The Daily Stoic - Comedian Drew Michael on Optimization, Social Media Culture, and Empathy

Episode Date: May 28, 2022

Ryan talks to Drew Michael about his new stand up special Red Blue Green, the line between being artistic and being offensive, how ideology and emotional disposition are linked, and more.Drew Michael is a stand-up comedian who has long been a fixture in the New York stand-up scene. Drew has also released comedy albums (2013’s Lovely and 2016’s Funny to Death) along with a very funny Comedy Central half-hour. He spent the 2016-2017 season writing for SNL, and he appeared on an episode of The Carmichael Show. Drew also has two Netflix specials, Drew Michael (2018) and Red Blue Green (2021).Drew is not a stranger to adversity. At 3 years-old, Drew discovered he was deaf, and this had a profound impact on how he perceived the world. He dropped out of engineering school twice to pursue his career in stand-up comedy. Drew uses comedy to ask what the role of comedy should be for him personally and for the art form more broadly. His most recent specials are a revelation about how he thinks about masculinity, strength, and vulnerability in relation to his work as a comedianLinkedIn Jobs helps you find the candidates you want to talk to, faster. Every week, nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/STOIC. Terms and conditions apply.Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.InsideTracker provides you with a personalized plan to improve your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire InsideTracker store. Just go to insidetracker.com/STOIC to claim this deal.Framebridge makes it easier and more affordable than ever to frame your favorite things - without ever leaving the house. Get started today - frame your photos or send someone the perfect gift. Go to Framebridge.com and use promo code STOIC to save an additional 15% off your first order.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondering's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic.

Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time.

Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Look, the Stilx practice the art of momentum, and worry, they know that life is short and unpredictable. But that doesn't mean they're trying to die faster, right?

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Slash Stoic, you can get 20% off using that landing page. So it's funny, I remember the day exactly because the next day, our first donkey was born on my ranch here in Texas and we have two donkeys, we have buddy and sugar and so the first baby we named Booger and Booger was born in, I guess it was 2017 but I'm not saying I remember the date I'm saying I remember the exact day because the day before I'd gone into Austin and I'd had a Topic Ego at Bangers on Rainy Street with a comedian who'd reached out who at that time was a staff writer for Saturday Night Live.

And he'd read, trust me, I'm lying and he was telling me he was working on something related to it and he was going to be in Austin for performing it. I think the Moon Tower Comedy Festival and he wanted to get together and we did and he's going on to be a very successful, very funny comedian. He has a great half hour on comedy central. He did a very interesting comedy special that actually in 2018 the New York Times called, this may be the most polarized and comedy special of the year, and it's great, you can watch it, and his new special red blue green is also quite good. Drew Michael is a great comedian,

you can check out his clips on YouTube, check out the specials I was just talking about, but I wanted to watch him because I'd heard him on Marin recently, and I didn't even know this about him, I mean on Marin, he was talking about how, at three years old, the discovery was deaf and how this had a profound impact on how he perceived the world. He sort of struggled and argued with his parents

about whether he should have hearing aids. They sort of didn't pressure him. So he didn't, and it kind of created this sense of alienation or distance from the world, that downside of that being the distance in the alienation, the upside being, I think it probably created his, you know, worldview that shapes his comedy. But that's the kind of stuff we talk about in today's episode.

He's no stranger to adversity, like me. He dropped out of college to pursue what he felt like he was meant to do. And it's just a thoughtful, interesting, hilarious guy. You can go to drewmichael.com, you can follow him on Instagram at drewmichael. And check out his specials. His two comedy albums, Lovely and Funny to Death. His Comedy Central Half Hour. His special drew Michael and Red Blue Green.

And then his most recent one on HBO. Check out all of Drew's stuff and thank you to him to pop out on the podcast and and thanks for reaching out and coming out to Austin and we'll talk soon. I was trying to think even about what we talked about when we met. Well, so that would have been 2015 or so. I don't even remember when that was in Austin. In Austin, yeah, I think I've seen you twice. I once was in, uh, is in Austin and then once was in New York. Yeah, we went to, we did like a thing at Soho House or something after one of my book launches, right?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. I don't know what we's like an awesome thing. You exposed me to Topo Chico. I had my first and only Topo Chico with you. Well, you know, so much has changed in the sparkling water game since then. Now, sort of everything is sparkling water and everyone has their own.

I still, I just had a Topo Chico myself. It's, I would say it's my favorite, but now there's some that are of rain water, you know, whatever. It's actually a good illustration, like in our lifetime of how marketing just creates made up shit that then makes people want it. Do you know what I mean?

Like, you watch how you have to distinguish yourself from, okay, regular water and then sparkling water and then how inside the sparkling water market do I make up things that people want. It's going to be in this bottle, it's going to be a glass, it's going to have this kind of, you know, you watch a, you watch a get manufactured in front of you. Yeah, you know what's interesting, what I find interesting is how, almost like back, like it goes back to the,

almost like, you know, when people had a craft or whatever, but like the way that people look at the world sometimes is influenced by like their training or where they come from or whatever else. Like, you know, obviously you have an extensive background in marketing and advertising. And so you're gonna see the gears of that churning probably first or among first.

And it reminds me, I got a manicure and the person like, you know, working on my hands, she asked me, she's like, you're a writer or a musician. And I was like, oh, right, like she, that's how, like, she's completely right because she was like, it's all for the reason. Yeah, yeah, based on my hands, that's how she was sort of like seeing people

and seeing the world. I just think it's fascinating how people's backgrounds and people's trades even can dictate how they see things. You know that's totally right. You develop a point of view or frame of reference early in life and then professionally you cultivate that thing. So a comedian is always going to be someone who has a certain amount of perception, a certain knack for finding what's funny, and then as you understand how the market works and how the actual act of performing on stage works, you start to get like confirmation bias to your benefit.

Like you see the things that you can use because you know you now have a need for those things. So interesting, you think there's a heightened awareness, two things that would be beneficial to notice. Yeah, of course. It's like when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but it like to your benefit. Right.

You're able to perceive things that you can use. Like I read, when I read books, I read for pleasure. Obviously, I read to learn, but then I also have this eye, which I cultivated as a research assistant, but now knowing what goes into a book, I'm like, that is a story that I can use. So, like, I have, and you have, I imagine, like, let's say a musician, like they're fucking

around on the guitar, they're gonna, there's gonna be some like light that goes off in their head when they hear three or four notes together that they're like, oh, that is the genesis of a song right there. Sure, sure. I think, but sometimes though, some of that recognition is done way, way, way later. Like, you know, it won't be until sometimes months or years after the fact, sometimes where I'm pulling, I'm writing about something, I'm thinking about something.

And then a certain reference or a certain, you know, analogy or certain parable comes to mind and you start to realize how appropriate that is. Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know what I'm trying to argue necessarily, but I guess... Well, I find that. So when I read, I'm always like, oh, I like this, I like this, I like this, I just collect it.

And then once I know what I want, then I'm like, okay, I like this, I like this, I like this, I just collect it. And then once I know what I want, like, then I'm like, okay, I'm writing a book about X. I go back through everything I find. And I found stuff that works for that idea that I collected before I knew I was looking for that thing. Right. So it's all loading around. Like if your specials around the theme theme you probably think back to jokes that were throwaways like from three years ago that suddenly work for that theme and so you didn't know you were cute you were you were inching your way towards there but you sort of subconsciously work.

Yeah, I think I think that's definitely true and but I also think that like. true. But I also think that there is sometimes it maybe works the other way where the things that have worked or would work are the kinds of subjects or perspectives or idiosyncrasies that you can observe, the things that would work maybe, I guess I'm in a place now where I think I'm finding like the things that I'm noticing are actually sort of contradictory to the types of things that maybe like the aggregator would want in my mind. And so it creates this sort of upending

and maybe that's growth, and maybe that is challenging my own frame of reference. But it's like, sometimes the things that I find myself noticing or reacting to or relating to or being moved towards are things that somewhat or sometimes completely contradict or negate or challenge the precepts that kind of maybe would facilitate what I was used to doing. And so I think that, you know, again, I don't know if that's like artistic growth, if

that's an inherent limitation of comedy, like maybe like the idea that something has to end in a punchline is inherently limiting. Like if you were writing a book and you're like every sentence or every paragraph has to come back around or generate this visual or logical clash that is required for comedy to emerge, then you would be, you know, both hands tied at a hundred back where it's just like, you can't, you can't really get to what you're trying to get to if everything has to be stuck in this one thing.

And so as somebody who, I think, you know, I think I got into comedy, not necessarily to make people laugh or to even be the funniest, but because, you know, I had certain things that I thought about and wanted to talk about it and explore I think for a while there was a way to do that You know on the basis of comedy, but I think like as time goes on that just feels more and more and more limiting and the things that I find myself

Recognizing and the things that the patterns that I see in the world and the things that I deduce as true are not necessarily You know congruent to joke structure or whatever else. I think sometimes they sometimes completely defy joke structure. Well, I think it's probably short term maladaptive, right? Because if you're a character, instead of being a person, you're a comedian character who only looks for the world in terms of redneck jokes or this kind of joke or whatever, then to have the opposite of tunnel vision is maladaptive,

because you're sort of going through, and instead of seeing just what you can use, you're seeing all sorts of stuff. But it is much more intellectually honest and more likely to allow for long-term growth, long-term connection. And probably I think ultimately a more diverse audience, right? Because like, like, for instance, with stoicism, I was initially interested in its impact on sort of personal development, personal growth, you know, like productivity and, you know, like, what, how would help you as an individual? But increasingly,

I've been much more interested in what the philosophy sort of offers and demands, sort of ethically, collectively, politically, et cetera. Now, the irony is this is coming at exactly the time that the audience is biggest, and the audience has grown primarily because people are interested in productivity and resiliency and all the personal stuff. So it's this clash where like you know if you were just delivering straight down the middle stuff,

it would be better for you in the short term, but it would also be, I think, creatively bankrupt and then in some ways morally bankrupt. But also, I think, have a shorter shelf life because it is artificially constrained and you would also burn out with it faster. Right. Well, I think we you're talking about, and for, forgive me if I'm misinterpreting, but like it's sort of, I think it's similar. I think we're similar in the sense that trying to align the professional and personal pursuits so that they are

not necessarily at odds with one another. You know, I mean, I guess there's like an inherent, you know, static when it comes to pursuing truth or pursuing, in your case, a very specific discipline of truth or study of it. And then obviously with the necessities of commercialization and monetization and stuff like that, It's funny. I don't know if you How much of my world you catch window, but it kind of in the vein of you know The the the class of stoicism or comedy and you know the kind of marketplace

I and I don't know if he is doing this with a wink. I don't think he is but Chris rock has a new tour that he's going on. And the name of it is called Ego Death. And so his poster says Ego Death, World Tour. And to me, it's just like, I don't, like, that's too ironic and too hilarious to not be a joke, but I don't think it is a joke. Like, I think it is earnestly saying, like, ego death, and then, but it is the world tour. And it's just like, ego death, world tour, to me, is the funniest. That's like a David Foster Wallace thing.

Like that's not supposed to happen. That's supposed to be, you know, what the past viewed as like the sort of parody or satirical outcome of this modality. And, you know, it's like Zen Buddhism the ride. It's like, yeah, it's just not. Well, I was thinking about that the other day. I was actually I was playing with my kids and I was laying down upstairs. We have this game room and like we have some posters from my books. Like, you know, like when you do a book signing,

they give you like a big cut out of the thing and I was like, Hey, can I have that? They're like, we're just going to throw it away. So I have it on the wall. And I noticed it caught me that on my first book, to like where I am now, my name has gotten bigger on. Right, right. Win right in the middle, one of those books is Ego is the enemy. And then I was like, well, is that symbolic? And then I was like, but actually also, it's a market thing, right?

Because like when I published zero books, the thing that mattered was the title of the book. Like, is the title of this book interesting? Right. And that's like it's me. Yeah, after I'd sold more books, now it's attention between, is the title drawing the reader,

or is the fact that I also have fans who exist in the world and they would be more like, are they going to be interested in a book on stillness, like thinking about the overlapping diagrams, is a book called Stillness is the key going to sell, like attract the audience, sell better. Stillness is the key, of author, you have to zoom in to see, or is it going to be, oh, I've liked previous books from this person. And I want to, so it's this weird tension, right? And actually my publisher on Ego is the enemy.

They were like, what if we did this thing where, like, sort of an artistic statement, your name wasn't on the cover. And I was like, well, first of all, it kind of sucks because I wrote it, right? Like, I, I, the painter should sign their work. It's not an egotistical thing. It's just like, own, own your shit. But also, like, is that better? Like, which is a better business decision, right? Like, at, brass, not even business. What is a better getting people to read a book, not even business, what is a better getting people to read a book which instinctually they don't want to read? And so you have that tension of like because it's a capitalistic commercial thing, it's

not just what makes sense artistically or philosophically, it's also like what will work to deliver the medicine. Right, right. The logical extension of your name getting bigger is like the book tour becomes like an arena show with Pyro Technics. It's like, you know, like everyone needs to learn stillness and just like, you know, like a fighter jet flying on my head. And just like, I'm just cheering and they have foam fingers of you and like pictures of

your face on their t-shirt. And like, we love you. And you're like, of your face on their t-shirt and like we love you and you're like I'm just preaching. You know what I mean? So to me I mean that's obviously like the hyperbolic crazy satirical extreme of this idea of you know a philosophy or a set of ideas that are somewhat not compatible with the sort of like capitalistic enterprise but then having to exist inside of a capitalist landscape. It's like, I think the tension is going to be inherent. I don't think there is, it will play out

in different microcosmic ways, where it's like the name versus the title, and yeah, it would be a statement to be. But then, even the publisher is like, there's so many layers that were trying to trick ourselves into thinking we're absorbing actual truth, but it's really just a better version of a commercial. And it's like the idea would be like, oh, you published this book that has no author. And that's the thing. And then like, oh, secretly, it's this guy who you know. And it's like, so it is like this sort of like constant trying to one up the marketing

aspect of it. And something you see now, I mean on social media is that, you know, the people are so inherently brand conscious. And but like, but the, but the, you know, with, you know, with performers and with authors and artists and creators or whatever they want to call them, like the day are the product, they are also the marketing brand. Like they are the logo and the product and the team and everything. And so, you know, the delineation of like, you know, like we've gotten rid of ads. It's like, we didn't. It's just the people just do them themselves.

So it's like if you were watching like a, you know, a Simpsons episode back in the day, it would be like, if in the middle of the episode, Mars just started talking about like tide pods and you were like, what is going on? But that is now, that's just what we, you know, I was thinking about this with your last special, not the most recent one, which I also really liked,

but your decision to not have an audience, right? Like, is that an ego death decision? Decision is that an artistically brave decision? And so there's all of that. And then there's just like, well, now I'm watching it and it's different and it's not what I expect. And because it's different and not what I expect, I don't know how to interpret it.

There's all these, like, you realize, I was talking to Chuck Klosterman about this too. There's all these sort of constraints or it's tropes the wrong word, but like standard practices, like in a medium, whether it's a book or a blog post or video or whatever. If you push too far on the edges, it might be artistically daring, but then people are like, this makes me uncomfortable because it's different. And now I can't enjoy the thing, the way that I might ordinarily do. It's like you realize like the audience is not just there for vanity, but the audience is also there to prime people, which feels artificial,

but then without the artificial, it doesn't feel as, you know, like, it's weird how these things you take them for granted, but the architecture of them is actually really important. Yeah, well, but they also, I think, deserve to be challenged. I mean, like, of course, on an artistic level, and I think like, there isn't difference, and maybe it's subjective determination, but like And I think there is a difference, and maybe it's a subjective determination, but I think there is a difference between pushing the, I don't wanna say pushing the envelope, because that sounds cliche,

but challenging some preconceived notion of what is and what should be on an artistic basis. Let's see, let's experiment with play with this form in a way that people have, and in a way that maybe seems suitable to this actual thing, not just as a gimmick. And I think like that there's a big difference between that and then being a reactionary, who is, you know,

essentially taking like what is currently in the zeitgeist, what the discourse is and then trying to essentially become so outrageous or so noticeable by their hot take or reaction or you know like that's kind of in the somewhere in like the podcast land and also you could probably say Trump was probably a big you know inadvertent proponent of that philosophy. And it's just like, I think like they're both driven by the same thing, which is a desire to stand out, I think. But I think there is a difference between somebody doing something artistically radical

or versus somebody saying something that's so incendiary and so like inflammatory that it like becomes a thing that people can't ignore. Obviously, the Stokes Day time is zipping by, it's passing by, and we can't hold on to it. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. But there is something I think to be said about preservation of memories. This is why the Stoics had buss and portraits and different forms of art. But as we think about Father's Day coming up, that's I think a thing you try to do for your parents, the thing you want people to do for you as a parent, you want to preserve and capture these memories.

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And the tricky part is they both often get the same reaction. So it's hard to know. Like, if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're like, oh, well, I have riled people up. I am being denounced. Therefore, I must have succeeded. And it's like, no, you just like pulled your pants down in the middle of a room.

This is like, that's not being artistically created. You just did something that's like wildly inappropriate and unwanted. That's not the same as sort of coming up in some, you know, interesting artistic statement. Yeah, and I think, that's exactly right. I think like people have sort of co-opted the reactions that previously radical things or progressive voices or, I'm saying progressive, not in like the political sense,

but in like the new, challenging, yeah, challenging something that the status quo or something that currently existed. And yeah, that was obviously gonna be met with a lot of, pushback and offence and death threats and whatever, Lenny Bruce was arrested and Malcolm X was killed. You're going to get that sort of hostility and so it's just essentially isolating the hostility component

and saying, and reverse engineering it through whatever means necessary in order to generate hostility and then essentially rebranding that as, I am like these people. I'm just so, you know, challenging to these people can't handle me. And that's an incredibly, incredibly captivating thing to watch, just inherently. Like, just people, like if you saw a bus fight,

if you saw one person being the worst and a hundred people trying to like fight them on a bus, you watch. It's like, that's un, I can't take my eyes off of that. And so, you know, and then some people would start really getting invested in the one person being like, oh, yeah, I will see myself in that dude. And like, now I will subscribe. I want him here more. And I want this person to be my avatar in this sort of public sphere. And I think that that is somewhat, it's obviously created a pretty dangerous landscape

where it's just like self-promotion, trumps everything. It's like, well, it's working. That's like, I'm selling out. It's like, yeah, but... And to me, like, and that's to not to get too into the weeds on the Trump thing, but like, to me, Trump just kind of ended the idea that like selling tickets is the ultimate barometer. It's like, yeah, you can do this.

Like, and he, I think he does it exceptionally well. You know, I think he is like a talent, he is talented at what he's doing in his own way. But it's just like, what is this though? Like, is this cool? I guess it's cool in the sense that you are taking on a lot of people. And some of those people do suck. But just because someone sucks and thinks you suck doesn't make you awesome Yes, well, I actually JD Vance said this in

one of the interviews he's doing is running for Senate in Ohio Previously seemed like what was a thoughtful reasonable human being and then it sort of revealed himself to be a total piece of shit but you know,. But he was like, they're hated by the right people. He was like, I like this person because they're hated by the right people. Or that they hate the right people. And so it becomes this idea of like,

like, look, are you, this is kind of what my first book was about, which is like, are you optimizing for like, doing cool stuff or saying stuff that's true or like questioning things that needs to be questioned or are you optimizing for the reaction? Right? Are you optimizing for getting the people that you don't like

to not like what you're doing? Right? And I think a lot of people in comedy, in art, influencers, in politics, et cetera, had just said like, they've just dispensed with everything and said like, who do we want to piss off? This is where they call this like owning the lives. Like, if all I want to do is own the lives

or get this group of people to disproportionately freak out, it really doesn't matter what I do, what I say, what I care, all that matters is am I getting that reaction? I have to imagine as a comic, you sort of distinguish between earning a laugh and then doing something that gets a laugh, like to an ordinary person, those might seem like the same thing, but there's an honest way to do it and a dishonest way to do it, and there is a difference.

Yeah. No, for sure. And you made me think, it was just real quick. When you say your first book, is that trust me? I'm lying. I'm just saying something. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was how I was introduced to you is I think I saw an article you wrote about the alt right. I wrote the playbook that they're using. It was inadvertent, obviously. And so that got me to read the book. And there are two books that I think I've sent to people. The most one is Ant-kind by Charlie Kaufman. And another is Trust Me I'm Lying by You.

And the reason is because it feels almost like the update version. Obviously, it's a little bit more about blogosphere, which is maybe early 2010s than it is this hyper-society thing that is current. But I think so many of the principles still apply, but it feels like an update from this Edward Bernays outline of the sort of public relations industry in the 20th century. And so this felt like that distilled down to the elements that are relevant to new technology. And one of the things that I always quote from the book, I don't know if I quote it correctly, so apologies.

But like, just the idea of the emotional balance of something being the determining factor of how quickly it spreads or how rapidly or how much it proliferates, and just this idea that outrage and anger spreads, I think it was something in a three to one clip of even the most beautiful happiness kind of feelings. And so it just makes sense that the algorithmic outcome of that is going to be the people are going to lean into the incentives of something spreading a lot. And so of course, I don't think it's even scheming billionaire people. I think it's literally just robotic human manipulation. That's a very good thing.

We're just selects for crazy people who's own barometer. We've all met people who are like, they stir up craziness. They go towards craziness. And so, this is their moment. Do you know what I mean? Trump is in his late 70s, right? Like he's always been this way and then culture aligned with his personality perfectly, right?

And so I think it's like a normal person isn't like I would love to be on a reality show on E. That's like, that's my scene. You know what I mean? But there is a kind of person who is perfectly designed for that crazy environment, right? And like, so it selects for those people, they may not even know they're doing it. That's just who they are.

And suddenly, they're getting all the attention and love that they've always craved and not even known. Yeah, it's like the warlord concept, where it's like, if it's a war-torn, you know, crazy, lawless country or area or region, then only the most ruthless and vicious person or group is going to survive that and emerge victorious. So they'll essentially just be elevated by the circumstance. And there might be other people like that who just don't quite,

you know, whatever. But it's going to, like you said, self-select for that. I think that's what we're seeing now is like, it is self-selecting for the people who can present, like, you know, yeah, the stuff that gets people, yeah, gets people engaged as they say, and it doesn't matter. There's no z-access to engagement is the problem.

Like there's like clicks and like time, but there's no like intensity or feeling, or you know, there's no like, because sometimes something will have like 100 million views or something and it's like, yeah, but did people connect to it? Or was it just kind of passively seen? You know, like, so there's no, there's no way to really quantify that. I don't know if you know if it should be quantified.

It's maybe slightly dystopian of like, I want to quantify like the level of attachment I feel for a piece of art. It's like, I don't know. I don't know if you said this in the special or if you were just talking about an interview, but you got rid of social, right? You don't use social anymore. How has that changed your life? I use social. I don't use Twitter. I don't use Facebook. I have an Instagram. But I would say I use it sparingly, you know. And I have my brother helps me with some of the social stuff. And so like I have him, like, he'll just upload videos for me into the algorithm just to kind of get them through there.

But I'm not engagement, but Twitter I deleted, like deleted my account at the beginning of the pandemic. So sometime in 2020, and Facebook I had deleted maybe like four years prior to that, three or four years prior to that. And so, but I do think Instagram is like as vapid and whatever it is, I think it's probably the least toxic of the three.

Weirdly yes, because you can use it, it's not entirely comment based, right? Like the content is the thing. So you can look at the pictures and be like, I'm just not gonna go down the rabbit hole of these toxic comments, but you can engage in the platform. It's like YouTube, YouTube is the worst community,

but is the social network you can use without breaking your brain as much, because you can just watch the stuff. Yeah, I think that's, I think Twitter probably is the worst because comments can become content and that's like where it starts to go crazy. What is a comment? You can, the tweet is a comment, right?

Exactly, exactly. Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're commenting to some thing that's either explicitly or implicitly, you know, present. And Twitter felt like, like Instagram feels like it, the least cruel. Yes. Like there's the least space for cruelty on Instagram. I mean, obviously people get hate and all that kind of stuff, but like Twitter almost feels designed around that

where it's like you, like the tone of it like the inherent tone is you know putting something down or calling something stupid and I just feel like that you know obviously that's at the core of it so on the fringes of that you're going to get like like doxing and you know rape threats and shit where it's just like horrendous horrendous stuff and you know I'm not I don't think I'm one of these people who's like, ah, I can't take a little internet comment. It's like, it's fucking crazy.

Like, when that is, like that barrage is coming at you, it's like, not chill. And it's not like, just the idea of people not liking your work. Like, that's hard enough, but it's just like, this is, I don't know if you're like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm Like, but if you're like in earnest, you know, you have a fucking your profile picture is you and like whatever jersey of whatever team you like and you're like have like your son like this and then you like go in and

you're like, yeah, I'm gonna tell this person that he should kill himself. It's like, I don't know, like I truly can't identify it with that. Like I can identify with rage or whatever, but like to actually in, to actually type it, to actually hit send, and then sit back and be like, yeah, I fucking did something. And so that, but then also, if I were the type of person who was inspiring, who was inspiring that type of behavior on my behalf, I would seriously rethink everything that I was saying to the public. It's like, what am I doing?

You know, if you're consistently dating someone psychotic, it's like, what are you doing? What are you putting out there? If everyone you meet an asshole, you're an asshole also. That's how that works. Yeah, 100%. And so I don't know how someone can not self-reflect at that point and be like, yeah, you know, my fans, they threaten to kill your mom. That's just, they're a rare bunches.

It's like, what are you inspiring here? Like, it's like Joker Bane shit. No, I remember I read this article that was like, it was actually really funny. It was looking at like who uses the share buttons on U-Porn, because like each video has like a share. Just like YouTube, you can share it. And they were like, who posts pornography

that they're LinkedIn account, which was like one of the options. That's as inexplicable to me as the people who use social media to attack people that they don't. I just, I know it exists, I'm aware that it exists, but it's so incomprehensible to me that it may as well not exist because I don't understand it at that level.

Yeah, it's so absurd. It's like who would do this and it's like, well apparently. Millions of people. That's the crazy part. It's like, well, apparently. Millions of people. Like that's the crazy part. It's like, who would do this? Millions of people. Yeah, I mean, maybe like, you share it. I don't, I couldn't, yeah, I, yeah, I, I don't know how,

I don't know what it would take for me to be like, even to like a friend, like this is so good. I thought you would make this inconceivable. It's inconceivable. But people do it or is there those bots like people actually, I don't know, I don't know, it's inconceivable. Maybe it is probably to like to tumble or something because tumble has like all those porn-esque, it's things. You know, you try to be empathetic.

You try to go like, why do people do what they do? This is like a philosophical principle, right? Like, what, get inside their brain and why is it working? And you're just like, I can't. It doesn't make any sense. I'm trying it. I'm trying it and now even less sympathetic because it's so,

right? No, it's so right. Right, right, right. Because before I was like, oh, if I only just put myself in their shoes, I would maybe have a chance of bridging the gap. But then you do it and you're like, yeah, it's even more alien and I actually think I hate it more now because I'll give you a crazy one that I was thinking about. Okay, so like I live in this small town outside Austin and we try to be a good participant in the communities.

It's like all of a sudden there's just little things that you're asked to do, that you're not asked to do if you live in New York. They're like, hey, can we put up this sign for our fundraiser in the window of your store? And I'm like, shit, I have to think to have a policy about this. Anyways, they came by, I guess a police officer in town was like shot and injured in the line of duty, right?

My dad is a police officer. That's terrible. I don't like that But the poster they wanted me to hang up was a raffle for an assault rifle for his benefit for an assault rifle for his benefit. So they were coming in, they're like, hey, we're giving away effectively a machine gun to raise money because a police officer was injured in a shooting area. And so you're like, look, these are decent people, they mean well clearly they're trying to help

this injured person and you go, maybe if I just thought about it from their point of view, I would be more, and then I was thinking about it. And I'm like, this is the most insane thing that I've, like, I'm so much less sympathetic having thought about it because it's maybe clear to me that they didn't think about it at all. Like because if they thought about it, there's really only one conclusion. It's not, it's worse than ironic.

It's obscene. Do you know what I mean? It's like than ironic. It's obscene. Do you know what I mean? It's like, right, it's obscene. Right, right. It's like, you know, one of the neighbors, kids has leukemia and we're trying to raise money for his hospital bills. And so we're going to have Mendingo fights.

It's a race money. It's like, can I just put it like a couple bucks and like a good Kickstarter? So like, why are we doing? Yeah, like why are we doing? Well, that's our solution to this problem is to contribute significantly to the problem. That's what we want to do.

What are you talking about? Yeah, like it, right, it's, um, but then it becomes like, and this is maybe the next layer of that, um, I don't know, I don't even know if that's what they were called. I was put that reference from Django and yeah, I think everyone gets the context of it. But then it's like, I don't want to do that. And then it's like, oh, you hate whatever the thing that they're raising money for. It's like, no, I hate how you're doing it. I totally, like, yeah.

And honestly, like, if you're doing it that way, it makes me, like, who else is going? Yeah. The juxtaposition is horrible. Like, what are you talking about? Well, actually, I was thinking about this. It's actually, there's a good segue to something we talk about in this special, I'm pretty sure, where you're talking about, or maybe it was before,

you're talking about, you read the Unibomber manifesto and you're like, I get it, like, I get what he's talking about. Like, the weird part is you study history and it gets really complicated really quickly. And then, like, if you're kind of stuck there, you're like, well, what about this? What about this? Hey, the state's rights was a part of the Civil War, right? And then, and then you think about it some more, and it gets simple again, because you're like, wait, what did they want the state's rights for?

Oh, yeah, slavery, right? So, like, the paradox of, like, it's like, you don't think about it, you think about it, then you really think about it, these can get you to kind of similar places. And so I think some people are just like, whatever, who cares? Right, well yeah, exactly. And the context of that bit was basically like, I don't, I don't want to read anymore because I mean, I'm really interested in just just teaches me or exposes me to an idea that's essentially incompatible with everyday life. And it's like, because inherently, like inherently, you find something

that's truly like, you know, it breaks ground in your mind and it feels like new, it's going to at least partially run counter to everything. And so, you know, it just like, there is a social adaptability factor that I think sometimes knowing a lot and being really in depth in knowledge, not that I am that person, but just even on a small level. And so yeah, the the Univomor manifesto, which like outside of, it's just funny, like outside of the killing, which isn't when you talk about in the manifesto, I mean, there's like some maybe like latent sexism and stuff like that. And so it's, but like in terms of principles, his like, is not as a 20-year-old man.

He's a genius. Yeah, he's a genius. Like, he's not, you know, he spent seven years, whatever, in a cabbage reading about sociology of living and the fucking, you know, wilderness. And like, he was literally like, you know, Abe Simpson, where his like old man yells at a cloud, like, that was literally like, you know, Abe Simpson, where he's like, old man, yells at a cloud, like that was literally him. He was yelling at airplanes as they would,

you know, say, would fly overhead. And, but he's a, he's a le day, you know, and he talks about, you know, like the, the corruption of, of this essentially modernized, uh, you know, um, tech society on human psychology. And I don't think that's like that controversial necessarily. that, you know, text society on human psychology. And I don't think that's like that controversial necessarily. I think it's like, yeah, but I mean, his, you know, some people are like, yeah,

so the best way to deal with that is to like, stop doing all this tear it down and start, you know, in like a sort of pseudo agrarian, commune thing. And it's like, right, that might not even be wrong, but like, that's also just impractical. Like we're not gonna... Nobody's gonna be on more for that. Nobody is gonna be like, yeah, let's just tear this all to pieces. When Daily Stoke started, it was basically just me and I was doing all the roles, but as

we've gotten bigger and more successful, we've had to grow into a team. And I'm trying to grow that team, actually a chapter of my new book is all about the power of delegation. That if you can't effectively delegate tasks, you can't scale. If you can't bring on talented people, you're never going to have the impact that you're capable of having. And so Daily Stoke has now grown to a whole team. There's a Daily Dad team. There's a team that works on my books. The point is, all of this is driven driven not just by the ability to delegate, but by the awesome people

you bring on to delegate to be a part of that team. And nothing has helped us bring on new people, quite like LinkedIn jobs. When we're looking to bring someone new to the team, the first place we go to is LinkedIn Jobs. You can create a free job post in minutes on LinkedIn Jobs to reach your network and beyond on the world's largest professional network of over 110 million people. You can post your job for free at LinkedIn.com.slajstok. That's LinkedIn.com.slajstok. Post your job for free terms and conditions apply. When also, when you study history and you're like, oh yeah, they tried that in the Great Leap Forward and they tried it in Russia.

And it was horribly awful for just different reasons. You know, like, anyways, I remember, you know that expression, like those who don't study history are deemed to repeat it, right? And like I saw a meme that I think about all the time and it's like, actually that's not true.

Those who study history are doomed to watch in terror as leaders repeat it, right? So it's like, like there is this paradox of knowledge. Like if you've studied history, if you have a sense of like how things have gone historically, it doesn't matter, like sure, if you're the president, it's good to have studied history. But for the rest of us, it just means like you know where the roller coaster is going and you're strapped in and you just have to sit there in impotent terror knowing this

is going to be really awful. Yeah, right. You could identify immediately what this, you know, what analogy this evokes and be like, oh, that's going to be bad. And then continue to just have nothing to do about it, right? Like, that, yeah, well, that speaks to like a general sense of like powerlessness in a, you know, in a society with so much inertia that has nothing to do with you. And a friend of mine made a point, and maybe it wasn't his point, but it was just like, the things that really, like if you're talking about fundamental momentum of society, like the things that can really upend that, like truly, it's really just technology or maybe bio-cantles disease or environment.

And it's like, you're, you know, no protest has ever really shifted like the bigger tectonics of things. And that's not to say that they're futile. I mean, obviously, like, you know, there are societies existing on top of these bigger plates of sociology or whatever. But if you're protesting something bigger, or at least is a byproduct of something much bigger, it sucks. I'm not nihilistic at all. I don't think that like, it doesn't nothing you do matter. I don't believe any of that.

But it's also like, I don't know what to do. I mean like, because right, educating yourself seems to be just making yourself furious and how not right things are going. And then you know like, you know like how granularly how not right it is. It's just like, oh, I used to all think it was like fucked up and now I could write like a dissertation on why it's fucked up.

But it doesn't necessarily, I don't know. I don't, it gets hairy because it's like, I don't wanna say like, oh fuck it, cause then that's worse and so. Well, it it gets hairy because it's like, I don't want to say like, oh, fuck it, because then that's worse. And so. Well, it's funny. Like we talk about, like, you know, we have the, the children's story, like chicken little. It's like, this guy's fun. This guy's falling and no one believes you.

But like the ancients had the myth of Cassandra, like the person who can see the future and lays out exactly what's going to happen. Just nobody listens. And so the, the, the, the idea, like, you idea, we're like, oh, this is so unprecedented, like whatever we're going through it now. It's like, this is very precedent. This has happened like a thousand times. And this is exactly more or less how it's going to go.

That's not to say we're powerless to do anything about it. In fact, there's a lot we can do about it. It's just also understanding we're not going to do anything about it. In fact, there's a lot we can do about it. It's just also understanding, we're not gonna do anything about it. And that's kind of, that's where you get into the nihilism. You're like, here, like it's like watching what's gonna happen politically. It's like, is a Trump reelection inevitable?

Like, not in any sense that like, he's super competent and is unstoppable in that sense, but is it likely that the people who can and should stop him will get their act together anytime soon? No, because you know this through their credit. Who could, like, who, who, here's the, here's my question. It's like, he has the biggest, he's the most popular. Like, he has the biggest, like, when he was president, I think, I think he was the most famous person

to have ever lived at the time of their life. I think currently, you probably say that even right now. Even now, yeah, but everything was going through that guy. I mean, obviously, you have historical figures who are more famous, but not at the time of their life. I think Trump is at least up there. And so you go back historically, like you take Alexander the Great,

like let's say everyone knew who he was, but how many people could hear directly from Alexander the Great, or knew what Alexander the Great looked like, right? Like thought, right? Yeah, exactly. It was crazy. But I mean, he has been stopped once.

I mean, he did lose an election. Yeah, but he didn't lose to anyone. He just lost to not him. That's what, but so I'm saying it's not actually possible. I didn't mean it was actually not Trump won. Right. No, no, it's just, but you could, Trump is so loaded, you could insert anything. It's like, you know, is disaster from climate change

inevitable, not in the sense that there's nothing human beings can do about it, but is it likely that human beings will do anything about it? Like, there were lots of things we could have done, and you can look at other countries that did things differently. Obviously, we're all in the same boat, and that nobody perfectly stopped it. But it's like, human beings have the agency and the ability

to bend the arc of history. It's just most of the time they don't. And that's what lends one to nihilism, because you're just sort of like, yeah, I guess it can change, but it won't, so might as well. Well, yeah, and I've tried to, and maybe this is like a privileged position or something, but I've tried to localize my efforts. And I don't mean even in even in the community sense.

I mean, like on the individual basis, like, you know, because I think that there is something to be said for, you know, being highly involved in big abstract, complex topics. And then at the same time, you know, your personal relationships or your relationship with yourself is dysfunctional. I think that like that's actually like you're doing more, you're most of your impact is done on like the interpersonal level.

Just like unless you're, you know, one of a hundred people, you know, unless you're Elon Musk or whatever, like I think you and I, even as people who speak to the public, whatever, like I think the relationship that you have with yourself and with the people closest to you, that's going to echo out in your communication. And so it's like, that seems to be the of the utmost importance is to maximize and you know, and find harmony in that. I'm sure I'm talking to someone who preaches on something

adjacent to that. And so I have found some solace in the sense of like, these are problems that I can solve. Like I have my own personal issues that I need to work through that doesn't negate the need for bigger changes and all of that. But I think it's similar to you're on an airplane, put your auction mask on before helping the person next to you. It's like, I really have no good to anyone

if I'm just like this ball of of you know Unbridled anger or frustration, but that that sometimes is triggered by like the state of the world But I think a lot of that is also internal for me at least. I mean obviously like you know if I'm growing if I'm If I'm black living in America for example like I would imagine like the anger that's Mine is put upon me in a way that I don't think necessarily, I obviously can't relate to that component of it, but there are, you know, everyone has their own external and internal factors,

and I think like trying to manage those and then spread that out to the relationships that you have with people seems to be a way to move. Yeah, I was reading this piece that this woman, she found out like later in life that her father, who was like a doctor, but kind of worked for the government, his sort of secret job was that he was tasked

with like preparing a plan, slash protections for the president in case Washington DC was struck with nuclear weapons. So he had all this, here's where the president's gonna go, here's the medical care, he's gonna get blah, blah, blah. But that like, there was obviously no stipulations for like this random guy's family, right? So she was reflecting on what it must have been like for her father to plan for like a sort of end of the world scenario that he was

power, he was, he had professionally an obligation here, but personally would have to also consider would be the end of everything and everyone that he cared about. And so how did he like just go through her life? Like how did he just every day live with that? And she was sort of reflecting on that during the pandemic. She's like, well, you know, it's similar. Like what do I do? She's like, I don't know, you make sandwiches. You drive kids to school.

Like you just live your life. I thought it was a sort of beautiful and then also kind of like a bittersweet idea of just like, what do you do? You just try to be a good person and do the little things that are in your control for the people that you care about. And it's not that you just like hope for the best.

It says like you don't even think about that because there's nothing you can do about it. It just is. And it's always been there. Do you know what I mean? Like it's not like, like we'd like to think of the past as like as whatever, but it's like you think the Romans weren't walking around knowing the city could get sacked and they would all get murdered in an instant. Like the threat of

existential destruction has always existed. It's not new. Right. I think there is, right, so one of two things is true. Either we are acutely under that threat right now, or the most self-conscious generation is living in the world where everyone has, throughout history, constantly thought the world was going to end. But for us, but it's's gonna happen to us though. It's like, but we're the ones who it's definitely gonna happen to. And so, that's not me negating any sort of scientific understanding of where things are in the world right now, but something like that is too big for me to like, fully come down

on one side or another. I'm just like, yeah, I don't, I mean, my argument for changing the way we behave by climate change is like, even if you don't believe in climate change, it's still nice to have a nice clean earth. Right. Like, not doing my dishes isn't gonna end the world, but I do them. Like, I don't want dirty dishes in my sink. It's gross.

It's like, not. So it's like, yeah, maybe don't pump smoke into the, like it's bad. Like you don't want to breathe smoke. You don't want to like toxic sludge in the water. You don't want, you know, species to be getting slaughter. It's just like, that's just not nice. It's not good vibes. But isn't that, isn't that weird? Because that is a historical constant, right? Like, whether it's segregation or environmental, you're just like, this is asking or wearing a mask

or in a pandemic. It's like, we're not asking you to change everything. We're asking you to do this very minor thing. Like do your own dishes, don't dump toxic sludge out of your company's trucks, you know, or whatever. Like, let people who want to come into your restaurant, come into your restaurant, this is so fucking minor. But, like, the historical constant throughout history

has been like, oh, you're asking me to do that. Now I definitely don't want to do that. Right, right, right, right, right. You know, it's good for me. It's good for me. But now that you've asked me to do it, I'm not going to do it out of spite. I do think, I mean, how much of that is American though?

Like, I mean, obviously, like, that there's a human element to that, but I do think there's like a, specifically American resistance to, obviously exists elsewhere, but like, I just feel like there's maybe, slightly, there's just something about, like the, you know, the don't try to be kind of thing

where it's like, if the government demands, but it's like, yeah, the don't try to be kind of thing where it's like if the government demands. But it's like, yeah, I don't know. Like we have all these, it's like we have all these other things. Like there was one, I remember there was one, I think, I don't know who it was, but we can find it. You can find it. There was one guy, this is like during Thanksgiving, I think 2020 Thanksgiving, when it was really bad.

And there were all these mandates on how many people you could have in your home Right, and there was this one guy. I want to say like a senator or a congressman or something like that where he said This is ridiculous like you're gonna tell me how many the government is gonna tell me how many people I can have to a private event This is like a family time is this now. I'm gonna have as many people as I want Provided that I you know follow all the you know fire and health fire and safety codes I'm just like

That's it that's its own Government restriction based on some data that at least I'm not saying it's new. Exactly. It's like the ones that already exist. That's not, they're neutral. The restrictions that already exist. I feel like if we didn't have traffic lights, people would protest the idea of traffic lights.

Sure. I mean, we're going to have an edge to traffic lights. Like, fuck you. Tell me how fast I can go. Like I'll go wherever it's like, but I mean there were like we in not our lifetime, but our parents lifetime. Like people didn't like laws against seatbelts. I mean, do you remember like when it was like 2007, 2008, I remember I was living in California and they passed the thing that said like you couldn't use your phone while driving and I remember people were like who are you to tell like you know I'm good at it. What it like like these things aren't like it's always happening and our instant reaction is always why should I give up something that's easy or comfortable or convenient for me for somebody else's benefit. Yeah and and I think like that goes to just an inherent lack of trust in society and not feeling like it's actually

connected to anything. I feel like I think a lot of people have written about this, but Eric from has written extensively about the atomization of the wave of suburbia, just like the way that, you know, the sort of American landscape had progressed in the 20th century and just like, in obviously, I mean, it's even crazier now.

But there is this idea of that, it's like me, and then there's everything. There's like me, I am in this like one column and then everyone has their own columns and like, yeah, we're all like together, but we're not really bound by, you know, there's the flag, there's their taxes, there's the military, there's, you know, geography but other than that, we're not really bound by

a sense of community or common idea and I don't, maybe it's not possible for, you know, 350 million people to do that without it being like China-esque or something, but like, you know, I don't, so it's just like, if you were in a relationship, for example, it's just two people, where it's like, you're dating someone, you care about them, friendship, whatever it is.

And it's like, hey, this, you know, when you show up 20 minutes late, it makes me feel like, you don't, Yes. You know, like that, I don't matter. And it's like, I would appreciate it if you can be respectful in my time. The hopefully the response you get is like, oh, I'm really sorry.

Like, yeah, something I start to go with and I have to do better because I don't want you to feel like that. And it's like that isn't removing your liberty. It's like you're trying to make something work. And so I think that like, yes, there can definitely be overreach, 100%, and we probably have a ton of that. But there is still, it's like, this is why the true hardcore libertarian

has never, this is like missing so much of what makes this possible. And also like, yeah, I don't want to get too far in the weeds on that, but like, I just think like, there's no... The libertarian thing is interesting because if they're like, the gut, like I would buy it more if they're like, the government can't tell me to do it. I'm still going to do it.

I just don't want you to tell me to do it. But it never, those two never seem to go together, right? It's never like, I hate mandates, but I'm obviously wearing a mask or a vaccinated. It's like, ultimately, the objection is like, I don't want to do it, and no one should do it, right? Like, I would love a world in which more things were voluntary, provided. You know, it's like, I would love not to have to tell my kids what to do, right? Like, I'd love them just to like intuitively do all the right things. But since they don't, I have to be the parent, right?

Like, it's not my preferred mode of living, but like, stuff has to operate a certain way, or shit falls apart. Yeah, I think, right, that's what, I mean, that's essentially what society is. And I think there's like, if people had, but again, like your kids have trust in you and there's a good, so mutual trust, we're like, you know, you, but I think even the paternal analogy, I think we'll turn people off, Like this idea of the government is here to say, care of us. And even though the people who hate that, that's what Trump kind of ran on. And no one's consistent.

It's just, I don't know. I don't have any answers. I don't have anything. Well, I remember listening to your interview with Marin. I remember messaging you about it. I think it's not just like, hey, government has consistently let us down. I think it's not just like, hey, government has consistently let us down, I'm skeptical.

I also think generationally we've been let down. I went through this, my parents, it sounds like you kind of went through it with your parents. So the real root of the trust is they're like, I've never actually seen someone whose job it is to be responsible, be responsible. Or you know what I mean? And so I think there's like sort of,

there's also this, like when you kind of lay out like the arc of the boomers, it is like one set of betrayal after another for like the younger generation. And then they're like kids these days, you know, it's like, fuck you. Right, right, it's like you're talking about, I said you're like an intergenerational, you know, it's like, fuck you. Right, right. It's like you're talking about essentially like an intergenerational, like, dysfunction, like, family level.

Yeah, yeah, I like to put it like just applying it to like, I'm on the societal level where it's like, yeah, if you see your parents not, you know, like you said, being like the way that they should be, then you have no model for what that even looks or feels like. And so you can kind of try to replicate it by deduction where you're like, yeah, okay, it's not that. So I'm taking a stab at the inverse of that, which is all other possibilities, which is pretty big.

And so there's a lot of trial and error. Or obviously this is where personal work, therapy, whatever your mood of getting at, some of these things and working them out, is in trying to reconnect with yourself in a way that is meaningful and that is healthy, so that by extension, that the way that you interact with everyone else will be. I don't know how to necessarily apply that to the master scale, but I do think that like, again, going back to, if you do it,

like if you yourself do it, and then you are with people who also foster that same kind of, I just feel like so many of the people that I find myself like bothered by, it's not even like their opinion that I disagree with. It's like this idea, this is something I talked about in the last special. This idea that someone's emotional subspace and their intellectual ideology or belief system are completely separate. To me, it's either ignorance or it's willful disavowal of something true.

And it's like, you know, like the Ben Shapiro kind of ethos of like facts don't care about your feelings. Like this idea that reason detached from feeling is like a virtue. And it's like that's like the true way. It's like, I don't know how you could interact with a human with that. And it's like, so take that on the social scale.

And it's just like, no, if you feel a certain way, if you feel attacked, or you feel threatened, you're going to believe things that are based on that disposition. And so you're going to take the stance of a person who's threatened or person who feels like the world is hostile. And, but if you yourself don't feel that way, if you feel trusting, if you feel living,

then there's gonna be a lot more, I don't wanna say empathy, but there's gonna be a lot more just sort of like openness to certain things. I think that those things, 100% shape ideology. I don't think ideology and, you know, a person's emotional disposition are at all distinct. It's crazy for me to realize that it's almost four years ago,

maybe more now, that we started the daily search store, and how much of my life wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done that. I don't think you'd be listening to this podcast. The email list wouldn't be as big. We wouldn't be doing the videos we do for Daily Stoke. The pain in porch by bookstore wouldn't exist. Not only if I hadn't made that decision, but if I hadn't used Shopify to run that store, because it allowed me to scale and do things that I just didn't have the resources or the knowledge

to do in any other way. Shopify basically gives entrepreneurs, small businesses, creatives, the resources that really only big businesses were capable of before. Daily Stoke ships things all over the world. When you come into my bookstore at the Painted Porch and buy something, you're checking out via Shopify. Shopify powers millions of businesses just like mine from first sale to full scale. You can reach customers online across social networks with an ever growing suite of channel integrations and apps. A lot of the things that you see on the site like upsells or you might also like this or

just all the things that make it work really well. Those are add-on apps that Shopify allows you to use. You can synchronize your online and in-person sales like I was saying we do with the Painted Ports. You can gain insights as you grow with conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. More than a store, Shopify grows with you, and I can't recommend Shopify.

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keep using it if it didn't work. So go to Shopify.com slash stoic. Yeah, I was, I was, I've, I've read a really good book called adult children of emotionally immature parents. Oh, that's great. Did I tell you? You email me about that book. I bought it and read it. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, super helpful. Yeah, I think, obviously, that was helpful with me understanding my, like, my parental situation, but it's also just helpful understanding human beings, period, right? Like, it's like, oh, you're just in, you're emotionally immature. I don't mean that, like, condescendingly or, like, dismissively. I just mean, you're struggling with this because it's hard. There's this financial podcast I like and he talks about people who are savvy with money and people

who are not and how people who are not savvy, they fall for tricks. You know, they have like an expensive car loan because they they went in and they're like, what is this car cost per month? Right? Which is not how a person who understands how math or budgets or investing thinks about it. They're like, how much is the car, right? Like, like, like, oh, it's $200 a month times 97 payments. Like, no, a smart person doesn't, that's, that's not the right word. A savvy person doesn't think that way. In emotionally mature person understands, oh, I'm dealing with some feelings,

I'm gonna calm down for a second before I vomit all over you. Or what, I know you're gonna do it. Yeah, or look at him in the eye. It's not even necessarily, oh, I'm hysterical, I need to calm down. It's just like I need to understand what I'm feeling and why. And I can, you can address the feelings.

You can be pissed off. Like being pissed off is okay. Like, that pissed me off. You don't have to necessarily let it go. You just try not to act on your best. You're pissed off feelings. Yeah, be not be motivated by how, yeah, you don't want to be motivated by a feeling

that you're not aware of. You don't want to be like, and what that happens so much, I mean, we're all emotionally mature to some degree. I mean, like we're trying to learn. And it's similar to like the reading phenomenon where I was saying like, oh, reading just kind of teaches you things that people don't know. And then you're just like ostracized even further.

And I feel like the same is true with, you know, the more mature, the more introspective and the more reflective you become and the more you actually try to like work toward it. Like the more you're just like the kind of like outpacing a certain accepted way of being and it's just like this isn't okay. Like so, so for me it's as hard to like when there's growth and when there's certain things I'm like, oh I don't tolerate that anymore because it's actually like, either toxic or not good enough like it isn't like it's not, you know, it or not good enough. Like, it isn't, like, it's not, you know, it lacks reciprocity, whatever. But that has its own, like, alienating quality because then it's like, well, you know, and, you know,

my disposition is alienation. Like, I, you know, I don't know, I grew up, I have a hearing loss that I grew up, you know, and it went untreated for 20 years. It was known about, but like there was never anything done about it. And so, I mean, we tried doing stuff and I didn't want to.

My parents didn't, we're really involved in it. It just wasn't, that's a whole other discussion. But, so the first 20 years of my life was spent 21 years really, living with a very, very, very serious hearing impairment and without it, without any correction, without anyone even really knowing. I kind of just kind of faked it to such a degree that, you know, now I'm 36 now and it's like still very much starting to get to like the root of some of that stuff

like how much I was doing, how separate it kept me from everyone, not just in the physical sense like I couldn't hear but like the emotional sense of like I wasn't able to communicate what was going on. I need to know what was going on inside me. I was working extra, extra, extra hard to just barely get by. And I think that was causing a lot of distress. And I was never able to be myself because I had to just constantly. And then, so, you know, that would lead me to like crave solitude, but then that was

fucking lonely. And so it's just like this, this sort of like double edge sort of alienation. And so that is something that I've always dealt with where I look at myself as separate from the world. I look at the world as hostile toward me. I look at people as agents of of danger, you know? And so it, that has definitely dictated how I saw things and what I believed. I mean, I have this old bit about depression, about how like is depression,

you know, like isn't, depression just a natural reaction to this fucked up world. And it's like, aren't happy people, aren't happy people the ones who need to be medicated like if you're happy in this world like what the fuck is wrong with you. And, you know, it's a bit that a lot of people liked and responded to, but I think what I got wrong in it is that like I was using like my perspective as a way to justify my feeling as opposed to vice versa where it's like, no, I'm seeing the world

this way because I feel this way about myself or I'm struggling with this type of emotional issue, whereas if I felt like I had a healthier, more stable disposition, yeah, those things are true. Like, you could always find something fucked up in the world. Like, the world isn't like, but it's kind of a, you know, it's kind of a worship where it's like you can, the world is just, you know, there's amazing things that happen in the world all the time and to not look at any of them and to not have them count for anything, I think says more about your own disposition than like some ultimate truth

about the world. Yeah, Susan C, who I love her new book is called Bittersweet, and she's sort of talking about how melancholy is that kind of depressive outlet, but there's also, if done right, a sort of love of beauty and wonder and solitude and what it's so it's like if you're only getting the negative part of it, you're probably doing it wrong, but if it's actually kind of shaped, you know, it allowed you to create some inner world that you can retreat into and connect it. Like, you can, you can kind of choose to see it different ways, I guess, is where it comes down.

Well, that's kind of the David Foster Wallace. Is it this is water? Is it the other one where he's like, you can choose and then he killed himself. It's like, that's a problem. then he killed himself. It's like that's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem what I've taken from is like, okay, yes, this explains why these people act the way they do. But it also explains why I act the way I do, because that was my model, my whole life. And so,

like, it's not like how dare they, I'm angry, I'm resentful, that's what I'm going to carry around. It's, I'm probably, whatever this argument I'm having with my wife is chances are a good portion of my reaction is driven by a Similar amount of emotional immaturity, right because that's just like basic probability at this point You know what I mean and and at the end of the day all you can really do is direct that sort of towards your own behavior You know 100% When I read the book, I actually skipped the first half of it. I only read the second half of it because the first half of the book is like, are your parents emotionally immature? How to know? I'm like, yeah, they fucking are. I was skimmed and I was like, oh yeah, I identified

all of the things. But then when I started reading about, you know, hearing like some of my own behaviors explained by someone who had never met me in like this sort of archetypical way, some of those that feels restricted, but sometimes it's really, really, really comforting because it's like, oh, this thing that I kind of just live with that is somewhat amorphous and nameless

is being identified very clearly by someone impartial and There's comfort in knowing that like, oh, that's a thing and I it has a name and it's you know It's brought about by these forces that seem to make sense like a cry. I like it, you know, it it I'm not like okay. Well the book says you know Like I'm like no, it's yeah, this this resonates, you know, like, I'm like, no, it's, yeah, this resonates, you know, and so, yeah, I think that's, I think that's super hopeful. Yeah, and like, awareness doesn't magically solve the problem, but I think it's better than not being aware of it. Wait, can I, what did you say right before you switch back to the book?

Oh, the, oh, the choice thing. Yeah, I know. My, my, one issue, and this is the David Foster Wallstein kind of like goes into that because he killed him. I think there is this sort of reductive element to the idea of choice of like you can choose to see the world this way, you can choose to see the world this way. I don't know if it's that simple, I don't know if it's like like this binary choice that one can make once and then that's it. I think it's that simple, I don't know if it's like this binary choice that one can make once and then that's it. I think it's like, it's deciding something more fundamental, deciding that like you matter,

deciding that like you're somebody worth taking care of and then like continuing to choose that all the time, as opposed to some people's default is to neglect themselves or abandon themselves and let them kind of just float in this abyss. And like, I don't think that's just a matter, like getting out of that is not just a matter of like, oh, the world's so great. There's so many good, like actually when you're depressed thinking about like how great things are, it's just worse because you feel so detached from it. I think it starts from, and not to like, you know, I'm not trying to argue anything, but like, there's an internal disconnect that like needs to be fed. And I think like the choice is like, I matter. My happiness matters. Like there's, some people feel that inherently, some people struggle

with that. I'm somebody who struggles with that. And so I have to like, make that choice. And then, have you read make that choice. And then have you read the art of loving and not to bring up Eric from again? Yeah, it's like a smaller sort of less like academic book that he wrote. We talked about love as an art rather than like a a fleeting feeling or some like electric thing. It's in how it record, like any art records, practice and dedication and all these different things. And I think the same is true for yourself. Like, you see like these Instagram infographics that are like, love yourself. It's like, yeah, but that's not just deciding to do that.

It's like loving yourself means when you're doing things that are good for you, even when it's hard, you know, going to to that on time and taking care of your body, taking care of your space, taking care of your emotional, disposition, and whatever, and like, tending to yourself, doing things that are good for you. That is a mean being hedonistic. Well, that's what I think about the bittersweet thing, right? It's not, I don't think it's like,

oh, just choose to see the world is good. It's that it's bitter and sweet. Like the world view that you were given by nature of what you went through, it's probably not what you would choose, but it's not only bad. Do you know what I mean? Totally.

Like, that's what I look like. I don't particularly like bitter sweet chocolate, but I understand there's two tastes going on at the same time. Do you know what I mean? Like, to me, it's about that duality, that tension. It's like, oh, I could be depressive, but I choose to be happy all the time. It's no, like, because of what I went through, I have a level of understanding or appreciation or compassion or wisdom that like you're, that I wouldn't have if I was just like everyone else, or if I was just given what I think I want.

Do you know what I mean? That's what, to me, what her book was about, was this idea of like, no, don't beat yourself up for looking at the world the way you look at it. Actually, this world view is responsible for some of the great art and achievements and, like, of all time. And you should, we can appreciate it. She's saying just the same way, but her first book was about introverts. And we, like, an introvert is not just a person who needs to be made into an extrovert. they have their own, it's good that they're that way.

And that's a unique, special thing, and they should come to appreciate the strengths as well as the weaknesses in it. And I think that's kind of what she's saying about that. Yeah, yeah. And that's a very challenging thing to do, to reconcile the internal forces that, at one point, felt so overwhelming and so unmanageable and so

like untainable that, you know, to kind of like harness them and to be able to co-exist with them. And yeah, because I don't think you can necessarily do away with it. I think it becomes manageable to a point where it doesn't snowball, you know, into like something catastrophic, which some people is like physical destruction or is about self harm or like drinking drugs, sex, you

know. But for other people it's like that was never my thing, it was never like, it was more like internal stuff. Like I would shut down, I would, my thoughts would get really, really, really negative and really like, I'd feel like, you know, a million miles away from everybody and that would make me want to like, you know, reach out for some kind of compensation to that. And so, you know, but everyone has their own wave of like flailing in the water, you know,

like you're getting water boarded and it's like, ah, you know, your body's gonna like, ah, it's gonna react in a way. But yeah, it's something that I think a lot of, like you say, emotional maturity is required to parse through that. That's right. Well, man, this is really fun.

Let's get together in person again. Okay. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us. And it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Ah, the Bahamas.

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