November 7, 2025 ⢠53 mins
What if awe was the secret ingredient to happiness? đż In this episode, I sit down with UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner to explore how awe, compassion, and moral beauty can transform the way we live and age. We dive into the science of wonder â from the power of collective joy to how simple âawe walksâ can boost your health, purpose, and connection.
⨠Join us as we uncover why weâre truly born to be good and how awe might just be the key to midlife renewal.
đ§ Tune in for the full conversation and get inspired to see life with fresh eyes.
Timestamps:
00:00 Chip welcomes Dacher and reflects on their friendship
00:18 Why people smile when they talk about Dacher
01:06 How early experiences shaped his empathy
03:32 Journey into psychology and emotion science
06:42 Discovering emotion in the human face
07:31 Writing Born to Be Good and redefining human nature
09:42 Science of compassion, gratitude, and kindness
13:15 How the study of awe began
14:17 What awe is and how it feels
18:24 Collecting awe stories from around the world
20:33 The eight wonders of awe
21:00 Collective effervescence and shared joy
23:44 Synchronizing with others through movement and emotion
25:01 How screens disrupt human connection
27:00 Moral beauty and the power of witnessing goodness
31:32 Moral beauty within community and everyday life
32:39 Awe and moral beauty in midlife
36:33 The Awe Walk study and its health benefits
39:47 Finding awe in daily moments
41:25 Inside Dacherâs âCultivating Aweâ workshop
43:51 Practicing awe through grief and gratitude
45:09 Wisdom bumper sticker: seeing hidden beauty in people
47:35 Love (agape) as the essence of awe
49:10 Closing reflections and gratitude
Learn more about MEA at â https://www.meawisdom.com/
#awe #DacherKeltner #ChipConley #MidlifeChrysalis #CultivatingAwe #BornToBeGood #MoralBeauty #CollectiveEffervescence #ScienceOfAwe #HumanConnection #Mindfulness #EmotionalIntelligence #MidlifeWisdom #GratitudePractice #FindingPurpose
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When people talk about you, theysmile.
I love the smile, and I hope I make people smile.
It's one of the deepest tools inour evolutionary toolkit for
making people cooperate and sharing minds and syncing up
with each other. And I think those experiences
taught me, like, the best antidote to that is to be kind.
You know? It's to reach out to people,
(00:20):
even if they're being harsh to you, and build ties.
So I think that life taught me to like, connect to people and
make them smile. Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis
Podcast with Chip Conley, where we explore how midlife isn't a
crisis, but a chrysalis, a time of profound transformation that
can lead to the most meaningful chapter of your life.
(00:45):
Welcome to the midlife chrysalis.
This is Chip Conley and one of my neighbors when I'm in Baja is
the world's leading expert on awe.
And you know that when the world's leading expert on awe
lives nearby, you, you, you livein a really great place because
Dacher Keltner, we met years agoand I sort of introduced him to
(01:08):
Baja. He, we met actually in Baja.
I think we had met once before, but we met in Baja, right where
I had a home and, and, and I wasin the early stages of thinking
about MEA and creating MEA and, and he fell in love with the
place, bought a place down there.
And so he lives within walking distance of the MEA campus.
This is a place which has breaching whales and hatching
(01:32):
sea turtles on the beach, all right, right next to the campus.
So this conversation we had was really focused on the positive
components of humanity, but alsowhy awe is such an important
part of us getting older and, and feeling like we're part of
(01:53):
something much bigger than ourselves.
I think you're going to enjoy this one.
He's a he's a magnetic and lovable human.
So enjoy this episode, Dagger Keltner.
Welcome to the midlife chrysalis, my friend.
It's good to see you chip, as always.
I do miss our Pizzole in Toda Santos on Thursday nights.
(02:15):
Oh, you're making me nostalgic. I just want to start by saying,
you know, you have been one of the longest standing MEA faculty
members teaching every December.I want to just say that one of
the things that's most noticeable about you, that is
when people talk about you, theysmile.
So there's an element of Daca's the kind of person who makes you
(02:38):
smile. Why is that DACA?
What's what in your, what, what in your origin story makes you
lovable, approachable? And how did that influence your
process of being an academic who's well known for compassion
and and awe and what it means toborn to be good?
(03:01):
Tell us more. Yeah, and that's a deep question
to start. I But actually it's, you know,
in the middle of life, as Mia really reveals to people when
they take your courses and are enjoying those experiences, you
know, we start to go into the deep origins of who we are.
And I love the smile and I hope I make people smile.
(03:25):
It's one of the deepest tools inour evolutionary toolkit for
making people cooperate and, andsharing minds and syncing up
with each other. We contagiously imitate other
people's smiles. They calm our bodies.
So I'm glad people are smiling around me.
Yeah. I think that, you know, in some
sense, you know, I the deep origins of why I want to make
(03:51):
people smile is I think in part it comes from being raised by
parents who really believed in alternatives to kind of our
hyper individualism of our culture and to feel communal.
And they taught me that. And I think that part of it
(04:12):
Chip, you know, was, you know, and you and I have similar
backgrounds in some ways, like having certain experiences as a
young person where I felt on themargins.
I was the last person. I was very small as a kid and
went to a sports dominated high school that wasn't interested in
(04:34):
academics, which was. And I just felt ostracized
because I was the smallest kid of 350.
And then I went to England in junior in high school and just
was, I was bullied for a year. And I think those experiences
taught me like the best antidoteto that is to be kind, you know,
is to reach out to people, even if they're being harsh to you
(04:56):
and build ties. So, and then, you know, falling
into it scientifically and studying, you know, being around
Buddhist monks and, you know, Matthew Ricard and Dalai Lama
who just make people smile and make people tear up and get
goosebumps and out of our socialconnection.
So I, I learned I was kind of a grouchy kid and I think that
(05:19):
life taught me to like, connect to people and make them.
Smile, you started studying psychology and Tell Tell us.
For those who don't know, your Story Tell tells the story of
how you got to where you are today at UC Berkeley and and
maybe the scholarship that has led to the books you've written.
The why you and I are in conversation right now and why
(05:40):
I've taught for me about awe andcompassion for however long it's
been, 7 or 810 years. I was raised by a visual artist
and then my mom taught literature at Cal State
Sacramento. And they were both interested in
passion and emotion and, you know, and the horrors of war and
(06:03):
the beauties of poetry and the passion and the awe we feel
about the sublime and music and nature.
And, and that was my childhood. And I grew up on Laurel Canyon
and rock'n'roll and drugs and, you know, I was 8 years old.
Like, look what adults do, you know?
And then I went to grad school where you were an undergrad and
I'm a grad student. I, I was at Stanford.
(06:25):
We have mutual friends like Nathan Brostrom and, and it was
the, it was really the peak of cognitive science at the time.
And it was like the mind is a computer.
We have algorithms, we're information processors.
And I was like, where is the passion?
Where is the emotion in the mindin our, our lives?
And it was, it was really absentin science, social science at
(06:48):
the time. And then I went and heard a talk
by Paul Ekman, who is now in Hospice care and, you know, a
mentor of mine. And I want to Revere him for a
moment. And he was this outsider, and he
gave this talk. And, you know, now he's famous,
and he's like, he had figured out how to code the face and,
(07:08):
you know, figure out what emotion is in the face
anatomically. And Chip, it was like, I'm
almost tearing up now. It's like a spiritual experience
for me. I had grown up looking at
paintings. My dad painted us, you know, and
I was just so visually oriented.Here is a scientist who was
like, I can find emotion in the face.
And I was, I literally was awestruck.
(07:31):
And that became my career. And, and I'll say one final
thing. When I started that career, it
was all fight or flight emotion,you know, it was anger and
disgust and fear. And I was raised in the spirit
of humanism, almost like what you've cultivated and Esalen and
(07:53):
like humans have all this remarkable goodness in US.
You know, the Buddhists like ourbasic human goodness.
It was not there in science. And I was like, all right, let's
go, you know? And so compassion and gratitude
and love and awe and beauty havebeen my my big increase in
science. One of your books is called
(08:15):
Born, Born to be Good. And yet we live in a time that
feels so at odds with that in terms of how we are treating
each other, how we see each other no matter what side of the
political aisle you're on. How did how are you reconciling
this in your mind and in your heart?
And it must be hard for you because there's a talk about
(08:39):
the, the premise of the book. And, and it's hard for me
because I, I talk about Kermit capitalism and what goes around
comes around. It might take a while and, and
then I, I see, unfortunately, you know, people who seem to be
successful in life are often theones who are brutal.
(08:59):
And so tell us about that. The first book, Born to be Good,
came out of like my reaction to kind of this, you know, very
self focused science of emotion.That was its first chapter.
And I was like, what about love and touch and gratitude and
laughter and joy and, you know, sharing Posole and Todos Santos
(09:23):
on Thursday nights and like walking out of their arm in arm
like this is the most meaningfulmoment in life.
And, and I think, you know, in the last 40 years, we've seen
this revolution in thinking about human beings as, you know,
fundamentally cooperative, sharing as a propensity, you
(09:43):
know, ready to sacrifice, full of compassion, built indoor
genes. And yet today we're in this,
what I feel is an era of moral ugliness of, you know, people
privileging self-interest more than ever as the Amazon burns
and privileging white supremacy when, you know, people of color
(10:06):
are being punished. And, you know, and so it is
disturbing to me. I think a lot of it.
How do I think about it? I think a lot of it is the
algorithms that were set at Metaand Instagram and Twitter
mistaken algorithms and then thebiases of online life, which are
(10:27):
not life, but yet take up 7 or 8years of our our conscious life.
And when people come to Mia and they put away their phones and
they suddenly are like, human beings are incredible, you know,
and, and look at all this stuff that comes out of us.
So yeah, how I think about it iswe have these capacities,
(10:47):
they've been stunted by online bullying and being ghosted and
and you know, the images and things that you see online.
But we it's a good fight and we will, you know, we'll figure out
alternate. Talk about some of the science
behind that born to be good. The the idea that because
there's a, there's an element that that was a bit of a
(11:08):
surprise for a lot of people that, that there's a there, you
know, it's not survival of the fittest necessarily.
It's maybe the survival of the kindest.
Yeah, thank you. And you know, Chip, I just want
to, I just got goosebumps because I appreciate what a deep
reader you are. You're I think you're probably
(11:29):
the best reader of anybody I know.
Come on. Not only do you read
prolifically, but you remember the, the core, you know, seeds
of, of the, of the book, which is why you're a great writer,
too. Yeah.
You know, 50 years ago if and, and, you know, and it's
interesting to think this is really prominent in Western
(11:52):
thought in our lineage back to original sin and evil and basic
human vadnais. And the science was like that.
It was like there are selfish genes.
Humans are fight or flight gratification machines and we're
just meant to, we just want to prevail.
And then, you know, born to Be Good was to start capturing all
(12:14):
these scientific discoveries that have only grown over time.
You know, oxytocin, we have a little chemical in our body that
makes U.S. Open to other people and share.
That's amazing to me, you know, that the nervous system is wired
to care and share. We share around the world about
(12:35):
40% of a resource when we're given a chance, just like you
give scholarships to Mia. It's just like we we just have
this instinct to share. We have parts of our brain, you
know, when we feel compassion for other people as a report in
Born to Be Good, it's a very oldpart of the brain, the
perioquoductal Gray. So that tells us compassion is
(12:56):
mammalian. It's just caring is fundamental.
You know, now, you know, MichaelTomasello, you know, has this
amazing work, little kids, 18 months old, you know, you'd give
them all these tasks to share orhelp someone and they'll do it.
You know, they're not little selfish beasts.
You know, they will see a, an adult struggling to do something
(13:17):
and they'll be like, oh, I'll help that guy.
I don't know him, but I'll help him.
So there's just all of these data starting to show, you know,
though the research up at Oregon, if like when I give am
given money, parts of my dopamine circuitry are
activated. When I give away that money, the
same region of the brain is activated.
(13:40):
Giving is just like receiving. I think that just led to this
reformulation of who we are. We're not selfish by nature.
We're selfish and profoundly selfless, you know, and, and
Born to Be Good was early in thegame.
And thank you for quoting Darwin.
You know, Darwin said, you know,sympathy is our strongest
(14:01):
instinct, and the communities that promote sympathy will
flourish. And he was right.
And people forget he said that. So I still give talks to
audiences. And they're like, who is this
Berkeley guy who hangs out in Baja?
Why? How could he say that?
But there's a lot of good data that's reported.
So I remember a few years ago when you were starting to work
on Awe, AWE and you said Goosebumps.
(14:25):
And at one point I said, Oh yeah, I think the name of the
book should be Goosebumps. But instead of the name of the
book is called Awe. And this is almost three years
ago that it came out and wow, that book, that book.
I want, I want you to really give us the, the, the lead, the
scholarship that you did on AWE,how you discovered these eight
(14:48):
common pathways to AWE. And then we're going to unpack
the surprising fact that number one and #2 are really what MEA
is all about. And it's very interesting when
you first told me this and, and #2 we, you and I talked about a
good amount because it was a topic that I was fascinated with
(15:09):
studying festivals. Which I still want to do.
I'm getting there. Give us the the big picture on
this topic of awe. What is awe?
Why maybe wasn't it studied as much previously?
And what did you learn about these eight most common
(15:30):
pathways? Yeah, and you know, for our
folks listening, you know, Chip and I began a conversation about
Mia and awe, you know, we had intersected and shared Esalen
and many things, you know, but really from the beginning
moments and you're why I'm in Baja, Chip and gratefully so and
(15:52):
and there's so much. That guy has a home in Baja,
just to be clear. Yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, and as an interweaving, you know, I think Mia is a space
of awe as as powerful as almost anything you could find.
So, you know, I was this emotionscientist and had used the tools
(16:13):
of neuroscience and measuring facial actions and studying
neurotransmitters and the vagus nerve and vocalizations and just
doing basic science. And I had long been interested
in awe for because of my childhood and, you know, the
most meaningful moments of life,having children and seeing
(16:36):
Nelson Mandela come out of prison and, you know, being at
concerts, you know, going to festivals, the Grateful Dead
back in the day. And, you know, just like, what
is it? I remember interacting with Paul
Ekman when I was starting my career and I said, Paul, you
know, he's a founding figure in emotion science.
And it's like, I was a young guyand it's like, I'm a young
(16:57):
scholar. Like what should what emotions
did I study? You know, and he said, Aww.
And then I finally got to a place in my career and and
received a lot of funding and and it's like, you know, people
laugh at me and like, oh, there's the Berkeley guy
studying awe, you know, isn't that what a cliche, Just like
(17:19):
you starting Mia, you know, and it's like, you know what?
I believe in this like, and and this is fundamentally human.
Awe is an emotion we feel when we encounter things that are
beyond our frame of reference, usually vast.
The view of the Pacific Ocean atat Baja in a whales, you know,
(17:40):
breaching and the like. I mean so much.
And then it's mysterious. We don't understand it in that
moment of consciousness. It's like, you know, and that
then means we can almost feel awe all the time.
You know, it's as long as we cultivate a sense of curiosity
and mystery. I started to chart the basic
qualities of awe. You know it goosebumps Pylo
(18:02):
erection. You know your, your skin just so
alive. Walt Whitman, the body electric,
the vagus nerve, the warming of the chest, the tearing, the
sense of humility, the sense of being, as Jane Goodall said,
amazed by things that are outside of the self.
You know, pieces of music and amazing character of other
(18:23):
people. And then that led to your
question or seeking an answer toyour question like, well, where
do we find this? You know, and what we did is,
and this is the core of the book, and it's almost like a Mia
curriculum, which is like, we asked people from 26 countries
to write stories of awe. And this was inspired by William
James in his book Varieties of Religious Experience, where he
(18:46):
really relied on stories. An amazing book by the way, my.
God. Just a a book.
So, so say it again. Just everybody heard it.
Properly please read the varieties of religious
experience because it's it is a it's such an important book for
our times because what he says is every experience of a spirit
(19:09):
and and awe is your unique experience, but we all share the
experience with our fellow humanbeings.
So it's like the American dream of diversity plus shared common
humanity. It's a incredible book.
So yeah, we gather these storiesfrom India and Mexico and Japan
and Russia and China and Chile and US and all these different
(19:31):
countries, and we come up with what we call the eight wonders,
where we find awe, which is nature, moral beauty, music,
visual patterns. The one you and I talked a lot
about, which is collective effervescence, just like
vibrating together, whether it'sa sporting event or a a dance or
(19:54):
a festival or walking in the streets of New York City.
Big ideas, the life cycle and spiritual practice.
You know, just like meditating and thinking about the divine or
having an experience with a a spiritual practitioner or
psychedelics and or spirit medicines.
(20:16):
And those eight things are wherewe find it.
And what I love about those Chipis they're just humanity.
You know, it's just like art andmusic and dancing with other
people and, and thinking about how courageous someone is in
their lives, nature so accessible.
And, and that is a, you know, just for our audience out there.
(20:40):
What we also found is people arefeeling awe a lot.
They're feeling awe a couple times a week.
It's really good for your immunesystem.
It's good for your heart. We just published a paper you
don't even know about where people battling long COVID who
practice awe have fewer symptomsof long COVID.
You know, so it's right there for us and we just need to
(21:01):
activate it. So the practicing of awe would
be maybe one of these common pathways.
But let's let's number. I think the big surprise for
many people was nature was #3 onthe list, not #1 or #2 number
one and #2 are pro social. Do the countdown give us #2
(21:22):
talk. Let's talk about that and then
give us #1 and what whether thatwas a.
Surprise for you, it was really surprising, you know that.
And if I I'm mapping onto your, your portrayal of the findings,
you know, the number 2 is just collective experience, you know,
(21:43):
of, you know, just like sharing dancing and music or a sporting
event or what Emil Durkheim called collective effervescence.
You know, I was just in New YorkCity for a couple of events and
just like the vibrancy of the people there and just like, you
know, being together. And then number one is moral
beauty, Which was that? Well, let's go.
(22:05):
I, I want to get, I want to stick with collective
informations for just a moment. So when I first went to Burning
Man 30 years ago, that's what I experienced and I started
studying Durkheim because Emil Durkheim sort of in the same era
as William James a little bit long time ago study.
He studied religious pilgrimagesand in, in Durkheim as a French
(22:27):
sociologist and he, he coined this term collective
effervescence. And, and, and my shorthand way I
described it was the idea like somehow your sense of ego
separation starts to dissolve. Your sense of communal, communal
joy or connection emerges. And it can happen, you know, in
all kinds of environments that, you know, Glide Memorial Church,
(22:50):
I was on the board there in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, the
gospel choir. I mean, just getting up on your
feet and dancing and singing and, and, and just expressing
with a group of people, you don't even know what what an
elevated experience that can be.If you were to say to someone,
go out and practice some awe, it's pretty clear what
(23:12):
practicing awe when it comes to nature means.
But what does it mean when it practicing awe when it comes to
collective effervescence? Yeah.
And and, you know, I love your scholarship here, Chip.
And, you know, Durkheim said. Like the core to our religion is
moving together with others and then the elevated feeling that
comes out of that. And a lot of our contemporary
(23:34):
life has taken that away from us.
You know, we don't go to picnics.
We don't see movies together like we used to.
We don't, you know, shop. We don't move in a marketplace
together, although that's comingback.
And, and the practice is to remember that and to seek it
out. And there's just all this
fascinating new data showing that, you know, people feel when
(23:58):
they go to farmers markets. They feel not only do they love
the vegetables, but they love the vibrating and patterns of
movement together at the farmersmarkets.
And what is that happening on a,a sort of like a nervous system
level? What what, what is it?
What's what's the physical reason for that?
Yeah. And and that's another very new
(24:18):
cutting edge area of science, which is how we synchronize with
others in bodily movement, hormone levels.
We've studied that neuro, the brain patterns start to sync up.
You and I are starting to sync up.
We're constantly syncing up. And I think that's what Durkheim
was getting at is the basic mechanism of this is
synchronization with others and the ego boundaries start to
(24:42):
dissolve like you said. And then the practice is to find
that wherever you feel safe and joy, right?
It could be a farmer's market. It could be singing together, it
could be dancing together. For me, it was pick up
basketball for 30 years. It was that was church.
It was just like I'd go and we'dstart sinking and I would love
the human beings I was with, youknow?
(25:04):
And suddenly you realize it's everywhere.
You know, like Dirk, I'm postulated like when I walk
across the Berkeley campus and we're all moving in a pattern
towards a glass. That's like, I feel, I feel part
of something bigger than the self.
I feel a little bit of awe. So you just got to cultivate
this awareness of that. Has there been much research on
(25:25):
what screens do for us or don't do it for us?
The the the idea that in real life has a more profound effect
on the nervous system around this.
You're you're you just hit 3 fundamental scientific advances.
So thank you. Yeah, Yeah, I, I'm working on
this book on moral beauty and, and the what screens do is they
(25:51):
disrupt all of our synchronization.
They're asynchronous. So if your friend doesn't
respond to your text, read online, you feel ghosted.
That's different than ordinary face to face interaction.
There's a study of Yale in conversation with people.
We become synchronized, synchronized.
We move our bodies, our brains start sort of synchronizing less
(26:13):
so when we're online, we a lot, if you just step back and you
think for a moment, here's my favorite example.
There's a new source of childhood agitation for
children, which is they're playing and they're on a play
structure and they're learning so much.
Or they're exploring a little stream or a garden and they look
(26:35):
over at their parents and their parent has the face of looking
into the phone and they get mad.The kids get mad because they're
no longer synced up with their parents, right?
So I feel, yes, we get envious when we look at Instagram.
Yes, teenagers feel anxious online.
(26:55):
But perhaps the bigger effect isthe disruption of
synchronization in our lives. It's just changed it.
We used to share music together when you and I were in college.
We'd buy an album we'd like. Come on in man, Check this out.
Yeah, you know, and listen. Yeah.
And now it's like, put it in andyou're on your own.
So it's it's real trouble. All right, let's go to #1 on the
(27:16):
list moral beauty. You know, when I tell people
this, they're like, what are youtalking about?
And, but I will say, I will say that Maria Shriver, who was
actually the very first guest onthe, on this podcast, the first
time she and I ever spent time in person, and it was, and Hoda
(27:37):
Kotbi was with us. It was the three of us down in,
in Cabo, not at, not in Baja at our MEA campus, but just down in
Cabo. And I was supposed to hang out
with him for an hour. And after about 3 or 4 hours, we
were like, Oh my God, can the three of us get married?
And, and, and I, I said to, I said to Maria, Maria, you're a
moral beauty. And she just started crying
(28:00):
like, and it was so express whatthat means.
What does moral beauty mean? Yeah, your story really hits me.
That's really nice. And crying is so interesting
because crying, there are many kinds of tears.
It's a very complicated physiological process.
And one kind of tears is, you know, what older theologians
(28:22):
wrote about the tears of grace when you feel like the divine
has touched all of you. And that probably was happening
in that moment. It's just like, you know, when I
first started the science of awe, people are like, no, what
do you mean by that? Oh, I that that happens to me
all the time. And moral beauty's like that
too, which is moral beauty, which has in scholarship, it's
(28:48):
interesting, like in the social sciences, we got really
interested in physical beauty. And then there's an aesthetics
literature. Why is a painting beautiful?
But humans are beautiful. And some of our most profound
moments in life are when we encounter the courage or
kindness or sense of justice or humility of other people.
(29:11):
And it can change our life. You know, I remember, you know,
and I remember teaching at Mia and you were there and and it
was a very poignant moment because I think it was a
December and early and me and and we were all every I was
(29:33):
talking about how my brother wassoon to pass away and he was a
person of moral beauty for me. And, you know, and then I went
and he passed away in January and being near his side and just
watching him leave this earth and then really it's sinking in
like he was a personal moral beauty to me.
(29:54):
He was fighter against the racism of that was directed his
wife, who was Asian American. He taught the poorest kids in
the Sierras how to speak, you know, and these are kids who are
getting really in trouble in life.
And my brother was right there just helping them.
And, you know, he was just the compass for me and it it changed
(30:14):
my life. And that that's moral beauty.
It's when you sent something in Maria Shriver and her commitment
to things in life, you're like, for Chip Conley, it's like what
she's doing is how I want to live my life.
Yeah. I was, I was doing this
exercise, looking at a Van Gogh painting.
And Van Gogh is, oh, Van Gogh, you know, was just ever since I
(30:37):
was 16, I'm like, I love this guy, you know, and and so does
the world. And it turns out like he, you
know, he was interested in mental struggles and he was
interested in the marginalized in life, like I have been, you
know, in my science, the the drunks and the prostitutes and
the people who struggle and really devoted the potato eaters
(31:01):
and was interested in the poor. And so moral beauty is that
emotion when you encounter someone and and they move you to
pursue what you care about in life.
And it usually it's around themes of like, you want to
practice kindness or you want togive to someone or you want to
fight for justice or you're courageous, you know, like you
(31:24):
want to help others overcome obstacles.
And and that's, you know, it's sad that our culture doesn't
immediately know what it is because it's everywhere.
And it's one of the it's a life defining moment for so many of
us that we need to bring back. One of the things you said to me
before the book came out is Chip, you know, I mean, we have
(31:47):
the nature we got, we got all eight of them, but like the
first two, we got collective effervescence and and moral
beauty and spades and, and and, you know, it's just such a
magical experience to be able tobe in a place where you feel
elevated by both the collective connection, but also the
(32:12):
witnessing, being an enlightenedwitness of people who elevate
your spirit and say, if if she can do that, I can do that.
And the circles, you know, the sharing that you have every
morning of where we are. And, you know, life has hardship
and this is where we are. And other people are feeling
(32:32):
that, you know, a physical issue, a relationship issue and
finance, whatever it is. And suddenly all this goodness
comes pouring forth. And that's moral beauty, You
know, It's just like sensing thehumanity of others.
Let's let's shift for a moment and move into midlife and and
why. Why is cultivating awe or
(32:53):
seeking moral beauty or collective effervescence
particularly important in midlife and beyond?
And and and also tell us about awe walks.
You and I have talked about thisand it, it's so cool that you
profile this in, you know, as a core principle of, you know, in
the middle of life, the happiness curve, there's a just
(33:15):
a dip, right? And you're questioning a lot of
stuff. And what that means is with the
right mindset and practice and building of life, you can change
that trajectory, right? And, and the middle of life, you
know, you, you really start wondering about the purpose of
(33:36):
it all, you know, like, why am Ihere and what am I meant to
give? And, you know, and you created
Mia and, you know, bold move and, and that's just a deep
pursuit in the middle of life. And then you also wonder, you
know, it's almost like Jane Goodall's notion.
And may she rest in peace. What a person of moral beauty,
(33:58):
right? Well, what is outside of my
pleasures and my successes that I want to give to and create?
What's bigger than me? And so you're asking those
questions in the middle of life.And awe is the pathway to that.
You know, it is the pathway to revealing the big things you
want to be part of in life. You know, and those are hard to
(34:20):
figure out in our times. You know, our times are very
individualistic. Coming out of COVID, these
political moment, this politicaltime, what are the big things
that I want to be part of? We don't turn to church like we
used to. Only 55% of Americans really
rely on church. We are more isolated.
So what is the the big thing youwant to be part of?
(34:43):
And awe does that for you, you know, and when people have their
big experiences of awe, they're like, oh, I want to work on
saving carnivores, you know, or which I just spoke to a
carnivore society and I was like, wow, this is wolves are
fascinating, you know, or I wantto I want to be part of a
chorus. And that will become my temple,
you know, or I want to help young kids and mentor them as
(35:08):
you do. And so, you know, it's it awe is
a great midlife emotion. And then, you know, the
collective effervescence, you know, when you think about 40%
of Americans who are over the age of 65 feeling lonely.
And this science says, like, sing with people, eat with
people, find some place to dance, do board games, right?
(35:31):
Cheer for football teams, whatever it is, meditate
together. That will get you to go to
farmers markets. You find it fast.
And I, I love this phrase, Chip.We'll see what you do with it.
I was speaking in Ptolemy Meadows to a bunch of Rangers
before Trump gutted our nationalparks.
(35:51):
This Ranger said she used the phrase ephemeral community.
And I was like, that's wisdom, right?
Like everywhere you go, you can find that ephemeral community
and then when people go to Mia and they have 7 days of it, that
will last, you know? And then you build with the
offerings that you have. That's what we need.
(36:13):
And so that's what we need in the middle of life is is awe and
ephemeral community and and rediscovering the moral beauty
of the people around us. If you're enjoying the
conversations we've been having on the midlife chrysalis, I have
a valuable offer for you to consider.
My book, Learning to Love Midlife, 12 Reasons Why Life
Gets Better with Age, is a national bestseller, and right
(36:35):
now you can get a copy for just the cost of shipping.
It offers stories, research and practices to help you move from
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life not as a decline, but an opportunity to flourish.
Claim your copy today at meawisdom.com/midlife book.
(36:59):
How does someone pursue an AW walk and what's the data on that
that shows that it's good for your health?
Oh, man, and and I have a new story to tell you.
Yeah, you know, and I forgot. So you know, humans walk, we are
a meandering species. We have pilgrimages and
backpacking and, you know, urbanwalks and etcetera.
(37:24):
And and so I first did it for Mindful magazine.
They called me up and they're like, how do we practice all?
And this is, and I was like, well, we can go on all walks and
we walked through the Muir Woodsand did the looked at the
redwoods and that's an easy one,right.
And so Virginia, and it's awe inspiring, you know, and when
(37:44):
people think about awe, especially outside or in cities,
it's often walking, you know, that brings it to us.
And Rebecca Solnut wrote about walking as a special form of
consciousness. You know, it it it has a
different temporal quality to it.
And I agree. So we did an AWE walk test with
Virginia Sturm, UC San Franciscopeople who are over the age of
(38:08):
65, once a week. They went out on an all walk and
wherever they were, we just asked them to go find something
mysterious and that would fill them with a childlike sense of
wonder. And in the other condition they
just did their vigorous walk right, which is a good control
condition. And we they did this once a week
(38:30):
for 8 weeks. And over the 8 weeks are people
in their 70s and beyond, they felt that's physical distress.
You know, when you're in your 60s and 70s and beyond, your
body hurts, right? Our people felt less physical
pain. They felt kinder towards other
people. They felt less self focused.
(38:51):
And it's a great finding where they, we had them take a selfie
on their walk and in the awwa condition, the self, the picture
of the self starts to merge off the photo, you know, it's like
disappearing. And they're just more aware of
the context they're in. And the important point of the
study is they're doing this everywhere.
They're doing it in cities, they're doing it in suburbs.
(39:12):
Wasn't necessarily the redwoods,right?
It was just life. And just recently, this past
week, as in New York City for a bunch of cities of all work that
we're doing. And Bob McKinnon at the Social
Mobility Lab led his City University of New York students
on an all walk through that campus, right where you walk by
(39:35):
where Colin Powell was a collegestudent there.
And then you stand where Langston Hughes is buried and
you just feel the awe of the place.
So it's a a great thing to thinkabout.
Like as I walk, anytime you're walking where might be a little
mystery and awe for you to find and just go, go find it.
(39:57):
What's now? Walk for you, Chip.
Well now walk for me. I you know what I do is I during
COVID I would take 3 hours a day.
Three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 2 to 5, I'd
take my dog Jamie and we'd go out on what I called spying on
the divine and, and I would start the walk.
It was always a different walk. It was all over Baja.
(40:20):
There's nobody around. And so I would say at the start
of my walk in nature, what do you have to teach me today?
And you know, the key was not having air pods in, even though
I do like walking with Airpods, I will admit it because I can
listen to, you know, podcasts. But what I really wanted to tap
into is the divine and the senseof epiphanies that you can find
(40:45):
and your brain sort of seeing something.
And like, oh wow, I just had thelight bulb go up on on top of my
head because I like, there's an idea that just came out of just
seeing something being a channel, you know, And so for
me, you know, all walks, it's for me, it's easier in nature,
(41:05):
no doubt about it. But I actually what I appreciate
what you just said about thinking about who's been there
before, you know, walking through the NYU campus or
walking somewhere, being in Varanasi, you know, in India and
knowing like the history of all,of all of the people who come
there to die and, and, and, and live their last days there.
(41:28):
So yeah, awe can come in many forms.
What a good insight. So your experience with Mea and,
and, and Mia has been, you know,long standing about 8 years now.
And you have a workshop coming up in, in December called
Cultivating Awe. I mean, anything that you want
(41:49):
to share about that workshop that's beyond what we've already
shared on the podcast? It's been some of the most
gratifying teaching that I've ever done.
And, you know, this is the, you know, you challenge me and you
and I thought about this together of like, here's this
mysterious emotion. The science is really new,
although it's exploded, you know, and a lot of people are
(42:11):
talking about all right now. And person might think that this
is a rarefied, rare experience of awe.
And there are the big experiences.
You only get to see Nelson Mandela come out of prison once,
you know, or hug the Dalai Lama.But but actually, as Einstein
(42:31):
said, it's a basic state of consciousness.
It's like right there. And so the workshop is, is
really working through the wonders, exploring personally
what your narrative, your life story of awe is, you know, who
are the people of moral beauty, what music really matters to
you, etcetera. And then to you know, I, and I
(42:54):
learned this in grief with my brother, that if you really set
your mind to it, much as with practicing gratitude or
mindfulness or kindness, etcetera, you can cultivate a
lot of awe that just stays with you.
Just ways of looking at nature, ways of slowing down and
(43:15):
listening to music or visual art, ways of thinking about your
fellow human beings is how courageous most people are.
So yeah, the workshop takes veryseriously.
Like, yeah, there's a science, but let's come away with some
mental habits and some social practices, like you're spying on
(43:36):
the divine, you know? And now every day I walk to
school is awe. There's awe.
You know, it's just. And today it was a little red
fall leaf on the pavement. And I was just like, wow, you
know, look at that color. And I think it's there for us to
to build. It's a practice.
Yeah, it is definitely a practice.
OK, So last question for you, myfriend.
(43:58):
MEA does its best to help peoplesee that wisdom is something
that's available to them and that especially in the era of
AI, you know, we've been MEA hasbeen around for eight years now.
And AI was not a big thing back then.
Neither was longevity. And both of these things, AI and
longevity just sort of like skyrocketed.
And so AI is all about knowledge.
(44:19):
It's all about the, the, the premise that the world's
knowledge can, you know, fit on this little damn phone in my
pocket. But wisdom is often hard won.
It's, you know, my definition ofwisdom is metabolized experience
mindfully shared for the common good.
So you've learned some things along the way, maybe through the
(44:40):
school of Hard Knocks, if someone younger than you came to
you and and whether it's in yourpersonal life, your professional
life, any part of your life and said Dakar, I'd love to, you
know, get tea with you next week.
And what's 1 wisdom bumper sticker you you might come to
our tea with and what's the origin story for it?
(45:02):
What would what would that be? I.
Have been working on a lot of science and a new book on moral
beauty and and then I bumped into and it's interesting, you
know, a lot of the great teachers that are the DNA of
Mia, the humanism movement, EastAsian thought, you know, basic
(45:24):
human goodness. You know, you tick not hung like
we can be lost in the fearful mind and there's a lot to be
frightened of. But every moment there's
laughter and synchronization of hearts beating together and
humans trying to understand eachother and how miraculous that
is. I would put on my bumper sticker
of wisdom a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, the a leading figure
(45:49):
in the UN and the idea of universal human rights, right,
which are so vital today in in in Jeopardy, where she said, you
know, we have to open our eyes to the simple beauty of people
all around us that is so often hidden in and something that we
(46:10):
don't realize. And I think that, you know, the
online life has been an assault on our beliefs about fellow
human beings. And you know, and then you you
go to the current discourse and conspiracy theories and all the
hate. It's an era of hate.
But in reality, humans are remarkable, you know, and once I
(46:35):
was a grouchy kid, kind of cynical, you know, And then, you
know, as I started to through festivals, you know, and spirit
medicines and reading East Asianthought as a teenager.
And and then, you know, just my whole life has been a a
revelation and an awakening to the simple beauty all around us.
(46:58):
And I think that's what Mia reveals, you know, and why
people are hugging and crying that last few days, you know, is
that and we're wired to do that.We are wired to lose ourselves
in the beauty of other people. And we just need to return to
that. And so that's what I put on the
(47:19):
bumper sticker. And any last question, another
question related to that is love, you know, Saul or Shaman
down in Baja, He he, he, he's turned love into A2 syllable
word. He says love, love.
Do people ask you why is love not one of the eight?
Or is love all of the 8? I you know, I've it's
(47:40):
interesting chip and I bet you and I have a lot to talk about.
I've been really interested in agape of like.
Explain what it is so people whofor People who?
Yeah, in the Christian tradition, but it's really every
spiritual tradition. It's like loving all of life and
human beings without social distinction.
And Jesus, you know, turning to the prostitutes in the, you
(48:01):
know, the, the outcasts of society, He loved them, loving
without social distinction, justdivine love, which, you know,
the Christian gods God had and, and most people, you know, feel
that and believe in it in some realm of their experience.
And so, yeah, that that's, you know, part of collective
effervescence. You know, when you're at Burning
(48:23):
Man or you're dancing to the music you love, you're suddenly
like, I love everybody here. They're all human.
And then it's moral beauty. It's just like man loving
humanity. So love is a part of of the
wonders of life. And you and you are a wonder of
life, my friend. I can't.
Can't wait to see you too. Thank you.
I, I really look forward to seeing you hopefully over the
(48:46):
holidays or, or at some point down, down in the in Baja or in
the Bay Area. Thank you so so much.
Thank you for your work, Chip. I mean, for our audience.
Chip and I began conversations about Awe and Mia when I really
dug into the book, and I would not have profiled Collective
Effervescence without you, so weappreciate.
(49:08):
It I do remember that conversation Oh yeah.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Decker and I have this funny relationship.
We we're just like pals wheneverwe see each other and I, we
don't see each other as much lately because I've been in
Santa Fe a little bit more, but I just really enjoy the
(49:30):
conversations we have. You know, at at times I feel a
little nervous because, you know, he's one of the, he's like
a renowned academic. He started the Greater Good
Science Center at UC Berkeley. He's he's just very, very well
respected as an academic, but he's also very accessible.
He's not one of those ivory tower academics.
(49:52):
If I were to think about 3 takeaways here, I think the
first one is like, how do we useawe and just seeking awe in our
life as a means of letting go ofthe weight of the world and
instead experiencing the wonder of the world?
We deserve that. We live in an era in which
(50:13):
there's a lot of weightiness it there's a lot of gravitas,
There's a lot of, there's a lot we are carrying and a lot of
baggage. And so to be able to let that go
and to see our way out of the ghetto of the ego so that we can
see the beauty all around us. When I died at at my NDE, that's
what the birds told me. I understood bird talk and the
(50:34):
birds were saying to me, Chip, if you slow down, you will see
beauty and awe. That is exactly what I heard and
this is what I told the, the paramedics and the nurses each
time I, I came back from my flatline experience and that
happened 9 * / 90 minutes. So awe is really, you know, a
fundamental to my life. I, I love listening for birds
(50:56):
these days, even though I don't understand birds now.
But when I was in that purgatorystate, I can understand what
birds were telling me #2 is it'sreally interesting, the science
of this and I, his book, Decker's book Awe was a
bestseller, and it's gotten a lot of attention, especially in
the MEA community. But his book Born to Be Good is
(51:18):
actually worth reading. It's a book really that gets
into the deep science of what hetalked about today and the fact
that who knew that the guy who talked about survival of the
fittest also talked about survival of the kindest?
Darwin said. As, as Decker said, sympathy is
our strongest instinct. Instinct, sympathy is our
strongest instinct. So in a time where it feels
(51:41):
like, you know, the brute, the brute bullies of the world are
taking over in whatever, you know, form that shows up in the
world, the idea that the long arc of justice may include
compassion and kindness and equanimity is reassuring.
And then I think the third thingI, I really appreciated was just
(52:03):
moral beauty and Dakar. That's the book he's working on
right now, a book on moral beauty and helping people to
know the phrase, that two word phrase moral beauty.
Use it with your friends. Talk about it.
Say that, you know, I want to bein places where I feel the
energy of moral beauty around mebecause it's actually healthy
(52:26):
for you, it's good for you. It also leads you with our
mirror neurons in our brain to actually mirror moral beauty in
other people. And so if you can do it, other
people can do it, and then you do it back and forth.
It's, it's a, it's the exchange.He talked about the giving and
receiving has the same effect inyour brain, the dopamine and
(52:49):
effect of just like, oh, that feels good.
Maybe I should go ahead and givethis back to this person.
There's a book, Adam Grant, I think it's called give and take
or givers and takers or something like that.
He interviewed me for that book and I'm I'm quoted in the book.
Another good book to to read. So you've got some good books to
read here. You've got Dakar's book, you
have his book Born to Be Good, and you have Adam Grant's book.
(53:12):
Give and take, I think, or givers and takers.
That's it. I hope you've enjoyed A little
moral beauty on this episode andlook forward to seeing you on
the next episode of The Midlife Chrysalis.
Thanks for listening to The Midlife Chrysalis.
This show is produced by MidlifeMedia.
If you enjoyed this episode, help us spread the word by
(53:34):
subscribing and leaving a reviewon your favorite platform.
When people talk about you, theysmile.
I love the smile, and I hope I make people smile.
It's one of the deepest tools inour evolutionary toolkit for
making people cooperate and sharing minds and syncing up
with each other. And I think those experiences
taught me, like, the best antidote to that is to be kind.
You know? It's to reach out to people,
(00:20):
even if they're being harsh to you, and build ties.
So I think that life taught me to like, connect to people and
make them smile. Welcome to the Midlife Chrysalis
Podcast with Chip Conley, where we explore how midlife isn't a
crisis, but a chrysalis, a time of profound transformation that
can lead to the most meaningful chapter of your life.
(00:45):
Welcome to the midlife chrysalis.
This is Chip Conley and one of my neighbors when I'm in Baja is
the world's leading expert on awe.
And you know that when the world's leading expert on awe
lives nearby, you, you, you livein a really great place because
Dacher Keltner, we met years agoand I sort of introduced him to
(01:08):
Baja. He, we met actually in Baja.
I think we had met once before, but we met in Baja, right where
I had a home and, and, and I wasin the early stages of thinking
about MEA and creating MEA and, and he fell in love with the
place, bought a place down there.
And so he lives within walking distance of the MEA campus.
This is a place which has breaching whales and hatching
(01:32):
sea turtles on the beach, all right, right next to the campus.
So this conversation we had was really focused on the positive
components of humanity, but alsowhy awe is such an important
part of us getting older and, and feeling like we're part of
(01:53):
something much bigger than ourselves.
I think you're going to enjoy this one.
He's a he's a magnetic and lovable human.
So enjoy this episode, Dagger Keltner.
Welcome to the midlife chrysalis, my friend.
It's good to see you chip, as always.
I do miss our Pizzole in Toda Santos on Thursday nights.
(02:15):
Oh, you're making me nostalgic. I just want to start by saying,
you know, you have been one of the longest standing MEA faculty
members teaching every December.I want to just say that one of
the things that's most noticeable about you, that is
when people talk about you, theysmile.
So there's an element of Daca's the kind of person who makes you
(02:38):
smile. Why is that DACA?
What's what in your, what, what in your origin story makes you
lovable, approachable? And how did that influence your
process of being an academic who's well known for compassion
and and awe and what it means toborn to be good?
(03:01):
Tell us more. Yeah, and that's a deep question
to start. I But actually it's, you know,
in the middle of life, as Mia really reveals to people when
they take your courses and are enjoying those experiences, you
know, we start to go into the deep origins of who we are.
And I love the smile and I hope I make people smile.
(03:25):
It's one of the deepest tools inour evolutionary toolkit for
making people cooperate and, andsharing minds and syncing up
with each other. We contagiously imitate other
people's smiles. They calm our bodies.
So I'm glad people are smiling around me.
Yeah. I think that, you know, in some
sense, you know, I the deep origins of why I want to make
(03:51):
people smile is I think in part it comes from being raised by
parents who really believed in alternatives to kind of our
hyper individualism of our culture and to feel communal.
And they taught me that. And I think that part of it
(04:12):
Chip, you know, was, you know, and you and I have similar
backgrounds in some ways, like having certain experiences as a
young person where I felt on themargins.
I was the last person. I was very small as a kid and
went to a sports dominated high school that wasn't interested in
(04:34):
academics, which was. And I just felt ostracized
because I was the smallest kid of 350.
And then I went to England in junior in high school and just
was, I was bullied for a year. And I think those experiences
taught me like the best antidoteto that is to be kind, you know,
is to reach out to people, even if they're being harsh to you
(04:56):
and build ties. So, and then, you know, falling
into it scientifically and studying, you know, being around
Buddhist monks and, you know, Matthew Ricard and Dalai Lama
who just make people smile and make people tear up and get
goosebumps and out of our socialconnection.
So I, I learned I was kind of a grouchy kid and I think that
(05:19):
life taught me to like, connect to people and make them.
Smile, you started studying psychology and Tell Tell us.
For those who don't know, your Story Tell tells the story of
how you got to where you are today at UC Berkeley and and
maybe the scholarship that has led to the books you've written.
The why you and I are in conversation right now and why
(05:40):
I've taught for me about awe andcompassion for however long it's
been, 7 or 810 years. I was raised by a visual artist
and then my mom taught literature at Cal State
Sacramento. And they were both interested in
passion and emotion and, you know, and the horrors of war and
(06:03):
the beauties of poetry and the passion and the awe we feel
about the sublime and music and nature.
And, and that was my childhood. And I grew up on Laurel Canyon
and rock'n'roll and drugs and, you know, I was 8 years old.
Like, look what adults do, you know?
And then I went to grad school where you were an undergrad and
I'm a grad student. I, I was at Stanford.
(06:25):
We have mutual friends like Nathan Brostrom and, and it was
the, it was really the peak of cognitive science at the time.
And it was like the mind is a computer.
We have algorithms, we're information processors.
And I was like, where is the passion?
Where is the emotion in the mindin our, our lives?
And it was, it was really absentin science, social science at
(06:48):
the time. And then I went and heard a talk
by Paul Ekman, who is now in Hospice care and, you know, a
mentor of mine. And I want to Revere him for a
moment. And he was this outsider, and he
gave this talk. And, you know, now he's famous,
and he's like, he had figured out how to code the face and,
(07:08):
you know, figure out what emotion is in the face
anatomically. And Chip, it was like, I'm
almost tearing up now. It's like a spiritual experience
for me. I had grown up looking at
paintings. My dad painted us, you know, and
I was just so visually oriented.Here is a scientist who was
like, I can find emotion in the face.
And I was, I literally was awestruck.
(07:31):
And that became my career. And, and I'll say one final
thing. When I started that career, it
was all fight or flight emotion,you know, it was anger and
disgust and fear. And I was raised in the spirit
of humanism, almost like what you've cultivated and Esalen and
(07:53):
like humans have all this remarkable goodness in US.
You know, the Buddhists like ourbasic human goodness.
It was not there in science. And I was like, all right, let's
go, you know? And so compassion and gratitude
and love and awe and beauty havebeen my my big increase in
science. One of your books is called
(08:15):
Born, Born to be Good. And yet we live in a time that
feels so at odds with that in terms of how we are treating
each other, how we see each other no matter what side of the
political aisle you're on. How did how are you reconciling
this in your mind and in your heart?
And it must be hard for you because there's a talk about
(08:39):
the, the premise of the book. And, and it's hard for me
because I, I talk about Kermit capitalism and what goes around
comes around. It might take a while and, and
then I, I see, unfortunately, you know, people who seem to be
successful in life are often theones who are brutal.
(08:59):
And so tell us about that. The first book, Born to be Good,
came out of like my reaction to kind of this, you know, very
self focused science of emotion.That was its first chapter.
And I was like, what about love and touch and gratitude and
laughter and joy and, you know, sharing Posole and Todos Santos
(09:23):
on Thursday nights and like walking out of their arm in arm
like this is the most meaningfulmoment in life.
And, and I think, you know, in the last 40 years, we've seen
this revolution in thinking about human beings as, you know,
fundamentally cooperative, sharing as a propensity, you
(09:43):
know, ready to sacrifice, full of compassion, built indoor
genes. And yet today we're in this,
what I feel is an era of moral ugliness of, you know, people
privileging self-interest more than ever as the Amazon burns
and privileging white supremacy when, you know, people of color
(10:06):
are being punished. And, you know, and so it is
disturbing to me. I think a lot of it.
How do I think about it? I think a lot of it is the
algorithms that were set at Metaand Instagram and Twitter
mistaken algorithms and then thebiases of online life, which are
(10:27):
not life, but yet take up 7 or 8years of our our conscious life.
And when people come to Mia and they put away their phones and
they suddenly are like, human beings are incredible, you know,
and, and look at all this stuff that comes out of us.
So yeah, how I think about it iswe have these capacities,
(10:47):
they've been stunted by online bullying and being ghosted and
and you know, the images and things that you see online.
But we it's a good fight and we will, you know, we'll figure out
alternate. Talk about some of the science
behind that born to be good. The the idea that because
there's a, there's an element that that was a bit of a
(11:08):
surprise for a lot of people that, that there's a there, you
know, it's not survival of the fittest necessarily.
It's maybe the survival of the kindest.
Yeah, thank you. And you know, Chip, I just want
to, I just got goosebumps because I appreciate what a deep
reader you are. You're I think you're probably
(11:29):
the best reader of anybody I know.
Come on. Not only do you read
prolifically, but you remember the, the core, you know, seeds
of, of the, of the book, which is why you're a great writer,
too. Yeah.
You know, 50 years ago if and, and, you know, and it's
interesting to think this is really prominent in Western
(11:52):
thought in our lineage back to original sin and evil and basic
human vadnais. And the science was like that.
It was like there are selfish genes.
Humans are fight or flight gratification machines and we're
just meant to, we just want to prevail.
And then, you know, born to Be Good was to start capturing all
(12:14):
these scientific discoveries that have only grown over time.
You know, oxytocin, we have a little chemical in our body that
makes U.S. Open to other people and share.
That's amazing to me, you know, that the nervous system is wired
to care and share. We share around the world about
(12:35):
40% of a resource when we're given a chance, just like you
give scholarships to Mia. It's just like we we just have
this instinct to share. We have parts of our brain, you
know, when we feel compassion for other people as a report in
Born to Be Good, it's a very oldpart of the brain, the
perioquoductal Gray. So that tells us compassion is
(12:56):
mammalian. It's just caring is fundamental.
You know, now, you know, MichaelTomasello, you know, has this
amazing work, little kids, 18 months old, you know, you'd give
them all these tasks to share orhelp someone and they'll do it.
You know, they're not little selfish beasts.
You know, they will see a, an adult struggling to do something
(13:17):
and they'll be like, oh, I'll help that guy.
I don't know him, but I'll help him.
So there's just all of these data starting to show, you know,
though the research up at Oregon, if like when I give am
given money, parts of my dopamine circuitry are
activated. When I give away that money, the
same region of the brain is activated.
(13:40):
Giving is just like receiving. I think that just led to this
reformulation of who we are. We're not selfish by nature.
We're selfish and profoundly selfless, you know, and, and
Born to Be Good was early in thegame.
And thank you for quoting Darwin.
You know, Darwin said, you know,sympathy is our strongest
(14:01):
instinct, and the communities that promote sympathy will
flourish. And he was right.
And people forget he said that. So I still give talks to
audiences. And they're like, who is this
Berkeley guy who hangs out in Baja?
Why? How could he say that?
But there's a lot of good data that's reported.
So I remember a few years ago when you were starting to work
on Awe, AWE and you said Goosebumps.
(14:25):
And at one point I said, Oh yeah, I think the name of the
book should be Goosebumps. But instead of the name of the
book is called Awe. And this is almost three years
ago that it came out and wow, that book, that book.
I want, I want you to really give us the, the, the lead, the
scholarship that you did on AWE,how you discovered these eight
(14:48):
common pathways to AWE. And then we're going to unpack
the surprising fact that number one and #2 are really what MEA
is all about. And it's very interesting when
you first told me this and, and #2 we, you and I talked about a
good amount because it was a topic that I was fascinated with
(15:09):
studying festivals. Which I still want to do.
I'm getting there. Give us the the big picture on
this topic of awe. What is awe?
Why maybe wasn't it studied as much previously?
And what did you learn about these eight most common
(15:30):
pathways? Yeah, and you know, for our
folks listening, you know, Chip and I began a conversation about
Mia and awe, you know, we had intersected and shared Esalen
and many things, you know, but really from the beginning
moments and you're why I'm in Baja, Chip and gratefully so and
(15:52):
and there's so much. That guy has a home in Baja,
just to be clear. Yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, and as an interweaving, you know, I think Mia is a space
of awe as as powerful as almost anything you could find.
So, you know, I was this emotionscientist and had used the tools
(16:13):
of neuroscience and measuring facial actions and studying
neurotransmitters and the vagus nerve and vocalizations and just
doing basic science. And I had long been interested
in awe for because of my childhood and, you know, the
most meaningful moments of life,having children and seeing
(16:36):
Nelson Mandela come out of prison and, you know, being at
concerts, you know, going to festivals, the Grateful Dead
back in the day. And, you know, just like, what
is it? I remember interacting with Paul
Ekman when I was starting my career and I said, Paul, you
know, he's a founding figure in emotion science.
And it's like, I was a young guyand it's like, I'm a young
(16:57):
scholar. Like what should what emotions
did I study? You know, and he said, Aww.
And then I finally got to a place in my career and and
received a lot of funding and and it's like, you know, people
laugh at me and like, oh, there's the Berkeley guy
studying awe, you know, isn't that what a cliche, Just like
(17:19):
you starting Mia, you know, and it's like, you know what?
I believe in this like, and and this is fundamentally human.
Awe is an emotion we feel when we encounter things that are
beyond our frame of reference, usually vast.
The view of the Pacific Ocean atat Baja in a whales, you know,
(17:40):
breaching and the like. I mean so much.
And then it's mysterious. We don't understand it in that
moment of consciousness. It's like, you know, and that
then means we can almost feel awe all the time.
You know, it's as long as we cultivate a sense of curiosity
and mystery. I started to chart the basic
qualities of awe. You know it goosebumps Pylo
(18:02):
erection. You know your, your skin just so
alive. Walt Whitman, the body electric,
the vagus nerve, the warming of the chest, the tearing, the
sense of humility, the sense of being, as Jane Goodall said,
amazed by things that are outside of the self.
You know, pieces of music and amazing character of other
(18:23):
people. And then that led to your
question or seeking an answer toyour question like, well, where
do we find this? You know, and what we did is,
and this is the core of the book, and it's almost like a Mia
curriculum, which is like, we asked people from 26 countries
to write stories of awe. And this was inspired by William
James in his book Varieties of Religious Experience, where he
(18:46):
really relied on stories. An amazing book by the way, my.
God. Just a a book.
So, so say it again. Just everybody heard it.
Properly please read the varieties of religious
experience because it's it is a it's such an important book for
our times because what he says is every experience of a spirit
(19:09):
and and awe is your unique experience, but we all share the
experience with our fellow humanbeings.
So it's like the American dream of diversity plus shared common
humanity. It's a incredible book.
So yeah, we gather these storiesfrom India and Mexico and Japan
and Russia and China and Chile and US and all these different
(19:31):
countries, and we come up with what we call the eight wonders,
where we find awe, which is nature, moral beauty, music,
visual patterns. The one you and I talked a lot
about, which is collective effervescence, just like
vibrating together, whether it'sa sporting event or a a dance or
(19:54):
a festival or walking in the streets of New York City.
Big ideas, the life cycle and spiritual practice.
You know, just like meditating and thinking about the divine or
having an experience with a a spiritual practitioner or
psychedelics and or spirit medicines.
(20:16):
And those eight things are wherewe find it.
And what I love about those Chipis they're just humanity.
You know, it's just like art andmusic and dancing with other
people and, and thinking about how courageous someone is in
their lives, nature so accessible.
And, and that is a, you know, just for our audience out there.
(20:40):
What we also found is people arefeeling awe a lot.
They're feeling awe a couple times a week.
It's really good for your immunesystem.
It's good for your heart. We just published a paper you
don't even know about where people battling long COVID who
practice awe have fewer symptomsof long COVID.
You know, so it's right there for us and we just need to
(21:01):
activate it. So the practicing of awe would
be maybe one of these common pathways.
But let's let's number. I think the big surprise for
many people was nature was #3 onthe list, not #1 or #2 number
one and #2 are pro social. Do the countdown give us #2
(21:22):
talk. Let's talk about that and then
give us #1 and what whether thatwas a.
Surprise for you, it was really surprising, you know that.
And if I I'm mapping onto your, your portrayal of the findings,
you know, the number 2 is just collective experience, you know,
(21:43):
of, you know, just like sharing dancing and music or a sporting
event or what Emil Durkheim called collective effervescence.
You know, I was just in New YorkCity for a couple of events and
just like the vibrancy of the people there and just like, you
know, being together. And then number one is moral
beauty, Which was that? Well, let's go.
(22:05):
I, I want to get, I want to stick with collective
informations for just a moment. So when I first went to Burning
Man 30 years ago, that's what I experienced and I started
studying Durkheim because Emil Durkheim sort of in the same era
as William James a little bit long time ago study.
He studied religious pilgrimagesand in, in Durkheim as a French
(22:27):
sociologist and he, he coined this term collective
effervescence. And, and, and my shorthand way I
described it was the idea like somehow your sense of ego
separation starts to dissolve. Your sense of communal, communal
joy or connection emerges. And it can happen, you know, in
all kinds of environments that, you know, Glide Memorial Church,
(22:50):
I was on the board there in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, the
gospel choir. I mean, just getting up on your
feet and dancing and singing and, and, and just expressing
with a group of people, you don't even know what what an
elevated experience that can be.If you were to say to someone,
go out and practice some awe, it's pretty clear what
(23:12):
practicing awe when it comes to nature means.
But what does it mean when it practicing awe when it comes to
collective effervescence? Yeah.
And and, you know, I love your scholarship here, Chip.
And, you know, Durkheim said. Like the core to our religion is
moving together with others and then the elevated feeling that
comes out of that. And a lot of our contemporary
(23:34):
life has taken that away from us.
You know, we don't go to picnics.
We don't see movies together like we used to.
We don't, you know, shop. We don't move in a marketplace
together, although that's comingback.
And, and the practice is to remember that and to seek it
out. And there's just all this
fascinating new data showing that, you know, people feel when
(23:58):
they go to farmers markets. They feel not only do they love
the vegetables, but they love the vibrating and patterns of
movement together at the farmersmarkets.
And what is that happening on a,a sort of like a nervous system
level? What what, what is it?
What's what's the physical reason for that?
Yeah. And and that's another very new
(24:18):
cutting edge area of science, which is how we synchronize with
others in bodily movement, hormone levels.
We've studied that neuro, the brain patterns start to sync up.
You and I are starting to sync up.
We're constantly syncing up. And I think that's what Durkheim
was getting at is the basic mechanism of this is
synchronization with others and the ego boundaries start to
(24:42):
dissolve like you said. And then the practice is to find
that wherever you feel safe and joy, right?
It could be a farmer's market. It could be singing together, it
could be dancing together. For me, it was pick up
basketball for 30 years. It was that was church.
It was just like I'd go and we'dstart sinking and I would love
the human beings I was with, youknow?
(25:04):
And suddenly you realize it's everywhere.
You know, like Dirk, I'm postulated like when I walk
across the Berkeley campus and we're all moving in a pattern
towards a glass. That's like, I feel, I feel part
of something bigger than the self.
I feel a little bit of awe. So you just got to cultivate
this awareness of that. Has there been much research on
(25:25):
what screens do for us or don't do it for us?
The the the idea that in real life has a more profound effect
on the nervous system around this.
You're you're you just hit 3 fundamental scientific advances.
So thank you. Yeah, Yeah, I, I'm working on
this book on moral beauty and, and the what screens do is they
(25:51):
disrupt all of our synchronization.
They're asynchronous. So if your friend doesn't
respond to your text, read online, you feel ghosted.
That's different than ordinary face to face interaction.
There's a study of Yale in conversation with people.
We become synchronized, synchronized.
We move our bodies, our brains start sort of synchronizing less
(26:13):
so when we're online, we a lot, if you just step back and you
think for a moment, here's my favorite example.
There's a new source of childhood agitation for
children, which is they're playing and they're on a play
structure and they're learning so much.
Or they're exploring a little stream or a garden and they look
(26:35):
over at their parents and their parent has the face of looking
into the phone and they get mad.The kids get mad because they're
no longer synced up with their parents, right?
So I feel, yes, we get envious when we look at Instagram.
Yes, teenagers feel anxious online.
(26:55):
But perhaps the bigger effect isthe disruption of
synchronization in our lives. It's just changed it.
We used to share music together when you and I were in college.
We'd buy an album we'd like. Come on in man, Check this out.
Yeah, you know, and listen. Yeah.
And now it's like, put it in andyou're on your own.
So it's it's real trouble. All right, let's go to #1 on the
(27:16):
list moral beauty. You know, when I tell people
this, they're like, what are youtalking about?
And, but I will say, I will say that Maria Shriver, who was
actually the very first guest onthe, on this podcast, the first
time she and I ever spent time in person, and it was, and Hoda
(27:37):
Kotbi was with us. It was the three of us down in,
in Cabo, not at, not in Baja at our MEA campus, but just down in
Cabo. And I was supposed to hang out
with him for an hour. And after about 3 or 4 hours, we
were like, Oh my God, can the three of us get married?
And, and, and I, I said to, I said to Maria, Maria, you're a
moral beauty. And she just started crying
(28:00):
like, and it was so express whatthat means.
What does moral beauty mean? Yeah, your story really hits me.
That's really nice. And crying is so interesting
because crying, there are many kinds of tears.
It's a very complicated physiological process.
And one kind of tears is, you know, what older theologians
(28:22):
wrote about the tears of grace when you feel like the divine
has touched all of you. And that probably was happening
in that moment. It's just like, you know, when I
first started the science of awe, people are like, no, what
do you mean by that? Oh, I that that happens to me
all the time. And moral beauty's like that
too, which is moral beauty, which has in scholarship, it's
(28:48):
interesting, like in the social sciences, we got really
interested in physical beauty. And then there's an aesthetics
literature. Why is a painting beautiful?
But humans are beautiful. And some of our most profound
moments in life are when we encounter the courage or
kindness or sense of justice or humility of other people.
(29:11):
And it can change our life. You know, I remember, you know,
and I remember teaching at Mia and you were there and and it
was a very poignant moment because I think it was a
December and early and me and and we were all every I was
(29:33):
talking about how my brother wassoon to pass away and he was a
person of moral beauty for me. And, you know, and then I went
and he passed away in January and being near his side and just
watching him leave this earth and then really it's sinking in
like he was a personal moral beauty to me.
(29:54):
He was fighter against the racism of that was directed his
wife, who was Asian American. He taught the poorest kids in
the Sierras how to speak, you know, and these are kids who are
getting really in trouble in life.
And my brother was right there just helping them.
And, you know, he was just the compass for me and it it changed
(30:14):
my life. And that that's moral beauty.
It's when you sent something in Maria Shriver and her commitment
to things in life, you're like, for Chip Conley, it's like what
she's doing is how I want to live my life.
Yeah. I was, I was doing this
exercise, looking at a Van Gogh painting.
And Van Gogh is, oh, Van Gogh, you know, was just ever since I
(30:37):
was 16, I'm like, I love this guy, you know, and and so does
the world. And it turns out like he, you
know, he was interested in mental struggles and he was
interested in the marginalized in life, like I have been, you
know, in my science, the the drunks and the prostitutes and
the people who struggle and really devoted the potato eaters
(31:01):
and was interested in the poor. And so moral beauty is that
emotion when you encounter someone and and they move you to
pursue what you care about in life.
And it usually it's around themes of like, you want to
practice kindness or you want togive to someone or you want to
fight for justice or you're courageous, you know, like you
(31:24):
want to help others overcome obstacles.
And and that's, you know, it's sad that our culture doesn't
immediately know what it is because it's everywhere.
And it's one of the it's a life defining moment for so many of
us that we need to bring back. One of the things you said to me
before the book came out is Chip, you know, I mean, we have
(31:47):
the nature we got, we got all eight of them, but like the
first two, we got collective effervescence and and moral
beauty and spades and, and and, you know, it's just such a
magical experience to be able tobe in a place where you feel
elevated by both the collective connection, but also the
(32:12):
witnessing, being an enlightenedwitness of people who elevate
your spirit and say, if if she can do that, I can do that.
And the circles, you know, the sharing that you have every
morning of where we are. And, you know, life has hardship
and this is where we are. And other people are feeling
(32:32):
that, you know, a physical issue, a relationship issue and
finance, whatever it is. And suddenly all this goodness
comes pouring forth. And that's moral beauty, You
know, It's just like sensing thehumanity of others.
Let's let's shift for a moment and move into midlife and and
why. Why is cultivating awe or
(32:53):
seeking moral beauty or collective effervescence
particularly important in midlife and beyond?
And and and also tell us about awe walks.
You and I have talked about thisand it, it's so cool that you
profile this in, you know, as a core principle of, you know, in
the middle of life, the happiness curve, there's a just
(33:15):
a dip, right? And you're questioning a lot of
stuff. And what that means is with the
right mindset and practice and building of life, you can change
that trajectory, right? And, and the middle of life, you
know, you, you really start wondering about the purpose of
(33:36):
it all, you know, like, why am Ihere and what am I meant to
give? And, you know, and you created
Mia and, you know, bold move and, and that's just a deep
pursuit in the middle of life. And then you also wonder, you
know, it's almost like Jane Goodall's notion.
And may she rest in peace. What a person of moral beauty,
(33:58):
right? Well, what is outside of my
pleasures and my successes that I want to give to and create?
What's bigger than me? And so you're asking those
questions in the middle of life.And awe is the pathway to that.
You know, it is the pathway to revealing the big things you
want to be part of in life. You know, and those are hard to
(34:20):
figure out in our times. You know, our times are very
individualistic. Coming out of COVID, these
political moment, this politicaltime, what are the big things
that I want to be part of? We don't turn to church like we
used to. Only 55% of Americans really
rely on church. We are more isolated.
So what is the the big thing youwant to be part of?
(34:43):
And awe does that for you, you know, and when people have their
big experiences of awe, they're like, oh, I want to work on
saving carnivores, you know, or which I just spoke to a
carnivore society and I was like, wow, this is wolves are
fascinating, you know, or I wantto I want to be part of a
chorus. And that will become my temple,
you know, or I want to help young kids and mentor them as
(35:08):
you do. And so, you know, it's it awe is
a great midlife emotion. And then, you know, the
collective effervescence, you know, when you think about 40%
of Americans who are over the age of 65 feeling lonely.
And this science says, like, sing with people, eat with
people, find some place to dance, do board games, right?
(35:31):
Cheer for football teams, whatever it is, meditate
together. That will get you to go to
farmers markets. You find it fast.
And I, I love this phrase, Chip.We'll see what you do with it.
I was speaking in Ptolemy Meadows to a bunch of Rangers
before Trump gutted our nationalparks.
(35:51):
This Ranger said she used the phrase ephemeral community.
And I was like, that's wisdom, right?
Like everywhere you go, you can find that ephemeral community
and then when people go to Mia and they have 7 days of it, that
will last, you know? And then you build with the
offerings that you have. That's what we need.
(36:13):
And so that's what we need in the middle of life is is awe and
ephemeral community and and rediscovering the moral beauty
of the people around us. If you're enjoying the
conversations we've been having on the midlife chrysalis, I have
a valuable offer for you to consider.
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(36:59):
How does someone pursue an AW walk and what's the data on that
that shows that it's good for your health?
Oh, man, and and I have a new story to tell you.
Yeah, you know, and I forgot. So you know, humans walk, we are
a meandering species. We have pilgrimages and
backpacking and, you know, urbanwalks and etcetera.
(37:24):
And and so I first did it for Mindful magazine.
They called me up and they're like, how do we practice all?
And this is, and I was like, well, we can go on all walks and
we walked through the Muir Woodsand did the looked at the
redwoods and that's an easy one,right.
And so Virginia, and it's awe inspiring, you know, and when
(37:44):
people think about awe, especially outside or in cities,
it's often walking, you know, that brings it to us.
And Rebecca Solnut wrote about walking as a special form of
consciousness. You know, it it it has a
different temporal quality to it.
And I agree. So we did an AWE walk test with
Virginia Sturm, UC San Franciscopeople who are over the age of
(38:08):
65, once a week. They went out on an all walk and
wherever they were, we just asked them to go find something
mysterious and that would fill them with a childlike sense of
wonder. And in the other condition they
just did their vigorous walk right, which is a good control
condition. And we they did this once a week
(38:30):
for 8 weeks. And over the 8 weeks are people
in their 70s and beyond, they felt that's physical distress.
You know, when you're in your 60s and 70s and beyond, your
body hurts, right? Our people felt less physical
pain. They felt kinder towards other
people. They felt less self focused.
(38:51):
And it's a great finding where they, we had them take a selfie
on their walk and in the awwa condition, the self, the picture
of the self starts to merge off the photo, you know, it's like
disappearing. And they're just more aware of
the context they're in. And the important point of the
study is they're doing this everywhere.
They're doing it in cities, they're doing it in suburbs.
(39:12):
Wasn't necessarily the redwoods,right?
It was just life. And just recently, this past
week, as in New York City for a bunch of cities of all work that
we're doing. And Bob McKinnon at the Social
Mobility Lab led his City University of New York students
on an all walk through that campus, right where you walk by
(39:35):
where Colin Powell was a collegestudent there.
And then you stand where Langston Hughes is buried and
you just feel the awe of the place.
So it's a a great thing to thinkabout.
Like as I walk, anytime you're walking where might be a little
mystery and awe for you to find and just go, go find it.
(39:57):
What's now? Walk for you, Chip.
Well now walk for me. I you know what I do is I during
COVID I would take 3 hours a day.
Three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 2 to 5, I'd
take my dog Jamie and we'd go out on what I called spying on
the divine and, and I would start the walk.
It was always a different walk. It was all over Baja.
(40:20):
There's nobody around. And so I would say at the start
of my walk in nature, what do you have to teach me today?
And you know, the key was not having air pods in, even though
I do like walking with Airpods, I will admit it because I can
listen to, you know, podcasts. But what I really wanted to tap
into is the divine and the senseof epiphanies that you can find
(40:45):
and your brain sort of seeing something.
And like, oh wow, I just had thelight bulb go up on on top of my
head because I like, there's an idea that just came out of just
seeing something being a channel, you know, And so for
me, you know, all walks, it's for me, it's easier in nature,
(41:05):
no doubt about it. But I actually what I appreciate
what you just said about thinking about who's been there
before, you know, walking through the NYU campus or
walking somewhere, being in Varanasi, you know, in India and
knowing like the history of all,of all of the people who come
there to die and, and, and, and live their last days there.
(41:28):
So yeah, awe can come in many forms.
What a good insight. So your experience with Mea and,
and, and Mia has been, you know,long standing about 8 years now.
And you have a workshop coming up in, in December called
Cultivating Awe. I mean, anything that you want
(41:49):
to share about that workshop that's beyond what we've already
shared on the podcast? It's been some of the most
gratifying teaching that I've ever done.
And, you know, this is the, you know, you challenge me and you
and I thought about this together of like, here's this
mysterious emotion. The science is really new,
although it's exploded, you know, and a lot of people are
(42:11):
talking about all right now. And person might think that this
is a rarefied, rare experience of awe.
And there are the big experiences.
You only get to see Nelson Mandela come out of prison once,
you know, or hug the Dalai Lama.But but actually, as Einstein
(42:31):
said, it's a basic state of consciousness.
It's like right there. And so the workshop is, is
really working through the wonders, exploring personally
what your narrative, your life story of awe is, you know, who
are the people of moral beauty, what music really matters to
you, etcetera. And then to you know, I, and I
(42:54):
learned this in grief with my brother, that if you really set
your mind to it, much as with practicing gratitude or
mindfulness or kindness, etcetera, you can cultivate a
lot of awe that just stays with you.
Just ways of looking at nature, ways of slowing down and
(43:15):
listening to music or visual art, ways of thinking about your
fellow human beings is how courageous most people are.
So yeah, the workshop takes veryseriously.
Like, yeah, there's a science, but let's come away with some
mental habits and some social practices, like you're spying on
(43:36):
the divine, you know? And now every day I walk to
school is awe. There's awe.
You know, it's just. And today it was a little red
fall leaf on the pavement. And I was just like, wow, you
know, look at that color. And I think it's there for us to
to build. It's a practice.
Yeah, it is definitely a practice.
OK, So last question for you, myfriend.
(43:58):
MEA does its best to help peoplesee that wisdom is something
that's available to them and that especially in the era of
AI, you know, we've been MEA hasbeen around for eight years now.
And AI was not a big thing back then.
Neither was longevity. And both of these things, AI and
longevity just sort of like skyrocketed.
And so AI is all about knowledge.
(44:19):
It's all about the, the, the premise that the world's
knowledge can, you know, fit on this little damn phone in my
pocket. But wisdom is often hard won.
It's, you know, my definition ofwisdom is metabolized experience
mindfully shared for the common good.
So you've learned some things along the way, maybe through the
(44:40):
school of Hard Knocks, if someone younger than you came to
you and and whether it's in yourpersonal life, your professional
life, any part of your life and said Dakar, I'd love to, you
know, get tea with you next week.
And what's 1 wisdom bumper sticker you you might come to
our tea with and what's the origin story for it?
(45:02):
What would what would that be? I.
Have been working on a lot of science and a new book on moral
beauty and and then I bumped into and it's interesting, you
know, a lot of the great teachers that are the DNA of
Mia, the humanism movement, EastAsian thought, you know, basic
(45:24):
human goodness. You know, you tick not hung like
we can be lost in the fearful mind and there's a lot to be
frightened of. But every moment there's
laughter and synchronization of hearts beating together and
humans trying to understand eachother and how miraculous that
is. I would put on my bumper sticker
of wisdom a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, the a leading figure
(45:49):
in the UN and the idea of universal human rights, right,
which are so vital today in in in Jeopardy, where she said, you
know, we have to open our eyes to the simple beauty of people
all around us that is so often hidden in and something that we
(46:10):
don't realize. And I think that, you know, the
online life has been an assault on our beliefs about fellow
human beings. And you know, and then you you
go to the current discourse and conspiracy theories and all the
hate. It's an era of hate.
But in reality, humans are remarkable, you know, and once I
(46:35):
was a grouchy kid, kind of cynical, you know, And then, you
know, as I started to through festivals, you know, and spirit
medicines and reading East Asianthought as a teenager.
And and then, you know, just my whole life has been a a
revelation and an awakening to the simple beauty all around us.
(46:58):
And I think that's what Mia reveals, you know, and why
people are hugging and crying that last few days, you know, is
that and we're wired to do that.We are wired to lose ourselves
in the beauty of other people. And we just need to return to
that. And so that's what I put on the
(47:19):
bumper sticker. And any last question, another
question related to that is love, you know, Saul or Shaman
down in Baja, He he, he, he's turned love into A2 syllable
word. He says love, love.
Do people ask you why is love not one of the eight?
Or is love all of the 8? I you know, I've it's
(47:40):
interesting chip and I bet you and I have a lot to talk about.
I've been really interested in agape of like.
Explain what it is so people whofor People who?
Yeah, in the Christian tradition, but it's really every
spiritual tradition. It's like loving all of life and
human beings without social distinction.
And Jesus, you know, turning to the prostitutes in the, you
(48:01):
know, the, the outcasts of society, He loved them, loving
without social distinction, justdivine love, which, you know,
the Christian gods God had and, and most people, you know, feel
that and believe in it in some realm of their experience.
And so, yeah, that that's, you know, part of collective
effervescence. You know, when you're at Burning
(48:23):
Man or you're dancing to the music you love, you're suddenly
like, I love everybody here. They're all human.
And then it's moral beauty. It's just like man loving
humanity. So love is a part of of the
wonders of life. And you and you are a wonder of
life, my friend. I can't.
Can't wait to see you too. Thank you.
I, I really look forward to seeing you hopefully over the
(48:46):
holidays or, or at some point down, down in the in Baja or in
the Bay Area. Thank you so so much.
Thank you for your work, Chip. I mean, for our audience.
Chip and I began conversations about Awe and Mia when I really
dug into the book, and I would not have profiled Collective
Effervescence without you, so weappreciate.
(49:08):
It I do remember that conversation Oh yeah.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
Decker and I have this funny relationship.
We we're just like pals wheneverwe see each other and I, we
don't see each other as much lately because I've been in
Santa Fe a little bit more, but I just really enjoy the
(49:30):
conversations we have. You know, at at times I feel a
little nervous because, you know, he's one of the, he's like
a renowned academic. He started the Greater Good
Science Center at UC Berkeley. He's he's just very, very well
respected as an academic, but he's also very accessible.
He's not one of those ivory tower academics.
(49:52):
If I were to think about 3 takeaways here, I think the
first one is like, how do we useawe and just seeking awe in our
life as a means of letting go ofthe weight of the world and
instead experiencing the wonder of the world?
We deserve that. We live in an era in which
(50:13):
there's a lot of weightiness it there's a lot of gravitas,
There's a lot of, there's a lot we are carrying and a lot of
baggage. And so to be able to let that go
and to see our way out of the ghetto of the ego so that we can
see the beauty all around us. When I died at at my NDE, that's
what the birds told me. I understood bird talk and the
(50:34):
birds were saying to me, Chip, if you slow down, you will see
beauty and awe. That is exactly what I heard and
this is what I told the, the paramedics and the nurses each
time I, I came back from my flatline experience and that
happened 9 * / 90 minutes. So awe is really, you know, a
fundamental to my life. I, I love listening for birds
(50:56):
these days, even though I don't understand birds now.
But when I was in that purgatorystate, I can understand what
birds were telling me #2 is it'sreally interesting, the science
of this and I, his book, Decker's book Awe was a
bestseller, and it's gotten a lot of attention, especially in
the MEA community. But his book Born to Be Good is
(51:18):
actually worth reading. It's a book really that gets
into the deep science of what hetalked about today and the fact
that who knew that the guy who talked about survival of the
fittest also talked about survival of the kindest?
Darwin said. As, as Decker said, sympathy is
our strongest instinct. Instinct, sympathy is our
strongest instinct. So in a time where it feels
(51:41):
like, you know, the brute, the brute bullies of the world are
taking over in whatever, you know, form that shows up in the
world, the idea that the long arc of justice may include
compassion and kindness and equanimity is reassuring.
And then I think the third thingI, I really appreciated was just
(52:03):
moral beauty and Dakar. That's the book he's working on
right now, a book on moral beauty and helping people to
know the phrase, that two word phrase moral beauty.
Use it with your friends. Talk about it.
Say that, you know, I want to bein places where I feel the
energy of moral beauty around mebecause it's actually healthy
(52:26):
for you, it's good for you. It also leads you with our
mirror neurons in our brain to actually mirror moral beauty in
other people. And so if you can do it, other
people can do it, and then you do it back and forth.
It's, it's a, it's the exchange.He talked about the giving and
receiving has the same effect inyour brain, the dopamine and
(52:49):
effect of just like, oh, that feels good.
Maybe I should go ahead and givethis back to this person.
There's a book, Adam Grant, I think it's called give and take
or givers and takers or something like that.
He interviewed me for that book and I'm I'm quoted in the book.
Another good book to to read. So you've got some good books to
read here. You've got Dakar's book, you
have his book Born to Be Good, and you have Adam Grant's book.
(53:12):
Give and take, I think, or givers and takers.
That's it. I hope you've enjoyed A little
moral beauty on this episode andlook forward to seeing you on
the next episode of The Midlife Chrysalis.
Thanks for listening to The Midlife Chrysalis.
This show is produced by MidlifeMedia.
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(53:34):
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