The Daily Stoic - Gretchen Rubin On The Power Of Exploring Your Senses

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

Ryan speaks with Gretchen Rubin about her new book Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, how our reality is composed entirely of our perceptions, her striving to better accept herself while still expecting more from herself, the wisdom that can be found with reading and re-reading great books, her former boss Sandra Day O’Connor, and more.Gretchen Rubin is an author, blogger, podcaster, and speaker whose work focuses on happiness, habits, and human nature. She has written ten books, including the best-selling and widely influential Better Than Before, Happier at Home, and The Happiness Project, and her writings have sold more than two million print and online copies worldwide in over thirty languages. Gretchen’s podcast, Happier with Gretchen Rubin, on which she and her sister Elizabeth Craft discuss happiness and good habits, has been downloaded over 220 million times. All this and more can be found on her website: gretchenrubin.com.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check 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 Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each weekday we bring you a Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short Passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are,

and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. We've been having a bit of a disaster over here in the Payton porch and the Daily Stoic podcast studio, which is we've had fleas. I think it's from Streg Cats in the area. I don't know what it's from, but, you know, you feel like something like on your leg and you reach down,

you're like, it's always, and it's always like a phantom itch or whatever, you never want to look down. There actually is something, well, there has been, unfortunately, and we have fumigated and fumigated, and it keeps happening. And I thought we did something about it, or I thought we'd solved it. There was nothing going on.

I've been in the studio a bunch, and then I'm sitting down with today's guest, one of my favorite people and favorite authors. And I can hear Dawson, who is our wonderful podcast producer, and been a long time member of the team. He also does all our YouTube videos, an unsung hero of what we do here at Daily Stoke. I can hear him talking on the phone while we're recording. And like, I've certainly made this mental note of like, I've got to talk to Dustin. You can't be talking in the middle of while we're recording.

We can hear it through the studio door. Of course, I should have known there was a very good reason for it, which is that he was frantically calling my wife, another unsung hero of what we do at Daily Stoic going, there's fleas on me, what should I do? And she was like, okay, you got to interrupt the thing, you got to move them into the bookstore, and then she's like, I'll call the fumigators again and we'll come out. So that's what we did. So the first part, the first 10 minutes or so of today's episode is in the Daily Stoke Podcast Studio. And then the second half, or the next 50 or so minutes

is at the big table in the Paneports bookstore. So you may have noticed that I not brought it up. You may have sensed a slight difference in the sound because we went from a studio that's covered in books and is really good at dedenining the sound to the 20 plus foot ceilings of the bookstore. It was a bit of a shift, but you will definitely notice it now that I'm bringing it out, which is actually the subject of today's interview. Gretchen Ruben is my guest today.

She has this new book, Life in Five Senses, how exploring the senses got me out of my head and into the world came out on April 18th. But you may know her for her many other wonderful books, The Happiness Projects, which will knowings of copies, The Four Tendencies, which is great. Outer Order, Inner Calm, which is one of my favorite of her books. And that's just a fantastic little mantra to live by as a person. And so I thought about what I was writing. The cleanup, your desk chapter of discipline is destiny. Gretchen has been doing this a long time at a very high level. She was a lawyer. She clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, which I ask her

about. She's been interviewed by Oprah. She's walked with the Dalai Lama. She's been written about in New Yorker. She's even been an answer on Jeopardy. She has a great podcast called Get Happier with Gretchen Rubin. You can follow her on Instagram and Twitter and TikTok at Gretchen Rubin.

And if you watch this episode on YouTube, it'll be uploaded here shortly on At Daily Stoke Podcast channel. You will notice the shift from the studio to the bookstore. Probably won't affect your consumption of this in audio much, but you try to just go to what she's talking about in life in five senses, which is really about taste and smell and audio and touch You know see if you can notice when that shift happens. I wonder if you can and See if you can even notice how we're talking differently how it takes us

Longer to get back into a groove. Anyways, thanks to Dawson for as I said, handling it very stoically, very calmly, we solved a vexing, frustrating, gross problem, very professionally and cleanly. And thanks to my wife for then all the different phone calls she had to make to solve this. And then as I'm recording this now in my office, the fumigators are downstairs doing very serious work in the studio. And hopefully it will be ready in time for the two interviews that I have in person this week. Otherwise, you may hear another episode from the store until we get that done. So thank you all very much and thanks to Gretchen for coming out and make sure to check out our new book and some of our old books which we have signed copies of in the store. It's funny, I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been

readers for a long time, they've just gotten back into it and I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading, they're reading more than ever, and I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true, and almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs.

And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover. And as an Audible member, you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest best sellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting

new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the Key, the Daily Dad. I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audiobooks, so all those are available, and new members can try Audible for free for 30 days, visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500, that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up, I'm struggling to deal with something.

Obviously I use my journal, obviously I turn to stosism, but I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff. And because I'm so busy and I live out in the country, I do therapy remote, so I don't have to drive somewhere. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Tox space makes it easy to find a therapist that you like.

It's convenient, it's affordable. By doing everything online talk space makes getting the help you want easy and affordable. So why wait? And talk space can help with any specific challenge you might be facing. That's why it's the number one online therapy platform with license therapists and over 40 specialties.

It's secure and private and in network with most major insurers as a listener of this podcast, you can get 80 bucks off your first month with talk space when you go to talkspace.com.sashtoic. To match with a license therapist today, go to talkspace.com.sashtoic to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the daily stoke. That's talkspace.com slash stoic. So I was thinking about your book because I was just doing something up in my office. I was thinking about, have you seen the movie Gladiator?

No. You've not seen the movie Gladiator, I mean, it's one of the greatest movies of all time. I'll watch you. There's a scene in the beginning of Gladiator where Max Mis, this is Russell Crowe's character, is just standing there. And it looks like this beautiful scene.

And he's just sort of standing there. And the wind is ruffling through his fur collar and is dragging his hands through this field of wheat. Then this bird lands. And he's watching the bird and the steam is kind of coming off the ground behind him. And then the bird takes off and he follows it with his eyes and he smiles. And he's like, where is this beautiful heavenly place?

Okay. And then it zooms out and he's on the front with the Roman army and they're about to engage in this ferocious, terrible cataclysmic battle. And I was thinking about it because to me, it's a very stoke idea, which is that like, we can see whatever we want to see, right? And the lens, which we look at the world, or the senses that we perceive the world, determine whether we're in a beautiful lush landscape or a depressing hellscape. No, exactly. Or we think we're in a sterile gray box, but in fact, we're in the beach, but we're in a sterile gray box, but in fact, we're in the beach,

but we're in a sterile gray box in our head. Yeah. Yeah, the cubicle that you carry in your pocket can be. Oh, that's beautiful. Not beautiful. The opposite of beautiful. Right, but yeah, it's like, so how do you get into the world?

Yeah. Yeah, what's the note mine like we can, a man can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven. Yeah. It's all about how we perceive things to a certain degree. Yeah, and we perceive things very, very differently. Well, yeah, that was one of my favorite things in the book.

You talk about some optical illusions and then also just things that you've seen thousands of times in your life, but it's not until someone points it out or you decide to look at it consciously that you miss what's been happening the entire time. Like the FedEx logo. Or no, you talk about the Baskin Robbins logo. Yeah. It also says 31 in the middle. Yeah.

And the Hershey's Kiss one. Yeah, Tastitos. And the Tastitos one. And the Tastitos one. If you look at it very clearly, it's like two people's like around a like a bowl of chips going like this. Really? That's the two T's.

Yeah. What's the one? What's the version of that where like you I was just thinking about this. I was trying to remember this song lyric and so I was writing it like searching all these different phrases trying to sing it in my head and then I realized I couldn't find it because like I I thought the person was saying tired of life but they were saying tired of lying. Uh-huh. And it totally changes the meaning obviously and now I can't go back to hear the song that struck me in a certain way. But like, it's not just visually that we do this.

It's with all our senses. Yeah, no, absolutely. I can't hear sirens because I live in New York cities. So they just fade out. You can't smell your home the way a guest smells it. Right. Because like, to me, this bookstore has a very distinctive smell. Sure. But you probably don't even smell it because it's so familiar to you. Your brain doesn't alert you to it. Yeah. Is there a commercial that talks about nose blindness? Yeah. Exactly. It's a real thing. You can't smell the air freshener. You can't smell the cats. I'm like, does my apartment smell like dog food? Because I don't, I wouldn't know. If I go away for a month, then I could smell it. But yeah. Of all the chapters of the book, that's the one that I related to the least

in the sense that I have a terrible sense of smell. Like, you know, during COVID, when people like, you know, if you lose your sense of smell, like be worried. Yeah. I'm like, how would I notice? Like, yeah, I had, I had like a septum surgery on my nose, like twice, as I screwed it up. And I think they mess, I don't remember ever having a strong tend to sell,

but I think they messed it up when they messed with my nose. Can you smell anything? I can smell like really bad smells or like, I guess I can, I think I can smell some new smells, but I tend, I wouldn't say I have a strong, since I smell. So people will remark on smells that you have not noticed. Yes.

And ones that you don't, you can't smell even when they remark on them. Yeah, okay. So people are like, oh smell that cherry blossom tree. You're like I know smell any. Yes, or when someone is like describing you, though, I don't be like, I mean, I smell something, but that's not like you're it's like you're just you're describing something as a musician and me not being familiar with notes. I have no idea the language that you're speaking. Well, it's interesting. I have a neglected sense quiz. What's your neglected sense so that people can take. But that is like for people who have access to a sense that they're just not that interested in. Like I'm not a minus taste. Like I've tasted fine, just not that interested in taste. Yes. But you have something where like you may be neglecting it because you actually don't have the same access to perception

that other people might be having with their nose. Well, it's probably a feedback loop where like because it's not strong, the muscle atrophies or that your control of the thing is less. And you don't... Or you're interested in it. Yeah. Like I'm very interested in smell, so I explore it. You're interested in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But for me, taste is not, I had to really do a lot of things, which was super fun because I had all this low-hanging fruit because I had not really done much to explore my sense of taste. But for some people, they even watch TV shows about, I'm like, why are you watch a TV show about taste?

But people love it because they're really interested in they want to explore it, they want to learn, they want recommendations. That's what you do with your appreciated sense. Did you just have an underdeveloped palette or you're like, have a sensitive palette, what was it for you on taste? Or you're just not into it?

Just not into it. I had a super strong sweet tooth, so I gave up sugar like 12 years ago, just because I was so boring to manage sugar. And but I think one of the reasons that it was pretty easy for me to quit sugar was that I just I'm not that into taste. Right. So it didn't feel like a big loss. I felt normally like a gain. And then probably like deliberately neglecting it like the high notes of taste. Which sugar is I can feel ultimate high note of taste.

It probably, it's intoxicating, because it's actually toxic. Yes. Well, it very much limited my range for sure, but I enjoy food more actually now, because I think you taste, to me something like blueberries taste very, very sweet and delicious,

because they're a little bit sweet. I love that in the book. I love whatever someone brings something up and you're like, I haven't thought of that that way or I haven't, I don't know. And you talked about what the inside of a blueberry looks like. I know. Right. Do you know? I mean, I have no idea. I only know because my kids are still young. So there's a lot of like smashed fruit. Yeah, right, right, right. Underfoot, you're like getting them up with the sponge, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Although we just, we just took them yesterday. This is my favorite time of year in Texas because there's wild blackberries all over. And so we were just walking through these fields, picking these wild blackberries and, you know, you're noticing like, okay, you're starting to notice from the feel and the look and the color, which one is going to be the feel and the look and the color, which one is going to be delicious, which one is going to be, is not quite right. And this is just a, it's like a spectrum that previously was totally compressed to you. Like, it didn't exist or it existed only as the final product to you, but the idea that there was gradients along the perception, because it's out of sight, out

of mind to use, you're just not considering it. And then there's something explosive and wonderful about when you suddenly become aware of a spectrum of sound or taste, and then you're like, I'm going to really get into that. Right. Well, the thing about the brain is the brain is a difference detector. So it's looking for danger and opportunity. And when information is valuable, then it will start to really, really pick up

on those nuances. And so then as you become attuned to it, and it matters, then you start picking that up. But if you're just like, I'm wondering through a grocery store, just grabbing a bag and they're all basically the same, then they all just look alike because you don't need to. What if there's something fundamentally unnatural about those, right?

So like the world of the grocery store, the world of the hardware store, it's filled with straight lines and manufactured things and mass produced things, all the blackberries and the store let's say. First off, they grow them a certain way, maybe they're genetically modified in some way, they all get equal amounts of water and sunlight. And then as they're picking them,

they're getting rid of all the bad ones, right? So you get this thing of artificial unrealistic sameness. But then when you're out in the world, if you're looking for it, there's the bad ones, there's the ones that we're eating by a caterpillar, there's the smashed ones, there's the one red. The one in the shade, yes. The thing about sight is that because the way the human brain is wired, we have more real estate in the brain that is devoted to sight. And usually when there is a conflict among senses, sight will trump. And so one of the ways that you see that,

and I'm not a lover of tomatoes, but people who love tomatoes are like, well now tomatoes are very bland and tough because they've been bred to look good and to perk well, and to look uniform and bright and round. And so they've sacrificed taste to site. Same thing with flowers, like I love smell. And so I love high-sense roses, lilacs, things that have a beautiful, beautiful smell.

But often they have been bred for longevity, resistance to insects, and beauty, which is great. But I love to smell. You know what else is interesting to talk about, to see things? Like how often do people notice that this that there was also intentionality designed into the thing because you never take the cover off and you never think about all the other things? A lot of people do. Some people do.

Different readers, but you're right. You don't necessarily explore it. It's like you have to look. You have to look. I think to me, that's kind of the essence of the book, is that. There's a whole bunch of stuff that you don't look for. Yes. But it's there.

Well, this is like ketchup, because ketchup is ubiquitous. 97% of Americans have it in their fridge. We think of it as being just kind of like, this throwaway thing. And yet, it's the secret ingredient of so many foods. And it's like, you know, ketchup is magic because it has all five of the basic tastes. Yeah.

Sweet sour salty, bitter and umami. That's really hard for for something to do. So it's incredibly sophisticated and complex. And when you really taste it, you, it's like an explosion in your mouth. And there's an aftertaste and there's the texture and you realize like why it's so popular. But it's very easy to just take it for granted. Yeah, speaking of taste, what's someone was telling me like the reason you didn't like taken for granted. Yes, speaking of taste, what's someone was telling me like the reason you didn't like

Brussels sprouts when you were a kid is that Brussels sprouts now taste different. So the opposite of the tomato thing we were talking about, which is that tomatoes are bred for appearances, which may negatively correlate to what people actually like to taste. Brussels sprouts, they basically realized that people hated them for pretty good reason. And then they bred them to actually taste better. Oh, interesting. And then... Bless bitter.

Yes. And people, for whatever reason, decided to get good at cooking them. And they don't just serve boiled brussel sprouts anymore. There's a bunch of like amazing ways to do it. But fundamentally, the brussel sprout is still a Brussels sprout, and by looking at it differently, working on it differently, it becomes transformatively different. But, well, and a lot of things have bred to become sweeter. So apples are sweeter, grapes

are sweeter. So it would make sense that they've just bred bread, Brussels sprouts, to be less bitter, because that's the objection to them is that they're bitter. Have you had cotton candy grapes? Yes. How good are those? I mean, we'll see, but I don't need sugar. And so I wouldn't eat something like a cotton candy. So you don't even eat things that have natural sugar in them.

I sometimes leave berries, but usually not. No, I don't eat things like watermelon or, yeah, I typically wouldn't eat grapes. Right. It's kind of a hobby. I have to say. I'm sure it is a hobby. like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like,

I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna be like, I eat fish, I eat eggs, I eat so many eggs, I eat a ton of nuts. It's like so much. It's like a squirrel nest in my house. We have so many nuts. I think one of the things I take from optical illusions, which I think is an important also stoke concept, which is this idea that like, yes, your mind is your friend. Yes, your mind is this powerful thing, but your mind is also not your friend, and your mind is fucking with you.

And what you think, what you would swear on your life is presenting to you as X could very obviously not be X. Yes, no, and that's very true with our senses, because very often we think we're perceiving something, but maybe it's because of context, or it's the lighting, or it's our own, you know, you see this people have conflicts because it's like, you're complaining. Oh, I don't like this. It's like, I don't like this music playing. And you're like, oh, no, it's like, it's great for creativity. If we have jazz playing in our open office plan, and it's like, no, people

are very different. They have very different experiences. And they bring different things to their environments. And they take different., sometimes it's show more compassion for yourself if something's bugging you that other people are fine with. Or maybe you need to realize that people may be complaining about something you think is fine, but other people find very distracting or annoying. Yeah, it's always weird, like if you say you don't like something, people are like, oh, it's an acquired taste.

And that makes sense to me. And then there's also something strange about the logic of like, oh, it's an acquired taste. And that makes sense to me. And then there's also something strange about the logic of like, no, you have to endure how not good it is for a while. And then either it becomes tolerable or it becomes good. What, like, let's say alcohol or something. Why are you acquiring some taste? For coffee, yes. Right.

Well, I mean, I think that's a big tension because we love novelty and we're drawn to novelty, but we also, like, in a way, we prefer familiarity because it's easier. And so it's sort of like, well, maybe I could make myself like this. Like with music, I was always like, my way of my, you know, I don't really like music. Other people like it so much more. I have this cramped vision. What does this mean about me? I'm a killjoy.

And I'm like, what, and I kept thinking like if I just listened more, more much more. I have this cramped vision. What does this mean about me? I'm a killjoy. And I'm like, what, and I kept thinking, like, if I just listen more and more and more. Right. But then I'm like, maybe I shouldn't try to listen more and more. Maybe I should do the things I already enjoy and not try to develop a taste for it. But then I also realized that I do like particular songs,

and I could just enjoy music that way. It was a song lover, not kind of a general music lover. Right. But I was thinking, could I kind of force myself to acquire a taste just through sheer familiarity? And I think there is something like, if you drink coffee enough time, you might acquire a taste.

Why are you acquiring the taste? Are you acquiring the taste because you actually do want to explore, you feel like expanding your palate gives you this whole other way of perceived reality that's probably positive? Are you acquiring the taste because you want to get wasted on the other side of taste? Or because people in your social class or group are making you feel weird for not liking

that thing. That's probably the worst reason to acquire a taste. Okay, so here's an idea that's like one of my central mantras for myself and tell me if this is a stoic idea. I want to accept myself and central mantras for myself. And tell me if this is a stoic idea. I wanna accept myself and also expect more for myself. Yes, sure. The tension of some conditionally supporting yourself as you are

as a flawed imperfect person, and then also questioning how fixed some of those imperfections are. And whether you could raise your aspirations for yourself. Yeah. Well, do you know the Stockdale paradox? All right. Okay. Remind you of that. So it's it's in good to great, but it comes from James Stockdale, the prisoner of war, who gets it from Stoicism. He's basically Jim Collins asked him, like who has some, who has the most trouble in the prison of working? Yes, yes.

Is it exact tension between acceptance and sort of indomitable determinations? Right, right. Determination, right. Do you hope for the best, or do you like resign yourself to like the moment? Yeah, I think a lot of times there are these tensions within because both are true.

You know, the opposite of our profound truth is also true. And so there are these things where kind of our great challenge is to figure out how to think about it in a particular context. Well, I feel like in philosophy and some religious traditions, a lot of what people say are contradictions or paradoxes are really just a reflection of the fact

that reality is complicated. And sometimes you have to do X and sometimes you have to do the opposite of X. Well, I think great example of this. And again, Stowek or not. This is like the game we'll play next time. You know, sometimes people say, you have to appreciate the moment, live in the moment, the moment is all we have. That's true. But a life that takes no consideration for the future is not a good life. And a life where you don't reflect on the past is also not a good life. And so how do we think about the present, the future in the past in the right way? Because it's sort of they all have to be weighed against each other.

Well, the one I think about the most is like sometimes the solution to a problem or an obstacle or a situation is to zoom way in, to look at it super close, just the immediate thing in front of you. And sometimes you have to zoom way out and see it from a distance, see it, you know, in light of what's happened before and what will happen after.

And you might need to do one, one minute, and literally the next minute and the next situation do the exact opposite of what was just supposed to be this universal problem solving technique. Right, well, and for life in five senses, one of the exercises that I did, maybe my most ambitious exercise was to visit the Metropolitan Museum every day.

But daily practices. Yeah, because I just was really interested to see how that experience would change over time, if I with so much familiarity. And one of the, and I didn't really know what to expect. But one of the big things that came from it is exactly what you're saying, which is I got such a sense of perspective. It's such a vast place. It's such a timeless place. My own petty grievances and petty preoccupations is just put into this thousands of years of human endeavor. And it just was so refreshing. It got me out of my head.

And it just gave me a relief because I was just part of something that was so eternal and so transcendent. And how much of those daily visits was you managing to cram in what was more than a person could possibly do in a single day? There's so much stuff. And how much of it was you looking at the same things day after day?

Well, that's the beautiful thing about doing something every day is no one time matters. Like this need to like make the most of it or be productive or like, you know, see as much as you can. It doesn't matter. Like coming back tomorrow, coming like, you know, see as much as you can. It doesn't matter. Like coming back tomorrow, coming back, you know, I still go every day. Like that year is long over. So it would just depend on what I felt like.

And I have a very disciplined mind. I'm very, very disciplined. And so for me, it was kind of recess. So I really wanted to keep away from having, trying to discipline my mind or like, having an approach that I had to stick to. So it was very much, sometimesto-sale to be long, sun-to-sale to be short.

Sometimes I do things like, it's president's day. Let me go look at all the presidents. I could find kind of like fun little tasks. Sometimes I just go look at one thing. Sometimes I just sort of wander around and experience the museum as kind of a setting. And not even really look at anything in particular. So it just changed day to day what I felt.

Like I wanted to bring to, you to day what I felt like I wanted to bring to, you know, what I was in the mood for, really. There is a stoic idea that we never step in the same river twice. Well, 100%. How much of it would have been that for you? It's like, you're the, the art is the same, but you're different.

Oh, the one thing that I found is the art is changing, which more than I thought, even like there's new exhibits and like they're doing renovations, but they swapped the paintings in and out much more. Like with no fanfare, I'm like, nobody notices it's except for me, because I'm literally coming every day. But yeah, it was, but who knew that?

I did not know that. So it was, it was fascinating. Somebody that, a lot of people have this urge to do something day after day, because you see things unfold differently. Somebody told me that he goes to his same like chain drugstore every day. And I'm like, there's so much going on in a big chain drugstore. I would absolutely go every day.

That sounds so fascinating to me. Like to watch a time lapse of that drugstore would be incredible. How is it different? How does it change through the seasons? How does it respond to trends? What are the people doing? How are they behaving? How are they dressing?

Oh, now we've got self-check out. What's happening? How are people? I mean, there's a lot going on. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks

to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies, to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Kodopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud

from the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fring her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their

controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. Well, also just to think like, okay, so the night before you go to the drugstore, you go in the morning, that night, some crazy person could have come in and knocked everything off to the shelf.

It could have been this huge event that it's like an event that the people who witnessed it will remember forever. It was a giant pain in their ass. They had to do a ton of overtime to fix it. The police came, you know, one of those things you're like, it was in the paper. Yeah, like the morning, the night crew is buzzing to the morning crew. You never guess what happened, but then you as the customer come in at 11.30. And there's not a single trace that this happened.

No, every paper towel roll is, yeah, no, it's really interesting. But then you would pick up all these subtle differences. Oh, these two people are like, these two, people are having a fight. And like, this person's on the audio system all the time. Somebody's messing with the playlist. There's no security than normal. Yeah, or the seasonal changes.

But anyway, so, but when I did it, I thought this was very idiosyncratic, but it turns out a lot of people, like they'll take exactly the same walk with their dog, or if they're like force bathing, they'll go to the same sit spot. I think for some people really thrive on novelty and they would never try to chain themselves to doing the same thing every day. But for some people, it's very appealing. And I have to say that if it's the kind of thing that is attractive to you, it only becomes more interesting the longer I do it.

It's not like I'm like wearing it out and now it's boring. It's like, now I want to go to them at every day for the rest of my life because it's so rich and it only becomes more rich. I feel attention with that with reading, because there's so many books that I want to read. But rereading is so great. Reading is amazing, yes. I absolutely agree with that. And I love to reread, so I have to fight the impulse

to just reread. Yeah. In fact, I'm having the summer of rereading. What are you rereading? I'm reading The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, Crowds in power by Elias Canetti, the life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell. Have you read the club about Samuel Johnson in Boswell?

Oh, no, I have not. I had forgotten about that book. I should, is it really good? I just, I read it a couple of months ago and I just finished doing my notes on it and it found it absolutely incredible. Oh, 100%. That's great.

I'll read it in advance to prep up. I love Samuel Johnson. He's one of my favorite writers. Well, anybody interested in human nature? Of course, is interested in Samuel Johnson, because he's so, he can say in one sentence what people write entire like PhD thesis on. And then there's one other myth. Oh, then, well, I was going to reread Andy Warhol, but I think I'm going to like go

on out totally, yes, I love, love reread Andy Warhol, but I think I'm going to go on out totally. Yes, I'm love, love, love Andy Warhol, but so I think I'm going to do a whole thing about Andy Warhol, so he won't be my summer rereading. He'll be some other little reading task. Yeah, especially if you're someone who takes notes in books. Yes. So usually I'll reread the old copy that I have. Yes. And you notice what you notice.

Yes. That's so valuable. I've been re, I've been like, no, I'm going to read a fresh, that I have. Yes. And you notice what you notice. Yes. That's so valuable. I've been re, I've been like, no, I'm going to read a fresh, because I have this poster. I'll just take a new one off the shelf. Oh. And I'll go, I want to, I just want to experience it closer to the first time. Interesting. And then do you compare?

Yeah. I'll notice, oh, I took way more notes the first time than the second time or. You just pick, you're, because it's a different river. Yes. Yes. Yes. So it's, it's the same pick, because it's a different river. Yes. Yes. So it's the same river, but it's slightly different. Right, because you're a photograph of the river or something. Yeah, and there's some authors who are famous for being different every time you read them,

like Tolstoy is famous that way, that it's different every single time you read it. I feel like Virginia Woolf is that way. Have you read his book, A Calendar of Wisdom? Oh, yeah, yeah. That one, like so I read a page of that most. Do you think it's, A Calendar of Wisdom? Oh yeah, yeah. That one, like, so I read a page of that most. The thing is Tolstoy is such a horrible person that I would, if you love reading Tolstoy, do not read any biography of him. Like, don't just don't do it. But because they don't love his fiction. But that's a great example. So you read the book and you have one sense of it and then you

read about the man and then it's impossible for you to have the same sense of- And just trying to forget it as fast as I can so I can go back and love it as much as I do. I know, that is the tension where the art of monstrous men- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, exactly. I know I love calendar of wisdom, it's wonderful.

Yeah, yeah, and not that many people know about it. Well, and then the other thing is, I've tried to find some of the quotes. No, he's very fast in loose. Yes. Yeah, I think some of them he just made up. And that also changes how I, now I go, right, so and so, like, because he quotes the stokes a lot. So I'll be like, where is that at Epic Jesus?

Did I miss it? And in some cases I missed it. And at other times, this is a paraphrasing of a paraphrasing. Right, no, I have had exactly the same problem. And then it's the problem of translations, because some of these, you know, a different translation will get you to a very different place. And, you know, you will have your favorite translation. But yeah, with some of Tolstoy, I'm like, I don't, I couldn't

ever, I couldn't find it. And so he's somehow either like paraphrased it as you say, beyond recognition or he just was sloppy. Reading different translations is also a really great way to drill down on stuff. So you read a translation of the Odyssey from the 70s and then Emily Wilson's new translation and you're like, oh wow, this is, you realize one, how much a translation is a reflection

of the time that the author is reading in or writing in and then also how much discretion the translator has or what is presented and how it's presented. Well, because I always have a dedicated summer of reading something. So I had the summer of Proust a couple summers ago. And I have a lot of friends who are big Proust enthusiasts. And so I said to them, well, okay, which translation should I read? And I mean, it was just like warfare, you know, because they had such strong views. So I ended up reading like the most classic one because that's the one I wanted.

But, but people were saying it's just, it's really very, very different when you read a different translation. I usually say just, just don't read whatever one is free on the internet because it's free for a reason. Yeah, you can't what you pay for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. It's all enough that no one is even bothering to try to maintain the copyright. There's something to that.

But a great way to see this sort of in brief is the Delphiq Oracle. Like, I love like the Delphiq Mountains. Sure. If you compare them, they're really, they're different in very significant ways. And so I've thought, can you mix and like, if I had my own If you compare them, they're different in very significant ways. And so I've thought, can you mix and, like, if I had my own list, like, here they are, or here are my favorites. Can I mix and match translations or is that not legit?

What do you think? What are your favorites? I don't even know. Like, I have to go through and be like, okay, which one? You know, there's some of them are kind of strange. I'll give you one favorite. But first, I think that's a feature and not a bug of the Oracle, right? Even when the Oracle was saying it,

and there was no debate over what it was, because everyone spoke the same dialect as Greek. It was supposed to be just vague enough. You would perceive what you needed to perceive. Well, one of them is something like, perceive what you have known, or something very Yoda. Or the famous one with the Mystic Leaves

was like go to your wooden wall. And it's like, that means boats, you know, or like, and you're like, okay, that's cause you're a naval captain where you already wanted to do a naval strategy or whatever, but you realize that the purpose of it was to be just deliberately vague enough that smart people could use it as kind of a way to describe or to put support behind what they already wanted to do.

But my favorite is from Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. So as a young man, he's this part of this merchant family. So it travels all over. And he's, he's a side's one time to stop at the Delphi to get, to get like advice on his life. And they say, they say to him, you will become wise when you begin to have conversations with the dead, which he's like, what does that mean?

And I think also part of it was meant to be something that you chew on, like those zen things. It's like, just sit there and think about it. And so he thinks about it for many, many years and then he suffers this shipwreck, and he washes up an Athens, and he loses everything. He's penniless, and he walks into a bookstore. That's what this bookstore is called, the painted porch, because he walks into this bookstore,

which he then founds. A Greek walks into a bookstore. A Greek bookstore. A Greek walks into a bookstore. But anyways, he's in this bookstore, and that's when he realizes, because the owner of the bookstore is reading something from Socrates or something, and he realizes that conversations with the dead is books. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. Oh, that's what they are. But this is the thing is you make your own oracle. That's the genius of it. It's like the placebo. Your brain is the pain killer. Your mind, your imagination, like you are the Oracle. Well, when the student is ready to teach her appears,

when you need the meaning of the thing, then it unlocks itself, whereas before it was gibberish. Well, a project that I have had on the back burner for a long time is this one. It's called like scientific oracle. I don't know what I'm going to call it. Because I want to create a system of like, a regular prediction myself,

because I'm so intrigued by this because you can't. It's our minds that create that meaning. And so what would the prompts be? And then what would be like the symbolic, anyway, it's like a whole other thing. And you wrote the Ruben book. I just, I just have it on the top of my library list. And it hasn't, you know, of course it was checked out. I'm really excited to read it.

Well, you don't want to be handed out. I'll give it to you. But he talks about this in the book. So he's like when artists are stuck, he gives them two pieces of advice. Like let's say they're stuck lyrically. What's the, what's the Buddhist thing? It's like the mandala.

No, no, no, the Buddhist thing where it's like random numbers and it's like unlocks stuff for you. It just like tells you what to do. A colon. No, no, no, it's this Buddhist thing where it's basically like, Oh, down the, the, I'm teaching. Yes.

Yeah, you like the, it's like, yeah. It's like, it's right right now. It gives you these. Yes. Yeah, you like that. It's like, yeah. It's like, it's right now, it gives you these sex of instructions. Yeah, you, you cast, yeah. So he's like, just, just, he's basically saying, hand over control to someone other than yourself. Yes, no, I'm, yes, I'm very preoccupied with that. And he tells, not in the book,

but the famous example of him doing this is the band's system of a down, their big song, Chop Sui. It has this, this really haunting sort of bridge. What is he saying in the bridge? Like, why has Thal forsaken me? He just like sings this over and over again. And it's like haunting and dark and amazing. The song was as you chit. The story was they didn't know what they wanted the bridge to say. And Rick Rubin told them to go to the shelf, take a book off

of the shelf. So they took the Bible and just hit a random line. And that is it. So the idea of like handing over control to something other than yourself, that's what the Delphi was also. So in the book, I write about how like I had this list of what I was calling indirect directions that were just like these kind of gnomek, like break the frame, rearrange the parts, you know, just dozens of those. But I didn't like the fact that it was in my computer because it felt very ghost-like.

And also I was like, I'm just gonna, I create so much stuff. I'm like, I'm just gonna forget I even have this one day and I'll just vanish. So I, and I found my father's old rolodex and I was so enchanted by it. I bought a rolladex and wrote all these things. Yeah, so I can just pull them when I need them. But the first challenge that I had, the first creative challenge, which again, I wanted to use that random pull, was,

what do I call this thing? I didn't like calling it the rolladex of ideas or the indirect directions. I'm like, I need a better name, but what is it? So I was stuck. So I used my own Rollit X, and the thing that I pulled was fine to fresh metaphor. And so I was like, okay, so I pulled up the card, stuck it on my bulletin board, and then I was at the Met, and I saw this ink stand of Apollo. It was a super elaborate,

and it's covered, it's got all these little cubbies, and it's covered with muses and poets and gods. And then I thought, mues machine. That's the name of my role with exo ideas. It's the mues machine because it's like an idea generator. And I was so excited. But that's the thing is I think there's this written you. And also when you pick something at random, it feels like the universe is some you're like somehow participating with destiny or divine providence. And so it's very attractive to, and then it's your creativity that somehow, because we all need something, it's like the sonnet form. You need something to work with. And so it gives you that idea. The constraints are actually 100%. Yeah, free. Yes. It gives you a place. Yeah. Oh, good.

I'll read that. I heard his, I've heard him interviewed that I'm psyched to read it. Okay, good. Yeah, I was thinking when I was reading the New Silence chapter, I was thinking of John Cage. Don't worry, yeah, he's Mr. Silence. Yeah, Mr. Silence, but also he used that, whatever that. Randomness, yeah. Randomness thing, when he would use that

to produce or to make artistic decisions. In the end, randomness is very limited. Artistically, I think it's something, it's a tool, but I think it runs out. Sure. Yes. Have you, speak of silence? You can be one John Cage.

Yes, and also John Cage is very interesting. Right. Who's listening to him right now? Everybody talks about it. He's like, yeah, it's incredibly, it's very incredibly. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it's, it, it, he exists kind of as the exception

that proves some rules. Yeah. When he makes a point, but then you're not interested in seeing person after person after person, making the point that, yeah. Or like random theater, it's just like, you know, I don't know. Yes. But have you been to that church in Helsinki, the church of silence? No.

And like whatever the main square in Helsinki is, you walk in, it's this non-enominational church and it was designed. I don't know if it was inspired by the John Cage thing, but I've been twice, but it was just designed. Everything was designed to create and foster silence. You know, a lot of talking there. There's nothing on the wall. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna make a pilgrimage. Yeah, it's incredible. I've never heard of this. I love silence.

I can't, well, it's called the Church of Silence. If you just search Church of Silence, it's Helsinki, whatever the crazy finish of the endless. I've been wanting a reason to get a Helsinki, and now I have it. Excellent. Oh, I would love to, that's one of the things I love about the five senses.

It's like a reason to go on all these adventures. It's like, I've never done a sound bath. Why don't I do a sound bath? You know, immerse. A sensory deprivation chamber. Oh, yeah, I did that. I found it boring. I have to say it was not.

Did you fall asleep? No. I fell asleep in one way. I found it was, I did not find it transformative. Intrateraphy. I cried therapy. Yeah. You did ayahuasca? I did ayahuas transformative. I tried therapy. Did Iawaska? I did Iawaska.

Big busts did not work for me. That was a big disappointment. It was a great adventure and talk about pushing yourself. Like if you knew me, you would be very surprised. Did I try Iawaska? Yeah. So it was something where I was pushing the boundaries of my natural behavior. Yes, yes. So it was something where I was pushing the boundaries of my natural behavior.

Yes, yes. And it was a huge adventure. It was like a whole thing. But as a- Did you get more out of that than the doing it? Oh, 100%. Because I got nothing out of the doing it. It was like a five senses.

Sure. You know, heightened senses. Could I have experienced the universe in this like way that I couldn't ordinarily get to on my own which I was very excited about. But it was also a reason to do it. I wouldn't have occurred to me except I was like ooh five senses adventure. Let's do something actually psychedelic. This should be amazing. But I just threw up three times and fell asleep and then it was and then nothing happened and then I was just myself just normal so nothing but it was so nothing. But it was a whole thing.

Did it make just uniquely you or do you think the whole thing is overrated? Oh no, I think it was uniquely me. I think I just got it out of my system so fast. And it was all happening very, very late at night. I'm a real morning person. And so I think that my body was like, you know what?

It's time to shut this down. Why are we awake so late? Like, let's just get rid of this stuff. And some of the people, a lot of the people didn't, they didn't have that problem. And so maybe that's why their experiences were more intense. So. But that's interesting.

But they say about ayahuasca, like it's not predictable. That's part of why it's not. Somebody was saying to me, that's why it's not addictive. Because for things to be addictive, you have to know what to expect. And even the people I was with, everybody had wildly different experiences. So my mind was a bust.

I've been joking that you know it works because they have to do it a lot of times. Mm. Ah. No, you know what I mean? They're like, it was transformative. It changed everything. Ah. And that's why I do it all the time. Oh, interesting. You know what I mean? Okay. Like, sounds like you're describing basically every drug to me. I don't know anybody who's done it a bunch of, well, I guess I know a few people have done it a And it sounds like you're describing basically every drug to me. I don't know anybody who's done it a bunch of, well, I guess I know a few people have done it a bunch of times, but they do everything. Just move to Austin.

Okay, all right, okay. Yeah, well, I run with a very square crowd. So as a former lawyer, no, yeah, yeah. So I love the idea though, that the senses are both to be explored and followed and then the tension of like also don't trust them. Yeah, because you have to remember that what you are experiencing is very much affected by your genetics, your upbringing, your culture, your expectations, the context. If you tell people, oh, you're smelling Parmesan, they'll be like, oh, this smells good.

If you say, oh, this is vomit, they'll say, oh, it smells terrible. Right. Or my daughter, I brought home a paper white narcissist, you know, and they have that very particular smell. And I said to her, oh, I love this smell of paper white narcissist. And she's like, oh, I didn't know they had a smell. So she leaned in and took a big sniff. And she's like, oh, I hate that smell.

I thought we had like a dead mouse. I was really worried about that. And then once she knew it was a flower and not a dead mouse, she was like, I don't mind the smell. She doesn't love the smell, but when she thought it was, when her mind was supplying this like very dark image, she really disliked it.

And then when she thought it's like a holiday flower, that's it became much less noxious. That's a good example, like the way you can be primed. So it's like if someone says a high number, you're anchored on the prime of your heart Oh yeah, I'm anchored in the best. Yeah, or something. This is an expensive wine. Yeah.

This is ecologically friendly coffee. People will rate it higher if they value the environment. Yes, or they'll take a fast food restaurant and put the food inside a regular restaurant and people are like, this is amazing. Yeah, right. And it's like, no, this is McDonald's and you would have looked down on it

under ordinary circumstance. Yeah, we're so much of it is what we expect. We're flowering a weed. Talk about marketing. Yeah. It's, you know, if something doesn't sell, well, double the price and sell it and it will often sell better. No, no, no, no, no, no weed, you know, or ban it. Oh, 100%. Trying to make, well, I want to write a book of algorithms. And one of my offers is, is if you try to hide something or make it secret, it unfailingly makes it more interesting. Interesting. Yes. Sure. When, when people say you shouldn't be able to have it,

people, let me, let me check on that. Let me check it out. Or like, there's the famous server, Barbara Streisand, they were doing a coastal survey. And, and so there were all these aerial photographs of like everything along the coast. And her lawyers found out that you could see her house. So they like wanted the device down. Right, the device and effect. And so before the lawsuit, like six people had seen it, including her lawyers.

And then after the lawsuit, like two million people have seen it because everybody's like, ooh, what is it that the barbers' race in? That's what one has to see. Or gun control in California is mostly the result of conservatives reacting to liberal groups like the Black Panther is arming themselves in the 60s and 70s. So when you're, a opponent does something that you would under ordinary, under ordinary circumstances like you perceive it very differently.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Now, it's the people think, oh, because people support this, they don't they're totally ignoring the causes or the reason that thing happened in the first place. Well, it's fasted anyhow reframing something can completely change it. Like, do I get to do it or do I have to do it? Yeah. It's like you feel very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a mark. It's a realist thing I love where you go, you always have the option of having no opinion. This never true word has been said. Or you can, and I always think of it as like,

what happens if my, my own business? Yeah, yeah. Often it's like, yeah, you don't have to weigh in. Yes, especially on issues of taste, like just the idea of like, I don't like this. Right. And that is as far as I've thought about this thing. Yes.

I really don't care that you think that comedian is funny. Right. Then it is true. They are funny to you. Right. But it's my desire to make reality conform to my taste that is the problem. Exactly.

I mean, you have people who try to convince you, like, wine is so good. It's like everything, you know, if you've ever been with somebody who's like a huge wine, I mean, just like, I'm just not interested. And they're like, but I could make you interested. I'm like, yeah, I mean, it's not, nothing is inherently interesting. Nothing is inherently fun. Just because something's fun for you doesn't mean it's fun for me and vice versa. And yeah, you just again, you have to keep that in mind. All right, this is my last marks really square, I think. There's two things that I think pertains to your book here. So what he, I think the most beautiful passage in the book is,

he's walking through this field and he's commenting on the grain and he's commenting on the effects of faux, but a boar's mouth. He talks about the way that bread cracks open in the oven. He's basically just commenting on a bunch of ordinary stuff as if it is the most beautiful thing in the world. The way that a poet looks at the world. And that's one of the things that I took from your book was, you were like,

I'm just really gonna notice stuff. When you really notice stuff, it would be unusual if what you noticed was how awful and ugly everything was. What you notice is that how wonderful and amazing and unbelievable and majestic things that you totally took for granted are. That's true, but it does make me more aware of clutter and racket and stink. But it's almost like

I like it better because it's just part of the range of experience. So even things that I would say I don't like, I still kind of, I don't begrudge the experience the way I think I used to be sort of irritated by it. Now I understand it's just part of the range of perception. Yeah, I think it was kind of stoic. I think it was Margaret Thatcher. Someone she was driving in the United States. Someone she saw the sprawl of, I don't know, phoenix, like some urban, ugly American city. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Look at this sprawl. And she said, isn't it beautiful? Yes, right. I was opposed to how it shouldn't be this way. Yes, that's a great example, right? It's jobs, it's building, it's growth, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think about that with my kids when I see like,

like I walked into their play room this morning and it was a disaster. Like, and I go, this room is well played. Yes, right. As opposed to this room should be, should look like kids don't live here. Right, right, right. No, back to the thing about not having a judgment.

It's like, I feel like with parents, it's like you're either two boisterous or you're two sluggish or you're two bold or you're two timid or you're two bookish or you're not bookish enough. It's just like, what it is. Yeah, you get what you get and you don't get upset.

Yeah, I think sometimes people want this like impossible mix in their children. Yeah, whereas acceptance is probably a happier healthier. Well, the same thing as a bug and a feature. Yeah, you know, so. Yeah, or you know, your dish, you got a sink full of dirty dishes. It's like, is this a chore or is this the tax you pay on the dinner that you just took together? Right, right, right.

How do you choose to choose? Right, right, right. You choose to choose to choose. Right, right, right, right. You choose to choose to choose to choose. Right, right, right, right, right, right. You choose to choose to choose to choose. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

You choose to choose to choose to choose. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right,

right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, this is a dead pig. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a bloated stuff. Ooh, so the opposite. Just seeing how ugly everything is. Yes. Right. And then you're like, I don't care that it's the most expensive wine in the world. It's this.

You know, like, that, I think he's saying that you strip things of the legend that encrust them. Like we just, we just had this tour of the White House. And you're like, this is like an office. Yeah, it's very shabby and small. It really, it's very surprising how small it is, right? Yeah, and then also it's like, do you have any dumb idiots who've worked here?

Like, like, you know, like on the one hand, you can see, like this is the seat of power of the modern world and this is where Kennedy's stared down the Soviets and the missile crisis. And then you're like, also this is the seed of power of the modern world and this is where Kennedy stared down the Soviets and the missile crisis. And then you're like, also this is where, was it harding had an affair in the closet? And you know, this is where they plotted the segregation of the federal, you know, the federal office.

Like you can see, I think the idea is, if you see them for the dingingness or the contrast, that also helps you not be so intimidated with the widened to the marketing that goes along with it. So I guess the stoic perspective would be to just try to understand that both things can be true at the same time, or that you don't have to judge. You don't have to go in there and say,

this is amazing or this is terrible. You can just say, this is what it is and how do I try to truly take it in? Yes. And yeah, it was sort of a calm and when you're depressed, you should look for the wonderful side of it. And then when you're high on your own supply, you should look to graduate it down a little bit with the other. Now, is it true or is this just like urban myth that in the, uh, and they, when the emperors would pray go on their triumphant parade, somebody would say, remember, you must die.

Yeah. I think, uh, Epictetus talks about it. Yeah. And he worked in Nero's court. So, I mean, maybe it was, might have been a one-time thing. Yeah. Well, it was a legend, even then. Right. Yes. But after I mean, maybe it was... Might have been a one time thing. That was a legend even then. Right, yes. But after a certain point, it's true. You know, right, right. How long are we gonna go back before like it's true? It's true whether it's factual.

I guess it's very powerful. Yes, yes. And it's interesting to think that they mean that in a couple senses. Like, so Memento Moria is like, all humans are mortal. But if you think about it in the context of the slave whispering in the Emperor's ear at their moment of greatest accomplishment, I think they're trying to say, you're still a human.

It's not about mortality per se. It's that you're not special. You're not like, you're still a human being. You're not a god. We're literally telling you you're a god, and then we're also telling, we're reminding you that you're not a god. Right, right, at your moment of triumph.

Yes. So you're not a music person? Well, what I realized is I'm a song lover, and not a music lover. So I like individual songs that I feel very passionate about love, but I don't, like, I won't listen to everything by an artist or a whole genre or listen to suggested playlists or where I almost never got a concert because I just like the one song. I would, yeah.

I'm, I, I think that's an interesting distinction. I am a song person too. I tend to listen to the same songs on repeat. Like what I'm writing, yeah, I need to song person too. I tend to listen to the same songs on repeat. But what I'm writing, I need to get into an emotional place that means like picking a song and running it in a cycle. You know, one of the things that was interesting to me is what kind of auditory surroundings help people to be focused and productive. And it seems between silence, busy home, which is like coffee shops. Why would one always deliberately write some coffee shops? Which is the worst place in the world. A lot of people love that.

Like airports, music with words, music without words, and then music on repeat. And it's interesting, like this idea of the loop. I, there's a whole subgenre of people who have the loop and it's just bonkers to me. What do you think that is? I don't know, but it's really, and like I talked to somebody where she said,

she would, if she was working with words, she wanted music without lyrics, and if she was working with numbers, she wanted music with lyrics. So I think, I think part of it is just knowing yourself and what I love silence, but I will take busy hum, but I don't like,

I would never, never, never work to music. And in fact, I was on the plane and they had music playing while people were getting seated. And I was just like, oh, I just want to turn it off. I want to read my book and I don't want this music playing. And you see, worth an open office plan, or if you get a boss, he's like, oh, I read research saying that jazz makes people creative. It's like, not everybody, because you want to listen to the same song or and you want to pick that song that works for you. And, and then for ever do you associate a song with a book project, where it does it does it immediately take you back? It hits me more.

I listen to music usually when I'm reading. And so I'm cycling through songs. You do, so I can't do that. Every once in a while, the song and the book will line up so perfectly that then that book where that song is indelibly associated with the Civil War or this thing. And then I also tend to eat while I'm reading.

I do it during meals. So also I crack open the book, and I'm like, oh, that's what I was doing. Clearly an Italian restaurant. Right, right. You could do an interesting, because one of the things I do in the book is I do a taste timeline where I, in fact,

you might be interesting for you to do like a reading music timeline where you track those associations. It might be the kind kind of thing where it might take a while for those memories to come back, but over time they would come to your mind. It would be a really interesting chronology of your own preferences and interests and how they matched up. And then in the future probably would help you remember that better. I've done a playlist like on if you pre-order some of my books, I'll give you the playlist of the songs I listened to the most while I was writing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then, you know, they're usually like, they're, the association exists only in my, you never get. Yeah, yeah. They don't seem like they're related. Well, in the book I read about writing, doing my audio, Pothik, Keri, for all the books that would, all the songs that would cure the blues, and I put it on Spotify. And since people have seen it, like they keep saying, I can't believe you didn't include this song.

And I'm like, there's a bazillion songs, you know, I picked my songs, but people are like, I can't believe you love this one out because everybody has their own list. And they, but again, it's like, it's, you are the one making the choices. There's no objective. Well, of course, this song must be included

because everybody's, you know, your playlist for your book, like no one else could come up with that. Of course. Because it's an individual, a sodium, a syncradic. That's part of what's fun. I am jealous of music, though, in the sense that like what a musician can do in five seconds, you know, even me at my absolute best, like the height of my powers, I'm the most locked in,

most, I feel like would take me 20 pages. In the sense of like striking the mood, conveying, like the emotion in music is so... I don't like the imprecision of visual arts or music. Because I can't, with reading, like, I can't control what you think, but I can tell you exactly what I am trying to communicate. Sure. Let me tell you what I mean.

Let me, yeah. And so, I think that that to me is very satisfying. I get what you mean, in terms of conjuring. Yes. But I don't know. I guess what I'm saying is, but that's probably I don't die. You take that much.

What are the best pros, writers of all time? Like let's say we took Fitzgerald or something. Okay, right. And then we were somehow able to translate what they were doing to some even, like we had a musician and we had Fitzgerald and we made them do the same thing and we're like, who's better?

I so, where, I feel like a mediocre musician could reach the same emotional heights that it would require the absolute master of this other profession to do, if that makes sense. I guess, yes, yes, yes, yes. But like, even like the music playing in a commercial is like tear jerker right away and you're like, you're like, yeah, a movie score compared to what the screenwriter had to do on the page to get you to the field of the way, to what the author had to get you to feel that way in a book. It's like, you know, it's like pages of prose,

a handful of bits of dialogue, and then it's like three notes. Right, right, right, right. It's like spider-sciples. I think, yeah, I got it. E-minor is the science character. It's like, that already did most of the work. Yeah, yeah, right, right. I get it. I get it. He might as the science. Yeah, okay, okay. It's like, that already did most of the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just, it's like, you just have,

so the of the neglected sense, you know, I have this quiz, what you're neglected sense. So, my most neglected sense is taste, but my second most neglected sense is hearing. And I think I'm just not, I'm just not oriented for hearing. And so I don't look to it for pleasure or interest or engagement or curiosity particularly. And so it's interesting. I have never occurred to me to think that. But for somebody who likes music more, then that's something that you know, you would have a thought like that because you're more oriented to sound and music and hearing. But you talked to your podcast editor in the book. I thought that was interesting. And you're just like, no, they're noticing all these things that you're like, what?

Yeah, well, because in my, for my podcast, every week I tell like a little story, a little teaching story. You love a teaching story. I love a teaching story. So I tell like a little teaching story. I don't call them that because that's not so boring, but... There's a Greek word for it. It's called... Oh. Crazy. Yeah, or something like this. And it means like an anecdote that teaches a lesson. That is what I do. I'm gonna look that up.

Okay, we'll do that. We'll do that. Okay, I did not know that. Right, so that's what these are. And so what, and he records them. And so he's, so in a lot of them involved music, like the farmer and the cow man from Oklahoma, which is like,

oh my gosh, the thoughts that I have around that song. And so he'd heard me tell these like very heartfelt stories related to songs. And so he could say to me, you do have strong emotions related to songs. You know, I don't understand why you're saying this about yourself. And it just allowed me to see myself in a completely different way. I'm a song lover, not a music lover. Well, and also though, like, if you're not an audio person, there's all these things that is you're operating in, say, an audio medium. Like, we were in one room, now we're in another room, as they're recording this, as well, it's playing in the intro. But, like, you and I would probably not perceive any difference or any drop in, where some people

would be like, I like the first 10 minutes and then I had to stop or just all these different, like, I don't like the mic that you're using or I don't like how you pronounce these words. The posters, yeah. Or people will email me, I don't like how much you say the word like and being from California that never, that's just how I exist. So that would never, not only would it never bother me, but I also don't understand a kind of person that would write in, tell the person that bothers him.

But as I've come to realize is that, like, oh, this is like they're wearing like a very scratchy sweater. Like, that's what that is for them. And they're overwhelmed by the sensation that this is bringing up. And it's creating literally zero sensation in me. Well, exactly.

And to your point about we see what we look for that our perceptions can change. If somebody says, pay attention, you'll start to be overwhelmed by it. Whereas before you might not have noticed it at all. Yes. Yeah, and if people want to play with this, I encourage everybody to run

and watch the monkey business illusion on YouTube. This is where you don't notice what's happening. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something you're told to count how something about basketballs. Yeah, if you don't know, go check it out, monkey business illusion. And it will, it's bonkers. There's even a version that if you know, if you know the illusion, there's one where it outfacts you. But I don't, I can't get into that without spoiling it.

As we wrap up, I wanted to talk to you because I read Evan Thomas' biography of your old boss. Have you read that book? I did not read it. But I, that, she wasn't a person. I talked to him for it though. Oh really? Yeah. She wasn't a person that I was primed to be particularly excited or interested in.

And I found his biography of Sandra Day O'Connor just like totally riveting. Mm-hmm. She's an icon. Two thing, a couple things that connected with your book is one. And I found his biography of Sandra Day O'Connor just like totally riveting. She's an icon. Two thing, a couple of things that connected with your book is one. He tells this story where she leaves her office one day, she makes like a bunch of her clerks come with her. Maybe this was you. But she starts collecting cicadas, like every 15 years or whatever they appear. And she's picking them up. And she's like, she's picking them up. And she's like, what the is in this box? And then she makes her clerk mail it back home to Arizona. And they're like, what are you doing?

And she was like, my grandkids have never seen this before. And she was like, and I want them to be curious about nature in the world. And she said this great line that I think of. I think of, I should say, because if you're not curious, you're not smart. Mm-hmm. That's so true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's very just as a connery. That's exactly what I asked her after I wrote the Happiness Project. I said to her, well, what do you think the secret to happiness is justice? And without a pause, she said,

work worth doing. And the more I've thought about the answer, that answer, the better I think it is because she doesn't say work for pay. Right or work for power or work for influence. It's work worth doing. Yes. And that's something that only you can decide. But I think it's a really, but like it's if you don't have work worth doing, it's hard to be happy. Yeah. Well, it's like if you don't have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, it's hard to get out of head of the morning. The other one I liked is he, one of the clerks is, I think it's a female clerk was saying that what she always admired about her was that she never said sorry before she said no. So she was like, hey, do you want to come talk at this? Do you want to come deliver this commencement address? She's just saying no, not sorry. I can't.

Yeah. Being a Supreme Court justice is very special thing. Sure. Sure. Yes. Yes. You do not apologize for what you do and don't want to do. But I think this clerk was saying that from the perspective, especially maybe earlier on, of a woman not being a people pleaser in the sense, especially maybe earlier on, of a woman, not being a people pleaser in the sense of like, I just, I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings. So I agree to do a bunch of stuff that I don't wanna do. I think we all struggle with that.

I love the idea of no being a complete sentence. Or I don't want to. Yeah. No, I know some funny stories related to that that I will not tell, but yes, that is very characteristic of Justice O'Connor, absolutely. Yeah, very clear on what she did and did not want. Yes.

In the most kind of straightforward and pleasant way. She was a very gregarious and kind person, but very clear on what she didn't want. I feel like that's something we could all be better at, though. Right? It's like, we don't want to say no to one person, even though that inherently means saying no to other people, if not ourselves. And that's a great, this gets into the four tendencies personally profile, which we want to get into,

but if you want to know about that, my four tendencies book. But often for people who have trouble saying no, what the way to help them is to say, remember to say yes to one person, you have to say no to somebody else. If I say yes to my team and work late, I have to say no to my family. And we've talked about how I'm gonna be home by 630.

And or like, if I turned on this opportunity, someone else has a chance to get up and speak at that convention, or somebody else can be on that faculty advising committee. And for me, I don't want to do it. And for somebody else, it could be like a life-changing, career-changing opportunity. If I say no, then I can say yes to something else.

Or somebody else gets to say yes. And that's for certain people. That's a very, very helpful thing to remember, to help them have that kind of outer accountability for what they need to just to assert that. And the sort of invisible graveyard of projects you could have finished or done. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I like the phrase. I like that phrase, yeah. Like when the pandemic happened and suddenly I wasn't traveling, I wasn't doing me, like I was like, oh, this is the level that I wasn't doing me. Like, I was like, oh, this is the level that I could be operating at. Creatively.

Like the opportunity costs are usually hidden from us. Yes. Ooh, opportunity cost is, I remember learning that idea in law school and being like, this explains so much. Yes. It's a really important idea to understand everything has an opportunity cost. I think we're very, very bad at understanding. Yes. It's a really important idea to understand. Everything has an opportunity cost.

I think we're very, very bad at understanding. Absolutely. Oh, that should be your next book. Still looks like an opportunity cost. Well, Sennaka's favorite or most famous quote is about how if somebody stole your money or encroached on your property, you would be immediately a guest. Yeah. But you will let people impose on your time without question, even though that's the only

irreplaceable, non-renewable resource. And we think about this for ourselves. Like, why are we... I mean, you never waste time because you're always doing something with time, but you often will... I think often people feel... That's one of the funny things I found about... For people who are too attracted to their phones.

Turn your phone to grayscale. It's so much harder to use because just the site that you need to use your phone is so cumbersome, that it's much easier to put it down because that is one thing. We're over and over. You hear people say, there's better uses for my time than doom scrolling or just going through the news feed or whatever. And so make it harder to use and then it's less appealing. And then the, or life-ridden people putting things on their, their home screen like weed,

you know, to remind you so that it device reminds you. This isn't how you want to be. I don't want to steal my own time. You don't want to waste my own time. Yeah, what we're willing to steal an unlimited amount of times from ourselves or our sort of future potential. Yeah. Whereas we're better at protecting other people's time for some.

I don't want to waste your time. I'll waste my time scrolling on this thing. Right, right. So it's all about the self-awareness. I have Instagram is the only social network I have the password to. But it's on my wife's phone. And so it's like, I just, there's just like having one little extra step or just, it's not literally in my pocket inherently limits the amount of time I can spend on the thing. And then not, not, not having access to Twitter has been the best one over the years.

Because I've never been on there and I'm like, I'm glad that was good. That was better for me. Well, so I wrote a book about habits called Better Than Before about the 21 strategies of how to change habits. And one of the most universally useful ones is the strategy of inconvenience because to like a hilarious degree, we won't do something if it's even slightly, there's a hilarious research about with the salad bar that if you, if people have to use tongs instead of a spoon, they take a lot less food because they just can't be bothered to use the tongs. So the least bit of inconvenience. And having to go to your wife and be like, hey, can I look in your front? That's a pretty,

that's a pretty major inconvenience. That's a great, that's always like, if there's something you don't want to do, make an inconvenience. If you want yourself to do it, make it convenient, and this really, this really, really works. When the feedback loop there is then you also realize that you didn't miss it, which I'm sure you kind of found on the sugar stuff. It's like you cut it out and it's like, 100%. 100%. Well, and it's with the sugar thing, it's even kind of more magical because one of the things

I couldn't understand is like Everybody's always like, oh, they're all these food cues. How are you not distracted by food cues? I'm like, why am I not distracted by food cues? Oh, like you see an image, you smell, and you know, it's omnicookies You're walking through an airport and anti-ans, whatever. Ooh, smells. It smells like you. You know, that's a company that does that? Oh, 100%.

Yeah, the same company that does elevator music owns the company that pipes in smells at all of those restaurants. Well, and it's the baking and yeah. It's like the sounds in the movie. It's that actually a horse on a horse. Right, right, right, right. It's a better version of making the sound.

Right, right, and so, but you know, there's all these, you know, anywhere you go, you see images, whatever, and so these are food cues. And I thought, well, why am I not distracted by them? But then like doing the research for life in five cents, it's because this information isn't useful to me. My brain is moving it into the background.

So when I had my active sweet tooth, and I was eating sugar, if there was like a plate of cookies in the middle of a conference room, I mean, all I could see, and think about was, oh my gosh, run cookie to cookie three cookies. Now it's my birthday, it's raining, I deserve it. Tomorrow, but now it's like, I hardly even notice them because I don't eat them.

So it's just, they just fade away. It's just like, they're just like a pile of pens. It's like, do I need a pen? And so I think often when we're trying to do behavior change, it's reinforcing in ways that we don't necessarily anticipate because part of what it is is we begin to adjust. Right.

And maybe we really get into reading. And so we start a book and now we're like, oh my, this book is so good. I want to keep reading hour after hour, but you have to read for 10 minutes before you realize how much you love the book. And so a lot of times these things will, you can have a virtuous cycle or an, or an un-virtuous cycle depending on what's going on.

Well, the other part of the virtuous slash un-virtuous cycle there is then you have the thing that you cut out your diet. Let's say you cut out bread, and then you go have regular pizza, which maybe you had once a week previously, and then you just feel terrible, because your body's not used to having that thing, and you go, oh, I was just used to this feeling. I had the acquired, like we talked about acquired tastes, you had the acquired taste, and you go, this is why I don't do that. Right, right, right.

I realized that, like you said, sugar is a toxin, but you're used to it, so it doesn't feel toxic. Right. And then you get some distance from it, it becomes clear why you should continue to it. So it doesn't feel toxic. And then you get some distance from it. It becomes clear. Why you should continue to avoid it or you hopelessly relapse. Right. Right. Well, yeah, you start the cycle over again. Yeah. Now, you definitely appreciate it more. Are you you experience it more intensely when it's rare. Yes. Well, I loved the book, and I'm glad that it's not rare

that you publish a book. I feel like you are the exact right amount of privilege. Oh good, well thank you. You're prolific, you're yourself. We both like to write. But I might be the raw, I might be slightly too. Like, you don't do a book, you're doing like every two, two and a half years.

Yeah, it's like just enough, I of like, it's been a while. Yeah, good. Well, I'm so happy to hear you say that. Yeah, it's exciting to have another book out of the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's she been up to? Yeah, yeah. No, it's fun. Yeah, well, it's so fun to get the chance to talk to you. Yeah, thanks. 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!

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