ones about freedom of speech, right to bear arms,
and all the others. But at the same time. Back then,
there was a lot of stress on virtue and responsibility
(15:00):
and duty to your community, to your country, to your family.
No one wrote a bill of responsibilities into the Constitution.
But that was just because it was so ingrained and
so assumed that you would contribute to your community, that
you would self sacrifice, that you would sacrifice your own
(15:24):
time and energy for the common good. It was also
biblical love your neighbor. So I think that that is
something that we are missing today because rightly, there is
a lot of emphasis on our individual rights, which are
so important, but I think we've lost a little sense
of that. Along with rights come responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Yeah, you talk about freedom of speech, right. We tend
to think freedom of speech means we can say whatever whenever,
any time, But that's not exactly how it was imagined
and even implemented in the early days. Say a little
more about that.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, freedom of speech was much more constrained in the
Founding era. I don't want to go back to the
Founding era in that case, because it wasn't like Stalinist Russia,
but it was much more constrained. You had laws in
many states that were considered constitutional that were blasphemy laws
or laws against cursing. In New York in the late
(16:23):
seventeen hundreds, you would be charged thirty seven and a
half cents for every time you cursed or said the
word damn. I tried to institute that with my family.
I have teenage sons, and I was like, this is
a good idea to try to kint them to clean
up their language. It didn't work out great because they
(16:43):
found this loophole. Oh, we don't have half a cent,
so we'll just wait until it's seventy five cents, and
then it got to seventy five cents and then they.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Would curse again a cent.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, So they found the loophole. But there was much
more of a sense that rights are not absolute trump cards.
They talk about the social contract. When you are part
of society, you are part of the social contract, and
part of that is thinking about other people and not
focusing solely on your rights, but also how it affects others.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah, and that's kind of what struck me in reading
the book was that idea that in addition to the
focus on the rights, as you said, there was the
interpretation of these things through the common good, and you know,
it seems that restrict adherence to the Constitution, that latter
element is often left out.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
I think so. I think so, and it's been brought
up throughout history. I mean that was John F. Kennedy's
speech is inauguration speech. I believe where he said, ask
not what you can do for your country.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Ask what your country can do for you.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
I got it exactly backwards. Yes, ask not what your
country can do for you, Ask what you can do
for your country. You could substitute community, you could stop
institute whatever the world or people for that. But I
think that idea has been lost a lot and we
need to reclaim it. And I'm not saying I'm a
perfect citizen at all, but it is something when I'm
(18:14):
making decisions that is something I try to consider. And
in fact, Ben Franklin my favorite of the Founding fathers.
He is sort of the first self help author, so
he like spawned you and me like and he had
a sample of his daily schedule and when he woke up,
(18:34):
the first thing he did was to ask himself, what
good shall I do today? So it wasn't like, you know,
what can I accomplish for myself? It was like, what
can I do for others today, and then at the
end of the day, he would say, what good did
I accomplish today? What can I do better? I love that.
I wrote it out with my little quill pen and
(18:56):
put it over my desk as sort of a moral
compass to like, what good can I do today? And
when I get frustrated like that editor rejected my article,
I'm outraged. I'm like, you know what, that is not
the main goal I should be focusing on, like getting
into every magazine. No, I should be like, what good
(19:16):
can I do today?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah? When I originally got sober in twelve step programs,
that is a hugely emphasized part of recovery is what
can you do for the alcoholic who's still suffering?
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I love that, And that translates into little things like,
you know, washing coffee cups or making the coffee, being
the person who shows up early to open the meeting,
all the way to you know, showing up for people
who need it. You know, but it's baked in and
it's foundational, and early on I lived that better than
I've ever lived it since interesting, and I was probably
(19:53):
happier in many ways than living out of that, Like
being the central question of every day, right, how can
I serve others? Right? As an orientation really changes things.
And early on I had nothing else in my life
except recovery. Right. I had burned it all to the ground. Right,
(20:14):
So it was pretty easy to be like, well, if
I'm going to orient around something, you know, I don't
have a job. I'll just go to meetings all day. Like.
It was a different life than right. But I sometimes
look back on and I'm like, I could move more
in that direction, sure, and it would be a positive.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I love that. And I think what you said is
it's a delightful coincidence whatever it is, that when you
are serving others, that is a path to happiness.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And in fact, the constitutional scholar Jeff Rosen, who's he's
head of the National Constitution Center, he talks about the
mindset of the founding fathers was there's the famous phrase
pursuit of happiness, But back then, the pursuit of happiness
was not sort of this hedonistic approach. The pursuit of
happiness wasn't about feeling good. It was about doing good,
(21:03):
and by doing good you start to feel good.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
YEP. One of my favorite phrases that I've used a
thousand times on this show. Well, I couldn't have used
it a thousand times. I have seven hundred episodes. There's
some exaggeration. The uh. Sometimes you can't think your way
in the right action. You have to act your way
into right thinking. Right, that's the exact same thing. By
doing good, you actually feel good. And you talk about
that behavior changes emotion.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
You and I both love that quote so much. I
think about it all the time, right, And if I'm
feeling depressed, I try to act like what would a
happy person do? If I'm feeling pessimistic, what would an
optimistic person do? And your mind catches up with your
actions with your behavior.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Yeah, you talk about in the book your own attempt
to not swear, and yes, you know, using funny words
instead of the swear words it changed you.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Right, Yeah, so I would use instead of the F word,
I would say fudge, and my wife would make fun
of me and that you know, what are you?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Well?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
This is the Andy Griffith Show, what's going on? But
it did have like we talked about, the behavior actually
changes them all because I would say that word out loud,
and I would hear myself say it. And I'd be like,
that is so ridiculous, but it took me away from
that momentary anger.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
And I think that was very helpful.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
So Ben Franklin, I want to see how much this
is the Ben Franklin quiz. No, but I've often heard
of Ben Franklin. I think he had his was it
thirteen virtues? Or and talk to me about how he
cultivated those did he work on one at a time?
Like what was his method of cultivating those virtues?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I knew this at one point, and I can't remember
whether he did it like week by week. I will say,
I'm going to pivot. Pivot yep, because and it's actually
a very appropriate pivot because Ben Franklin was very humble
about what he knew, and he was okay with not
(23:04):
knowing things, and he said we should all be more
open and vulnerable and say, you know what I don't know?
He during the Constitutional Convention said that, and the older
he gets, the less certain he is of his own opinions.
And he also told this great story at the convention.
(23:25):
He said it was sort of like a joke. He said,
there's a tale of the French lady and she tells
her sister, why is it. It's so strange that I
have never met anyone except for myself who is right
in every instance. And his point was, we are all
(23:46):
that French lady. We all think that we are right.
And he was saying, have some epistemic humility and be
okay with learning and change.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
It's a good pivot. That's a good pot Thank you,
good pivot.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
And I will say one I just want to and
that is one of my favorite pieces of wisdom from
the eighteenth century, is this idea that they were, I
feel more flexible in their thinking. We are so intransitent
and dug into our opinions and nothing can sway us.
They were much more open and you read the Constitutional Convention.
(24:21):
There were ideas flying around. There was three presidents. Was
very popular for a while, and James Madison was famous
for changing his mind and it's not a negative, it's
a positive to evolve. And his last words, according to Law,
at least his last words on his deathbed where he
(24:42):
made a face and his niece said what's going on
and he said, oh, I just changed my mind, and
then he died. It could be about the bi camera legislature.
It could be about soup. Who knows what he.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Changed could be about the nature of reality.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
I saw something at the last second of his exactly. Yeah,
I love that story. I'm glad you brought that up,
and I agree. I think being able to reflect on
where we're wrong. I interviewed Will Schwalby earlier, and a
fair amount of the conversation we talked about it's in
context of his friendship with this gentleman Chris Maxie, who
(25:18):
apparently your son went to his school, but about how
wrong he was about that friend because they were so
radically different early in their lives. Right, Chris Maxie was
a little bit of a jock, you know, and Will
Shwawby was a frightened gay kid, right, and he was
so wrong about him.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, you know, I think as a society we should
reward people who say I was wrong instead of saying, oh,
you're a flip flapper, have a spine. No, the true courage,
the true vulnerability is thing you know, I was wrong
about that. I've grown, I've changed, I've evolved.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, you know. Embedded in zen is the core idea
(26:19):
of beginner's mind, right about just you know, thinking, I
don't know all the answers, you know, how do I
approach this thing fresh? And that's one of the things
that the book really did for me was allow me
to look at the opposing constitutional arguments in a fresh
way to actually go, oh hmm, okay, I can see
(26:41):
that that makes sense. I'm not sure I still fully agree,
but I can understand. I can see how you would
arrive at that conclusion at least, and that feels really important.
And I mean it's sort of a cliche to talk
about the polarization, but that's part of the core problem.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Oh yeah, I think the ability to take people at
their word that they're not being evil, that they truly
believe this, and maybe once you acknowledge that, you can
present evidence and try to have a rational discussion. I mean,
at the end, I am on the side that the
Constitution needs to evolve and change, but I don't want
(27:21):
to demonize the other side because then we're never going
to get anywhere.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Right, Yeah, nobody's mind gets changed in the way we
currently have dialogue. Right, it just never happens. Well, it's
going to happen.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I mean, the Founding Father said a lot, and they
said some wise things. Alexander Hamilton, in the very first
Federalist paper, which are these essays about the Constitution, said
that in politics and religion, no one's mind has ever
been changed by persecution. And it's true, you cannot persecute
(27:53):
someone into converting. And I mean they'll say there, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Let's talk a little bit about other sort of virtues
that the Founding fathers would have had that we could
learn from.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Well, one huge one for me was the idea of
thinking slow. So we love our hot takes. They were
cold takes. And it was partly the technology. I mean,
I wrote with a quill pen, and it's a very
different experience.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I've been looking at this thing, thinking my handwriting is
nearly illegible with modern technology. This is going to be
something else when I try and write with it, because
it's I mean, we're not talking about fountain pen. Like
when you first started writing, it was like thinking fountain pen.
But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about
a feather that you dip an ink.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Yeah, a feather. You carve it into a sharp point
and you dip it in ink. I found it actually
a very lovely experience, the sort of asmr the sound
of it scratching.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
But your wife, on the other hand, a long suffering woman,
did not like it, despise it. I have to have
the chance to give her a public apology for everything
you've done over the years. Would that be helpful?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Absolutely? And yes, I am sorry Julie. She has put
up with a lot. But I do contend I put
myself through these crazy things and her. But in the end,
I hope I'm a better person and we have a
better It's worth it, that's the hope. Yes, who will
have to ask her if that's true? But yeah, I
(29:28):
feel that when you're writing long hand, you don't have
to write with a quill, but writing long hand provides
a different experience. First of all, you don't have all
the pings and dings and the lure of the internet,
so you can focus more fully. And you also, when
you're writing long hand, you can't just press send. You
(29:49):
can't write a couple of acronyms and then press send.
I would actually send letters, so I would have to
fold them, put them in an envelope, and it gives
you a way period for your thoughts. Sometimes I would
write an angry letter and then that send it. But
I felt better. I felt, I felt better, I got
(30:09):
my sort of my point out, and I'm like, I
don't really need to send this. I think that it
leads to a less impulsive, more profound style of thinking,
and that is something I would love to recover.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the angry letter that
never gets sent. It's a useful tool, you know, for
me if I realize, like anything I say is not
going to make this situation better. Sometimes when you're angry,
it makes sense in a reasonable way to address the
issue right, right, because to not address it as sort
of avoidance, right, But there are times that it just
(30:45):
shouldn't be addressed at all. Right, But I'm still angry, right,
you know, And so I would just find writing really
angry letters would be great. Now I just tear them up.
I also used to have a rule that I could
not send any email about anything important after five pm.
Interesting because I realized as the day went on, I'm
(31:06):
sort of now I'm rushing, right, and so it can
be like four fifty five or whatever, five minutes before
I'm going to knock off for the day, whether it's
five pm or seven pm, and I'm rushing, and I'm
addressing something important and I'm rushing to do it. Yeah,
And I'm like, I just set myself a rule like
don't send it.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Im back in the.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Morning and see, And many, many, many times I would
come back in the morning and be like, either the
way I'm responding to this is I'm overly angry, I'm
overly frustrated, or I'm not responding with enough care in
the way that I'm like, I'm just sort of being
terse when this calls for something different than terse because
(31:44):
I'm not rushing. So I kind of agree with you.
I don't know if I'm going to go to again.
My writing is so bad. The computer saved me, Like
you know, it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yes, I don't think we should fully return to quill pens.
And I certainly the computer during the years, because I
ordered these quill pens over a computer. I ordered my
candles over a computer. But whenever possible, I would try
to see what are some of the advantages. And I
love what you say about having that time. And a
(32:16):
lot of times back then, if they were writing a
letter overseas, the boats would go out maybe once every
two weeks, so you would have two weeks to write
a letter and then yeah, if you wrote something crazy,
you could bear it back.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I recently started a pen pow relationship with a former
guest of the show where we write each other actual letters,
and I'm always like, why am I doing this? Like
I would do this far more easily. I would not
lag so long between letters if I actually could just
do it on my computer. And then I get a
letter and I'm like, I love it, right, Like I
(32:52):
just love opening a letter and reading the thing, and
so I'm glad we're doing it that way.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Do you feel that you think and write differently when
you're writing the letter or not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
A little bit. What I would like to get away
from is the feeling like I have to get it
done quickly, got it That mentality that is embedded in
modern day culture follows itself into that process. I would
like to wall it off in some way, right right,
you know, I mean we're both of an age where
letters were how you communicated. Yeah, you know, I used
(33:24):
to love writing letters with my friends and getting letters
in the mail, and like it was just a it's
a different world.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
I was just thinking they did write letters, but they
they did have their own acronyms like we have on
textos so y hos is how you would end a
letter your humble and obedient servant A J. Jacobs so
so yeah. They had their shortcuts, but overall it was
a much more appropriate.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Would you say that to like a friend, like who
are you saying?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Oh? Yeah? And it's it is a little odd, but
I do like the stress on humility, that is, you
know what we were talking about, being able to say
I don't know. And that was a big virtue. That
was one of Franklin's thirteen virtues was humility.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Highly stressed in twelve step programs.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There you go. The other sort of the parallel to
writing by hand, I feel is meeting face to face,
and that is something I tried to do a lot,
because that is our right peaceably to assemble is right
there in the first Amendment. And I felt that I
(34:31):
shouldn't peaceably assemble over zoom, I should peaceably assemble have people.
And one of the most meaningful experiences was I threw
an eighteenth century dinner party where we had eighteenth century
food like beef stew, and we didn't do turtle soup,
even though that was a popular meal. I decided that
(34:53):
was hard to source. We had beef stew and we
had people from all different ideological backgrounds, ethnic and geographical
backgrounds come together and we had a lovely discussion. We
disagreed about a lot, but it was a lovely, civil
and productive discussion. And actually, one thing that it reminds
me of because I was just listening to your lovely
(35:16):
episode with Chris about your friendship and how you loved
to play guitar together. Yes, and that was very eighteenth
century because there was no stereo. If you wanted music,
you played music, and that was how they entertained themselves.
It was very much you were active. You were an
(35:37):
active participant. You weren't sitting back watching a show. You
were singing, you were dancing, you were having a discussion.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I wish there was more of that for me, more
of like playing music versus listening to it. I mean,
I love listening to music, don't get me wrong, with
one of my great joys in life. Sure the balance
is a little off currently agree exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
And they didn't have a choice. I mean, yeah, it
is amazing we can listen to That's another thing. Just
we should not take for granted that we can hear
the greatest musicians of all playing in our house. I
mean that was not true for ninety nine percent of
human history.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So listener, consider this. You're halfway through the episode Integration reminder.
Remember knowledge is power, but only if combined with action
and integration. It can be transformative to take a minute
to synthesize information rather than just ingesting it in a
detached way. So let's collectively take a moment to pause
and reflect. What's your one big insight so far and
(36:36):
how can you put it into practice in your life. Seriously,
just take a second, pause the audio and reflect. It
can be so powerful to have these reminders to stop
and be present, can't it. If you want to keep
this momentum going that you built with this little exercise,
I'd encourage you to get on our Good Wolf Reminders
SMS list. I'll shoot you two texts a week with
(36:57):
insightful little prompts and wisdom from guests. They are a
nice little nudge to stop and be present in your life,
and they're a helpful way to not get lost in
the busyness and forget what is important. You can join
at oneufeed dot net, slash sms and if you don't
like them, you can get off a list really easily.
So far there are over one and seventy two others
(37:20):
from the one you Feed community on the list, and
we'd love to welcome you as well. So head on
over to oneufeed dot net slash sms and let's feed
our good wolves together. Early on, you began to go
to reenactment battles as a way of immersing yourself more
fully in what it was like to be there. But
one of the very first experiences you went to a
(37:42):
battle that wasn't really exactly a battle, the Battle of
Fort Lee, right. Share some about that.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Yeah, So to really get into the mindset of the
founding fathers, I decided to join the New Jersey Third
Regiment of Revolutionary War re Enactors. I would have preferred
to join a reenactment group that reenacted the Constitutional Convention,
but that doesn't really exist. People prefer the muskets and the.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Form a constitutional reenactment group. I don't know how many
people would come, but you could give it a shot.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I might be the only delegate, that's true, But yes,
I loved these people meeting them, and one thing that
was actually quite moving I had always seen reenactments is
kind of silly and something, you know that was funny
to watch on The Simpsons, but I would never do
it myself. After talking to them, I saw why it
(38:37):
was meaningful for them. One man said he became a
reenactor after reading this amazing book which I read. It
was the diary of a Revolutionary War soldier from Connecticut,
and it was basically just how difficult life was as
a revolutionary, how cold you were, hungry you were. I
(39:01):
remember he even talked about how he couldn't sleep because
the whipper wheels were tweeting all night and it was
keeping him up. So they had no shoes in the snow.
And this man said, I just feel that I should
honor them somehow for their sacrifice, and this is the
way I'm going to try to honor them, to try
(39:22):
to keep this alive. Another one of the reenactors said,
what I love about it is that when I go
to a work party, what do we talk about, you know,
the baseball game or the weather. Here we do actually
talk about history and philosophy, and they debate the issues.
And they realized these founders were flawed people. You know,
(39:42):
we don't want to worship them, but they did have
some virtues in addition to their flaws. And I found
it quite moving. And my wife, my long suffering wife,
actually got into it and she put on the dress
and the bonnet, and she actually it was not a
great time for women because one of the many problems
(40:05):
was a corset. She had to wear a corset so
which is not comfortable, and she hated the corset. And
she said, that makes me more grateful for my life.
It is another way to become more grateful for modern life.
We have a lot of problems now, and I don't
want to downplay that. But at the same time, we
should not think the good old days were good, because
(40:27):
they were not. The good old days were dangerous, smelly, racist, sexist, homophobic. Well,
let's not have this nostalgia for some past that didn't exist.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I agree. I think you do a nice job of
balancing that in the book about sort of pointing out
some things that maybe in the past were useful that
maybe we think about carrying forward, and then all the
things that clearly were not. And I think we've talked
about this before, this idea that misplaced nostalgia. You could
go back to nearly any year in the past. You know,
(40:57):
if you were like, throw me in a time machine,
it would be a bad time to show up generally,
you know, and even as a white male, but as
a white male, it would even be better for me
in most time frames than the other person, right, than
the other people. And so you're trying to balance in
the book this aspects of the Constitution that feel valuable
(41:20):
and the parts of it that feel like they are wrong,
just plain wrong, right, right, you know, racism, slavery, sexism, right,
And you talk about two figures in history who were
fighting for the end of slavery and they took radically
different approaches to using the Constitution. Yeah, can you share that?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Absolutely? And it's a fascinating story because it's about framing,
which is something that we have talked about before and
I love when you talk about it on the show.
And the two figures are William Lloyd Garrison, who was
an abolitionist and Frederick Douglass, who was a former enslaved
man who then got free and became one of the
(42:05):
great orators of all time. And William Lloyd Garrison, who
was white, said the Constitution is a packed with the devil.
He said, this is so far gone, it's so evil
because it endorses slavery or allows slavery, that he burned it.
He literally burned it in front of a crowd, and
(42:26):
he would denounce it. At first, Frederick Douglas was on
his side. He was an ally. But at some point
in the eighteen fifties Frederick Douglas took a totally different tack.
He changed. He said, you know what, it would probably
be more productive if instead of burning the Constitution, we
saw it as a promissory note. That's the phrase he used,
(42:51):
because it does promise equality and liberty for all, and
obviously at the time and still today, is not true.
So his thought was, let's try to make America live
up to those words in the Constitution. So the founding
followers had flaws, but what they wrote was better than
(43:13):
how they acted. Sometimes these are the seeds in the Constitution.
It contains the seeds of freedom equality. Let's build on that.
It's a very influential way of looking at the world
and the Constitution. That's what Martin Luther King used that phrase.
The Independent Declaration and the Constitution are promisory notes. Obama
(43:34):
gave a famous speech on race where He had the
same thing that the solution to the problems of racism
were in the Constitution itself. You just have to make
the Constitution live up to its ideals, and I found
that very inspiring. I like the idea of framing it
as a promissory note. It's an ideal. You're always trying
(43:55):
to make it more perfect. That's in the preamble more perfect.
Are never going to be perfect. But I mean, you
look at the Constitution. When it was ratified, it was
white men were the ones who could vote, and then
over the years people have had to fight so that
black men can vote, black women, women, indigenous people. That
kind of makes me more optimistic. Also, it's very easy
(44:18):
to be pessimistic when you read but seeing the grand
arc of American history and that we have had progress
and maybe not enough, of course, but women can vote
and that is something they had to fight for, So
it makes me optimistic that we can get through these
difficult times.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
I think it's very useful to be able to look
at progress. It's sort of what you're trying to do
with the Constitution. It's like to be able to look
at the way things have really changed for the better,
right and to say we still need to continue moving right,
And it's both those things, But I feel like if
you embrace either one of those only, yeah, it's problematic.
(45:27):
I know a lot of people who embrace You know,
people have more rights than they used to. They should
just be happy with what they have. And that's short sighted, right,
It's missing the fact that we're not equal yet. Right,
there's lots of ways in which we're not right. But
on the other hand, to only see the current problems
without recognizing how far we've come, to me, makes me
(45:49):
lose hope. It makes me not want to do anything.
You know, I'm referencing another conversation, but we were talking
about gay rights and this person, you know, live through
the AIDS crisis. Right, I've been fighting for gay rights forever,
and we sort of having the same discussion about how
far things have come. Right. You know, how different the
world is than nineteen eighty four, Right, and we still
(46:11):
need to continue to work on that equality package. But
it's both to me.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
I love that you say that, Amen, is all I
can say. It is inspiring to see the progress that's
been made. If you deny that there has been any progress, then,
like you say, you lose hope. It's like, what's the point.
But seeing that we are able to change for the better,
then I feel is like, Okay, that's good, let's keep going.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Yeah, I mean again, burn it all down again. Gay rights,
I think, is an interesting one to look at because
it's probably the one that has changed the most in
my lifetime. Right it's the one I've had the sort
of front row seat to to some degree. And there
are still some gay kid being bullied somewhere at this
very second, right, so you know, for that person, this
(46:57):
is a very real and still present and prominent problem.
But I think about like I watched TV now and
I'm like, there are gay couples, there are inter racial
gay couples featured in mainstream commercials, and I love it
because it makes me go, that was unthinkable right twenty
years ago, Right Like, if you told me that would happen,
(47:20):
I would have been like you, no, it's not like
even being optimistic, that's it. We're not going to get there, right,
And yet we.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Have, and it happens so fast, I mean not fast enough.
But the change from there's no way gay marriage will
ever be legal, to gay marriage the majority of Americans
being in favor of gay marriage. Yeah, was remarkably fast.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Ye. And so I just I really love that because
it shows me the areas I feel like we're doomed, right,
Like the one for me is climate primarily these days,
where I'm just like, we're never going to get it
together enough to make a difference, and yet we could.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah. There's a great documentary about the ozone layer, which
we have not fully solved, but mostly solved through international cooperation.
And it was during the Reagan era that we did it,
that we were able to stop people from using those
fluorocarbons or whatever. And Reagan was actually the one who
(48:22):
did it. He is like, in some senses, an environmentalist
hero because he was the one who pushed forward on this,
let's make the ozone hole, let's get an agreement, an
international agreement. You watch that and you're like, oh my god,
we can solve worldwide problems. It is possible. It's not crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, I would love to see that. I think that
would be inspiring. Reagan does not make me think environmental
hero at first at first glance, right, you know. And
one of the things I thought was interesting in the book.
I mean, I just I feel like I could just
talk about the funny parts for our entire interview, but
that's not the whole point. But you are in Central
Park fishing water of a pond. Right, because if you
(49:03):
follow a strict interpretation of the Constitution, agencies like the
FDA would be unconstitutional. Right because the Constitution says only
Congress should make laws, and now we have all these
regulatory agencies making laws, which I would in general say
I'm very in favor of right. But first, it cracks
me up that you actually tried to do that. I
don't think that experiment lasted very long, but it made
(49:26):
me see like, oh, okay, you know there is a
constitutional argument that makes sense that maybe there is overreach here.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
Right. You're a very careful reader. I am very impressed.
Thank you for that. Yes, this is a huge debate
that I didn't really see both sides of it is
one that's going to become more and more important. It's
how much regulation should there be. One side basically sees
red tape, the bureaucracy, the regulations as saving our lives.
(49:54):
You know, otherwise we could drink water and it could
be filled with lead. The other sides the red tape
as strangling us, strangling small business. How can you start
a small business when you have to hire someone to
design a website that's for colorblind people as well as
other sited people. There's too many regulations. So those are
(50:16):
the two sides. I think it was instructive because it's
not like one side is greedy or one side is stupid.
They just have these different world views. It's whether you
think partly if people act without regulation, will that be
beneficial for society or do we need some sort of
(50:39):
governance so that we don't say, destroy the environment.
Speaker 3 (50:43):
And it's got a little of the old Hobbes Rousseau
exisiting to it. And I hate to say that I,
being a generally optimistic person and believing the best in people,
fall on the side of we need regulation or people
will do awful things, you know, Like I just think
that's been shown kind of again and again. If we
don't fight for workers' rights or clean water or you know,
(51:07):
you can't dump your waist in the public sewer, that
people will take the expedient, cheapest path. But I don't
like that. I think that because I want to think
the best of people.
Speaker 1 (51:17):
I totally agree. I relate it to myself because I
feel I have very little willpower. You know, if I
have the candy right at eye level in my pantry,
I'm going to eat it. Yeah, And I think that's
most humans. We don't have great willpower. So you have
to set up structures so that you have to plan ahead,
(51:40):
so put the candy out of sight, and that, as
you've talked about on the show, the Odysseus strategy, because
in the Odyssey, Odysseus was on a ship and he
was going to be going through the sirens who would
sing these beautiful women, and he would be tempted to
dive in and then he would die. He would drown,
(52:01):
so he bound himself to the mask. He had his
sailors tie himself to the mask, put wax in his
ears so he couldn't hear the sirens. And that to
me is what I have to do on a personal level,
so that I don't just eat the worst food and
do no exercise. I have to set up these structures
(52:22):
so that I act in a better way than I am.
And I feel that that is partly what government is about,
and that's the founding fathers too. They talked a lot
about the importance of self governance. You can't have a
good government of the nation unless the citizens are able
to govern themselves and govern their worst passions and their
(52:43):
most base anger, and able to rise above that. And
the founders were actually I know that you are also
a fan of the Stoics and Marcus Aurelius and writers
like that. They were very much passionate. Well, that's ironic passionate.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
About as you were saying that, it made me think, well,
Odyssey's the strategy did work, and he was at the
same time bound right, like he wasn't able to do
very much. He wasn't going to respond to another situation,
And that points to the balance that we're trying to do.
As a small business owner, I get the frustrations with
(53:20):
some of the laws, how complicated the tax code is,
and I mean, you know, there are things I'm like,
this is just preposterous, right, And I'm really glad that
I don't have to think too much about my drinking water. Right,
I'm really glad that I don't have to think too
much about the food that I eat, and I don't
have to worry that this laptop is going to catch
on fire. Right, you know, I mean, there's lots of
(53:41):
things that I do. I'm really glad that there is
the regulation for well.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
I think it's what we were talking about before, which
is a very founding Follower's idea, the idea of balance.
They were obsessed with balance in every part of their lives.
So there is the balance of powers, which is why
we have the President, the Congress, and Supreme Court. Because
they didn't want one to become all powerful and the
(54:07):
same in their lives. They tried to balance reason and passion.
And the way they thought about health was the balance
of bodily humors. That turned out not to be scientifically valid,
but there is an homeostasis is still a very important
idea in modern health. So I am a fan of balance.
(54:27):
I try to have balance in my life and my
family life, so you know, work life balance, that's a
big thing. So yeah, balance, I think is an underrated virtue.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
One of my favorites. Yeah, I'm a huge believer in
the middle way. Right as an addict, I don't follow
the middle way because I couldn't, so I am in
that way. I'm an all or nothing thing. But I
think in general, any opportunity, the best solution often lies
in some sort of balance.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Right, right, although there is the I think it's the
Oscar Wild quote, which is you should be moderate and
everything including moderations. So absolutely, sometimes you want to have
that Thanksgiving meal where you just like Gorge and.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Like Chris and I at ten thirty last night after
a magnetic Field show, walked to a carry out and
got two pints of ice cream and took it back
to the hotel, and we're like, screw it, let's just
let's tie ice cream. I had chocolate chip cookie dough.
He had regular chocolate. I think I made the better choice.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
I'm living.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
Yes, it was. It was a moment of in moderation,
but again once in a while, right, I would be
remiss if I did not bring up the one you
feed's very own Nicole Zefino, who is prominently featured in
your book. Why why is she in your book?
Speaker 1 (55:48):
She is a great American hero. I am a huge
fan of Nicole. Hello, Nicole, if you're listening. We talked
about some things from the eighteenth century that are worth reviving,
and one of them is the idea that we should
celebrate elections. Elections should be a festive. Back then, they
were as big as Thanksgiving. Election Day was something to
(56:11):
celebrate this new idea of democracy. Now it's very constrained
democracy because only white men folks, but it was still
the idea that you could choose your leader and they
would have it was like a music festival that you
would have farmers market, you would.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Have lots of booze.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
It was a little. Yes, it went way too hard
on the booze.
Speaker 3 (56:32):
It was the era.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
They were the Ta day drinkers. But they also in
a more wholesome way. They had election cakes and some
of them were huge. Some of them were the whole town.
You would have seventy pound election cakes, bigger than a human.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
And they were made with cloves and fig So maybe
not the kind of cakes we love today, but the
idea of a cake at election, where you bake it
at home, you bring it into the community, you share,
you share in the sweetness of democracy. I was like,
this is a great idea that we need to revive.
So I started on Facebook, which I know is not
(57:09):
very eighteenth century, but I put out the word I
want to revive this and have someone in all fifty states,
at least one person in every state make an election
cake and bring it to the polls and people responded.
It was my favorite part of the whole. It was
so heartening and inspiring because people were so hungry. No
(57:31):
pun intended for some positivity, something you could actually do.
And people would make these cakes that were themed to
the state, so you would have peach cake in Georgia
and you would pray. And the very first cake I
received was from Nicole because she had to leave the
country during election day, so she sent it in early.
(57:54):
She didn't send me the cake. I asked for photos,
so I got these photos and it's a gorgeous cake.
She lives in Illinois, and it had a Lincoln silhouette
and it had stars and stripes. She did a magnificent job.
And so yeah, she's a character in the book because
she was the first to send in photos for the
(58:15):
election cake project and we did get to all fifty
states thanks to Nicole and other bakers like her.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
That's amazing. I'm going to have to ask her whether
she used figs and clothes in it. But I think
in general, I think that kind of circles us all
the way back to kind of where we started, which
is not taking certain things for granted, right, and celebrating
the fact that, even though our system has many flaws,
it is a system. You know, what's the old saying
(58:44):
about democracy. It's the best of the worst solutions. That's
not it.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
But what is the right I know what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (58:49):
It was basically it's like, it's democracy is terrible, but
it's better than all the alternatives, something to that extent. Right,
But I love that idea of celebrating something that we
do now take for granted.
Speaker 1 (59:01):
Absolutely, And yeah, I almost see voting, or I have
seen voting as a sort of pain in the butt, like, oh,
I have to wait in line. But really it is
something to celebrate, and it's fragile. It is not something
that is guaranteed to survive. Most of human history has
not been a democracy of any kind, even a flawed
(59:23):
democracy like the world has now. So yeah, fighting for
that and making sure we keep it you, whether it's
with cakes or with other bigger structural changes like gerrymandering.
And then I found that inspiring and it was a
great way to end because it was a positive. So,
like we were talking about before, it's so easy to complain,
(59:44):
so easy to find faults, but let's look for solutions.
Let's look for how we can make this better.
Speaker 3 (59:51):
So listener and thinking about all that and the other
great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
would not your top ten, not the top five? Just one?
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Think about it? Got it?
Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Now?
Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
I ask you, what's one tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny little
thing you can do today to put it in practice?
Or maybe just take a baby step towards it. Remember,
little by little, a little becomes a lot. Profound change
happens as a result of aggregated tiny actions, not massive
heroic effort. If you're not already on our Good Wolf
Reminder SMS list, I'd highly recommend it as a tool
(01:00:28):
you can leverage to remind you to take those vital
baby steps forward. You can get on there at oneufeed
dot net slash SMS. It's totally free, and once you're
on there, I'll send you a couple text messages a
week with little reminders and nudges. Here's what I recently
shared to give you an idea of the type of
stuff I send. Keep practicing even if it seems hopeless.
(01:00:49):
Don't strive for perfection. Aim for consistency and no matter what,
keep showing up for yourself. That was a great gem
from recent guests Light Watkins. And if you're on the
fence about joining, remember it's totally free and easy to unsubscribe.
If you want to get in, I'd love to have
you there. Just go to oneufeed dot net slash SMS.
All right, back to it. You and I are going
(01:01:12):
to continue in the post show conversation. We might talk
about some eighteenth century toasts. Maybe we'll do one together
we should have done in the main interview, but we
will also talk about whether you actually were authorized by
the US Congress to become a pirate or not. That's
not exactly accurate, but it's close. It's club listeners. If
(01:01:32):
you'd like access to this fun post show conversation AD
free episodes and you want to become part of what
we're doing here and support something that I think is
valuable and I hope you do too, you can go
to oneufeed dot net slash join and become part of
the community. AJ thank you so much for coming on.
It's always a blast.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Oh thank you for wearing the tricorn at which you
look spectacular in and for drinking out of the pewter tankards.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
We'll have to take a picture of the try corn
hats for the huzza huzza.
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this
monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
We are so grateful for the members of our community.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
(01:02:42):
their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
To learn more, make a donation at any level and
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