April 20, 2024 • 53 mins
Have you ever considered that your path to a healthier lifestyle could begin with the simple step of tracking only your processed food intake? Or that embracing a bit of friction might be exactly what you need to escape the clutches of social media's endless scroll? This episode of Mind Muscle with Simon Devere ventures into these innovative strategies, offering a fresh perspective on cultivating better habits. We delve into philosopher Byung-Chul Han's insights on the pitfalls of our achievement-obsessed culture, and how this drive for success might be secretly sabotaging our joy in sports and exercise.
It's time to confront the uncomfortable truth: the mantra 'you can be anything you want to be' comes with its own set of psychological baggage. We explore the dark side of positive freedom, wading through the pressures of limitless potential and the inner turmoil it can wreak. I discuss how this insatiable quest for personal achievement twists into a form of self-exploitation, as Han so eloquently puts it, and reflect upon the implications for our relationship with sports, fitness, and competition. This conversation is a must-hear for anyone who's felt the sting of burnout or questioned the value of their endeavors when the applause fades.
In a world fixated on metrics and milestones, I advocate for a return to the roots of well-being—embracing the full human experience, including those negative emotions we often try to suppress. We'll consider the rejuvenating power of stillness and the untapped creative potential that lies in the moments we're not 'producing.' Wrapping up, I share insights on cultivating a diverse range of physical activities for a more fulfilled, balanced life, and the importance of self-reflection. Together, let's redefine what it means to be fit, not just in body, but in mind and spirit as well. Join me for a transformative journey that promises to shake up your approach to health and happiness.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place where we study thehistory, science and philosophy
behind everything in health andfitness.
Today, I am Simon Devere, andthere is nothing new except all
(00:30):
that has been forgotten, allright.
So, up top, today I want to runthrough.
You know, there's actually kindof a common theme running in
all of these.
In a sense, we're going toreintroduce negativity to create
positive gains in health andfitness Not necessarily the way
(00:53):
I think that most people thinkof negativity, but yeah, anyway.
Specifically, I have a newnutrition logging hack that I
wish I had thought of many yearsago, that I've been breaking
out with some good results, thatI want to talk about, and then
I also want to talk, in thatsame sense of negativity, about
(01:18):
creating friction and how we canactually do that to encourage
the things that we want to doand discourage the things we
don't want to do.
All of this, though, is goingto lead us into a big discussion
on one of my favorite livingphilosophers probably my actual
favorite living philosopher BienChul Han's Burnout Society.
(01:40):
I want to talk about that book,which is actually I really like
it.
I just mentioned.
It was one of my favorites, butI'm relatively new to his work
so I don't want to pitch myselfas an expert.
I'm a fan, a new fan, and Iwanted to actually take a look
at his book, the Burnout Society.
(02:02):
There's a lot of things that Ithink are going to map up with
something that I see a fair bitworkout, burnout, common reasons
that that occurs, I think, ormaybe have a good explanation in
Han's work, and so, yeah,anyway, I just kind of want to
synthesize my years of training,watching people burn out with
(02:24):
workouts and and some newreading that that I'm really,
really enjoying and I'm going torecommend that.
Uh, you know, if you find itinteresting that you do the same
cause.
Again, I'm, uh, not an experton on the work here, just a
recently, you know, new fan.
So, yeah, I just want to havesome fun talking about those
(02:46):
ideas and kind of where I seethem mapping up in people's
health and fitness pursuits.
But, yeah, before I take youguys down the philosophical
rabbit hole that I really wantto go down.
So, new nutrition logging hacknew to me maybe somebody's
already doing this out there,but one of the biggest
(03:08):
impediments that I'veexperienced getting anybody to
log nutrition is that it's justfrankly, tedious and it takes a
while.
You don't want to remember allthe things you ate, and that is,
honestly, the biggestresistance that I see.
So one of the things that Ihave started in that area, that
(03:29):
I call phase one in nutrition,when we are focusing on quality
I'm not going to do a nutritionepisode, but, remember, I like
to go quality-quantity ratios,so while I'm working with
somebody in the quantity phase,it's been useful to have them
log only processed food, nothingelse.
(03:50):
A lot of reasons for thisprocessed food is easier to log.
A lot of the apps that you haveactually have UPC scanners, so
if someone's eating processedfood which we don't recommend
one of the upsides, though, isthose foods are actually quite
easy to log A lot easier thanlogging whole foods, which
(04:11):
you're actually going to have tomeasure and go find caloric
estimates, keep track of howmuch oil or butter or anything
that you added.
With processed foods, you canlog them very easily, and when
we're in that phase one, that'skind of the only thing that we
need to know is how muchprocessed food is going in.
So I found that this is like anice entry point to get somebody
(04:36):
into the habit of logging.
Obviously, if they werefollowing along for the next
phase, in phase two they'regoing to get quantity, so then
at that point we're going tohave to keep full nutrition logs
.
But I've just found this is away that you can kind of ease
people into the process that, ifyou know they're well one, a
(04:57):
lot of people's goals are goingto be met just by making that
switch to high quality food.
If they're doing you knowphysique things, then we're
going to get into the quantityand the ratios and then we're
going to need really accuratelogs for that.
So this can just be a way tokind of ease them into learning
the behavior of keeping goodlogs if that's going to be a
(05:18):
goal down the line.
If not, we can accomplishpretty much a lot of people's
health purposes, not physiquepurposes.
But we can accomplish most ofthe goals that we want to with
nutrition by just controllingfor quality anyway.
So shortens up the log, makesit easier to put in there.
So all we do is just simplyphase one just log the processed
(05:42):
food, don't worry about all theother things.
Just log the processed food,don't worry about all the other
things.
So, anyway, that's just a newlogging hack that I've been
rolling out and seeing some goodresults with Wanted to share
that and then, in that vein,something I have been employing
in myself of late advocating alot in myself of late,
(06:09):
advocating a lot but I'mactually trying to create
friction when there are thingsthat I don't want to do.
So an example would be if I havea social media app on a device,
by simply logging out when I'mdone using it, it takes away
that push button satisfaction oflogging back in.
Many times you'll touch theicon, you go to the login screen
(06:30):
and then, just like the hardpart of logging food.
Sometimes I just don't feellike punching in my credentials
and I realized that I didn'tactually want to be on that app
all that bad.
So that's a strategy that I'vebeen using for a while with.
Technology is just simplylogging out of things when I
leave and that makes my use ofthem.
(06:53):
I don't beat myself up afterthat, it just makes my use a lot
more intentional.
There's probably going to be areason that I'm actually going
on there and then, when I'm donewith that, then log out.
So by just putting that littlespeed bump, it helps me achieve
the goal of, you know, being onsocial media less you know.
(07:15):
Another one is actually aslight inversion.
I know I promised allnegativity, but I'm also trying
to make things easier that Iwant to do so.
Haven't really had an issue withnot being consistent with my
workout, but one of thedrawbacks of having a home gym.
There's a lot of upsides, but Ido have to set up and clean up
the gym myself every single timeand, yeah, not a huge deal.
(07:40):
You should be cleaning up thegym anyway.
But a lot of times when I getdone with my workout, um, now
I'm already setting up the nextworkout when I leave the gym.
Um, so this is actually justhelping me.
A lot of times when workoutsare happening in the morning,
when I don't have to move thingsaround, when I can just walk
out and just start training, um,this actually makes the quality
(08:02):
of the workout significantlybetter.
So this is something that I'vejust been putting in that extra
little time just to make iteasier.
Another one that I've alwaysdone along those lines is I
always prepare coffee the nightbefore, but yeah, so anyway,
just in general, I've beenreally using this idea lately of
(08:23):
creating friction around thethings that I don't want to do
and actually making it a littlebit easier to do the things that
I want to do.
But yeah, at least the frictioncomponent of that is going to
be in keeping with my favoritenew philosopher, byun Chul Han.
(08:47):
Quick background on him he isKorean born, writes in German,
so even part of why, if youhaven't heard the name, he's new
to me as well.
His books were only kind ofrecently translated well,
relatively recently translatedinto English.
So if you haven't heard it, youknow it's not like you were
(09:09):
missing out for long, it's justrelatively new to the English
speaking world.
And yeah, I have to admit thistoo and I try to be careful to
really contextualize where I'mcoming from with all of this,
because I do like to talk aboutphilosophy and I like to talk
about a wide array ofdisciplines, but I really, again
(09:31):
, am not the expert or a scholarin this.
One of my friends actually gaveme that distinction that I was
a scholar and one of the bestconversations and I was like I
appreciate that and that is agreat compliment, but I'm like I
really can't take the scholarpart of it.
I'm like the truth is, I readall of this that I talked to you
(09:54):
about in English, and a lot ofthe writers I talk about didn't
write in English.
So a real scholar, especiallyeven like the people I read up
on, they would go ahead andlearn the language that the
person was writing and then goread it themselves.
So I just I don't want to throwthat word around loosely um, I
love engaging a wide variety ofideas, but that definitely
(10:17):
doesn't make me a scholar.
Um, but yeah, bin chul hanreally is.
Um, yeah, so if my facts areright, I believe he was at the
University of Basel, professorthere, which I'm a Nietzsche
nerd.
So that was cool.
Nietzsche also was professor ofBasel as well, and their work
(10:41):
isn't similar in the subjectmatter that they're covering.
But to me there's actuallyanother similarity, not just in
the school they're professor at,but each of them writes in a
really short, aphoristic style.
So even the book I'm talkingabout, the Burnout Society today
, it's only a 50-page book.
So, like I always will, Ireally will encourage you to
(11:02):
read it, but in this instanceI'm not asking you to, it's not
a big ask, and yeah, so anyway,to me there are some
similarities, if you will, toNietzsche in that short,
aphoristic style.
He says you know what could besaid a lot longer in a nice
(11:25):
punchy prose, and yeah.
So anyway, love the style,relatively new.
But yeah, I got turned on tohis thinking by a podcast that I
like in Philosophies,philosophize this with Stephen
West.
So also recommend those if youjust want a quick, entertaining
(11:46):
primer, and he's, you know,frankly, going to do a lot
better job explaining histhought than I will.
I think the new ground we'regoing to cover here today is how
I want to tie this into atleast Han's observations in the
burnout society, how those mightrelate to what I see in my work
and why people burn out onhealth and fitness in general.
(12:11):
But anyway, that's enoughpreamble, let's go ahead and
jump into, let's actually startwith the burnout society, and
then I'm going to talk aboutworkout burnout, if that's cool,
and it's got to be, because Igot the microphone, but yeah.
So his critique basically ofWestern society is that you know
(12:33):
, in a sense and this is goingto sound weird to Western ears
up front, but it's kind of acritique of all the freedom that
we have that there is adownside to having so much
freedom, and I guess one of thethings he frames this under is
that if you really look aroundthe world today, there's not a
(12:54):
huge list of things that youcannot do, and I'm sure if
somebody wants to be acontrarian or argumentative they
can find some.
But it's probably fair to saythere's less today than there
were in the past and it'sprobably fair to ascribe that.
We have a cultural attitudethat you can do anything or you
(13:15):
can be anything, like the moredisciplinary societies, frankly,
that are going to be describedin works of like Freud.
Or, even though I love deadphilosophers, a lot of the dead
philosophers I read weren'twriting about the world that I'm
living in, which, slightlyveering off course for a second
(13:37):
here, this is another thing thatI like about Han's work is
again, when I go back and thisisn't going to stop me from
engaging the great works of thepast but even today, it just
doesn't seem lost on people whenthey're maybe debating the fate
of AI and the economy that allof the IP laws and things
(13:58):
they're talking about wereliterally created in the 16th
and 17th century and it's highlyunlikely that the people who
wrote those were anticipatingthe information economy we live
in and the technology we have innow.
And me saying that doesn't saythat I'm the guy with the
answers.
I'm just saying that clearlythose ideas are based in a
different time.
This is a thing that I likereading about Han is that a lot
(14:22):
of times he's seen the internet.
He's seen a lot of the thingsthat a lot of times we're trying
to stretch and draw analogiesinto.
He's writing right now.
So, yeah, we don't have toguess what he thinks about
social media or draw it from ananalogy, and it is.
These developments intechnology and society are
actually considered in thesecritiques.
(14:44):
They're not being brought in bytheir modern readers.
So, yeah, just a lot of IPdiscussions, and I do recommend
you go read Adam Smith, but Idon't know if he's got your
answers on AI, but no, keepreading it.
(15:04):
Maybe it's in there, maybe Imissed it, but no anyway.
So yeah, back to just kind ofsetting up the burnout society,
and when I veered off, I wasactually talking about the
downsides of positive freedom,which, again, it's going to
sound odd to our ears at first,but kind of embedded in this
(15:27):
idea of you, can be anything.
It obviously follows that theonly thing standing in your way
is you, and I think that's evengenerally a culturally accepted
dogma.
So of course, get to workaccepted dogma, so of course,
get to work.
And a lot of this I actuallylike on an individual level.
But it does bring up somepretty obvious questions and the
(15:54):
first one obviously will whathappens when you don't become
what you want to be or you don'tachieve the goal that you set
out to?
Why didn't it happen?
And when we believe that youcan do anything or you can be
anything that you want to be,the obvious answer is just the
individual, and this is againgoing to be correct in a lot of
(16:24):
example.
Let's say that I wanted to be acenter in the NBA.
It doesn't matter how many moodboards I do or affirmations or
whatever this culture tells methat I need to do to really get
locked in to that goal.
(16:44):
Obviously there's some goalsthat actually just can't be
achieved by all people andthat's not popular to say.
It's like we're going out thereand killing people's dreams,
but no, we don't all have a shotat every single goal or whim or
idea or dream that we can comeup with.
(17:05):
And again, this isn't a badthing, but I do think that we do
have to recognize that lifeactually isn't a set of endless
possibilities, that actuallythere are limitations in many
ways, and so this is going to beagain a major theme in Han's
(17:26):
work, but that it is thisreintroduction of negativity in
a culture that is, in hisopinion, toxically positive and
completely focused on positivefreedom, which, again, good
thing not bemoaning all thefreedoms that I have but I just
(17:46):
think we have to recognize thatit's a sword that does cut both
ways and there are impacts too.
Well, and you know, actually,let's stay with this one she's
given.
I listened to a bunch of hershow and don't remember exactly
when this came up, but when shewas describing her weight loss
(18:13):
struggle, there was one episodewhere she was mentioning how her
inability to achieve thisalways made her feel as if there
was something wrong with her,and then seeing other people who
could achieve it and then shecouldn't made her think well,
(18:33):
what's wrong with me?
Do these people have something?
I don't.
She also mentioned ever sincebeing a kid, always feeling like
she was special, and she was inso many ways, always feeling
like she was special and she wasin so many ways.
She had this great vocabularyand a lot of these things were
(18:55):
reinforcing that feeling thatshe was special.
So being confronted with thisinability to lose weight would
actually feel her with this.
It was a very underminingfeeling.
And again, these are all her ownwords, but I actually think
they point again to some otherpoints that Han is going to make
about the impact of us being ina toxically positive culture.
(19:16):
And so, yeah, we'll go slowlythere.
But so, again, we live in thisworld where we are told you can
be whatever you want and nowit's up to you get to work.
You know we've already talkedabout what happens if you don't.
Again, you're probably going tohead down the path of
self-hatred or excessivejudgment, whatever it may be.
(19:41):
I think anybody in our societyprobably already knows those
paths just as well as I do.
But then there's also going tobe other issues that kind of pop
up in.
How do you even determine whatgoals to go after and chase and
Again, well, that's going tocome down to you.
So what we're ostensiblydealing with in this society
(20:06):
that we live in, which, again, Ithink, is you know, we got a
lot of positive freedomavailable to us, we're able to
choose a lot about our lives.
But again, we are the arbiterand determinant of what we go on
creating and determinant ofwhat we go on creating.
And again, I think most peopleonly see that as just all
(20:28):
upsides, that there's nodownsides.
But what Han notices in this isthat this entire orientation
creates people that are veryinwardly focused.
And there is another name forthat inwardly focused nature,
and that would be narcissism.
So he does see that one sideeffect of having all of these
(20:55):
positive freedoms is narcissism,which quickly because I know
narcissism gets thrown aroundlike good, bad, that.
That equals somebody is bad.
We're not using it that way.
That's not what it means andwe're not using it that way.
What it means is more the wayhe described it.
It's an orientation towardsoneself, it's using inward
locuses rather than externallocuses.
It is based on one's subjectiveexperience and not recognizing
(21:21):
the subjectivity of othersubjectivities that one may
encounter.
That's narcissism, not good,bad.
And so Han is again more sayingthat an individual who is
narcissistic isn't narcissisticbecause they are bad.
He thinks that people becomenarcissistic because of the
(21:42):
culture that they live in, thatthis actually is downstream from
the culture, and when you firsthear this it can sound weird.
I was intrigued, but I wasn'tconvinced when I first heard it,
but the more I sat with it andI got to be honest, have you
ever said to yourself there ismore narcissism today than there
(22:04):
was I don't know, fill in theblank a few years ago?
I do feel it's a generallyaccepted opinion that narcissism
is at an all-time high.
A lot of explanations for whythat you know.
Admittedly, I haven't found alltoo convincing, but people like
(22:25):
to talk about participationtrophies.
Cell phones is, I think, anobvious one and almost, you know
, pretty well accepted.
But again, I don't think Hanwould say that that is exactly
what's going on.
He would state that we live inan achievement culture where we
have a lot of positive freedomand that forces us to become
(22:49):
inwardly focused.
And it is that inward focusthat is what drives us towards
narcissism.
Not our cell phones in and ofthemselves, not participation
trophies, which I actually nevergot one.
So I do question how widespreadthat experience is through our
society.
But yeah, I think it's a loteasier to see that actually,
(23:15):
this inward focus that descendsfrom excessive positivity and
achievement culture is certainlygoing to be a more widespread
experience than participationtrophies or even cell phones.
So the main result Han seesreally stemming from this
(23:36):
achievement culture and thisexcessive and toxic positivity
is again narcissism, anxiety,anxiety and depression.
So now this is kind of whatgets us to the burnout part, if
you will that.
So han sees a a naturalresponse basically just to the
world as it is constructed thatwe live in is is again anxiety
(24:01):
or narcissism.
The strategies that you have atyour disposal in order to gain
success in our achievementculture, if you're quote unquote
well-adjusted, that will be thepath of narcissism, obviously
being extroverted on socialmedia.
There are a lot of incentiveswithin our achievement culture
(24:24):
that actually benefit those thatare.
Well, if they weren't high onthe narcissistic scale at the
beginning, they'll certainlylearn it as a behavior that does
correlate with success withinour achievement culture.
And quick pause too, because Idon't want this to sound like
Han or myself is againstachievement.
(24:46):
That's not at all the case.
That's being made and I feellike that's an obvious
contention to Han's work thatsome will make, and clearly I
can see that that's not whathe's saying.
There's nothing wrong withgreat achievements mastery.
What Han is getting at is thatactually, through a
(25:07):
reintroduction of the negativeinto our lives, that we can
achieve great things withouthaving to push ourselves down
into these psychologicalpropensities of anxiety,
depression or narcissism.
Again the narcissism.
So again the narcissism thing.
We can't measure but you knoweverybody agrees with me, it's
(25:28):
at an all time high.
The anxiety, depression thing.
If you go look at the stats onmental health we can also see
those things are increasing, notdecreasing, arguably at all
time highs, only arguablybecause we don't have good stats
on the course of history.
But I think Han's premise cansound a little out there when
(25:50):
you first hear it.
But when we're really honestabout what's going on in our
society I don't think it's asfar-fetched as it initially
sounds and I do think some of itreally does hinge on.
We have popular understandingsof a lot of words like
narcissist negativity that Idon't think jive with the way he
is using them here.
(26:10):
So I do think it's a littlemore challenging to the ear the
first time it goes.
But really, if you sit withthis and again go read him, not
just listen to me on it I thinkit does make a pretty coherent
argument about what's going onin Western culture right now.
And again, it's not thatachievements are bad, but he's
(26:32):
saying that in an achievementculture, with all these positive
freedoms you have, you can bewhatever you want to be.
All that stuff, what results isyou're actually?
You know they love the masterslave stuff back in the 17th
century.
So you're now the master andthe slave.
Your own brain drives you andno matter what you achieve, it's
(26:54):
never going to be good enoughand you will continue optimizing
and striving.
Where you get the directionsfor the optimizing and striving
that you feel you need to do ismost likely going to come from a
narcissistic echo chamber.
But anyway, that right there, Ithink at least, was a decent
(27:16):
entry point into the burnoutsociety, at least for our
purposes today.
I still do recommend StephenWest and reading Han himself if
you found any of thisinteresting and want to dive
deeper.
But yeah, I'm not going tospend your entire time on just
the philosophy of it, becausethe aspect that I saw well, and
(27:38):
I guess it's my job to do, butas I'm reading this, I was
seeing a lot of crossover intothe fitness space and that's at
least something I could speakabout with some authority and so
but yeah, if you'll bear withme, I think this orientation
that Han describes in theburnout.
Society can influence a lot ofaspects of our lives and I'm
(28:01):
going to argue it affects peoplein the most common reasons that
I see for workout burnout,quite frankly.
So yeah, kind of starting atone of the central thesis that
Han was developing aboutexcessive focus on achievement,
more and more I actually seethis as a big negative driver
for people actually engagingwith health and fitness.
(28:25):
Population that I probably sawthis first in was former athlete
friends who, once the sport wasdone, they basically stopped
working out.
They saw no other value insport than when they could get a
transactional benefit from it.
You know, either throughprofessional some guys or, you
(28:50):
know, getting a collegeeducation.
Most of the guys I know.
But it's surprising to somepeople who aren't athletes that
once you know sport is up, thatthese guys don't work out.
They, you know they think thatthey must have loved it because
they were good.
But but when I kind of saw inthose guys was that for them
actually this was the way thatthey got what they needed,
whether it was validation or anindication, money, you name it
(29:11):
but there was actually no othervalue in engaging in sport.
For them it was purelytransactional.
And so I know this surprisessome people when they see a
former athlete who has put on abunch of weight and doesn't even
look like an athlete anymore.
That's actually a relativelycommon path that I see from a
lot of my former athlete friends.
(29:33):
Once sport is gone, they don'thave the why anymore and they
had never seen any other reasonto do it other than achievement.
I think that we are actuallyseeing a trickle down of this
now into younger athletes.
Youth sports participation isdown and again people are
striving and achieving andcompeting and once you figure
(29:55):
out that little Johnny isn'tgoing to be all state, you don't
spend any time on it and you goget him into other programs
that he can be a little bit morecompetitive in.
And so, sadly, the commondenominator that people are
seeing here is that if you can'tdevelop something into a
marketable trait, then itdoesn't have any value.
Within the paradigm of theachievement culture that they're
(30:19):
thinking that would be valid.
Even though I live in the sametime, in the same place as a lot
of these people, I'm not surethat I live in that same
paradigm and that I actuallybelieve that there is value in
youth sports where none of theparticipants are going to play
in college or go pro, but yeah,I actually don't think I'm alone
(30:44):
in that one.
So that's where I think, kindof re-injecting some of the
negative, we'll get to that atthe end.
That's where I think there canbe some value and at least
challenging us to think aboutwhy we're engaging no-transcript
(31:24):
college admissions scandal thatwe see.
One of the obvious things to meis that people value a degree,
not an education, and they valuea degree because that's the
part that you can commodify.
People don't really value anIvy League education.
They value an Ivy League degree, and the truth is you can also
see this because Ivy Leagueeducations are available for
(31:44):
free online, but people don'twant that.
They want the proof that theywent to an Ivy League school,
which are two very differentthings, as we very often see.
Another issue, though, that Hantalks about being inculcated in
his burnout society that Iactually see in people's workout
efforts in particular, but it'sthis hyperactivity.
(32:08):
I see what I call workout ADDor program hopping, people not
committing to one option,frankly, because there's so many
other ones that are beingsuggested, advertised, marketed
all the time.
It can be hard to commit to anyone thing.
And again, this hyperactivitythat really is induced by living
(32:36):
in a society where you havealmost unlimited options,
unlimited freedom.
It doesn't always lead to thebest results having every single
option at your fingertips andthis broadly gets us favoring
multitasking versus deep focus,which, kind of, pivoting back to
Han's work, he argues this isactually one of the fundamental
(32:57):
differences between humans andanimals.
Quite frankly, is actually themultitasking is common.
Humans and animals, quitefrankly, is actually the
multitasking is common.
It's the deep focus that's rare.
Back to people's workoutburnout I love the fitness
trackers.
We did a whole episode on it,but the reason we had to talk
about it was this actually burnsa lot of people out and also
increases to a loss of intuition, inability to just
(33:21):
self-regulate and manageourselves when we're constantly
having to work off the numbers.
I could throw a million cliches,but we're information rich,
knowledge poor.
You know, I still take themeasurements.
I have a scale, I have awearable, but we use these
measurements as means, not ends.
Any measurement isn't anaccomplishment or a failure.
(33:45):
If these are tools that you canuse to further your
understanding, great.
But if that's not how you'reusing them, it's probably best
to not use them at all.
Quite frankly, you don't needto fall into the trap.
Quantifying the self is no wayto understand the self.
I don't think I can say it anybetter than that.
(34:08):
Self-optimization is, in a sense, a form of self-exploitation,
and I think this is why so manypeople again wind up burning out
on health and fitness, or yo-yo, ebb and flow, yo, ebb and flow
.
This whole optimization thingis a nebulous goal that has no
(34:29):
finish line.
It can constantly be redefinedand is, but again, usually by
people in the fitness industrythat are just going to set you
down, chasing a moving targetthat's going to lead you down an
endless stream of productswhile you tyrannize yourself and
I know that again, that soundsa little bit hard, but that's
(34:54):
frankly how I see it, and I'vedone the same thing to myself.
I had my period ofhealth-induced eating disorders
with orthorexia.
I had my period of chasing downall of the products that the
fitness industry told me wouldchange the game for me and I
just want to remind everybody itwas through that.
(35:15):
So I could just be projectingmy own experience onto all of
this, but that's what I feel Idid to myself when I listened to
the messaging.
So just trying to present aslightly different angle.
So one other thing that, wellbefore I do that, I just want to
(35:39):
be really blunt.
I've often credited exercise onthis show with helping me with
my depression and I stillbelieve that.
But to bolster that case, I'veoften talked about the reduction
of scientific studies that cantalk about the neurotransmitters
that are changed.
And those are all still true.
But I just want to point outthat even when I was giving you
(36:03):
those studies and justifyingexercise from that standpoint, I
was using the reductionistparadigm and I was actually
using the exact same type ofthinking that got people to
prescribe me meds that didn'twork.
It was basically the thing ofoh well, that increases this
neurotransmitter, that so itmust be good.
(36:24):
So it does just bring up anobvious question for me and my
own credibility and what I'msaying.
But if I know that thereductionist approach didn't
work when people were describingthe antidepressants, is my
explanation of strength training, curing my depression, using
(36:44):
the same reductionist thinkingthat got me on antidepressants?
Is it valid?
And so, again, I'm notquestioning the studies that
I've cited about how it caninfluence health.
I just think that I might haveto take a different view than
the same one that has misled mein the past.
So again, I'm not ignoring thestudies that I've heard on it,
(37:08):
but I just want to look at thisin a slightly different lens
which, with this new lens that Ijust got of you, know Byun Chul
Han's burnout society, and sowhat would he say?
Why did introducing exercisehelp with depression?
And we're not going to talkabout neurotransmitters today.
(37:30):
I think Han would have adifferent set of reasons, and
let's run over them real quickand then I might touch on each a
little more detail.
But I think Han would point outthat when I adopted a workout
regimen, that I was counteringthe hyperactivity dominant in my
world with focused activity,that I was restoring some of my
(37:54):
autonomy over my body, that Iwas building resilience and
reducing psychological stress,and that we could actually touch
on the reduction of studies, ifwe want to, can measure that.
But you know, I would also saythat I was reconnecting with the
non-mechanical, in a sense Atleast.
(38:16):
You know, at this time in mylife I was in college.
I had just gotten through, youknow, that period of trying to
get into college, when you'retrying to get your GPA as high
as you can and get as manycommunity service hours as you
possibly can.
And, or at least that's what Iwas doing.
You know, I was at Boys State.
I was trying to go to everysingle camp that I could to make
(38:38):
my resume look as good aspossible, and I was just, you
know, more enamored withachievement culture than at any
other point in my life.
And yeah, apparently I wassuper happy too with the
depression.
But yeah, sometimes I guess thekids now to say you just need
to touch grass, embracing myworkout regime just kind of got
(39:00):
me out of that.
And then also community Just byengaging with my workout
program, I actually wound uphaving some different people
that I was hanging around andsuddenly these weren't the
people who wanted or neededanything from me.
And having that, these are thereasons that I think Bin Chul
(39:27):
Han would point to, aside fromthe measurable parts of how the
neurotransmitters are influenced.
But I think there's a differentset of reasons why getting into
a workout regimen was so bigfor my mental health, and I
don't actually think that it'sentirely captured by just
changing the neurotransmitters,because we had already tried
(39:49):
that approach prior to, uh,exercise working so um, so
anyway, this is going to take usup to the finish.
Take me a minute to get through.
But one of the things that Ialso like about Bin Chul Han is
he isn't one of thosephilosophers who just complains
about something, identifies aproblem, critique, and that
really bothers people, thatthey're like, well, they say all
(40:11):
these negative things and theygot nothing to go on.
So, yeah, that doesn't botherme as much, but I know that it's
nice when you have a pragmatictakeaway.
I guess why it doesn't botherme is sometimes you're left to
(40:32):
think about things, and that waskind of the point not to be
told what to do, but anyway,that's a different point.
Point not to be told what to do, but anyway, that's a different
point.
What's nice with Han is hedoesn't leave us to be uncertain
about what he would do aboutthese issues and, as I talked
about right up front, it soundsweird at first, but his main
(40:53):
idea is actually thereintroduction of negativity
back into our lives, because welive in this excessively
positive culture, and so, anyway, that was kind of why I talked
about creating friction up front, because I've actually kind of
already intuited this idea insome ways, and so actually now,
(41:14):
when we get into the pragmaticpart, I don't think his idea is
going to sound as foreign or orweird as it does when I was
probably setting it up, but, um,so when we're looking at you
know, kind of reintroducing thenegativity again, negativity
doesn't mean bad.
Um, we're not becomingmasochists or anything like that
(41:36):
.
Bringing negativity back intolife can simply be accepting and
understanding limitations.
I know that this isn't going tosell a lot of Hallmark cards,
but you can't be everything andthat really is okay.
It's okay to accept ourfailures.
It's okay to accept thespectrum of human emotions.
(41:56):
Not only is that okay, it'sactually vital for a balanced
and healthy psyche.
Allow yourself to feel sadness,grief or failure.
It's okay.
Suppressing those feelings totry to I don't know just have
some compulsive cheerfulnessthat you can put on display.
(42:20):
It can actually lead to somepretty serious emotional
dissonance and mental healthissues, and I think that is a
big reason why we see them beingso widespread.
Understanding and accepting yourlimitations, I think, is
actually more meaningful thantelling a positive sounding lie
(42:43):
that we can do everything or beanything.
Another aspect of reintroducingnegativity into one's life
could also just be questioningthis relentless pursuit for
productivity, efficiency oroptimization.
Creativity often is going tostem from your moments of
(43:05):
stillness, of reflection, oreven boredom, dare I say, rather
than just being constantlyactive In a culture that praises
noise, invisibility,extroversion, reintroducing the
negative values of silence andsolitude.
Well, ironically, because Ihaven't convinced you on trying
(43:29):
to get out of this achievementculture, well, those virtues
will actually make you moresuccessful.
That's not how we're going topitch it all but, yeah,
ironically, I thinkreintroducing some of the
negative could actually evenmake you better in achievement
culture, but some of thepragmatic strategies that I
(43:50):
think about with reintroducingthe negative into your health
and fitness.
So, again, we're going to valuethe holistic over the
quantified.
You know I don't throw thequantified out completely, but
the quantified approach doesreduce human experience to
numbers, which is dehumanizingand often overly simplistic.
(44:10):
A quantified approach is goingto lead to generally shallow
understanding and has limits.
You'll uncover them if you runit out long enough.
In the real world, what this canlook like would be addressing
causes over symptoms, or, likein nutrition, how we talk about
choosing whole food nutritionstrategies over supplements.
(44:33):
We're going to look at thewhole picture.
Look at the forest, not thetree.
We're going to look at thewhole picture.
Look at the forest, not thetree.
Similarly, I think we're goingto have a value of process over
achievements.
Put another way, it really isthe journey, not the destination
.
Use one of my old analogies youcould take a gondola to the top
(44:55):
of the mountain and get thesame picture as the guy who
hiked up there, but that's notthe same at all, even if your
pictures look the same.
So it really is the journey,not the destination.
Learn to enjoy that, what thatcan look like in our workouts
improving your technique,experiencing new things, or just
(45:15):
being more mindful and presentin the things that you're
already doing.
This, I think, maps up to whatwe were actually talking about
last week, but I think this isalso where we can get a
justification for some varied orenjoyable activities.
I understand the argument ofthe specialists that you're
going to be mediocre and youwon't be good at anything, but
(45:36):
again, I think that's settingthe only value on these
activities at achievement.
Um, if you mix different typesof activities, um, they can
cover different aspects of yourfitness, like we talked about
strength, cardio, flexibility,balance, et cetera.
You can create a morewell-rounded um, you know,
coverage of fitness aptitudesthan if you were to specialize
(45:58):
and you can, frankly, just keepthe routine a little bit more
engaging Um with with your goals.
You know we're not chasingafter achievements, so to speak,
but but we're looking more atpersonal health goals than
competitive goals, definitely Umwith other people.
I, even when I was very, verymotivated to be competitive, I
(46:21):
was really really good at onlycompeting with myself.
I didn't really look at whatother people were doing, good or
bad.
I, you know, even in mycompetitive state, just set high
standards on myself and I justdidn't look at what other people
were doing.
I always wanted to be betterthan myself.
A minute ago, yesterday,whatever the denomination, I
(46:44):
just wanted to constantly begetting better.
So even when I was justcompletely focused with
achievement, I know that I wasactually good at not directing
it too much out at other peopleFor me, that was always directed
at myself.
At not directing it too muchout at other people For me, that
was always directed at myself.
As I actually aged out of thatmindset, much more of my goals
(47:05):
now are again when I'madvocating more personal health
goals than competitive goals.
But I think as long as you'rebeing your only competition, if
you're a competitive type, youcan still harness, get those
horses going the right way foryou with that.
But all these things are goingto be downstream from your goals
(47:27):
, not what someone else istrying to do or something else
you saw.
Make sure that what these goalsyou're setting are coming from
you.
We want to bring back intuitionwith training and nutrition.
So, again, shifting away fromthe quantified self, we want to
(47:47):
learn to listen to the body.
I know that's a cliche, butit's one of the most valuable
tools and you really have tolearn how to use it.
Some days are going to beperfect for a challenging
workout and others aren't.
I had a week like that lastweek.
Two days in a row I was up atfive and see.
(48:08):
One night, I think I stoppedworking at midnight, got up at
five and then I think I pushed Idon't know, maybe another
similar night and then samething.
I'm not saying, oh, the story isI didn't sleep like I normally
sleep.
I had all these programmedworkouts that I'm supposed to do
.
I practiced what I preached andI modified those workouts.
(48:31):
There's supposed to be anoverload going on in that, you
know, according to the programthat I set up.
But I just took a long view andI decided these aren't going to
be the days.
It's going to have to be alittle bit different this week.
And so, even though I'm aformer athlete, I work out on
programs, I'm competitive.
When my life isn't cooperatingwith the program, I'm going to
(48:55):
adapt the program.
The program I'm going to adaptthe program.
Um, and it's honestly, there wasa time when I just always
forced a square peg into a roundhole Didn't matter to me and I
would just burn it on both ends.
It it really did take for me.
I had to learn first that thatwasn't the most effective
strategy and and I've alsolearned that it just comes with
(49:18):
a lot of stress for nothing, nobenefit.
So, bringing back a little bitof intuition, training and
nutrition to me, that's whatthat looks like.
Learn to listen to your body.
Even with nutrition, you'regoing to start to figure out.
If you take all the processedfoods out, your body's going to
tell you what you need.
You're not going to have to doas much work on selecting
(49:39):
nutrients because it soundsweird, but you'll.
You'll literally have a cravingfor something as boring as
spinach.
And when you can get in tunewith your body signals, you're
not going to have to spend asmuch time selecting and thinking
about things so that that onecomes with some time and some
practice.
But we definitely want to bringback intuition.
(50:02):
Community also important Kind ofa difficult concept so I didn't
really touch on it much, butHan talks a lot about contact
with the other as being anotherform of negativity just another
person.
Form of negativity, justanother person.
But I think it's fair to assumehere he means that actual, real
(50:22):
people online doesn't count asan experience with the other.
Yeah, that's like narcissistsengaging with other narcissists
on a narcissistic echo chamber.
So interactions on social mediaare kind of explicitly not what
is meant by community orexperience with the other.
(50:45):
Workout communities, runninggroups, biking, swim groups so
many options here where I'm at,but I'm sure wherever you are,
there's going to be plenty ofopportunities for something like
that.
And actually did I mention it?
I don't know.
Han likes to garden, so one Ilike to lift weights, so I
interpret all this in thefitness space.
(51:06):
But plenty of options forgetting your hands dirty and
talking with real people besidesjust working out.
Obviously, you know my biases,so we're just going to keep
making the fitness case.
That being said, even in yourfitness pursuits.
We actually need non-fitnessactivities.
That's also going to be alittle bit reintroducing the
negative rest days.
(51:28):
That's what that looks like tome in a program Could also we
can kill two birds with one.
Do some volunteer work, cleanup the community park, go to a
trail that you like to use,stuff like that.
Last, not least, probably mostimportant, reflection and
adjustment.
Constant reflection, constantadjustment.
This is tinkering work donedaily.
(51:50):
Again, I know he likesgardening.
I almost like to think of thereflection adjustment.
Like gardening, that'ssomething that you do have to do
daily, or things are going toget out of whack, um, if you
stay out of the garden too long.
Um, not my hobby, but I knowenough about a garden to know
you can't stay out of there fora couple weeks, um, without
things getting out of hand.
(52:11):
But anyway, guys, thanks forbearing with me because I
admittedly I'm not an expert onthis that this has just been
writer, writer that I cameacross recently that I really,
really liked.
So I just totally stretched itinto a fitness relevance so I
could talk about it.
But that being said, I do, ifyou found this stuff interesting
, I do want to still encourageyou go get some third parties.
(52:33):
Stephen West is one that I like.
If you like podcasts, which I'mpretty sure you do, and his
books are actually pretty shortand now in print in English, so
also recommend that.
But again, always appreciateyour guys' attention.
Remember mind and muscle areinseparably intertwined.
(52:56):
There are no gains withoutbrains.
Keep lifting and learning.
I'm trying to do the same.
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place where we study thehistory, science and philosophy
behind everything in health andfitness.
Today, I am Simon Devere, andthere is nothing new except all
(00:30):
that has been forgotten, allright.
So, up top, today I want to runthrough.
You know, there's actually kindof a common theme running in
all of these.
In a sense, we're going toreintroduce negativity to create
positive gains in health andfitness Not necessarily the way
(00:53):
I think that most people thinkof negativity, but yeah, anyway.
Specifically, I have a newnutrition logging hack that I
wish I had thought of many yearsago, that I've been breaking
out with some good results, thatI want to talk about, and then
I also want to talk, in thatsame sense of negativity, about
(01:18):
creating friction and how we canactually do that to encourage
the things that we want to doand discourage the things we
don't want to do.
All of this, though, is goingto lead us into a big discussion
on one of my favorite livingphilosophers probably my actual
favorite living philosopher BienChul Han's Burnout Society.
(01:40):
I want to talk about that book,which is actually I really like
it.
I just mentioned.
It was one of my favorites, butI'm relatively new to his work
so I don't want to pitch myselfas an expert.
I'm a fan, a new fan, and Iwanted to actually take a look
at his book, the Burnout Society.
(02:02):
There's a lot of things that Ithink are going to map up with
something that I see a fair bitworkout, burnout, common reasons
that that occurs, I think, ormaybe have a good explanation in
Han's work, and so, yeah,anyway, I just kind of want to
synthesize my years of training,watching people burn out with
(02:24):
workouts and and some newreading that that I'm really,
really enjoying and I'm going torecommend that.
Uh, you know, if you find itinteresting that you do the same
cause.
Again, I'm, uh, not an experton on the work here, just a
recently, you know, new fan.
So, yeah, I just want to havesome fun talking about those
(02:46):
ideas and kind of where I seethem mapping up in people's
health and fitness pursuits.
But, yeah, before I take youguys down the philosophical
rabbit hole that I really wantto go down.
So, new nutrition logging hacknew to me maybe somebody's
already doing this out there,but one of the biggest
(03:08):
impediments that I'veexperienced getting anybody to
log nutrition is that it's justfrankly, tedious and it takes a
while.
You don't want to remember allthe things you ate, and that is,
honestly, the biggestresistance that I see.
So one of the things that Ihave started in that area, that
(03:29):
I call phase one in nutrition,when we are focusing on quality
I'm not going to do a nutritionepisode, but, remember, I like
to go quality-quantity ratios,so while I'm working with
somebody in the quantity phase,it's been useful to have them
log only processed food, nothingelse.
(03:50):
A lot of reasons for thisprocessed food is easier to log.
A lot of the apps that you haveactually have UPC scanners, so
if someone's eating processedfood which we don't recommend
one of the upsides, though, isthose foods are actually quite
easy to log A lot easier thanlogging whole foods, which
(04:11):
you're actually going to have tomeasure and go find caloric
estimates, keep track of howmuch oil or butter or anything
that you added.
With processed foods, you canlog them very easily, and when
we're in that phase one, that'skind of the only thing that we
need to know is how muchprocessed food is going in.
So I found that this is like anice entry point to get somebody
(04:36):
into the habit of logging.
Obviously, if they werefollowing along for the next
phase, in phase two they'regoing to get quantity, so then
at that point we're going tohave to keep full nutrition logs
.
But I've just found this is away that you can kind of ease
people into the process that, ifyou know they're well one, a
(04:57):
lot of people's goals are goingto be met just by making that
switch to high quality food.
If they're doing you knowphysique things, then we're
going to get into the quantityand the ratios and then we're
going to need really accuratelogs for that.
So this can just be a way tokind of ease them into learning
the behavior of keeping goodlogs if that's going to be a
(05:18):
goal down the line.
If not, we can accomplishpretty much a lot of people's
health purposes, not physiquepurposes.
But we can accomplish most ofthe goals that we want to with
nutrition by just controllingfor quality anyway.
So shortens up the log, makesit easier to put in there.
So all we do is just simplyphase one just log the processed
(05:42):
food, don't worry about all theother things.
Just log the processed food,don't worry about all the other
things.
So, anyway, that's just a newlogging hack that I've been
rolling out and seeing some goodresults with Wanted to share
that and then, in that vein,something I have been employing
in myself of late advocating alot in myself of late,
(06:09):
advocating a lot but I'mactually trying to create
friction when there are thingsthat I don't want to do.
So an example would be if I havea social media app on a device,
by simply logging out when I'mdone using it, it takes away
that push button satisfaction oflogging back in.
Many times you'll touch theicon, you go to the login screen
(06:30):
and then, just like the hardpart of logging food.
Sometimes I just don't feellike punching in my credentials
and I realized that I didn'tactually want to be on that app
all that bad.
So that's a strategy that I'vebeen using for a while with.
Technology is just simplylogging out of things when I
leave and that makes my use ofthem.
(06:53):
I don't beat myself up afterthat, it just makes my use a lot
more intentional.
There's probably going to be areason that I'm actually going
on there and then, when I'm donewith that, then log out.
So by just putting that littlespeed bump, it helps me achieve
the goal of, you know, being onsocial media less you know.
(07:15):
Another one is actually aslight inversion.
I know I promised allnegativity, but I'm also trying
to make things easier that Iwant to do so.
Haven't really had an issue withnot being consistent with my
workout, but one of thedrawbacks of having a home gym.
There's a lot of upsides, but Ido have to set up and clean up
the gym myself every single timeand, yeah, not a huge deal.
(07:40):
You should be cleaning up thegym anyway.
But a lot of times when I getdone with my workout, um, now
I'm already setting up the nextworkout when I leave the gym.
Um, so this is actually justhelping me.
A lot of times when workoutsare happening in the morning,
when I don't have to move thingsaround, when I can just walk
out and just start training, um,this actually makes the quality
(08:02):
of the workout significantlybetter.
So this is something that I'vejust been putting in that extra
little time just to make iteasier.
Another one that I've alwaysdone along those lines is I
always prepare coffee the nightbefore, but yeah, so anyway,
just in general, I've beenreally using this idea lately of
(08:23):
creating friction around thethings that I don't want to do
and actually making it a littlebit easier to do the things that
I want to do.
But yeah, at least the frictioncomponent of that is going to
be in keeping with my favoritenew philosopher, byun Chul Han.
(08:47):
Quick background on him he isKorean born, writes in German,
so even part of why, if youhaven't heard the name, he's new
to me as well.
His books were only kind ofrecently translated well,
relatively recently translatedinto English.
So if you haven't heard it, youknow it's not like you were
(09:09):
missing out for long, it's justrelatively new to the English
speaking world.
And yeah, I have to admit thistoo and I try to be careful to
really contextualize where I'mcoming from with all of this,
because I do like to talk aboutphilosophy and I like to talk
about a wide array ofdisciplines, but I really, again
(09:31):
, am not the expert or a scholarin this.
One of my friends actually gaveme that distinction that I was
a scholar and one of the bestconversations and I was like I
appreciate that and that is agreat compliment, but I'm like I
really can't take the scholarpart of it.
I'm like the truth is, I readall of this that I talked to you
(09:54):
about in English, and a lot ofthe writers I talk about didn't
write in English.
So a real scholar, especiallyeven like the people I read up
on, they would go ahead andlearn the language that the
person was writing and then goread it themselves.
So I just I don't want to throwthat word around loosely um, I
love engaging a wide variety ofideas, but that definitely
(10:17):
doesn't make me a scholar.
Um, but yeah, bin chul hanreally is.
Um, yeah, so if my facts areright, I believe he was at the
University of Basel, professorthere, which I'm a Nietzsche
nerd.
So that was cool.
Nietzsche also was professor ofBasel as well, and their work
(10:41):
isn't similar in the subjectmatter that they're covering.
But to me there's actuallyanother similarity, not just in
the school they're professor at,but each of them writes in a
really short, aphoristic style.
So even the book I'm talkingabout, the Burnout Society today
, it's only a 50-page book.
So, like I always will, Ireally will encourage you to
(11:02):
read it, but in this instanceI'm not asking you to, it's not
a big ask, and yeah, so anyway,to me there are some
similarities, if you will, toNietzsche in that short,
aphoristic style.
He says you know what could besaid a lot longer in a nice
(11:25):
punchy prose, and yeah.
So anyway, love the style,relatively new.
But yeah, I got turned on tohis thinking by a podcast that I
like in Philosophies,philosophize this with Stephen
West.
So also recommend those if youjust want a quick, entertaining
(11:46):
primer, and he's, you know,frankly, going to do a lot
better job explaining histhought than I will.
I think the new ground we'regoing to cover here today is how
I want to tie this into atleast Han's observations in the
burnout society, how those mightrelate to what I see in my work
and why people burn out onhealth and fitness in general.
(12:11):
But anyway, that's enoughpreamble, let's go ahead and
jump into, let's actually startwith the burnout society, and
then I'm going to talk aboutworkout burnout, if that's cool,
and it's got to be, because Igot the microphone, but yeah.
So his critique basically ofWestern society is that you know
(12:33):
, in a sense and this is goingto sound weird to Western ears
up front, but it's kind of acritique of all the freedom that
we have that there is adownside to having so much
freedom, and I guess one of thethings he frames this under is
that if you really look aroundthe world today, there's not a
(12:54):
huge list of things that youcannot do, and I'm sure if
somebody wants to be acontrarian or argumentative they
can find some.
But it's probably fair to saythere's less today than there
were in the past and it'sprobably fair to ascribe that.
We have a cultural attitudethat you can do anything or you
(13:15):
can be anything, like the moredisciplinary societies, frankly,
that are going to be describedin works of like Freud.
Or, even though I love deadphilosophers, a lot of the dead
philosophers I read weren'twriting about the world that I'm
living in, which, slightlyveering off course for a second
(13:37):
here, this is another thing thatI like about Han's work is
again, when I go back and thisisn't going to stop me from
engaging the great works of thepast but even today, it just
doesn't seem lost on people whenthey're maybe debating the fate
of AI and the economy that allof the IP laws and things
(13:58):
they're talking about wereliterally created in the 16th
and 17th century and it's highlyunlikely that the people who
wrote those were anticipatingthe information economy we live
in and the technology we have innow.
And me saying that doesn't saythat I'm the guy with the
answers.
I'm just saying that clearlythose ideas are based in a
different time.
This is a thing that I likereading about Han is that a lot
(14:22):
of times he's seen the internet.
He's seen a lot of the thingsthat a lot of times we're trying
to stretch and draw analogiesinto.
He's writing right now.
So, yeah, we don't have toguess what he thinks about
social media or draw it from ananalogy, and it is.
These developments intechnology and society are
actually considered in thesecritiques.
(14:44):
They're not being brought in bytheir modern readers.
So, yeah, just a lot of IPdiscussions, and I do recommend
you go read Adam Smith, but Idon't know if he's got your
answers on AI, but no, keepreading it.
(15:04):
Maybe it's in there, maybe Imissed it, but no anyway.
So yeah, back to just kind ofsetting up the burnout society,
and when I veered off, I wasactually talking about the
downsides of positive freedom,which, again, it's going to
sound odd to our ears at first,but kind of embedded in this
(15:27):
idea of you, can be anything.
It obviously follows that theonly thing standing in your way
is you, and I think that's evengenerally a culturally accepted
dogma.
So of course, get to workaccepted dogma, so of course,
get to work.
And a lot of this I actuallylike on an individual level.
But it does bring up somepretty obvious questions and the
(15:54):
first one obviously will whathappens when you don't become
what you want to be or you don'tachieve the goal that you set
out to?
Why didn't it happen?
And when we believe that youcan do anything or you can be
anything that you want to be,the obvious answer is just the
individual, and this is againgoing to be correct in a lot of
(16:24):
example.
Let's say that I wanted to be acenter in the NBA.
It doesn't matter how many moodboards I do or affirmations or
whatever this culture tells methat I need to do to really get
locked in to that goal.
(16:44):
Obviously there's some goalsthat actually just can't be
achieved by all people andthat's not popular to say.
It's like we're going out thereand killing people's dreams,
but no, we don't all have a shotat every single goal or whim or
idea or dream that we can comeup with.
(17:05):
And again, this isn't a badthing, but I do think that we do
have to recognize that lifeactually isn't a set of endless
possibilities, that actuallythere are limitations in many
ways, and so this is going to beagain a major theme in Han's
(17:26):
work, but that it is thisreintroduction of negativity in
a culture that is, in hisopinion, toxically positive and
completely focused on positivefreedom, which, again, good
thing not bemoaning all thefreedoms that I have but I just
(17:46):
think we have to recognize thatit's a sword that does cut both
ways and there are impacts too.
Well, and you know, actually,let's stay with this one she's
given.
I listened to a bunch of hershow and don't remember exactly
when this came up, but when shewas describing her weight loss
(18:13):
struggle, there was one episodewhere she was mentioning how her
inability to achieve thisalways made her feel as if there
was something wrong with her,and then seeing other people who
could achieve it and then shecouldn't made her think well,
(18:33):
what's wrong with me?
Do these people have something?
I don't.
She also mentioned ever sincebeing a kid, always feeling like
she was special, and she was inso many ways, always feeling
like she was special and she wasin so many ways.
She had this great vocabularyand a lot of these things were
(18:55):
reinforcing that feeling thatshe was special.
So being confronted with thisinability to lose weight would
actually feel her with this.
It was a very underminingfeeling.
And again, these are all her ownwords, but I actually think
they point again to some otherpoints that Han is going to make
about the impact of us being ina toxically positive culture.
(19:16):
And so, yeah, we'll go slowlythere.
But so, again, we live in thisworld where we are told you can
be whatever you want and nowit's up to you get to work.
You know we've already talkedabout what happens if you don't.
Again, you're probably going tohead down the path of
self-hatred or excessivejudgment, whatever it may be.
(19:41):
I think anybody in our societyprobably already knows those
paths just as well as I do.
But then there's also going tobe other issues that kind of pop
up in.
How do you even determine whatgoals to go after and chase and
Again, well, that's going tocome down to you.
So what we're ostensiblydealing with in this society
(20:06):
that we live in, which, again, Ithink, is you know, we got a
lot of positive freedomavailable to us, we're able to
choose a lot about our lives.
But again, we are the arbiterand determinant of what we go on
creating and determinant ofwhat we go on creating.
And again, I think most peopleonly see that as just all
(20:28):
upsides, that there's nodownsides.
But what Han notices in this isthat this entire orientation
creates people that are veryinwardly focused.
And there is another name forthat inwardly focused nature,
and that would be narcissism.
So he does see that one sideeffect of having all of these
(20:55):
positive freedoms is narcissism,which quickly because I know
narcissism gets thrown aroundlike good, bad, that.
That equals somebody is bad.
We're not using it that way.
That's not what it means andwe're not using it that way.
What it means is more the wayhe described it.
It's an orientation towardsoneself, it's using inward
locuses rather than externallocuses.
It is based on one's subjectiveexperience and not recognizing
(21:21):
the subjectivity of othersubjectivities that one may
encounter.
That's narcissism, not good,bad.
And so Han is again more sayingthat an individual who is
narcissistic isn't narcissisticbecause they are bad.
He thinks that people becomenarcissistic because of the
(21:42):
culture that they live in, thatthis actually is downstream from
the culture, and when you firsthear this it can sound weird.
I was intrigued, but I wasn'tconvinced when I first heard it,
but the more I sat with it andI got to be honest, have you
ever said to yourself there ismore narcissism today than there
(22:04):
was I don't know, fill in theblank a few years ago?
I do feel it's a generallyaccepted opinion that narcissism
is at an all-time high.
A lot of explanations for whythat you know.
Admittedly, I haven't found alltoo convincing, but people like
(22:25):
to talk about participationtrophies.
Cell phones is, I think, anobvious one and almost, you know
, pretty well accepted.
But again, I don't think Hanwould say that that is exactly
what's going on.
He would state that we live inan achievement culture where we
have a lot of positive freedomand that forces us to become
(22:49):
inwardly focused.
And it is that inward focusthat is what drives us towards
narcissism.
Not our cell phones in and ofthemselves, not participation
trophies, which I actually nevergot one.
So I do question how widespreadthat experience is through our
society.
But yeah, I think it's a loteasier to see that actually,
(23:15):
this inward focus that descendsfrom excessive positivity and
achievement culture is certainlygoing to be a more widespread
experience than participationtrophies or even cell phones.
So the main result Han seesreally stemming from this
(23:36):
achievement culture and thisexcessive and toxic positivity
is again narcissism, anxiety,anxiety and depression.
So now this is kind of whatgets us to the burnout part, if
you will that.
So han sees a a naturalresponse basically just to the
world as it is constructed thatwe live in is is again anxiety
(24:01):
or narcissism.
The strategies that you have atyour disposal in order to gain
success in our achievementculture, if you're quote unquote
well-adjusted, that will be thepath of narcissism, obviously
being extroverted on socialmedia.
There are a lot of incentiveswithin our achievement culture
(24:24):
that actually benefit those thatare.
Well, if they weren't high onthe narcissistic scale at the
beginning, they'll certainlylearn it as a behavior that does
correlate with success withinour achievement culture.
And quick pause too, because Idon't want this to sound like
Han or myself is againstachievement.
(24:46):
That's not at all the case.
That's being made and I feellike that's an obvious
contention to Han's work thatsome will make, and clearly I
can see that that's not whathe's saying.
There's nothing wrong withgreat achievements mastery.
What Han is getting at is thatactually, through a
(25:07):
reintroduction of the negativeinto our lives, that we can
achieve great things withouthaving to push ourselves down
into these psychologicalpropensities of anxiety,
depression or narcissism.
Again the narcissism.
So again the narcissism thing.
We can't measure but you knoweverybody agrees with me, it's
(25:28):
at an all time high.
The anxiety, depression thing.
If you go look at the stats onmental health we can also see
those things are increasing, notdecreasing, arguably at all
time highs, only arguablybecause we don't have good stats
on the course of history.
But I think Han's premise cansound a little out there when
(25:50):
you first hear it.
But when we're really honestabout what's going on in our
society I don't think it's asfar-fetched as it initially
sounds and I do think some of itreally does hinge on.
We have popular understandingsof a lot of words like
narcissist negativity that Idon't think jive with the way he
is using them here.
(26:10):
So I do think it's a littlemore challenging to the ear the
first time it goes.
But really, if you sit withthis and again go read him, not
just listen to me on it I thinkit does make a pretty coherent
argument about what's going onin Western culture right now.
And again, it's not thatachievements are bad, but he's
(26:32):
saying that in an achievementculture, with all these positive
freedoms you have, you can bewhatever you want to be.
All that stuff, what results isyou're actually?
You know they love the masterslave stuff back in the 17th
century.
So you're now the master andthe slave.
Your own brain drives you andno matter what you achieve, it's
(26:54):
never going to be good enoughand you will continue optimizing
and striving.
Where you get the directionsfor the optimizing and striving
that you feel you need to do ismost likely going to come from a
narcissistic echo chamber.
But anyway, that right there, Ithink at least, was a decent
(27:16):
entry point into the burnoutsociety, at least for our
purposes today.
I still do recommend StephenWest and reading Han himself if
you found any of thisinteresting and want to dive
deeper.
But yeah, I'm not going tospend your entire time on just
the philosophy of it, becausethe aspect that I saw well, and
(27:38):
I guess it's my job to do, butas I'm reading this, I was
seeing a lot of crossover intothe fitness space and that's at
least something I could speakabout with some authority and so
but yeah, if you'll bear withme, I think this orientation
that Han describes in theburnout.
Society can influence a lot ofaspects of our lives and I'm
(28:01):
going to argue it affects peoplein the most common reasons that
I see for workout burnout,quite frankly.
So yeah, kind of starting atone of the central thesis that
Han was developing aboutexcessive focus on achievement,
more and more I actually seethis as a big negative driver
for people actually engagingwith health and fitness.
(28:25):
Population that I probably sawthis first in was former athlete
friends who, once the sport wasdone, they basically stopped
working out.
They saw no other value insport than when they could get a
transactional benefit from it.
You know, either throughprofessional some guys or, you
(28:50):
know, getting a collegeeducation.
Most of the guys I know.
But it's surprising to somepeople who aren't athletes that
once you know sport is up, thatthese guys don't work out.
They, you know they think thatthey must have loved it because
they were good.
But but when I kind of saw inthose guys was that for them
actually this was the way thatthey got what they needed,
whether it was validation or anindication, money, you name it
(29:11):
but there was actually no othervalue in engaging in sport.
For them it was purelytransactional.
And so I know this surprisessome people when they see a
former athlete who has put on abunch of weight and doesn't even
look like an athlete anymore.
That's actually a relativelycommon path that I see from a
lot of my former athlete friends.
(29:33):
Once sport is gone, they don'thave the why anymore and they
had never seen any other reasonto do it other than achievement.
I think that we are actuallyseeing a trickle down of this
now into younger athletes.
Youth sports participation isdown and again people are
striving and achieving andcompeting and once you figure
(29:55):
out that little Johnny isn'tgoing to be all state, you don't
spend any time on it and you goget him into other programs
that he can be a little bit morecompetitive in.
And so, sadly, the commondenominator that people are
seeing here is that if you can'tdevelop something into a
marketable trait, then itdoesn't have any value.
Within the paradigm of theachievement culture that they're
(30:19):
thinking that would be valid.
Even though I live in the sametime, in the same place as a lot
of these people, I'm not surethat I live in that same
paradigm and that I actuallybelieve that there is value in
youth sports where none of theparticipants are going to play
in college or go pro, but yeah,I actually don't think I'm alone
(30:44):
in that one.
So that's where I think, kindof re-injecting some of the
negative, we'll get to that atthe end.
That's where I think there canbe some value and at least
challenging us to think aboutwhy we're engaging no-transcript
(31:24):
college admissions scandal thatwe see.
One of the obvious things to meis that people value a degree,
not an education, and they valuea degree because that's the
part that you can commodify.
People don't really value anIvy League education.
They value an Ivy League degree, and the truth is you can also
see this because Ivy Leagueeducations are available for
(31:44):
free online, but people don'twant that.
They want the proof that theywent to an Ivy League school,
which are two very differentthings, as we very often see.
Another issue, though, that Hantalks about being inculcated in
his burnout society that Iactually see in people's workout
efforts in particular, but it'sthis hyperactivity.
(32:08):
I see what I call workout ADDor program hopping, people not
committing to one option,frankly, because there's so many
other ones that are beingsuggested, advertised, marketed
all the time.
It can be hard to commit to anyone thing.
And again, this hyperactivitythat really is induced by living
(32:36):
in a society where you havealmost unlimited options,
unlimited freedom.
It doesn't always lead to thebest results having every single
option at your fingertips andthis broadly gets us favoring
multitasking versus deep focus,which, kind of, pivoting back to
Han's work, he argues this isactually one of the fundamental
(32:57):
differences between humans andanimals.
Quite frankly, is actually themultitasking is common.
Humans and animals, quitefrankly, is actually the
multitasking is common.
It's the deep focus that's rare.
Back to people's workoutburnout I love the fitness
trackers.
We did a whole episode on it,but the reason we had to talk
about it was this actually burnsa lot of people out and also
increases to a loss of intuition, inability to just
(33:21):
self-regulate and manageourselves when we're constantly
having to work off the numbers.
I could throw a million cliches,but we're information rich,
knowledge poor.
You know, I still take themeasurements.
I have a scale, I have awearable, but we use these
measurements as means, not ends.
Any measurement isn't anaccomplishment or a failure.
(33:45):
If these are tools that you canuse to further your
understanding, great.
But if that's not how you'reusing them, it's probably best
to not use them at all.
Quite frankly, you don't needto fall into the trap.
Quantifying the self is no wayto understand the self.
I don't think I can say it anybetter than that.
(34:08):
Self-optimization is, in a sense, a form of self-exploitation,
and I think this is why so manypeople again wind up burning out
on health and fitness, or yo-yo, ebb and flow, yo, ebb and flow
.
This whole optimization thingis a nebulous goal that has no
(34:29):
finish line.
It can constantly be redefinedand is, but again, usually by
people in the fitness industrythat are just going to set you
down, chasing a moving targetthat's going to lead you down an
endless stream of productswhile you tyrannize yourself and
I know that again, that soundsa little bit hard, but that's
(34:54):
frankly how I see it, and I'vedone the same thing to myself.
I had my period ofhealth-induced eating disorders
with orthorexia.
I had my period of chasing downall of the products that the
fitness industry told me wouldchange the game for me and I
just want to remind everybody itwas through that.
(35:15):
So I could just be projectingmy own experience onto all of
this, but that's what I feel Idid to myself when I listened to
the messaging.
So just trying to present aslightly different angle.
So one other thing that, wellbefore I do that, I just want to
(35:39):
be really blunt.
I've often credited exercise onthis show with helping me with
my depression and I stillbelieve that.
But to bolster that case, I'veoften talked about the reduction
of scientific studies that cantalk about the neurotransmitters
that are changed.
And those are all still true.
But I just want to point outthat even when I was giving you
(36:03):
those studies and justifyingexercise from that standpoint, I
was using the reductionistparadigm and I was actually
using the exact same type ofthinking that got people to
prescribe me meds that didn'twork.
It was basically the thing ofoh well, that increases this
neurotransmitter, that so itmust be good.
(36:24):
So it does just bring up anobvious question for me and my
own credibility and what I'msaying.
But if I know that thereductionist approach didn't
work when people were describingthe antidepressants, is my
explanation of strength training, curing my depression, using
(36:44):
the same reductionist thinkingthat got me on antidepressants?
Is it valid?
And so, again, I'm notquestioning the studies that
I've cited about how it caninfluence health.
I just think that I might haveto take a different view than
the same one that has misled mein the past.
So again, I'm not ignoring thestudies that I've heard on it,
(37:08):
but I just want to look at thisin a slightly different lens
which, with this new lens that Ijust got of you, know Byun Chul
Han's burnout society, and sowhat would he say?
Why did introducing exercisehelp with depression?
And we're not going to talkabout neurotransmitters today.
(37:30):
I think Han would have adifferent set of reasons, and
let's run over them real quickand then I might touch on each a
little more detail.
But I think Han would point outthat when I adopted a workout
regimen, that I was counteringthe hyperactivity dominant in my
world with focused activity,that I was restoring some of my
(37:54):
autonomy over my body, that Iwas building resilience and
reducing psychological stress,and that we could actually touch
on the reduction of studies, ifwe want to, can measure that.
But you know, I would also saythat I was reconnecting with the
non-mechanical, in a sense Atleast.
(38:16):
You know, at this time in mylife I was in college.
I had just gotten through, youknow, that period of trying to
get into college, when you'retrying to get your GPA as high
as you can and get as manycommunity service hours as you
possibly can.
And, or at least that's what Iwas doing.
You know, I was at Boys State.
I was trying to go to everysingle camp that I could to make
(38:38):
my resume look as good aspossible, and I was just, you
know, more enamored withachievement culture than at any
other point in my life.
And yeah, apparently I wassuper happy too with the
depression.
But yeah, sometimes I guess thekids now to say you just need
to touch grass, embracing myworkout regime just kind of got
(39:00):
me out of that.
And then also community Just byengaging with my workout
program, I actually wound uphaving some different people
that I was hanging around andsuddenly these weren't the
people who wanted or neededanything from me.
And having that, these are thereasons that I think Bin Chul
(39:27):
Han would point to, aside fromthe measurable parts of how the
neurotransmitters are influenced.
But I think there's a differentset of reasons why getting into
a workout regimen was so bigfor my mental health, and I
don't actually think that it'sentirely captured by just
changing the neurotransmitters,because we had already tried
(39:49):
that approach prior to, uh,exercise working so um, so
anyway, this is going to take usup to the finish.
Take me a minute to get through.
But one of the things that Ialso like about Bin Chul Han is
he isn't one of thosephilosophers who just complains
about something, identifies aproblem, critique, and that
really bothers people, thatthey're like, well, they say all
(40:11):
these negative things and theygot nothing to go on.
So, yeah, that doesn't botherme as much, but I know that it's
nice when you have a pragmatictakeaway.
I guess why it doesn't botherme is sometimes you're left to
(40:32):
think about things, and that waskind of the point not to be
told what to do, but anyway,that's a different point.
Point not to be told what to do, but anyway, that's a different
point.
What's nice with Han is hedoesn't leave us to be uncertain
about what he would do aboutthese issues and, as I talked
about right up front, it soundsweird at first, but his main
(40:53):
idea is actually thereintroduction of negativity
back into our lives, because welive in this excessively
positive culture, and so, anyway, that was kind of why I talked
about creating friction up front, because I've actually kind of
already intuited this idea insome ways, and so actually now,
(41:14):
when we get into the pragmaticpart, I don't think his idea is
going to sound as foreign or orweird as it does when I was
probably setting it up, but, um,so when we're looking at you
know, kind of reintroducing thenegativity again, negativity
doesn't mean bad.
Um, we're not becomingmasochists or anything like that
(41:36):
.
Bringing negativity back intolife can simply be accepting and
understanding limitations.
I know that this isn't going tosell a lot of Hallmark cards,
but you can't be everything andthat really is okay.
It's okay to accept ourfailures.
It's okay to accept thespectrum of human emotions.
(41:56):
Not only is that okay, it'sactually vital for a balanced
and healthy psyche.
Allow yourself to feel sadness,grief or failure.
It's okay.
Suppressing those feelings totry to I don't know just have
some compulsive cheerfulnessthat you can put on display.
(42:20):
It can actually lead to somepretty serious emotional
dissonance and mental healthissues, and I think that is a
big reason why we see them beingso widespread.
Understanding and accepting yourlimitations, I think, is
actually more meaningful thantelling a positive sounding lie
(42:43):
that we can do everything or beanything.
Another aspect of reintroducingnegativity into one's life
could also just be questioningthis relentless pursuit for
productivity, efficiency oroptimization.
Creativity often is going tostem from your moments of
(43:05):
stillness, of reflection, oreven boredom, dare I say, rather
than just being constantlyactive In a culture that praises
noise, invisibility,extroversion, reintroducing the
negative values of silence andsolitude.
Well, ironically, because Ihaven't convinced you on trying
(43:29):
to get out of this achievementculture, well, those virtues
will actually make you moresuccessful.
That's not how we're going topitch it all but, yeah,
ironically, I thinkreintroducing some of the
negative could actually evenmake you better in achievement
culture, but some of thepragmatic strategies that I
(43:50):
think about with reintroducingthe negative into your health
and fitness.
So, again, we're going to valuethe holistic over the
quantified.
You know I don't throw thequantified out completely, but
the quantified approach doesreduce human experience to
numbers, which is dehumanizingand often overly simplistic.
(44:10):
A quantified approach is goingto lead to generally shallow
understanding and has limits.
You'll uncover them if you runit out long enough.
In the real world, what this canlook like would be addressing
causes over symptoms, or, likein nutrition, how we talk about
choosing whole food nutritionstrategies over supplements.
(44:33):
We're going to look at thewhole picture.
Look at the forest, not thetree.
We're going to look at thewhole picture.
Look at the forest, not thetree.
Similarly, I think we're goingto have a value of process over
achievements.
Put another way, it really isthe journey, not the destination
.
Use one of my old analogies youcould take a gondola to the top
(44:55):
of the mountain and get thesame picture as the guy who
hiked up there, but that's notthe same at all, even if your
pictures look the same.
So it really is the journey,not the destination.
Learn to enjoy that, what thatcan look like in our workouts
improving your technique,experiencing new things, or just
(45:15):
being more mindful and presentin the things that you're
already doing.
This, I think, maps up to whatwe were actually talking about
last week, but I think this isalso where we can get a
justification for some varied orenjoyable activities.
I understand the argument ofthe specialists that you're
going to be mediocre and youwon't be good at anything, but
(45:36):
again, I think that's settingthe only value on these
activities at achievement.
Um, if you mix different typesof activities, um, they can
cover different aspects of yourfitness, like we talked about
strength, cardio, flexibility,balance, et cetera.
You can create a morewell-rounded um, you know,
coverage of fitness aptitudesthan if you were to specialize
(45:58):
and you can, frankly, just keepthe routine a little bit more
engaging Um with with your goals.
You know we're not chasingafter achievements, so to speak,
but but we're looking more atpersonal health goals than
competitive goals, definitely Umwith other people.
I, even when I was very, verymotivated to be competitive, I
(46:21):
was really really good at onlycompeting with myself.
I didn't really look at whatother people were doing, good or
bad.
I, you know, even in mycompetitive state, just set high
standards on myself and I justdidn't look at what other people
were doing.
I always wanted to be betterthan myself.
A minute ago, yesterday,whatever the denomination, I
(46:44):
just wanted to constantly begetting better.
So even when I was justcompletely focused with
achievement, I know that I wasactually good at not directing
it too much out at other peopleFor me, that was always directed
at myself.
At not directing it too muchout at other people For me, that
was always directed at myself.
As I actually aged out of thatmindset, much more of my goals
(47:05):
now are again when I'madvocating more personal health
goals than competitive goals.
But I think as long as you'rebeing your only competition, if
you're a competitive type, youcan still harness, get those
horses going the right way foryou with that.
But all these things are goingto be downstream from your goals
(47:27):
, not what someone else istrying to do or something else
you saw.
Make sure that what these goalsyou're setting are coming from
you.
We want to bring back intuitionwith training and nutrition.
So, again, shifting away fromthe quantified self, we want to
(47:47):
learn to listen to the body.
I know that's a cliche, butit's one of the most valuable
tools and you really have tolearn how to use it.
Some days are going to beperfect for a challenging
workout and others aren't.
I had a week like that lastweek.
Two days in a row I was up atfive and see.
(48:08):
One night, I think I stoppedworking at midnight, got up at
five and then I think I pushed Idon't know, maybe another
similar night and then samething.
I'm not saying, oh, the story isI didn't sleep like I normally
sleep.
I had all these programmedworkouts that I'm supposed to do
.
I practiced what I preached andI modified those workouts.
(48:31):
There's supposed to be anoverload going on in that, you
know, according to the programthat I set up.
But I just took a long view andI decided these aren't going to
be the days.
It's going to have to be alittle bit different this week.
And so, even though I'm aformer athlete, I work out on
programs, I'm competitive.
When my life isn't cooperatingwith the program, I'm going to
(48:55):
adapt the program.
The program I'm going to adaptthe program.
Um, and it's honestly, there wasa time when I just always
forced a square peg into a roundhole Didn't matter to me and I
would just burn it on both ends.
It it really did take for me.
I had to learn first that thatwasn't the most effective
strategy and and I've alsolearned that it just comes with
(49:18):
a lot of stress for nothing, nobenefit.
So, bringing back a little bitof intuition, training and
nutrition to me, that's whatthat looks like.
Learn to listen to your body.
Even with nutrition, you'regoing to start to figure out.
If you take all the processedfoods out, your body's going to
tell you what you need.
You're not going to have to doas much work on selecting
(49:39):
nutrients because it soundsweird, but you'll.
You'll literally have a cravingfor something as boring as
spinach.
And when you can get in tunewith your body signals, you're
not going to have to spend asmuch time selecting and thinking
about things so that that onecomes with some time and some
practice.
But we definitely want to bringback intuition.
(50:02):
Community also important Kind ofa difficult concept so I didn't
really touch on it much, butHan talks a lot about contact
with the other as being anotherform of negativity just another
person.
Form of negativity, justanother person.
But I think it's fair to assumehere he means that actual, real
(50:22):
people online doesn't count asan experience with the other.
Yeah, that's like narcissistsengaging with other narcissists
on a narcissistic echo chamber.
So interactions on social mediaare kind of explicitly not what
is meant by community orexperience with the other.
(50:45):
Workout communities, runninggroups, biking, swim groups so
many options here where I'm at,but I'm sure wherever you are,
there's going to be plenty ofopportunities for something like
that.
And actually did I mention it?
I don't know.
Han likes to garden, so one Ilike to lift weights, so I
interpret all this in thefitness space.
(51:06):
But plenty of options forgetting your hands dirty and
talking with real people besidesjust working out.
Obviously, you know my biases,so we're just going to keep
making the fitness case.
That being said, even in yourfitness pursuits.
We actually need non-fitnessactivities.
That's also going to be alittle bit reintroducing the
negative rest days.
(51:28):
That's what that looks like tome in a program Could also we
can kill two birds with one.
Do some volunteer work, cleanup the community park, go to a
trail that you like to use,stuff like that.
Last, not least, probably mostimportant, reflection and
adjustment.
Constant reflection, constantadjustment.
This is tinkering work donedaily.
(51:50):
Again, I know he likesgardening.
I almost like to think of thereflection adjustment.
Like gardening, that'ssomething that you do have to do
daily, or things are going toget out of whack, um, if you
stay out of the garden too long.
Um, not my hobby, but I knowenough about a garden to know
you can't stay out of there fora couple weeks, um, without
things getting out of hand.
(52:11):
But anyway, guys, thanks forbearing with me because I
admittedly I'm not an expert onthis that this has just been
writer, writer that I cameacross recently that I really,
really liked.
So I just totally stretched itinto a fitness relevance so I
could talk about it.
But that being said, I do, ifyou found this stuff interesting
, I do want to still encourageyou go get some third parties.
(52:33):
Stephen West is one that I like.
If you like podcasts, which I'mpretty sure you do, and his
books are actually pretty shortand now in print in English, so
also recommend that.
But again, always appreciateyour guys' attention.
Remember mind and muscle areinseparably intertwined.
(52:56):
There are no gains withoutbrains.
Keep lifting and learning.
I'm trying to do the same.
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