The Daily Stoic - Humble, The Poet on Being Free of Passion but Full of Love

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Ryan speaks with Humble, the Poet about his new book How to be Love(d), why our passions often get in the way of real love, viewing love as a service to others rather than a reward for ourselves, and more.Kanwer Singh, professionally known as Humble, the Poet, is a Canadian poet, author, YouTuber, rapper, and spoken word artist, as well as the son of immigrant Indian Punjabi Sikh parents. In 2010, he left his job as an elementary school teacher in 2010 to become a poet, and since then, he has authored three books, including Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life and Things No One Else Can Teach Us. He received a nomination for Best Original Song at the 2014 Streamy Awards. His work can be found on his website, his YouTube channel, and on Twitter and Instagram @humblethepoet.✉️  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.

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Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stood Podcast. One of my favorite Bible verses is Corinthians 13, 13. Now faith, hope, and love, but of these three, the greatest of these is love. It's actually similar to something Mark really says in Meditations. He says he learns from one of his philosophy teachers to be free of passion, but full of love. And that's actually the topic of today's episode. I have Humble the Poet on, a Canadian YouTuber, an author, and rapper, and spoken word artist, a poet, right? It says it in the name. He was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, 2010.

He left his job as an elementary school teacher and became Humble the Poet. And I first heard about him through my friend Jay Shetty, who told me about his new book about how to be loved. It's just a, it's a sweet, lovely, hopeful little book about a topic that I don't think we connect deeply enough to stoicism because stoicism seems to be so much about restricting the emotions about being free of the passions. But without the second part of that equation, right, to be full of love, I think we're missing something. Humbles first book unlearn 101 simple truths for a better life is also out. You can check that out. You can follow them on

Instagram. It has a great video. It's great posts at Humble the Poet on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow him on Instagram. He has a great video, his great posts at Humble the Poet on Twitter and Instagram. You can go to his website, Humble the Poet, but check out his new book, How to Be Loved. And I think you're really kind of like it. Thanks to Humble for coming on the pack. Thanks for Humble for coming on the podcast. Enjoy. And then just a housekeeping note, if you didn't hear about it already, the Daily Stoic is $199 as an eBook, pretty much everywhere. eBooks are sold in the US and in the UK. There's obviously a leather-bound, hardcore addition. There's unit sign copies of the regular book in the Daily Stoic store at store.dailystoic.com. But if you click the link in today's show notes, you can get the Daily Stoic for $Buck 99.

That's as cheap as it's ever gonna be. And hopefully start the new year with some Stoicism alongside how to be loved. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in Have you, I thought the book was very, very interesting and it was fitting for me because I am, I'm doing this book on justice right now and one of the chapters I'm doing towards the end is about love. So I was thinking about the themes in the book, like as I was reading it. So here's what I thought we would do. I want to give you some quotes, some of which are from the Stoics, some or not.

And then I want you to give me your reaction to them. We'll just go back and forth on them. That sound good? That sounds great. Alright, so let me give you this one from Marcus Realized, which I love. He says, the things ordained for you, teach yourself to be at one with those and the people who share them with you, treat them with love, with real love. you treat them with love with real love. I think you know the the foundation of any good relationship you know whether it's friends, romantics or you know your work relationships or your relationship with even inanimate things is

kind of common priorities, common direction, common purpose you know that being a foundation you you know, I'm the child of an arranged marriage. And I think the reason my parents have been together forever is they both walked into a situation with a common purpose. And that may not be considered, you know, traditional for people on the side of the pond, but having a shared journey, a shared aim, a shared orientation, I think can do a lot.

And I think what Marcus Releas is talking about, is first discovering what's important to you and being around people who align with that. Yeah, I think the interesting thing about an arranged marriage would be, you know, I think all relationships require a certain amount of acceptance. Sometimes people ask me, I've all relationships require a certain amount of acceptance. Sometimes people ask me, I've been with my wife for almost 15 years, they go, it's the secret,

and I say not breaking up. It's sort of the secret. All marriage and relationships require resignation isn't the right word. I would say it's acquiescence. That's the word the stokes would use. But a certain amount of simple acceptance of the situation and the person that you're in the relationship with, because what tears people apart is wanting them to be different, needing them to be different, you know, needing something, as opposed to deciding that you have what you need. And a range marriage, I think, would be so, would just be like a regular relationship with an additional set of challenges. Yeah, and also some benefits.

And again, I've never even been open to an arranged marriage. I've only romantically dated people, but I do see how asking some of the unsexy non-romantic questions, right, on the first date, your parents looking into doing a background check, I can see how that can be beneficial in the long run because marriages aren't just romantic, they're a logistical relationship,

so that's a partner. And you wanna know more about them than simply if you guys can enjoy dinner together for an hour. Yes, and do you accept this thing as sort of binding and indesolvable or is this one of many of these things that you're going to do, right? And I think that's obviously I'm not sort of arguing against divorce or divorce laws, but the optionality that people have, I do think limits, makes it harder to exist in a marriage because you always have

the alternative of something else. I think it was Jordan Peterson that said that trap door is getting bigger. It's getting easier and easier to get out. I think the challenge is around ending a marriage. The harder it is, the more you reconsider doing it. And I think it impacts, by default, also the psychology of your satisfaction in it,

if you know there is an option to get out of it. And I think the bar is going lower and lower for what people think should be a complete deal breaker in ending a bond and a relationship with another person. Well, I think it's probably not just that it's easier to get out of a marriage, but it's easier literally than ever to find new or different people, right? Like the intimidating overwhelmingness of like going back out on the market is reduced when you can swipe on your phone and find unlimited other people, right?

There's not even the same level of sort of social courage required to sort of get back out there, which probably I think people, it's still going to always going to be hard, but I think people fantasize or tell themselves that it will be easier. And so maybe they're more open to the idea of changing horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak, then they would be if they knew it was going to be harder. Or they thought it was going to be harder. Yeah, and I think it's also many people jumping into these chasing the high emotions.

So when things start to settle and get into even keel, and they're like, oh, whether they refer to it as a honeymoon period or whether they think the spark, the dreaded spark that they're chasing, it's not there. And I think that they're funny, Rick, not there. And I think there's a funny, Rick and Morty episode about that, where the aliens come, created dating app, that can exactly predict the moment your spark will fade, and it gives you a new match.

And it has everybody running around breaking up and getting when new people endlessly, while the aliens come and steal all the resources of the planet. And I thought it was such a brilliant thing about kind of this impermanence. And it's like, yeah, I think I have options now. And then the book I talk about, you know, grandma and grandpa not having Instagram and FOMO and messaging each other constantly all day.

And I think the conditions that were in definitely need us to approach this much more logically and not as emotional as we've done previously. Wasn't that the interesting thing in relationships? It's like, if you think of a spark as a singular thing, then yes, it probably does go out at some point, and it would make sense to get a new relationship. But if actually, you're more of the mind that human beings are constantly in a state of regeneration,

the world is constantly in a state of regeneration, that you're becoming a new person, they're becoming a new person. The idea is that that spark changes where goes out and is reled and goes out and is reled, or you start different fires, however you want to look at the metaphor. But I think the idea that there's this sort of singular thing that's burning all the time, that it never goes out, that there's never darkness, that there's never a coldness, right,

is probably asking far too much of another person or of the institution as a whole. And in fact, if you think about it more, like I think about it with my wife, like the person that I was when we met at 19 years old is so different than who I am now, just as like the person that I was when we met at 19 years old is so different than who I am now, just as like the person that I was five years ago is radically different and 10 years ago. And so the idea has to be that you're both sort of regenerating and reforming the relationship

on a continual basis, you know, whether it's a romantic or an arranged relationship, but the work is in that, not in sort of preserving or maintaining this thing and never letting it change or go out. Yeah, and I think also, you know, the great book attached also brings up the idea that that initial spark in itself could be a warning sign to run the other way because what's happening is it's, you know, you're meeting somebody who matches the flavor of a previous trauma and we always lean towards what's familiar over what's healthy.

So oftentimes, and attached also says, we're not denying the idea of a soulmate, we're just saying you most likely passed up on them because you thought they were boring because we're so often chasing these strong emotional charges which may or may not serve our purpose. And again, we're influenced by media so much. You know, the most popular couples we've seen,

the russes and Rachel's of the world, at the end of the day, those aren't healthy couples. Those are people with, that's a dog in, you know, a cat and mouse chasing game. Somebody with a void in it, and somebody with anxious attachment. And very often, you know, kind of regulating ourselves and chasing peace, which it doesn't,

it's not the roller coaster. It's the even keel side of this. Isn't something that's really fed to us, you know, by the Disney film, at least the older Disney films that we grew up with, or the rom-coms, or the romantic novels, or the escapes that we do. And then we base our, what we're looking for based on that. And as you said, it really is a relationship, it really is. It's a thousand marriages

and a thousand funerals. You're marrying somebody new almost every day and you're mourning the loss of somebody new old every day because this is constant change. And there's a beauty in that if you sign up for that. And I think, you know, I love Stoke principles because there is such a focus on the impermanence of people and the impermanence of yourself. And that by default makes you more grounded in reality, but also allows you to live in a much more gratitude for what you have in front of you while you have it. Yeah, the stoic side to quote, Heraclitus, which is this idea that we never step in the same river twice, right? We're different. The river is different. And I think if you think of relationships that way,

and not just romantic relationships, but I try to think about this with my kids. Like my kids are always getting older, always changing. And so like, you know, I thought we bonded about X, you know, hey, you love dinosaurs, right? And it's like, no, I don't love dinosaurs anymore. I love this thing. And you're like, but I was just figuring out dinosaurs

because I thought you like dinosaurs. Like, I don't give a shit about any of these things, right? You know, there is this kind of someone told me that it's this sort of almost a constant morning, which I love that you just talked about funerals. It's this idea that the person that they were exists only in this moment. And then it's gone forever. And you can't try to keep them a certain way. You can't, and the other part is,

if all you're feeling is sadness that they're not acute three-year-old anymore, or that this isn't your 11-year-old girl anymore, or your 19-year-old son anymore, what the cost of that is that you are not getting to enjoy your 12 year old or your 20 year old or your 40 year old or the son that you thought was ex it is now gay or you thought was interested in ex it is now to quit that job

and taking their life in a totally different direction. was interested in accent is now to, you know, quit that job and, you know, taking their life in a totally different direction. Like, if you try to keep them as something, not only is that not fair and tyrannical, but it's coming at the expense of you being able to enjoy who they are in this moment now. Exactly, as well. I have a chapter in the book that says,

you know, they can only love you for yesterday. And it's also understanding that we put ourselves in those prisons. I realized for me, one of the biggest prisons I kept myself and came from compliments when people would say, oh, nothing bothers humble. He's always emotionally cool and calm. And then that force that made me feel this imaginary pressure

to maintain that reputation, even at my own expense. And then, I'm serving now as a prisoner and then moving forward, I become the guard for somebody else telling them who they need to be, and sending them subtle cues to gain my acceptance, they have to be XYZ. And that's so often you start to see that kind of unspoken pressure to live up to expectations that people may or may not even have about you because they haven't communicated or updated you on how they feel. Well, let's go back to this idea of the spark which you mentioned briefly because that that strikes me as another still quote about love that I think about. Mark Serio is in the beginning of meditations. He says, the point of life that he learns is from one of his mentors. He says, the point of life is to be free of passion, but full of love. Full of love, yeah. What does that mean to you?

I think it's understanding. And for me, the journey was once I shed many of the external quote-unquote prisons that I had realizing that, you know, I'm still a slave to my habits, my passions, my indulgences, the voices inside my head. And I think what he's really saying is, you know, really not, you know, we have these, I refer to it as bootleg level we have these misconceptions of what love can actually be. And oftentimes those are these highly charged emotional things that you know people just you know the unrequited love for example the the the the irrational things we do the end of the world heartbreak and all of this the irrational things we do the end of the world heartbreak and all of this the gestures the gestures a massive gestures is like hey i'm not a good husband on a day to the basis but let me take you to Paris once a year and that'll make up for everything and we have all of this but this doesn't create pathways you know of love on the regular basis the analogy i use is love is the. The work that we have to do is to open the sale. There's no finding or discovering or earning or winning love. The love is there. It's realizing love. And oftentimes we create the blockages. And I think our stronger motions and our passions do get in the way of love and many capacities because we chase these quick fixes, these

love and many capacities because we chase these quick fixes, these very delicious but not very nutritious, facsimile, facsimilees of love, attention, status, power, control, validation, admiration, and all of these things can start to feel like love. But, you know, if they actually were love, we wouldn't be chasing them as often as we are. And we're chasing pleasure not to feel good, but to medicate our lack of peace. And I think what Marcus really is saying, to be free of passion, yet full of love is allow the love to be. Because for me, love is what remains when everything else isn't there. Love is the screen that this movie is playing on.

So to be free of passions by default will make us full of love. When we scrape away all these extra emotions, that really are enslaving us in many ways. What's left is love, and that's an abundant eternal source. And then when we focus on ourselves being that source of love, we can spend more time sharing that love instead of chasing it, trying to find it from other people. Yeah, and to me it's also the idea that, you know,

sort of passions are about pleasure and wanting and it's this sort of big force you don't control. And, and love is closer to the idea we were talking about earlier, which is a sort of an unconditional acceptance. It's a thing you're radiating, radiating outwardly towards everyone and everything. It's, it's a sort of a place of fullness where I feel like so often passion is rooted in a kind of craving, you know, and they're just fundamentally different ways of going through light.

And I think it's interesting that these ideas, especially from the Stowards, came so early in human civilization when we're still pushing so far in the other direction. So it's like, you know, as you said, it's this acceptance, this acceptance of imperfection, allowing people to be who they are, you know, the subtitle of this book is going easy on yourself, you know, going easy on yourself, going easy on other people, everybody we love, we could list every single imperfection they have. None of that disqualifies them from the love we feel from them. But for some reason, we feel like we have to be perfect all the time to qualify or earn

love. And I think that is a result of, you know, being in a culture of by-shit be happy. And in order for them to get us to by-shit, we have to feel like we're not, we ain't shit until we buy this shit. And I think that's, and it's really interesting that these ideas came even before it was a heavy, commercialized, capitalistic, consumeristic society that they kind of was nipping it at the butt right from the beginning.

And I do think, you know, as Epictetus talks about, you know, love being for the wise or the power of love coming from the wise. And it's really, you know, the purpose of the book and the purpose of just even looking at love through a lens of logic, it's not showing, it's not your heart versus your brain. It's just having that wisdom through allowing your emotions to calm down for a moment and building a level of self-awareness to have a deeper understanding of yourself, what matters to you, who other people are. And as we continue that journey, we start to realize that a lot of these

ideas of what we think is required for love are really roadblocks or a slashing our tires on this journey. All right. So I'm going to give you one from from Senaika. He's quoting a philosopher named Hakato or he's paraphrasing it, but he says, I can teach you a love potion made without any drugs or herbs or special spell. If you would be loved, love. Wow, okay. That lines up with the title of the book. I think oftentimes looking at love as we look at it as this thing and the truth is love is it's a service. It's an action. Yeah, we think it's a thing that we get as opposed to a thing

that we give. It's a thing that we get. Yeah, and it's expressed through service, it's expressed through action. It's something that we do. And so, and I love what you talked about with your kids in terms of, you know, my kids are into dinosaurs. So now I'm starting my journey about learning about dinosaurs. When so often people like, Oh, I love you. Let me show you my world. Often many parents try to get try to live through their kids and have the kids do what they like. Or you, you know, you start dating someone. You want them to hear your favorite music. Watch your favorite movies, read your favorite philosophies or whatever it may be.

And love really is, no, let me dive into their stuff with that same level of enthusiasm and learn about it. And I think love through service and understanding that love, the verb has the power to reveal more love is extremely important. And that's the big idea in the book, to be loved is to be loved. And that's why we put the D in parentheses. All right. I want to give you one of my favorite quotes from F Scott Fitzgerald.

Let me find it here. I have it. I have it on my, my note cards, but I wrote this down. Okay. This is, this to me is one of the saddest, but the truest quotes that I've ever heard in my life. He says, all life is just a progression towards and then a recession from one phrase. I love you. Progression to words and then a recession from,

I love you. Oh wow. That's the truth. What do you say? He's talking about, and Dr. Sue Johnson talks about this too, we reach out and then people pull away or we get close to someone and then we pull away. We want this thing so badly and then we get it and we're afraid of it or it challenges us or it demands things of us. And then we run the other way from it. We think we want love,

but love is actually this incredibly challenging, difficult, unwieldy thing, and we find out that when we have it or we come close to it, actually, we don't want it. I mean, it can also go to the idea that it's not what we think it is, especially when we chase it from other people externally. And I can see that. That's got a Fitzgerald. That's great gaspie, right?

Yes, yes. Yeah, I mean, his stuff is always, you know, you're not leaving his stuff for this big smile on your face. Either, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there is, as I said, with the misconception of like what love is and I think, you know, for me, like love is fuel, not glue. Love is what fuels your efforts and your energy is not what keeps things together. And I can see, you know, I think that second part of it, you know, receding from, I think, is an interesting kind of idea where

I'm hoping that building pathways with somebody strengthens over time with effort. But I wonder if that relates back to the kind of the romantic, unrequited love that, you know, so many people often kind of worship in their lives. Yeah, I think he's not saying it as a good thing. I think he's sort of lamenting it as a tragic fate of human beings. Right?

It's like we achieve a success and then we dismantle that success. Or we're so often our own enemy when it comes to getting the thing that we think we want. Oh, I completely agree with that. We're definitely getting in the way. And it's less about getting and it's more about shedding, you know, shed, shed what's getting in the way more so than acquiring more things. And that's kind of philosophy of unlearning that I've kind of devoted my life to.

All right, I'll give you another quote from Marcus, which I don't know if he's directly talking about love here, but I think I think we could say that he is. He says, what does it transmit light creates its own darkness? That's beautiful. You know, I think it's I think it speaks on intentionality of what we're putting out there. There's a duality to darkness and light. This idea that if you are not transmitting light, you're creating your own darkness when oftentimes we view darkness as an absence of light. So it's almost like if you're not putting it out, then you know, you're creating darkness,

you're making it. So it's almost like either you make things better or you make things worse. You know, it's not simply, you know, not making things better will keep things the way they are. So you know, it's either, you know, you're either growing or you're shrinking. And I think in terms of if we wanted to interpret in terms of light, either you're putting love out there or you're closing yourself off to love and kind of sentencing yourself to a prison of darkness. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life, but come on.

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It's this idea that you have to actually open yourself up to the stuff. And so often we close ourselves off to the to the very thing that we say that we want which actually maybe this is where the f's got that's Gerald quote is trying to go right is is uh you know we say we want things we want to light but then you know we turn away from it or we don't accept it we don't transmit it uh and that and that's a responsible for not having the very thing that we say that we want. Yeah, and I think it's almost like, you know, getting one flat tire and slashing the other three, you know, and it's that kind of idea. And now you got me thinking about the great gasp,

just again, I think that's my biggest exposure to his work, but it's the idea of the fortresses we create to protect ourselves and to get out of that and to get out of that prison requires a level of vulnerability, requires a level of putting yourself out there at the risk of being hurt. Because you know, you close yourself off for the purpose of not being hurt. And, you know, to go from a bad place to a better place requires us to go through a worse place. So I think, you know, making yourself vulnerable, you know, participating in this game of bringing things to the light, you know, it's not a flawless game. It's not, you're not promised endless, wonderful days. You're only entitled to the work

and the outcome's gonna be the outcome. So, connecting love to something deeper than again, I think this idea of romantic love, Cornell West has a famous line. He says, justice is what love looks like in public. Yeah, I mean, I remember, you know, reading about the importance of the justice system also alleviates the individual from vengeance. The burden and responsibility of vengeance. If we have a system in place to address crimes and ensure an environment of justice,

that alleviates people from taking things into their own hands because they may or may not understand the true cost of that. So I think there's a portion of love there. I think also the clarity and communication of what a society stands for and what matters is such an important element to love and creating harmony. It is really interesting when you walk through a major metropolitan city, full of millions

and millions of people and you're like, this is relatively calm. People are agreeing to stand in line and wait their turn like six, seventh, eight, nine thousand years ago, they were bashing each other's heads in with big rocks. And now here we are, and oftentimes, you know, we've come a long way from Babylon and I think there's a really beautiful side of this. And I think our sense of justice is being tapped into

because we want things to work. We want to cooperate. That's such an important element of our survival. And to be doing it on the scale that we've done it, I think it's just really interesting. So I can see how justice then becomes love because it serves the people. Yeah, I think I once heard love described

as willing the good of the other. And if you think about what society is built around or what, you know, a just world is supposed to be predicated on, it's this idea that you want other people to have, you know, equal opportunities. You want them not, you know, not to know fear or to know want. You want them to be able to become what they're meant to become, you want them to have happiness, you want them to be treated fairly, you want them, you want them to have and have access to things that perhaps you don't need because, you know, it's not your, you know, you're in a different place in your life or whatever. I think, I think if we think about the social contract, we think about justice, it should be predicated on this idea that, you know, you know, you want them, you want them to have and have access to things that perhaps you don't need because, you know, it's not your, you know, you're in a different place in your life or whatever. I think, I think, I think if we think about the social contract, we think about justice, it should be predicated on this idea that, you know, you want them, you want them to have and have access to things that perhaps you don't need because, you know, it's not your, you know, you're in a different place in your life or whatever, I think, I think, I think if we think about the social contract, we think about justice, it should be predicated on this idea that, you know, you want them to have, you know, you want them, you want them to have and have access to things that perhaps you don't need because, you know, it's not your, you know, you're in a different place in your life or whatever, I think, I think if we think about the social contract, we think about justice, it should be predicated on this idea that, you know, you want them, you want them to have, you want them to have and have access to things that perhaps you don't need because, you know, you want them, you want them to have and have access to things that, that perhaps you don't need because, you know, you know, you know, you know, you're in a different place in your life or whatever, I think, I think if we think about the social contract, we think about justice, it should be predicated on this idea that you give a ship to other people, even people that you don't know or not like you at all. Yeah, and I think, you know, the beauty of that is, you know, giving shit about other people

is acknowledging that you're part of something greater than yourself. You know, I think the reason we love being in a cradis borsarina, and now we're all just fans for a team screaming, hootin, hollering, and there's no individual. Now we're part of a notion. And I think it's the same thing here where, you know, the beauty of love too is that it melts our ego boundaries between us and other people. And in intense intense romantic relationship it does that really well. But from a societal part, you know, whether we say, oh, I'm a New Yorker and now we all have this common bond. Or you say, you know, I'm a Canadian or you know, whatever we may be, these common identities, melty individual and what they do instead is they allow us to kind of become the everything and nothing. And I think that that creation of kind of order and justice, you know, really

acknowledges that. And I like the way you put it. Like, even if I don't want it, somebody else should be able to have it. And I think it's that level of acknowledgement of other people. Because I think so often our, our, we're tortured're tortured because we think we live in a universe of one. And you know, that loneliness and that isolation in itself creates a level of kind of disharmony, which has this chasing everything externally. So I do love that idea of justice and how it kind of brings us all together. Yeah, there's this idea in meditations where Mark Srio talks about how he says, what's bad for the hive is bad for the bee.

But of course, it's really easy, obviously, for us just to think about ourselves. But if you have this sense that everyone has value, everyone deserves these things that all of our fates are tied up in each other that we're all, you know, not just of equal value, but that if something happens to this person, even if it's a thousand miles away, that affects me too, even if it doesn't literally affect me, it affects me too, to have someone be persecuted or mistreated or in a starved to death, that that says something about me and it affects me. And so I think if you come from this place that, yeah, other people matter,

that you care about other people, you wish, are you familiar with John Rawls' theory of the veil? He has this idea of like, imagine you're designing the society and you're picking the way things are gonna be, right? But you don't know where you yourself are going to fall in the system.

So like, you take America and you're like, okay, I want a capitalist system, the lot of income inequality, not a particularly good social safety net, different minorities are at different levels of vulnerability to being caught up in the criminal justice system, blah, blah, blah. You explain this system, you're like,

well, it works pretty well for me, a white guy board and this time in this city, whatever. But if I'm designing that system and I don't know where when you roll the dice where I'm going to end up, I'm going to have a radically different understanding of how okay I am with that system, right? Like, I'm good with the system because where I am is a pretty good spot in that system. But if I was a different color or born a hundred years ago or I was disabled and somewhat, right,

if all of a sudden that system sucks pretty hard, right? And so I think to me, when he's saying that love is what justice looks like in public, it's thinking like, well, how would I care about, how would I think about this if it affected somebody that I loved? Or if it affected me, who I love the most? All of a sudden, your opinion's gonna be different.

Yeah, there's an anthology episode of Atlanta in their third season where somebody wins a court case for reparations and that starts to snowball where everybody whose lineage is traced back to a slave owner is getting sued by people whose lineage just trace back to being slaves. And so now the world is flipping upside down.

Everybody's going on 23 and me or to make sure that their immigrants and one capacity are another. But there is at one point, there's a gentleman that's talking about it while everyone's complaining about how unfair it is, he goes, listen, we are freeing our children from this ghost. They're going to start at zero, but they're starting at zero free of these chains. And it's almost like he is able to look at it through a perspective beyond himself as well, which is, okay, this is

really, this just flipped my life over. All my assets are gone. My entire, everything that I quote unquote thought I built is gone. They make a strong argument for taking it away from me, but also, you know, although my life as I know it is over, this is really going to free future generations to kind of level the playing field from a point of justice. And I thought that was really beautiful. And I just, the irony of all this to them, we're just sure that it just says, all we got is each other.

Yes. And it's like, you know, this realizing throughout my journey that our relationships are, you know, even when I measure, when I measure my career, it's like, I've been in this for 10 years and only made new friends. I haven't lost any because of my work. That's a good measure of success. I really, I really think it is. And it's a, it was a joke that I had made.

I reached out to my friends coming back to Toronto for a couple of days, trying to plan a dinner and they couldn't do it. And I was like, listen, I'm supposed to be the guy too cool to hang out with you guys. It's not the other way around. You guys are getting too busy for me. And I was like, you know, and they would always make jokes about, oh, yeah, you know, things are going so well for you. You're gonna leave your friends and make new ones.

I was like, I'm working on it. I'm trying to get rid of you guys, but it's been 10, 15 years and you guys are still around, so I guess I'm stuck with you. But you start to realize that that's the value and beauty of this life is those relationships. Just, you. You know, even understanding that they're not permanent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's weird. As you grow and change and you experience a kind of success, it is easy to just sort of stop thinking about certain people or to find yourself in conflict with certain people. But I love the definition of success that I'm

only adding. I'm not jettisoning anyone or anything that I still have that you still have room in your heart for them. Although, you know, you, you posted something recently that I liked. You were, you were talking about how just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you have to keep them in your life. Yeah. Completely. I think, I think forgiveness is, is a burden that we're holding.

We should forgive to let go of that burden. It's not to, it's not to say I accept what you did to me. So if you hurt me, it's less about, my relationship with Ryan and more so about, do I want to carry around this giant backpack of resentment? I want to let that go, but I'm moving forward with my eyes open and we don't have to have a relationship anymore. Again, I'm fortunate that I haven't had any fallen else with my childhood friends and, into the beauty of that. So I haven't have to have a relationship anymore. Again, I'm fortunate that I haven't had any fallen

else with my childhood friends and, you know, into the beauty of that. So I haven't had to, but I've definitely had relationships where, you know, lines were crossed and you do forgive somebody that's not to hold a resentment anymore. But yeah, stay over there. I will, I have love for you from afar.

And that's the remainder of our story. It's going to stay there. But for me, I view forgiveness heavily as, you know, I think resentment is one of the darkest places we can be. And often resentment comes because we choose being likable over trying to access love. And, you know, I have a chapter in the book, this is love is showing your teeth, you know, establish boundaries, communicate boundaries, stand up for yourself because if you don't,

you're drinking the poison of resentment and now you're putting yourself in a dark place. And there's not a lot of love to be realized in that space. So forgive for your sake. You're not validating their behavior by forgiving them. You don't even have to tell them you forgive them. You just have to forgive them to rid you of that heavy weight in burden. Will you tell the story in the book about the following out that you had with your father, and you end up sort of running away from home? Walk me through that story because I think it it touches on stuff you're talking about right there. Yeah, it was one of those moments where you realize your parents aren't perfect. And I was a broke student, had a $800 car,

something was wrong with it. I had it parked on the driveway, I was still living at home. And I had some shady friends that were gonna help me get it fixed, and I was still waiting figuring out how to do it. And out of frustration, my father went and got one of his,

my father was a cab driver, so he knew all the mechanics. So he went and got one of his mechanic friends to fix it. And the bill ended up being like two grand or something, like a worth more than your entire car. And it really upset me that he went and did this and then told me I had to go pay. Like he's like, he's waiting for you to go there and pay him now.

And then out of the argument, we're both the same person. So long story short, I got really pissed off. And he's like, if you don't like it, get out. And then I literally filled up garbage bags full of clothes and ran away. And it wasn't running away like a teenage kid who I ran away and was already plotting in my head where to stay, where to work, you know, where I could stay for a while. I was going to leave the city. I already, it was already ruminating in my head. And there wasn't conversations. And I ended up coming home when it was apparent. My sisters let me know that it was taking a massive toll on my mom. And you know, came home and me and my father,

till this day never disgusted. And it just slowly, over time, our relationship kind of warmed back up. And then it wasn't until this pandemic, when I was having, you know, lunch with my sister and her teenage daughter, my sister, retooled the story. And she made it really funny the way she told it.

And then she let me know that my father had called her that same night and said, here, here's a blank check. Whatever he needs, just you pay for it. An interesting thing was, my sister had called me and said to me, look, whatever you need, if you don't wanna go home, whatever you need, let me know, I'll pay for it. And at that time, I had thought, oh my God, she has my back.

Not realizing that my father had given her money to take care of me because he knew I wasn't coming back. And I think that was just another example of just like a deeper love, but also, you know, some of the challenges that you go through and with some of the people you care about the most. But don't you think there's something about that. I've written about it for daily dad a bunch of times, which is this daily email I do. There is this, it's a sweetness, but it's a sadness in, I think, that generation

where their heart is clearly in the right place. They do this very nice thing, which is the writing the blank check. And they're willing to tell, or they're, they manage to bring themselves to tell everyone, but the person that it matters the most to, right? Like it's the other version of the story is like, you're at the funeral for your grandfather, your father, your mother, or whomever. And they go, you have no idea how proud they were of you.

And they give you the stack of all the papers that they collected of every, one of your achievements or whatever. And you're like, this doesn't seem like it would have in that heart to communicate, right? And it's sweet, but it's also terribly, terribly sad at the same time. Like, maybe you guys had never recon...

Like, there is a version of that story where not only you never find out from your sister that your father had made this gesture, but you might have never reconciled with your father at all, right? Because of the inability to admit error or apologize or reconcile? You're absolutely right. And there's another story in the book called Nuzer, which kind of explains that, with my mom bluntly telling me

that she will never tell me she's proud of me because she thinks that will instantly put a curse on me. Cause the only, and it's there really is. It's there belief system, which has always been a thing that we kind of had to, I think of that, I'll, me and. It's their belief system, which has always been a thing that we kind of had to, I think of that, that all to me and my sister's laugh at it, but you're absolutely right.

It's deeply troubling to a level. And I think we just had to make peace with it. I know recently, my parents went to Calgary, Alberta, and walked into the mall and went to the bookstore. And my mom casually brought up my name, saying, do you have this stuff? And I'm Canadian and the Canadian bookstores love me. And he was singing my praises.

And it filled my mom with so much pride. But I only know about this because my sister was secretly taking pictures of the interaction. Yes. And I guess we made peace with the idea that they'll complain to us to our faces, and they'll praise us to our siblings. And I won't know, you know, and she's never brought that story up to me, you know, and to me it'll be much. It'll be more like, okay, so, you know, you're making all this

money, but you don't have a wife and kids. And, you know, I saw a pre-construction condo outside of a sign. You should go invest in that, you know, and it's starting to realize that, again, their tools are limited and, you know, they're doing their best. And also as I said, seeing them as grandparents, they're completely different people as well. And it's such a, it is hilarious. I'm like, who are you?

Where were you when I needed you as a kid? And as my father says, he goes, your kid does the investment, your kids are the principal investment and your grandkids of the interest. And you can only enjoy the interest. And that's so terribly sad. Oh.

I certainly relate to the idea that it certainly dries with with my experience, but it seems it seems so terribly sad. It's a, you know, it's a, it's a prison that is so, so self-imposed, like so easy to break out of. And I don't mean easy to minimize that. It's hard for me, but it is not a, it's not, for instance, it's no longer like say it was, I don't know, 100 years ago or 200 years, it's not some societally enforced prison, you know, it's not a prison dictated by, you know, abject poverty or worried about being killed by a lion or a tiger, you know, like it's a prison that is purely that is purely there because of ones, but as you said, lack of emotional tools, but it's not as if those tools are a life sentence.

Like those tools can be picked up. No, you're absolutely right. And I think some of the grace I was always giving them was being like, wow, like my father was 13 the first time he saw a light bulb Like they you know they literally literally grew up in a hut made out of you know mud and stone and Lost sibling like the way he speaks about his siblings in his life that I passed away

You know like oh, yeah We went playing and he fell in the river and he drowned and like that's his casual story. And you're just like, that's trauma, bro. Like, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta talk about that and unpacking some capacity. And it's like, okay, he's going from that to, you know, sharing viral content to me on his phone. That's maybe seven months old. You know, I remember when he shared the news

that, what was it? Some bogus news that Samsung paid Apple a lawsuit in pennies and it was like something that you had seen years ago. Like he's just discovering how to use his phone to waste time. And I guess I hold some grace for that in the context of like, he came from like, you know, there's not much of a, there's not gonna be much of a jump of lifestyle for me compared to what he, you know, I could become a billionaire.

And I'm sort of going to have the same phone, drive a pretty similar car, live in the same cities. Like this guy literally came from a world of no electricity. You know, they believed in ghosts, they believe in curses, they believe in all of these things. And it's like to go from that and then to just cross an ocean and live in a world of snow and racism and taxes and all this other stuff. It's just like a whole different world to them. But you're absolutely right. That doesn't, you know, there was a speaker I forgot her name was, but she said, you know, there's no there's no generation gap. There's just people open to new ideas and people close to new ideas. And you know, you do see that on various levels for various people. And I think, you know,

I'm sure individuals algorithms aren't helping them now with their echo chambers. But I guess I do. I can't view it from that capacity. But you're absolutely right. I guess for me, it's clutching on to what I can. You know, my's saying, I'm not going to say I'm proud of you because it's going to create a curse. I was like, that's her love language because that's as good as it's going to give. She is telling you, she's proud of you. She's saying she's not doing a thing that she is. She's trying to protect me by not saying nice things to me.

And I think there's an interesting thing there. Well, we talked earlier about willingly good of the other. I mean, there's a certain amount of empathy and grace in the attitude that you're picking up there, which is you're trying to understand why they are the way that they are and filtering the actions that could be hurtful or, you know, not not fully what you need or or any of those things, trying to interpret them through the lens of why they are the way that they are, as opposed to just feeling the pinprick or the wound or the deprivation

that is also there. But thinking about the intention or the worldview of the person is a form of love also, right? You're giving them extra space that maybe you wouldn't give a total stranger who is just rude to you on the street. Although ideally, we would all get to a place where we could do that for them also.

Yeah, and I think it starts with us. I think that's what I'm realizing. It's like, you know, if I, I can only begin giving them grace when I can give myself grace. And, you know, I know for sure, I grew up in a house that was heavily self-regulated. It encouraged self-regulation. It encouraged a lot of sucking it up.

And then as an adult, I became heavily in this world of suck it up. And, you know, that really had a negative impact And then as an adult, I became heavily in this world of suck it up. And that really had a negative impact on my ability to show empathy or attunement or any type of grace to anybody for being anything less than perfect. And then you start to realize, it's like, okay, well, their context was different. They were literally on food on the table. We're you know, we're not here to be emotionally nutritious. We don't even know what that is.

I remember helping another friend who had drama with their parents and I brought up the word therapist. And they looked at me as if I said, you know, something bananas, like I asked them to eat mushrooms or something and they're like, therapist, why would we tell anybody else our business? And that's a big cultural thing where these small tribe cultures are so concerned with what other people think. And I understand that being a primitive survival method, but they would literally

not call 911 if their house was on fire if that meant other people would know. You know, it's so bananas. And it's something that, you know that you want to have grace for because you understand that context, but at the same time you're like, look, I don't want you to be stuck in your ways. And at the end of the day, this didn't serve me. But my journey of kind of being my own chapter in the book, be your own nurturing parent. My journey of being my own nurturing parent is allowing me to kind of see them through with different lens, but also realize that I can't just keep pointing my finger at them and being like, okay, you can't be empathetic towards people because

your parents subtly told you to suck it up. It's like, no, like you're an adult now. You recognize the issue, what are you going to do about it now? What work can I do about it now? Because at the end of the day, they still put me in a position to be where I am now. And even I had to shed that. I had to shed this idea that I'm somehow a self-made person. And I had to recognize that we're all interdependent. We're all connected.

And me being born where I was born, having the access to the education, having structure in my household, put me in the position that I am today to be able to make a living off my ideas versus being plugged into some other system. Yeah, and then I think the interesting thing about your book is how to love and to be loved. It's so tricky, talking about your childhood

or anyone's childhood, it's so hard to give what you didn't get or what you didn't get enough of or that you didn't get right. And so when we're talking about sort of being open to new ideas or tools, you know, it's understanding that, you know, almost certainly the way that you were raised, I don't mean you, I mean, all people, almost certainly the way we were raised or what we saw is not fully everything that it should be.

And it takes work then to get to a place of being able to love and to be loved, especially if, you know, the example that you had or the experiences that you had didn't teach you, all the things that you needed to know. Yeah, and I think a big lesson for me was I was an elementary school teacher before it all of this, and realizing that I had a lot of control over that environment and how these kids viewed themselves. And when I started hearing them parroting some of the really irresponsible things I was saying and doing, one example was the thing I said, you know, if a kid's hurt either, you know, either they're,

you know, either they're being a baby or want it, you know, either they're being a baby or wanting, either they're being a baby for attention or they're actually hurt. Let's give them space. So my goal for saying it was if a kid gets hurt, don't crowd them. Give them space. But adding in the potential that they're faking it, it was so toxic on my part. And I was like 21 at this time, just getting a teaching job in the same neighborhood I grew up in. But then you started to hear the kids parrot it.

And the kids try to determine if a kid is faking it or if they're really hurt. And you realize that I'm pushing this cycle. And it took me seeing it outside of myself to realize that, okay, wait a minute. What's the root of this for me? Where did this come from? And I'm sure you as a father, you know, all the things that have not been resolved or revisited or even realized, you know, through your upbringing, start to come to bubble up to

the surface as they impact how you raise your young ones. Yeah, it's, I think, and I think that's the work of one's life, hopefully, is to get a little bit further than where you started as far as these ideas go. Right? So if you think of your parents' journey, right? It's at least off with you, then your journey, then where do you leave off, you know, the people that read your book? I think that's the idea. And it goes to to Santa Cascuote that the way, you know, the way to to to to to

be loved is to love is to put this stuff out in the world and to do that to do that work. Yeah, completely. And I think, you know, there is a level of, I guess, I guess privilege, because you know, it's it's it's interesting, you know, we look at the emotion wheel. It's almost, I think it's like 80% negative emotions. And I think there's happy and... What's the emotion wheel?

Sorry. It's a wheel of emotions, so it'll tell you all the basic emotions I had this emotion wheel. So it's kind of help to get help people express themselves. And it's kind of like a small circle with it with more It's like a bunch of pizzas pretty much Yeah, and so you know the main emotions are happy surprised bad fearful angry disgusted and sad So and then from there you can break down happy to playful content interested proud accepted powerful peaceful, etc But the interesting thing is, happy and surprised,

and surprised can go either way, are the only really two positive emotions, sad, disgusted, angry, fearful, and bad, are all emotions on the other side of the spectrum. And you realize that the reason we have more, I guess, a leaning towards what we consider negative emotions is because of survival. You don't learn much when you're happy.

You know, and it's these negative emotions kind of lead, create opportunities or create motivation and energy for survival. And realize that we're predisposed to that. Like, you know, our paranoia, you know, served us as a survival method. And I think very often we don't recognize that as our world has changed, our internal software isn't catching up. Our biology is still prying for who we were at 10,000 years ago.

And, you know, in this capacity, leaning towards these negatives, and you know, as you said, like, you know, the whole philosophy that you devoted your life to is about being free of desire, pain, grief, and fear. That's getting out of survival while being in it. Most often, by voluntarily putting yourself in those situations to kind of regulate your

resilience. I think from a capacity of love, I speak a lot about choosing self-respect over self-esteem. And it comes from doing this stuff yourself first, and accessing your own internal source versus chasing outside validation. Well, man, it was awesome. I thought the book was really interesting, and I'm so glad we got to meet.

Yeah, pleasure. And also just, again, wanna thank you just, in my journey, when I left my job as a teacher, I left it thinking I had a big record deal and I quit my job, stuff started living off credit cards, thinking this money was gonna come at any moment. And I found out the producer that had kind of

put this all in front of me was lying and then he took off and then I was kind of in the dumps And the game changer was the 50th law Oh really was I'm I kid you not like the 50th law You know and I know you you had a hand and you know, I know you research for it You interned for it and I'm sure you helped you know the capacities, but I Think that was my first exposure exposure to kind of stoic principles. And the overall idea of observe things and find the opportunity versus judging it as good and bad.

And you know, it really changed the course of my life at that point because then I stopped looking at life, is it something that was happening to me and I started asking myself, well, where's the opportunity? You know, where are the breadcrumbs? And it really changed my frame of life. And, you know, I was making music before all of this. And that's what got me into writing,

realizing that I had a lack of resources to make music at that point, focused on what was in my control, which was black and white text. I wrote every single day on Facebook, like a daily blog. And that's what built my readership up. But I mean, it was such a game-changer. And I didn't even buy the book. What happened was somebody, the dude that ripped me off, he took off was somebody the dude that ripped me off, he took off in such a haste because he got caught. He left his laptop at my place and he had the book, he had a bootlegged audio MP3 version of the book. And yeah, so I remember just I had nothing to do so I would go from super long three hour walks and listen to it on my headphones. And it changed, it was literally the first step

to changing everything for how I started to handle my life. And I'm proud to say here I am. And it was in my first exposure to stoicism at all. But I remember buying 48 laws of power and being like, ooh, this book sounds evil. I don't want to read it. I don't want to be evil. And then being like, oh no, this book is going to open your eyes to what is capable of and

what is possible. And having the deeper understanding that, you know, the world isn't simply just good and bad. It's a lot in between and understanding that and having a deeper understanding of yourself and your expectations of life made a huge, make a huge, huge difference. So I just wanna thank you for that. This is a full circle moment for me. I'm on my mind. Well, I'm sure Robert Green will love to hear that story because I agree, it's an incredible book.

And I was changed so much just by being able to see it come together, but for man, that's so perfect. And that is one reason, obviously, you never like seeing your stuff ripped off or people stealing their stuff on social media or everyone's like, yeah, you'll find bootleg copies of your books. And I do try to remind myself, you never know who this book is going to end up in somebody's hands for.

And if all you're thinking about is like, did I get my piece of that transaction? You could be cutting yourself off from so many wonderful, beautiful interactions or connections. And I think that's part of why we have to keep that even keel. Not get too upset or too related about any of this stuff because you actually have no idea

what any of it will mean or where it will go. 1,000 percent. And I mean, listen, I'll pay you back anyway I can't. But I don't have a piece of that book. So you'll have to take this up with Robert. But I'm sure he would love to hear that story. It's incredible. Yeah.

No, thank you guys so much. I really appreciate you guys. Thanks so much. I really appreciate you guys. 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 Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.