The Joy of Not Being Dead (with Ryan Holiday on The Daily Stoic)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, I hope the summer is
treating you well and that you're taking some time off
to rest and recover. I've been on a bit of
a vaca myself, but the team and I will soon
be back at work preparing the next season of this show.
We'll be sending you back to school Happiness Lab style

(00:37):
as I review some of the must read psychology books
of the year. So stay tuned for lots of well
being wisdom coming your way this September. But I won't
be abandoning you until then. Over the next few weeks,
I'll be sharing some episodes from other podcasts, and the
common thread is that I appear as a guest in
all of them. First on the list, The Daily Stoic,
Brian Holiday's hit show is all about what the ancient

(00:59):
Stoic philosophers can teach us about living better today. I
was invited on the show to talk about death, but
don't let that topic scare you, because, as you'll hear,
my conversation with was actually kind of fun. If you
like what you hear, you should check out The Daily
Stowing wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Hey, it's Ryan Welcome. To another episode of the Daily
Stoic podcast. I was swimming in Barton Springs yesterday and
I'm swimming I kind of see this movement. It's like
a weird thing with Barton Springs where you know there's
like huge fish in there, and you know there's turtles.
You don't see them as much, not as much as
like Balmore or whatever. But I see this sort of
soft shelled turtle just start to head up to the

(01:41):
surface and then just like takes off like a rocket,
just and it it almost hits me. It was dodging turtles,
surfacing turtles from the depths of Barton Springs, and I
just I was like, ah, man, life is absurd and
life is good even just like the light in the
pool was amazing where you could actually see everything because

(02:02):
it's brighter in the mornings. I don't know, it's just
a great day. And so I'm excited to tell you
about today's episode. Actually this goes back a couple months now.
My research assistant Billy Oppenheimer, who you've heard me talk
about before. Many of you get his Sunday newsletter, which
I highly recommend. You can find that at Billy Oppenheimer
dot com. He is working on a book, which I'm

(02:23):
very excited about. I'm sure he'll be on the podcast
when that eventually comes out, though he has not sent
me a copy of it. And I'm saying this here
on the episode to jostle him a little bit so
he'll finish it up and get it into the publisher.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
But anyways, Billy sent me a clip. He's like, hey,
did you see this? And it was a clip of
the Human Lab podcast where this woman, doctor Lori Santos,
is talking about Memento mori. And I was like, oh wow,
that's so cool, and let me actually play the clip, professt.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
It's useful to remember, like, you know, this is limited, right,
this is temporary. I should enjoy this now while it's happening.
The most extreme version of this, of course, is with
our own lives, right, contemplating our mortality. There's this idea
of to Maury, which is a common phrase, actually have
my ring has Memento mori on it, which is morbid. Right,
I'm going to die, I'm not going to be here.

(03:16):
But when you recognize that, you know the old school
folks thought, and I think it's true, Like you realize,
like I can't take any of this stuff for granted.
I have to pay attention now. This is not, you know,
the kind of thing that's going to last forever.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
And then so we reached out and we found out
that doctor Santos would be in Austin for south By
Southwest and she came to the studio. I was like, Hey,
what are you in town for south By? This is
when she shows up and she's like, oh, yeah, I'm
here at south By to interview Michelle Obama. And I
was like, what that. Okay, that's a pretty good reason

(03:49):
to come to town. Not what I would have expected
to bring someone to Central Texas, but here we are,
and it does make sense. Doctor Santos is an expert
on happiness. Her Yale course, The Psychology and the Good Life,
teaches students how the science of psychology can make you
happier and live a more fulfilling life. They've told me

(04:13):
the most popular class in Yale history, and Yale has
a pretty decent history. I mean, it is three hundred
years old. So to have the most popular class at
one of the most prestigious universities in the world is
a pretty incredible accomplishment. And you know it makes me
think like I was introduced to the Stoics while I
was in a class in college called Aristotle and the

(04:34):
Meaning of Life. So you know, I just love that
this stuff is so popular, and I love that she
is bringing the Stoics into her courses. She is, as
you will see in this episode, very well versed in
the Stoics. We share a lot of ideas and strategies
that we both try to apply in our personal life.
And yeah, I just I really like this interview. It

(04:56):
was really exciting. Her work is, of course, incredibly popular.
You've seen it all over the world. She has an
online version of the class called The Science of well
Being on Cours Sera, which has had more than four
million students go through it. Her podcast, The Happiness Lab,
where she interviews people like Michelle Obama, is one of
the most popular podcasts anywhere they are a podcasts. So

(05:16):
it's all very impressive. You can check out her work
at doctor Lorisantos dot com. You can follow her on Instagram.
I will link to that. You can follow her on Twitter.
She has a YouTube channel and a TikTok channel. I
will link to all of this. Anyways, I was just
thinking this is a good life. Man Dodge and Turtles
in Barton Springs. Dropped my kid off from school, went swimming,
then I picked him up with went on a field trip.

(05:37):
I just I get to do this. This is what
my life is. It's always perfect. There was traffic, there's this,
you know, but like, by and large, this is what
the good life is. Stressful couple weeks for me, but
I don't know, more good than bad. And that's I
think basically what we're going to talk about in today's episode,
which I'm excited to bring to you. Now.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
This is my favorite thing in the live studio podcast
is like, tell me your table story.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, okrarect, this is Joan Didon's table. Oh my god,
that's a really good name.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
All right. You in.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
People are like it's kind of a weird table, but
it's like I bought it this auction and these are
these this was like a dining room table Joan Didion's house. Yeah,
and that cool.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
That's super cool.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah. Normally I'm not like a coaster person. I'm like
no stress. I'm like no, no, yeah. And then sometimes
I'll go like, oh, you can just put that down there,
and then they'll think it's like a suggestion get it table.
I think at some point I'll probably because it's I
mean at the table had history before, but now all

(06:40):
these people have sat at it. Yeah yeah yeah, Like
I thought it was a charity thing and so I
was like, oh, but maybe I could just we donate
it like ten years from now all these other people
have sat at the table and then all.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
I mean, Joan would be happy you bring all.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Maybe she seemed pretty judgmental.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Maybe that's true. She'd probably just like anything.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
So and like everything. She's like this tiny lady, you know,
so like sometimes like like we have like an athlete
coming in soon, and I'm like, I don't know, we
might have to get a different chairs. This is me
ye small person. Well thank you for coming.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah, thanks so much. I've been a fan for a while.
So really I was when I got this and I
was like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well I thought you might have your memento Mori ring off.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
I took it off to travel because I'm scared I'm
going to lose it, so, which is dumb. I also
have another second arrow, so it's an arrow. So that's
my Buddhist one, my mentor more I want and a
Buddhist one.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, tell me the story on both. Well, ye, memento more,
remember you will die? Why is that something you want
to wear on your person?

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Because it's nice to remember that you're going to die, right,
I mean no, seriously, I mean I think it like
causes you to live better. And there's research showing this too, right,
that fast forwarding to your death, this idea of death awareness,
noticing that things might go away soon, you wind up
like enjoying things more. Whether it's like a local thing
like they do this with like college seniors who are
about to graduate and just notice, hey, you're going to

(08:01):
graduate really soon. They spend their time differently when you
remind them. Really, but I think for bigger things for
life too. This is like, I mean, this is what
the Stoics were on top of, like before anybody did
these social science studies about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
But yeah, isn't it interesting how much social science studies
confirm just hypotheses or arguments from ancient philosophy that they
were just making up two thousand years ago.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
And even still, Like I have a colleague, Hetty Kober,
who studies meditation and a lot of kind of you know,
ancient practice from Buddhist and I was like, you need
to go do stoicism. So she's doing a negative visualization. Oh,
studies now to try to see if that also can
Like she just studies like craving and these kinds of things.
Can it reduce craving? Can it can make me feel better?
And so on? But I'm like, still new insights from
them are coming in.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
And so do you just kind of fiddle with the
ring and idea?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah. And the reason I don't take it to podcasts
is I with whack it, you know out, Yeah, you
notice it every once in a while and then you
this is another one I got. She just came from
Arthur Brooks, so I know you had in your show.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I think he was wearing a very similar Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
So his work with the Dalai Lama. He hangs out
with these monks.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Who did you go on that trip?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I did not. I had a wedding and I was like,
can you move the wedding? But I met one of
my who's there and because of the work, they gave
me this and so it's, you know, blessed by a
Dalai Lama, and it's meant to remind you that you're
on the path to being a body sofa, And it
is true that I'll be like like literally today driving
over here, trying to get out of the main part
of Austin City, and I looked at it. It was
about to road rage and I was like, no, I

(09:25):
want a path to being a body safah control over this.
And so yeah, so the reminders help.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if people agree. People find
momentum more a morbid, people find it disconcerting, depressing. There's
a reason that people don't do it. They don't want
to think about it.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Oh, it's disturbing. I mean, I think it's partly the
disturbingness that makes it so powerful. Yes, right, It makes
me a little want to like vomit in my mouth
every time I think about it, But it also makes
me want to put my phone away and notice the
things around me and have a conversation with someone. So yeah,
I think it works because it's really discombobulating and you.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Can get desensitized to it itself a little bit. And
what I think is interesting which has never been desensitized
for me, is the one that marks it talks about
in meditations, which is cribbing from epictitis. He says, as
you tuck your child in at night, say to yourself,
they will not make it till the morning. Yes, so
there's something about momental money for yourself. You just be like, yeah,
of course I'm gonna die. I always knew this, hopefully.

(10:22):
But it's when if you have to meditate on losing
someone or something so precious to you, you never become
desensitized to that. It is always a very powerful, sobering,
humbling and a little bit terrifying thought to run through
your mind. And there's something about the human mind that
doesn't want to consider it precisely because of all those things.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, yes, yes, But what's amazing about the human mind
is that you can just instantly switch your reference point
with a little bit of imagination, right, And I think
this was one of the stoic insights, like if you
actually have a bad thing happened to you that changes
your reference point, Like I actually lose my phone, like
while in this trip, Oh my god, this is a
pain in the ba I gotta get I never realized
how much I appreciated my phone. But I get a
new phone. It's like a phone, it's so useful. I

(11:04):
can look at the map and so on. Yes, But
what's amazing is we don't actually have to go through
the actual terrible thing. We can just simulate it very briefly.
And this is I think Marcus Early is insight right,
Like every morning you should wake up and think, I
might you know, get shunned, I might lose my job,
I might lose my legs, won't work and stuff. And
I think that that's amazing that we have the power
to do that. Then we don't actually have to face

(11:25):
the real consequences, but we can psychologically reset our reference point.
It's such a good hack.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Well, what's interesting is we use our imagination in a
way that's not helpful all the time totally. So we
imagine a bunch of extremely unlikely, you know, fake things.
We're ruminating on stuff that nobody's thinking about, and we're
torturing ourselves with our imagination instead of using our imagination
to prepare for things. Like oftentimes, if you act like that,

(11:51):
if you just kind of have this vague imagining of
a terrible thing, you feel unpleasant. But if you can
get specifically, then you what would I do. Here's what
my plan. Actually it has the exact opposite effect, So
it's you sort of decide how you're going to use
your imagination.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
And this is a critique that I sometimes get from
my students, So I shiok talk about these negative visualization
psychology studies and my happiness class, and I'll always give
you a whose days after class. And it's like, but wait,
isn't rumination terrible? Isn't that like the worst symptom of
you know, depressive episodes? And I'm like, Marcus Aurelius didn't say,
like do that fourteen hours a day. He said like
first ten minutes right before the world all you know,

(12:26):
like do that quickly and then recognize that that's not true,
appreciate and move on. And I think that's where we
get stuck, right, is that we have to know the
dosage of some of these practices, and that can get
a little tricky, including memento may right, a terrible health
anxious paranoia that you're going to die is not awesome.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Right, Hypochondria is not the supposed to be the result.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Correct. I think the Stoics were good about giving us
that sort of dosage, but in practice, that's that's where
the rubber.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Meus software SINA is like the right amount, yes, right,
like no the ability to discern this is also it's
interesting that the line between like where is sort of temperance,
where's wisdom? But they're the same, that they're related. It's like,
what is the golden mean of this exercise, this truth,
this idea? Because when you hear Seneca, on the one hand, say,

(13:14):
you know, we suffer more in imagination than in reality,
and then he also says he suffers before it is necessary,
suffers more than is necessary. He says, like the unexpected
blowlands heaviest. And then he's also saying like, don't torture
yourself with every possible thing that could happen. People feel
like that's a contradiction, and I think oftentimes that is

(13:34):
a critique of the Stoics, that they contradict each other
when they're actually saying is not too much over here
and not too little over here, get the right amount.
Even on something like hey, am I prepared for things
to not go my way? Is very different than ruminating
on how they're never going to go your.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Way exactly exactly. And I think, you know, if this
is I love the Stoics, but I also like bringing
in these other kinds of traditions to you, right like
if you look to Aristotle, this was something that Aristotle
was really worried about, the kind of right amount. Like
virtue isn't one thing or the other. It's not kind
of bravery or cowardice. It's this lovely sweet spot in
the middle. And so yeah, so I think the right
amount is something that we should be thinking about a lot.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Well, that's the problem with the word temperance is that
temperance in America, not even in English, but the temperance
movement became the abstinence movement exactly. I mean none not
What is the right amount? What is a moderate, safe,
reasonable amount? And that's a hard look, there's something there.

(14:34):
It's not at all. Some things you should definitely not do.
There's probably not a moderate amount of heroin that you
should be doing, yeah, but or a fentanyl or something.
But there are other things that if you can do
them in moderation, it's solely fine. And I think ruminating
is probably one of those things, because there's a fine
line between ruminating and being ignorant.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, And I think you know, one of the things
I think the Stoics would say is that you're the
main principle of like finding agency over your own mind,
finding agency over your own emotions, finding agency of your
own actions. Like they almost want you to be probably
in that hard sweet spot of sorting it out for yourself.
That's a kind of virtue that the Stokes want you
to cultivate.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, you want to be prepared for things to go wrong,
but also not a cynical miserable, you know, because I
don't believe in manifestation, but I do believe like, if
you have a fundamentally negative worldview, the world will be
negative to you. I don't think you're changing reality, but
if you only look for the worst, you're going to

(15:33):
find a lot of bad stuff.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Okay, but this is a spot where my students also
get it confused, and I think it is really confusing psychologically, right,
because on the one hand, we know thinking about the
worst helps you a little bit, and all the ways
we were just talking about. We also know that optimism
helps you a little bit, but it also has these
interesting downsides. Right in the manifesting work, there's lots of
work why folks like Gabrielle oting in that if you
fantasize about a positive future, a lot you take less

(15:56):
action towards that positive future. Yeah, so she has these
studies were like, you know, you fantasize about getting fit
and going to the gym all the time. You think,
oh my gosh, it's gonna be so great, I'm a
fit in my clothes and look right whatever. But then
the more you fantasize about it, the less you actually
go to the gym. And this too comes from a
weird feature of imagination, which is that if we've imagined
a goal, we don't want that goal as much anymore.

(16:18):
There's this lovely study with this guy Carrie mor Wedge
who has people either imagining putting quarters into a vending
machine over and over again, really slowly or slowly eating
m and ms one by one, and then at the
end of the study people come out and there's a
big va of eminems. What does he find. He finds
the people that imagine the quarters eat less eminems because
they kind of feel like, if you imagine eating all

(16:40):
the eminems, you're kind of satisfied by them. You don't
need them anymore. And this is what happens with certain
kinds of positive fantasies. We imagine that we already went
to the gym and got all the benefits it's like, Wow,
don't need to put action into that.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
I think it's kind of like you took like obviously
the engines were saying, like, you should do things for
the right reasons, not for necessarily the external rewards. But
if part of what is motivating us is the reward
and you have stolen it, like you've taken it on credit,
you've fantasized it into existence, you have decreased some of
your motive to do that thing. Like I've always I

(17:10):
try not to talk about like a book that I'm
working on. I'd prefer to spend all the energy doing it, yes,
because I find that that depletes the motivation to do
the hard, uncomfortable day to day and nous of the thing.
It's easier to live in the fantasy world than the
messy making it world.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Right or or you can use your imagination to recognize, Okay,
if that's my goal, what's it really going to take? Right?
This is kind of like you know when you go
to the baths, like, know what's going to happen at
the baths? Right? If you have this goal, know what
it takes to get there. And I think that was
another really rich I associate that with epictitis. But correct
me if I'm getting the wrong stoic here. Yeah, where
it's kind of like, you know, if you want that

(17:49):
goal you want to be like the fit person, imagine
the plan to get there. And it turns out from
the research that that's a thing that works really well.
If you imagine, okay, I want to get fit, say well,
then I have to go to the gym every day
to put my sneakers out. I really have to commit
to this. That helps you know what the plan is
because you kind of rehearsed it. It's not as bad
or not sure as much of a pain in the butt.
But also sometimes you do that and you're liketually there's

(18:10):
no way I'm going to get my act together to
do that. And then you can have a more appropriate goal, right,
You can kind of use your imagination to figure out
which goals are appropriate.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Well, I think of we were talking about testing the
stoic ideas like in the laboratory. Person who did that
most recently is Stockdale. Stockdale gets a graduate degree in
ancient philosophy at Stanford. The Navy sends him and then
he gets thrown into a real Stanford prison experiment.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
To be fair, most psychologists don't go as hardy.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
And there he's basically testing a lot of these ideas.
He's also really well steeped in the sort of literature
as well. By what I think is fascinating is they
asked him after, you know, who had the hardest time,
and he said it was the optimists, because there was
this sense that they would get out by they were
always falling for the hey by Christmas or you know,

(18:59):
news stories would trickle back to them, or they'd hear
things in letters, you know, and arms, justice is coming,
and then when that wouldn't happen, they were crushed. And
what's interesting in his memoirs he wrote after the fact,
but you can even see it in some of the
letters you wrote at the time. He kept saying, like,
it's going to be at least another two years, it's
going to be at least like he was, as it
turned out, underestimating how long it would take. But he

(19:20):
was not at all convinced that this would happen quickly.
And so there's something about optimism that can set you
up to be crushed by a world you don't control.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Because again, what our mind is doing is it's setting
up these reference points, and if we set up a
reference point like by Christmas, everything is going to be
great and it's going to be perfect, and we don't
get there, you know, we feel terrible, even if objectively
we probably could have made it. I mean, we're talking
about terrible. Vietnamese prison is probably you know, bad extreme case.
But the idea is if you set your reference point
too high, then even getting the second best possible thing

(19:54):
feels kind of crappy. Here's another one of my favorite
psych reference point studies. So researchers analyze people's smiles on
the Olympic metal stand right, and that's who's happiest, right,
So you look at the gold medal, is he's that
person you know, best in the world, really happy? What's
going on with the silver metallist. Turns out they're not
showing expressions of happiness. They're showing expressions of things like grief, contempt,

(20:15):
deep sadness. And that's because, like, you know, their reference
point was like I almost got gold, So they're objectively
second best in the world, but feeling really crappy about it.
That kind of makes sense. But the reason I love
the studies they also analyze the smiles of the bronze.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Medallist, right, happy to be there.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
They're so happy to be there. In fact, in some
cases their smiles are bigger than the gold medalist because like,
oh my god, my alternative, my negative visualization is like
I almost didn't get up here at all. And that
study has always been really powerful to be.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
And I love that because I think there's a Seinfeld
bit about that that predates the syce yes intuitive just
as a as a student of human nature, and that's
the best studies confirm kind of what's we obviously know,
or it confirms like the opposite of what we think
we know. But that one so he nails, that's exactly
what it is.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Jerry Seinfeld was such a great psychologist and so many,
so many deferent debats.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, I think for me, the momentum morey thing
is it's not that you are going to die tomorrow,
but that you could, Yes Couldness puts a level of
uncertainty and then it forces you to make some decisions.
I think that's kind of how I think about it.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's right, And I think those decisions ultimately are ones
that make us a lot happier. Right. The decisions are
usually to be a little bit more present to not
fall for the like you know, low value you know
don't mean hit in the current parlance, even though it's
not really don't mean hit, but like like does the
kind of low value quick like I'm looking at my
phone rather than hang out with a kid right before
he goes to bed, right, And those changes matter a lot.

(21:45):
Those changes matter a lot for our moment to moment happiness.
But I think those changes matter a lot for really
appreciating the stuff we have in life, which again, you know,
is this so lovingly pointed out, like is not guaranteed
at any point?

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, the like, hey should we extend the vacation one day?
Or hey should I blow off work and go spend
an extra bit of time for this word? Should I
take this phone call? It's the it could be the
last time that you get that thing correct, and so
you should pa sees it while it's here. That is,
I think just a real practical way of momentum more
helps you make better day to day decisions.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
It also changes our time horizon, right like as a
psychologists often worry about these cases of myopia right where
you're not saving enough, you're not eating helpy enough, you're
not protecting your future self. I from a happiness standpoint,
worry a lot about the opposite, which is hyperopia, which
is like we're constantly saying I'm doing something for my
future self, right, but we both get our future self wrong.
And sometimes like the future isn't guaranteed, so you know,

(22:39):
take the reward, take that fun thing now, you know
you know how many times, like do people not end
up spending their Frequent Flyer miles and they expire or
you know, buy this nice bottle of wine that you
and your partner are gonna have one day and then
you finally find it and it's like corked or something. Right,
I feel like we're constantly in danger of quirking our lives. Yes,
even in these local domains. I mean, I've heard you
use the example of your you know, kids going to

(23:01):
bed and that you know stoic mantra helping you notice
and be present. What would you be doing if you
weren't being present? We'll probably be checking an email for.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Such like future you is it's not important at all?

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Exactly? Yes, And so fighting our hyperopia and making sure
you know, we're prioritizing things in the present so that
we get the right future benefit I think is important.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
I've never met someone who's not saving for retirement, not
taking care of themselves because they have philosophically worked themselves
into that position. Yes, they're not doing that because they're
just not responsible.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
I do think there's the trouble with some philosophy and
some people people like they try to like overthink it
and for these edge cases that aren't real or would
affect such a minority of the It's like it's like
people don't want to work out because they don't want
to be too fit. Yeah, yeah, you're you're not going
to get there. Don't worry about it, you know. And
it's like, you know, if everyone actually put in this

(23:55):
ancient philosophical practice, social security would go bankrupt. And it's like, no, okay,
first off, it's automatically taken out of everyone's account that
it's not a choice, that's why. But like, no, the
people that are not doing it are are doing it
for other irresponsible reasons, for an extreme philosophical principle.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, and I do feel like hyperopia is one of
the you know, people who are a little philosophically informed
are thinking about how to live a good life. They're
often the ones that are pretty good at like discounting, right,
like you know, withholding. But then if you do that
too much, you know, again, none of us know what
our moment is, and the momental worry is just a
reminder of like could be tonight, what I want to
do different if it was well?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
How many of these people that are obsessed with sort
of radical life extension have a life worth extending. Seneca
talks about this story about this emperor, this criminal sort
of begging to be spared, like don't put me to death,
and he says, oh, you're really alive. That's what the
emperor says to him. He's like, you have wasted your life.
You're a shitty person doing shitty things, and now you're
begging to be spared to do what so you can

(24:54):
go back to your life of crime. This is not
a statement on the justice of the death penalty. The
point is when I look at the life that these
people are trying to extend, I'm like, what, you're living
like a monk, but not in a philosophic yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Like getting you have random injections and you can't hang
out with people because when you hang out with people,
you're going to have drink or go out.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
And have some food. You're gonna in the sun because
you're worried about this, Like, what you're doing is stripping
all the reasons for existence out of existence to then
prolong the existence. So maybe in the future you'll someday
be happy. You could be happy now.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
And I think they're getting the evidence wrong. I think
a lot of the evidence for that form of longevity
comes from, like I don't know, supplement research, like what.
But if you look psychologically at the kinds of things
that extend longevity, it is happiness in the moment, your
social connections, right, the good that you're doing in the world,
the sense of purpose and value. Right, these are the
things that extend life when you're faced with terminal illnesses

(25:48):
and so on. And so it's like, I think they're
doing it for the wrong reasons. They're going to get
a long life that's not very valuable. But I also
think they're missing out. If really what your goal was longevity,
you might actually just want a happy life in the moment,
because that would work for you.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Have you ever talked to someone who's really old, like
ninety two hundred or whatever. I've talked to many of them,
and first if they don't talk about being old, they
don't talk about wanting to live longer, and they're not
even particularly pumped that they're still alive. To be perfectly honest,
I don't mean like their life is depressing. But one
of the striking things about someone you meet, anyone over
a hundred, they are not clinging to life. They are

(26:21):
not like I hope I make it to one hundred
and twelve. I need two more years to get this
stuff done. What they actually are is day to day.
And like I just met Richard Overton and Austin. He
was one hundred and twelve, and I asked him if
he takes it day by day and he said, at
my age, you take it day by night. He's like, look,
I just if I live through the evening, if I
wake up tomorrow, that's like defying the odds once again.

(26:43):
In fact, it can sometimes be painful. If you love
these people. They're like, I'm ready to go, and you're like,
don't say that, because you're not ready for them to go. Yes,
but they've gotten to a place where life is no
longer so precious to them, and that's probably part of it.
But it's just interesting to me that when you talk
to the people who have it's like, I guess this
is also true for wealth. When you talk to the

(27:05):
people who have it, they're like, it's not that great.
I'd trade it for X, Y or z. And then
the people that are obsessed with life expectancy are often
neglecting the present moment at the expense of some omied future.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yes, yes, and ultimately like, when you get there, you
might be happier than you think, no matter what you optimized, right.
I think this is another stunning thing is that as
people are will as people get older, but a specifically,
as people get closer to death, they wind up being
more positive rather than less. And one of the cute
studies that looked at this, I mean just talk about
a structural issue that we should talk about and fight about,
but it looked at people on death row, right, where

(27:41):
for older individuals, probably they're getting closer to that last moment,
but we don't know what it's going to be. Unfortunately,
with individuals on death row, we can measure it, and
so researchers look at people's journals, their expressions and things
as they get closer, and rather than getting more negative,
they actually get substantially more positive.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Because the anger, the frustration, the fear just dissipates. Because
what's you're working at right? I think we don't actually know.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Why it is, but it seems like psychologically what happens
is you wind up kind of happier if you look
at kind of death row notes, because often people will write,
you know, know, about their situation whatever, like way more strongly,
like two to one, strongly positive words and other oriented
words like kindness and their connection and the meaning they've
gotten and so on, like it's not like me, And he.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Turns down the noise on the trivial shit. They're not
like this guy stole this thing from my bunk, you know,
like just the things you're holding on to when there's
an eternity. There's a story Lincoln tells this guy in
his town who hated this other guy. They hated each other,
and he finds out he has some terminal illness, and
so he reaches out and says, I want to make amends.

(28:47):
And so the guy comes in and sees them, and
they make amends. And as the former enemy is leaving,
he says, Hey, I just want you to know, if
I survive this, the grudge is back. And there's something
about the silliness of what we cling to that the
ephemorality of life renders insignificant. And I imagine whether you're

(29:08):
sitting on death row you just found out you have cancer,
or you're ninety five, you're just like.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
It doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, this is one of
the benefits of awful situations like finding out you have
a terminal illness or going through terrible trauma or cancer scare.
Something is like you wind up more positive, more likely
to kind of drop the bs. There's lots of evidence
for what researchers call post traumatic growth, which is kind
of just what it sounds like, right, You go through
this traumatic experience and you're like, I feel more connected

(29:35):
to my purpose, I feel more connected to other people.
I feel it's much easier to kind of do you
know what the stoics said a lot about, which is like,
just don't deal with the you know, just drop the
boring stuff, right, And that seems to come naturally when
you face something kind of existential in this rich way
you have been listening to me chatting with Ryan Holliday
on the Daily Stoic podcast. We'll get to more conversation

(29:57):
after the break.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
To me, the essence of wisdom is like knowing what
matters and what doesn't matter, and mental more is obviously
a shortcut to like the ultimate wisdom of like, hey,
basically nothing matters. Accept this present moment and the people
you love, but just yeah, the faster and better you
can get it, being like I have no control over that,
it doesn't matter. Like Seneca talks about paying the taxes

(30:20):
of life gladly yes, we post as a daily stoke,
like every April fifteen, and the irony of the people
who get angry and think it's making a political point
and there's you know, taxation is theft, and it's like no,
he's saying that taxes are an unavoidable part of life,
not just from the government, but like delays or a
tax on travel, Rainy days are a tax on you know,

(30:43):
living in the tropics, right, Like they're just every rose
has its thorn, That's what he's saying. And I think
the element of what philosophy is supposed to get you
to what wisdom and it's sort of these practices. Okay,
this is just a fact. This is just a thing,
and my opinion about it doesn't matter. Fighting about it
doesn't matter. I just accept it and move on. And

(31:04):
that's how you know you're making progress is the less
hung up and resentful and bend out of shape you
are about those things that just don't matter or are inalterable.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
And I think if you understand a little bit about
the psychology, you can realize that like, not only do
you have some agency in that, but there's learning that
goes on, right, there's growth. Right if you take this
mindset of like I'm not gonna let the BS destroy me,
then when the BS shows up, you're like, oh, hang on,
this is my time to level up, Like this is
some really good BS to like achieve. My comments on

(31:36):
and that reading the Stoics has been kind of a
game changer for me is to remember that when the
tax shows up, you're like, oh, good thing. This is
how I build up my like life tax resilience, and
this is actually good. This is a chance for me
to like show my metal or something. And I think
that kind of stance can be really powerful because it
means you almost not only are you like, I'm just
accepting of the bs. When it shows up, you're almost like,

(31:58):
bring it. You know. I go to the airport and
I'm like, is this going to be like when you
go to the bath situation? Like let's you know, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
I remember when I moved to New York a friend
who lived there a long time, He's like, look the
secrets in you is you gotta you gotta understand that
it costs what it costs. You come from somewhere else.
You're like, this is insanely expensive, this is insanely dirty.
You just have all these objections that this isn't how
it should be. And he was basically saying like, look,
if you're gonna go out for drinks in New York City,
it's gonna cost a lot of money. You're gonna go

(32:25):
out to breakfast, your apartment is gonna That's just what
it is. And the more, the sooner you accept that.
And he wasn't making a financial point he was saying.
He was saying like, don't don't add on top of
this resentment and bafflement and and shock, don't you spend
a ton of energy trying to think you can beat
the system. It costs what it costs. And to me,

(32:46):
that's like just a really basic philosophical like life is
what it is. People are people. When you go to
the baths, expect this thing. That's what it is. And
that was true in ancient Rome, it was true in
ancient Greece, it was true in this or that dynasty
in China. It's just how it is. Like the sooner
you go it costs what it costs, I'm just gonna pay,
and I'm gonna pay it gladly, the happier you can

(33:08):
be as a person.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
And this, I think is where imagination can help us,
because you can help yourself. Remember, ooh, this is a
situation coming up where like it's a bath situation. My
husband's philosopher also a big stoic stand like me, and
he constantly is reminding me, like this is a bath situation.
He lives in the Midwest, which means we're constantly flying
through oahair Airport, and I think, like, you know, Epictitis
wasn't talking about hairport, but it could have been when

(33:30):
he was talking about the bath. And like literally when
we when I'm about to book a flight and I'm like,
here's our labor over here. My husband will be like,
remember we go to the bath. Like when you go
to O'Hair, flights get canceled. There is no read and
you just have to And I'm like, oh yeah, me through.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
O hair a week and a half ago. And even
though as I was looking at the flight on flight
to where it's like average flights out of O'Hair are
thirty two minutes delay, right, and I get there and
I was flying from Dubai and so it's like all
I wanted to do was get home. You know, it's
like the last two and a half hour leg and
get there board the plane mediate thirty two minute delay,

(34:09):
and I'm surprised by it. I'm like, what you know?
And it's like, no, no, they told you on average
this is gonna happen. It could actually be worse that
it was almost certainly not going to be better. And
here you are, you have the information, you know what
O'Hara is like, and you know what o'haa is like
right now, and then you're disappointed, caught off guard, and

(34:29):
you are like frustrated as if something's being done to you,
as if it's not being done to everyone, and they
didn't warn you in advance.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Yes, yes, yes, but for me that advanced simulation when
I'm like, I'm going to it. You know, we're here
in Texas having this conversation. I'm in Austin. The relative
to the Northeast, there's just a lot of traffic. There's
a lot of like, you're just gonna not go very
far and you're gonna sit in traffic. And I just
have to Yes, when you're in Austin, you just you know,
do it.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
You go, Hey, at least it's not sell polo or something.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Yes, what the perspective goes is, hey, would you rather
be canceled?

Speaker 1 (35:02):
You know? And that and that moment of negativetion, like
recognizing you have the agency to pick a different reference
point is so. So a couple of years ago, broke
my knee on the ice for the second time. So
I broke my knee in ice first time, and then
a few years later broke my knee again. And it
was like right at the beginning of this very busy
period of my life, and I was so bummed out
about it, and I was like, this is a time
for the stoics. And I picked up Bill Ravine in

(35:24):
The Philosopher. I think You've had him on the show
this book Stoic Challenge, and he was like, you know,
this is Stoic Challenge, but the book is awesome because
it goes through like you know, you broke your leg.
I was like, well that really bummer. But then he's like,
but you could be you know, blind, like you could
have had your leg chopped off. You could be locked
in right where like you know, you literally can't communicate
with anybody except blinking your eyes and drooling. And I

(35:45):
was like, oh, that's knee is great. I can deal
with me, It's like and so just having that power,
like taking the agency to remember that you can find
this reference point that makes you feel not that bad.
That for me has been a real game changer.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, Epiced, you just said, you know, we choose which
handle we're going to grab, that every situation has two handles,
and I actually I don't disagree with the Stokes too much,
but I would say, actually, every situation has an infinite
number of hands, and you get to choose which one
you're going to go. So, hey, it's broke your knee
instead of you know, an amputation. That's one. The other
is what are the fucking chances that I broke my

(36:18):
knee twice the same way. Isn't this hilarious? You know?

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Did the Stoics talk about humor a lot? Because I
feel like that's where my mind goes to you with
some of these negative visualizations, but I don't see that
as much. Well.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Seneca says that there's two schools of thoughts. He says,
there's Democritus, who basically despaired and cried over the awfulness
of life, and Heraclius, who laughed at it. And which
which are you going to choose? So again, that's the handle, right,
You're going to choose the depressing cynical handle. Are you
going to, you know, choose the absurdity laughter handle? We

(36:52):
know that one of the stokes, Chrysippus, dies of laughter.
He's actually on the Wikipedia page for unusual deaths. And
the joke is he was sitting on his front porch
and a donkey runs away from its owner and runs
up and begins eating like figs out of his garden,
and Chrysippus says, you should get that donkey some wine
to wash down those figs, and then starts to laugh

(37:13):
at his own joke, which, as I do not understand, like,
I don't get the joke, what does it mean? And
he laughs so hard that he dies beautiful, which I
love because first off, we had this idea of the
humorless stoics.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yes, yes, and then in and.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Of itself is funny, what a ridiculous way to die?

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Like probably if you could have told him that was
how he's going to die, He's like, that's beautiful. It's
a legacy, o one, and it's.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Kind of a memento more thing to like, you know,
you look at like famous people who died on the
toilet or you know, like just like you think life
is so dignified and in your control and you're going
to die with your boots on, and it's like, actually, no,
you're gonna sneeze too hard and have a stroke. You know,
like human body is so lame and stupid and you're
not any bit above that.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, and when you ultimately look at that, it's kind
of funny, right, It's kind of it's like connect you
with everything, right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Yes, you see like, oh, there's a deer, got an
antler stuck in a tree they'll find or have you
ever seen where it's like too like a deer with
another deer's heads. Oh yes, ah, yes, you're just like
that's so dumb. And then you're like human history is
in full of dumber ways that we've killed each other
or accidentally killed ourselves. You know, it's just like life
is pathetic in that way.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah. Recognizing that humor can be part of your agency,
I think is really really, really powerful.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
Do you feel like the Stokes didn't talk about happiness enough?

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Well, I think, I mean, their whole point was getting
to a happy life. I think they didn't define it
that much because I think they were kind of like,
what you want is like not to be bothered by
the bs of life. Like I think they didn't state
that out because they just thought it was so self aware.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Let's eliminate all the pointless causes of unhappiness.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yes, yeah, yeah, And ultimately I think you know, they're
channeling something I think is really important in the happiness science,
which is like, even in extreme circumstances, like it doesn't
define your happiness in the way that you think, right,
and all the good stuff definitely doesn't define your happiness,
like getting more money, getting more prestige, that stuff, it
doesn't make you happier and I think the Stoics were

(39:07):
onto that, but also for a different reason, just like
at any point it could go away, right, And so
if you're going for that and you tend not to
have control over that stuff as much, right, So leading
a life where you really don't want to be perturbed,
just go for the stuff that you can control, and
you make it much easier on yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Well, Cistero's question was like, can you be happy on
the rack?

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (39:25):
And that seems like, you know, is that like a
philosophical question like the trolley problem? And then it's like, well,
this dude did get his head and hands chopped off, yes,
by a vindictive you know enemy, so it wasn't so
abstract like he did me. And can you be happy
when you're grieving the loss of a child? Can you
be happy when your your government has fallen? Can you

(39:47):
be happy when you're in exile? I do think the
Stoics specifically had a more robust and resilient happiness in mind.
They weren't talking about laughter and fun much as it's
not smiling happiness, but it's something more profound.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Your diamondeir right, They're like stealing from these other ancient concepts.
So it's really about kind of having a flourishing life.
But I think the difference of a flourishing life for
the Stoics is like, Okay, have the flourishing life and
do all the good, valuable moral things, but also don't
let the BS get you down. Yes, like don't experience
the perturbations. If we could just get or just not
get rid of the negative emotions but use them in
ways to get you towards your values and regulate them

(40:27):
as quickly as possible. Yeah, part is like you can, right,
And so I think what the stoics are really focused on,
or at least my root of the Stoics is focused on,
is like regulating that negative emotion so that you feel
happy kind of in your life. Modern day psychologists tend
to think about happiness as having these two parts, sort
of being happy in your life, so ideally lots of
positive emotion, the laughter and so on, but less negative emotion,

(40:48):
not none, but less negative emotion. And then second, being
happy with your life, which is kind of like you
think your life is going well. It has valuepose having enough,
having enough of you, eating some conditional future thing to
go a certain way to become happy then, but you
have it now, yeah, And I think the Stoics tapped
into both of these. Often psychologists talk about these two
parts as sort of the affective part of happiness, how

(41:09):
your life feels, versus the cognitive part of happiness, how
you think your life is going right, And I think
the Stoics wanted to kind of achieve both, Right, you
regulate your negative emotions, you come with all these strategies
to have control over them, but you also have control
over your thoughts and how you think it's going right,
And so even in a bad situation, you can think
it's going well because you have a mechanism of appreciating it.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah, it's it's tough though.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's tough though.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
How many how many powerful, successful, important people would we
would we say we're happy?

Speaker 1 (41:41):
Very few? Right, Yeah, But I think the Stoics would
be like yep, because like they're going after all these
things that they ultimately can't control, right, right. But I
think also so that's another big principle of the happiness science,
Like you can definitely become happier, you can't become infinitely happier.
Like most of the modal size of most of the
effects in the field are about ten percent. Dan Harris

(42:02):
is this idea of ten percent happier and it's really
is really built on the evidence because you can go
up about a point on a ten point happiness scale.
But most of these interventions to do right so you
can get happier, well, ultimately it takes some work. Yeah,
and I think those stoics knew about you know. I
mean some of the most painful passages in the stoics
for me, or when they're just like laying out like yeah,
you know, your your kid could go and you got

(42:23):
to like just be like, yep, he didn't belong to
me anyway. And you're like yeah, but like, yeah, you know,
it didn't belong to me. So if I really want
to be happy, I just have to not I have
to you know, the day after your spouse dies, you're like, yeah,
I'm not perturbed because my goal is to live unperturbed.
And you're like, oh man, that's rough. That takes a
lot of work.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
It's a lot to ask. It's a bit much to be. Like,
you know, Mark s Realis his meditation is a little depressing.
It's like, Okay, this guy was the most powerful person
in the world, Yeah, he spent his whole reign at war.
There was a flood, there was a famine, there was
a coup attempt. Some historians think his wife was repeatedly unfaithful.
He buried more than half of his children, He lost

(43:02):
his father as a young man. You know, just think
of the conniving, awful, disingenuous people he would have had
to deal with on a day to day basis. And
by the way, what he really liked was books and
he never had a time like it's a lot to
be like, well, you know, he could have been more
fun like that this guy got out of bed in
the morning was a profound statement about his happiness and

(43:25):
hopefulness and you know sort of character and resilience. Like
I think it would have wrecked most people. Yeah, it's
insane that he didn't kill himself, to be quite honest, Like,
how did he not stagger under those bulls? And I
would say he probably did. But there was some fundamental
love of life and the day to day that kept

(43:48):
him going.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
And I think that this, you know, this idea of
a fundamental love of life in the day to day
that keeps you going is so powerful, right, And the
happiness space folks often talk about gratitude. I think can
sometimes sound cheesy. I wish i'd better marketing. Yeah, I
like to talk often about delights. Yes, which it was
kind of just like things in the world that you like. Delight,
Like it's just you know, sunny out cats here and

(44:09):
is really cute. You know, the morning coffee has a
little swirl in it and that's funny. It's like, oh, delight,
just like some of the.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Best writing and meditations. He's out like a stock of
grain bending under its own weight. He talks about the
brow of a lion. My favorite delight one he talks
about the way that you put a loaf of bread
in the oven and when it comes out, it has
this crack on the top and he's like, nobody knows why,
and it wasn't on purpose, but it's sort of pretty

(44:36):
and just like the poet's eye for the mundane extraordinariness
of life.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yeah, And I think you know what they're tapping into
is is a positive motion that we know is super
important for happiness. We don't talk about a lot, which
is emotion of awe. Right, it's kind of something bigger
than you. It's kind of like you don't really understand it,
so it kind of makes you feel a little bit weird.
And I think the Stoic saw that level of awe
in so many things, including the moral goodness of other people. Right,

(45:04):
This guy, Dakar Keltner at UC Berkeley, does a lot
of studies of awe, and he kind of goes through
the different cat gorys where we experience awe. Like you
think it's like, you know, like some spiritual moment or
taking psychedelics or the Grand Canyon. And he's like, most
of the ones that normal people report on a day
to day are the moral goodness of other people. Yeah,
just like somebody did something really amazing and good, or
somebody achieved some really interesting thing, like and I think

(45:27):
there's a.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Pair of sunglasses and they're at the Lost and Found.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, hear of them in or you know, you're walking
and somebody drops their idea and you see someone else
pick up the id for them, and you're like, that's
just you.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
See someone help a mom down a flight of stairs,
like carry the stroller or whatever, you know, like strangers
when yeah, oh holding the door open.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yes, Yeah, they're just kind of helpers around. And I
think that the Stoics were looking for those moments of
moral goodness. They wanted to experience them themselves and be
the kind of person that did that stuff. But they
also were like open to noticing it. Plus the cracks
on the bread, right, the little, tiny, little wonderful delights
in the world.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
You were saying, awe, It's like, how do you find
awe in an awful world?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Right? Like not?

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Hey, Look, if you retreat to a monastery and you
live in the beautiful green hills of China, you know,
open up the window and be like, wow, this is amazing.
That's that's one thing. And it's like, I'm gonna go
to the beach this weekend. It's going to be wonderful.
The ocean is the ocean, But it's can you find
the awe in the delayed flight on the way there? Yeah,
this is the miracle of flights. Yes, And you know

(46:29):
the rude person, Hey, that we're not like stabbing each
other to death is actually pretty incredible. That the coordination
of all of this, and you know that, can you
find it in the in the not so awesome thing? Yeah,
that's where the work is.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
The anthropologist Sarah Herdi, who studies you know, primates and
primate interactions. Has this essay about getting off a flight
where everybody stands up and everybody's like pissy and kind
of hungry, and she's like, if this was any other species,
like she literally says, no one would leave with their testicles,
Like testicles would just be all over this delta fla
like on the chairs and killing each we'd be killing

(47:03):
each other. And she's like, it is amazing that we
have when it that we get to be in one
of the few species that all that happens is somebody
says a nasty thing to them, we.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Can tend to buy and large cooperate.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
And yeah, you know, so even in like the o
hair terribleness, you can find, you know, these moments off.
But as we were just saying, it's hard, and it's
hard in part because our mind is built with this
negativity bias. We instantly go to the terrible things. It
takes no work whatsoever to find like how mad I
am about O'Hair? Are the flights delayed? Right? But it
takes some work to notice the neutral stuff or the
good stuff. But this is what I think that the

(47:35):
kind of training and the practice is about, right, is
that you build up the ability to do that better
and better. I hope you've been enjoying my conversation with
Ryan Holiday on the Daily Stoic podcast. We'll have even
more after.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
The break, don't you think That's the challenge of our time?

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Though?

Speaker 2 (47:49):
It is like, how do you find in so much awfulness?
How do you not let miserable awful people which we
see on the headlines or in the headlines. Yeah, I
can pick up my phone right now and change my
mood negatively if I wanted to. How do you not
let that make you miserable? How do you not, like
the Stokes talk about it, the best revenge is to

(48:10):
not be like that? How do you find happiness in
profoundly unhappy times?

Speaker 1 (48:15):
That's the challenge, well, one of the insights I had,
because I think sometimes also people think an additional challenge
of that is people think it's not moral to find
happiness in those times? Right? How can you be the
person that's looking away when you know the economy is
falling apart, the climate's falling apart, the world's falling apart.
Like you're a bad person if you're not like the
idea of if you're not angry, you're not paying attention, right,

(48:36):
But this winds up being an interesting empirical question for
nerdy psychologists like me. Like that has a certain hypothesis,
which is like, if you're not violently angry and very
perturbed in the stoic words about this, you're not doing
anything about it. And this guy constantin Kushlav at Georgetown
has been studying this. He actually goes out and asks like,
who are the people who are like showing up at
a protest for example, for like say Black Lives Matter,

(48:57):
climate justice or something, And he finds it's actually the
people who are experiencing the least negative emotion. And you
kind of when you reflect on it, you get that
you're like, oh, if I'm experiencing extreme negative emotion, like
I'm not getting out of it, and under the douvet
about like all the.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Typical statement of hope to go to the protest exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
You think that there's some agency that you can take
to fix it. And that set of findings has helped
me a little bit because sometimes I kind of fall
under that like how dare I not be upset at this?
How dare I not be angry or sad or whatever,
and that research suggests like, actually, if you want the
bandwidth to make a difference, you got a ghostoic and
regulate some of your emotions so that you're noticing the

(49:34):
bad things, yes, but you're not affected perturbed by them, right,
And in theory, that's going to give you the psychological
bandwidth to actually fix this stuff. So I've been helped
by recognize like, oh, it's not just not a bad
thing to not be pissed off at all this stuff
or participate in it to the point that it affects
my emotions. It's actually the most effective thing I could
do if what I want to do is act better.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
What all comes down to efficacy, right, because if you
are up against evil or powerful interests or intractable you know,
complex issues, The idea that you're going to bring your
best self while you're caught up in the passions as
the stokes it'd say, it is preposterous. No, it's precisely
here that you need to be the most calm, the
most in command of yourself because they're not going to

(50:17):
give you anything, right, they want you to be angry.
That's actually, I mean part of the media strategy, as
they have disclosed. Is this idea of flooding the zone
with shit, making everyone confused and overwhelmed, making them believe
they're more powerful than they are, that the resistance is
less powerful and the you know, the powers that be
are more powerful, to make you think it's not possible,

(50:38):
that it's only going to get worse, and then you
don't do anything. That's the whole point is to make
you irrational so you can't rationally solve for the actually
somewhat solvable problems.

Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, and I think that, you know, what the research
really shows is that we're just much better at solving
these problems when we are not be set by our
emotional voice, right, I mean, I think this is the
thing you forget that, like you knows. There's other cute
study by my former colleague Susan Nolan Huximo where she
looks at this idea that we sometimes assume and that
like if I ruminate about this problem, like gere really
upset about it, if it's like really affecting me, then

(51:13):
then I'll find a solution. Because I think we have
this We're not like Massachiss of wanting to be so
upset about stuff. I think we think that this is
the right thing to do to get to a good solution.
But she has people either ruminate about a particular problem.
These are college students, so it's not like someone's not
hanging out with you. It's like these problems that aren't
you know, the world peace and these big things we're
worried about. But she either has people ruminate about it
or just distract yourself, just do something else to distract

(51:33):
yourself when you're thinking about this problem. And then she
has people go through optimal solutions, and she finds up
people who are ruminating, people who are thinking about it,
getting so upset about it that she came up with
the worst solutions than somebody who just distracted themselves. And
we're like, I'm not gonna and so this is this
is a sort of strategy I've taken with the current
news cycle, where there's it's one thing to be informed,
but it's another to be like destroyed by this stuff.

(51:55):
And I think that like what you actually need to
do to get informed is not is not as much
as we think. It's not being on social media every day,
like you're gonna hear about what's going on in twenty
to four to forty eight hours.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
I don't need any more information to let me know
that what they're doing is criminal, that it's cruel, that
it's stupid, that it violates most of the laws of economics. Also,
like I know this by now, right, and this is
also the fundamental idea from the agents that characterist fate,
Like when you like, even if some of the ideas

(52:27):
were good, the people who are trying to execute them
are bad people doing them for you know, motivated by
bad reasons. So I'm a post right, So I don't
need to follow this day to day. Like sometimes it
can be helpful to look back historically, Like if in
nineteen sixty four you sort of actually put some thought
into what was happening in Vietnam and the bogus reasons

(52:50):
we were there, you would go, yeah, we have no
business being here and everything we do there is wrong.
You didn't need to then follow it day to day
for the next seven or eight years to update your opinion.
Your opinion was correct from the outset. Actually you need
you could be organizing, you could be moving, you can
there's you know, you could you could be running for office.

(53:11):
There's a bunch of things you could do. But reading
the day to day news reports is only going to
make you despair.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
And that was when it was day to day.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
The problem is we like, I mean, you know, yes
to you if you only look at this stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Like a daily newspaper, Oh my god, that would be incredible.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, I mean I often think about, like what would
the stoics think about what we are? You know, just
like the clickbaity headlines designed to like steal your emotions,
they would be like, what what have you done?

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Like about Mark Thrus He's the head of this empire,
so all the news, all the important he's it's all
his purview. He would look at your and my information
diet and be like, how do you manage? And he
was running an empire of fifty million people in which
information was essential, right, And he'd be like, you're just
getting minute to minute reports about like cabinet meetings. He'd

(54:00):
be like, I mean they tell me, like I've been
at the front for the last two years. They send
me summaries and I read that like it's insane. How
much information? And if you're not an intelligence operative or
a hedge fund manager, chances are you are doing nothing
with this information but torturing you you want to get
just enough and you want to have rooted it enough

(54:22):
in psychology and history and you know, philosophy that you
can know what's what, like you can know what's good,
what's bad, what's cruel, what's immoral, et cetera. But you know,
I don't think you need You don't need the minutes
of these meetings. You're not in the cabinet.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Yeah, you know, yeah, And I think you need to
notice how it's affecting you. This is why I always
love you know, stealing all the ancients and pulling them together.
I think this was something that you know, the Buddhists
talked about a lot, right, is this idea of noticing
every time I pick up my phone and go on
Blue Sky, I leave with my you know, my chest clenched.
I'm like ready to scree. You know, my husband's been
talking about like it's like, oh, that wasn't good. But

(55:01):
I think sometimes these things happen, like our emotions change
so unconsciously, and then we can unconsciously affect other people's
real skill to be noticing what this stuff is doing
to you. And so I think just notice, like, you know,
did you get the information you wanted, or is it
maybe after or worse? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (55:19):
You exactly, Yeah, I do. I feel worse every time
I do this? Why am I doing it over and
over and over again expecting to feel differently? Yeah, and
it's time just like you know, what are the I
think sitting down and going hey, what parts of my
information diet can I cut out? And again that you
have a duty to be an informed, participating citizen. But

(55:40):
where is the proof that this is informing you.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Or helping you participate?

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Exactly? Yeah, exactly yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Catherine Price, who's been on my podcast The Happiness Lab
a Bunch, She has this lovely book called How to
Break Up with Your Phone, where she kind of argues
you don't need to break up with your phone, you
need to take it, like to couples counseling for kind
of situations like this with the news. She has this
acronym she uses www whenever she tries to interact with
her social media, which stands for what for, Why now?
And what else? Like what was this for? Was there

(56:06):
a purpose to it? Was I trying to check some
effect about what was happening in the news, or was
I just like sucked in right? Why now? And this
is like kind of mindfulness, like what drew you in?
You already a little anxious and that made you scroll
even more so you kind of you know, created your
own doom.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Spiral, frustrated tired board.

Speaker 1 (56:23):
Right, like all these things that if we were, you know,
following the stoics, we'd just find some other way to
notice and find somebody to do it. But the biggest
one what else? Right, there's an opportunity cost whenever you're
spending your limited time, you know, moving up to your
eventual you know deaths, right, like doing this stuff and
like what you know, what else could you be doing
with that time that might fit with your higher ideals
and your values better? And the acronym has kind of

(56:45):
helped me because sometimes I'll you know, you probably do this.
So you just find yourself with your phone in your hand,
your midstream you're like, wait, www, Like I was being
avoidant because I was avoiding some other problem, and now
I'm anxious about this other thing, and like I could
put this down and take a walk, or I could
put this down and go talk to my husband or something.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, my wife and I try to like when we
see each other, you know, really getting sacked in the
phone we go, you don't want to be doing that,
and then as soon as you kind of the trance,
you're like, oh yeah, but I'm like it was designed
by the smartest people with the best technology for the
same reason the casino doesn't have clocks or windows, and

(57:20):
you just need someone to snap you out of the
hypnosis a little bit and then you can make you
can make a better new decision instead of just con
the continuing the decision that you already made.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
I mean, that's another thing I'm constantly thinking about what
the stoics would think about. You know, we just talked
about like the information overload that we're all experiencing, the
kind of fire hose. How's the stoics would be fascinated
by the trance? Right, There's so much stuff now that
sucks us into a trance. And I think, you know,
the Buddhist had a different take on that, which is like,
you want to be president in the trance's batch. For
that reason, I think the Stoics think you're the trance

(57:52):
causes you to miss out and so many positive motions
and often is indirectly sucking you into lots of negative
emotions too.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Yes, yeah, anything that had power over you, they would
have been very skeptical of So you're like, I can't
not do this thing. They'd be like, well, yeah this
is stuff.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Yeah, you gotta get away from that.

Speaker 2 (58:10):
So you have the momentumry ring. And then what's the
other bracelet?

Speaker 1 (58:13):
So the other bracelet, which actually my producer Ryan is
my co writer for my podcast The happeningest Lab gave
me is it's an arrow with two arrow points that
goes around as a bracelet. Sometimes it stabs me because
it's very sharp, but that's throwing me. The parable the
second arrow, which comes from the Buddhist So if you
don't know it, Buddha is talking to his followers and
he asked his followers, if you're walking down the street
and someone shoots you with an arrow, is that bad?

(58:34):
And the followers are like, yeah, kind of seems like
that sucks. Like so it says, okay, imagine you're walking
on the streets, someone shoots you with the first arrow,
but then they also, immediately after that shoot the second
arrow too. Is the second arrow is that worse? And
the followers are like, yeah, it sucks? Do I says much,
just get shot by a second arrow? So Buddha says,
first arrow is the circumstances of life. That's your car
doesn't start, that's you break your knee, that's your hair

(58:56):
up and your flight's delayed. You don't have any control
over that. That's the world shooting with the arrow. But
the second arrow is usually the one you shoot yourself with.
That's that I get really pissed off at the you know,
the delayed flight. I'm angry and I'm busy. My husband
when I break my knee or whatever it is, and
he's like, you don't have any control over that first arrow.
But the second arrow you are shooting yourself with. And

(59:17):
in my case, in the worst moments, it's not just
a second arrow, it's like a sixteenth and a second
day arrow, because like you know, I've like, you know,
somebody at work does something stupid. Hours later, I'm talking
to a friend and I'm like, oh my god, I
can't believe that person did that. And it's like the
person's action is done. This is hours later, and so
it's a Buddhist you know, parable in a buddhistradition. But
I think if it's so much with the stoics, it's

(59:38):
like the one arrow, let that go because like you
can't control it, you know, ignore it, deal with it.
But the second arrow, it's on you. You definitely can
control that one. And so for me that's been really
helpful is like, is this the first arrow or is
this the second arrow? Sometimes my producer Ryan, who gave
me the thing, Well, if I'm complaining about something over text,
he's based on Lenon's. We're often texting each other. He'll

(01:00:00):
text me that archeria emoji archi opr and I'm like, okay,
fair enough to shut up. Moving on.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Well, Epictheta said, you know, it's not things that upset us,
it's our pag about things, and our opinion about things
is the second era, right, it happened. It is bad
it happened. I'm harmed by it happened because that person
is an asshole and they purposely targeted me. That's the
second arrow. Stuff, the story we tell ourselves about it,

(01:00:26):
I'll never recover, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
And it's so amazing just how differently you feel when
you change the story. My father in law passed away recently,
and you know, everything was discombobulated, and I was like,
you know, we weren't doing stuff and I found myself
remembering that, like, hey, this is a possibility in people's lives.
People die, and you know, was that like you know,
a parking lot or something and somebody like pulled into
my space and my instant reaction other than like that

(01:00:50):
person's what whatever, like maybe a family member of theirs died.
It was just like in the possibility space for me,
and that just like changed my reaction to everything. Like
instead of being pissy, I had like compassion. I'm like,
oh my gosh, cut in line, you know, do this thing,
and that just feels so different. But it really was
just like a slight change in the possibility space of
which handle I was grabbing to interpret this event, and

(01:01:11):
you just realize that's possible for you all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Yeah, in a way, some of our grief is the
second arrow. Not that we're sad that we lost them,
this is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
The one I have to say. It's like, if I
get it, I know the stokes are right, but like, wow,
is this one hard? Like your kid dies, You're like, well,
it wasn't really mine in the first place.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Moving on, because I feel like the grief of just
loss is unavoidable and a fact, right, I don't think
any of the Stokes were like, oh they were mortal
when I met them. I don't think anyone's actually doing that, right,
And I'm not sure it's healthy to do that. But
the decision to say be haunted by the memory of

(01:01:48):
this person is a loss on top of the loss.
So while they were alive, every time you thought of
them it was positive, right, yeah, And when you saw
them it was positive. And now they're gone, and you know,
you think of the anniversary of their death, or you know,
every once in a while, like I think about how
many dead people are on my phone? Oh yeah, right,

(01:02:09):
because I type in the letter C and then oh shit,
I forgot. But the feeling of sadness, loss, bitterness, whatever,
I could also feel joy and love and gratitude. And
so there's this second and Seneca talks about this in
one of his consolation essays where he's like, do you
think your father would want you to break down in

(01:02:32):
sadness every time you think of him? That would have
been like if as he was leaving life, he was like,
by the way, your memory's going to haunt your daughter?
Like he'd be like, no, So that's the worst thing
all anyone would want is to be remembered fondly and
be a positive, ongoing sort of energy in your life.

(01:02:53):
And that is on total control of that, especially right
as it happens. But as time goes by, I think
you get to choose whether how you think about that
memory and what that death means to you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
And I think the stoics were kind of hedging against
a certain form of grief, which is like, I didn't
do right by that person, I didn't spend time with them, right,
Like in theory, they're hedging against the regret of what happened,
so that you know, when a person you care about passes,
you're like, I recognize they were mortal the whole time,
and no, I'm not grieving, but I don't regret what
I did when they were alive. I spent the time

(01:03:26):
that I could have spent with them. I invested as much,
like you know, I'm washing my hands of the regret
part of it, and that that does feel like a
different way to grieve.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
I think they're certainly not holding onto the grudge. Yeah
they're dead, Yeah, so I'm not sure they want you
to be like I should have called more. You know,
they have they have let that go. You probably can too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
Yeah, but if you do it in advance, then then
everybody you know, then it's happy all the way through.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah. But yeah, the second arrow of like, Okay, you
lost them too soon and now you feel guilty all
the time. Yeah, that like you did lose them too
soon and you could have done better. But the decision
to wake up today and feel like it's a shit
about it. That's the second arrow or third arrow, fourth arrow, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Right, and recognize the second arrows on you Like it's
sort of you know, like two things right, Like this
is in the second category. This is the thing that
you can control and it might be hard and it
might take some work, but you actually can change your
opinion about it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, Fate took them from you, but you are taking
this out on yourself. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Yeah, it's very stoic w to from the second arrow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
No, it's so beautiful. How like I do know there's
a couple stoic like archery lessons. I mean they had
the same technology and they were alive at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Well, I was wondering, like it's just people getting shot
with arrows all over the place, Buddhist ds, Like what
was going on and like this ach at times for you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
I know, both the Stokes and the Buddhists use that
like muddy water one, and so you're just like, even
the metaphors are the same. Yeah, like they're just coming
on the same essential truths. And it's very rare that
you come across any of the philosophical schools and you're like,
this is something totally different than any of the others.
And to go to the earlier point, this totally contradicts

(01:05:10):
all the science about this subject.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Well as well. I was saying the Buddhists. There are
the cases where I like the Buddhists better than the Stones.
Here's the case where I like the Stoics better than
a Buddhist, which is that the Buddhists were like really
into the idea of suffering, not into it like you
should get it, just like it is inevitable, it is there,
it is centered, and I think the Stoics were like, yeah,
there's the perturbations, but like it's number two, like it's
these are conceptually, these are two distinct categories. So whereas

(01:05:34):
the Buddhists were like, the central is suffering and then
you got to do the stuff around it. The Stoics
were like, I don't know, man, these are two categories
and we could kind of think about them differently, and
so that's always given me a little bit more hope.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
I also think, you know, living in Western civilization, there's
something about the Stoics that that is not just familiar
but sort of practical in the sense where it's like,
somebody's got to run for office. Yeah, he's gotta, man,
the sewers, you know, Like I think Buddhism is a
more spiritual and sort of individualistic pursuit, and there's something

(01:06:08):
about Stuf philosophy that is like, okay, but this will
work for society, not a band of roving monks.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Yeah. I mean the stocks were like the og like
advice column, self help, you know, like it was going
to be like not in the posh like you know,
like books and stuff like it was gonna be in whatever,
the like tabloid magazine, TikTok video of the time was
going to be minus the terial algorithmic stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
But yeah, I think the Buddhists and the Cynics are
closer to each other in the sense where they're like,
this is all bullshit, man, you know, And the stokes
are like a little some of it is, but like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Dude, you gotta get through your day, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Yeah, exactly like you. You have a kid and they're hungry,
so how are you going to feed them? You know,
there's just like there's a sort of this is life,
this is the human organism we were born into, and
we have to figure out how to operate collectively in
this city that we live in.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
And there's like positive emotion on the other side of that, right,
there's like these kind of opportunities for growth or humor
and all these things we were talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Well, this is awesome. You want to check out some
books first?

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Yeah, please, let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this
podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean
so much to us and it would really help the show.
We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.

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Host

Dr. Laurie Santos

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