The Daily Stoic - Storytelling In A Competitive Content World | Max Joseph (Pt. 1)

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

You may know Max Joseph from MTV’s show Catfish, which he co-hosted for 7 seasons, or from his movie We Are Your Friends which starred Zac Efron. Max’s latest project is a docuseries called HAPPINESS, in which Max is trying to crack the code on the philosophy, science, and secrets behind true happiness. In this Part 1 conversation, Ryan and Max talk about the challenges of documentary filmmaking, relearning to love reading, when to quit a book, how to make the most of literary classics and more. Some of Max’s other documentaries are BOOKSTORES: How to Read More Books in the Golden Age of Content and DICKS: Do you need to be one to be a successful leader? which features Robert Greene. You can connect with Max on YouTube and IG: @maxjoseph ✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us:  Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. I've been writing books for a long time now and one of the things I've noticed is how every year, every book that I do, I'm just here in New York putting right thing right now out. What a bigger percentage of my audience is listening to them in audiobooks, specifically on Audible. I've had people had me sign their phones, sign their phone case because they're like I've listened to all your audiobooks here and my sons they love audiobooks we've been doing it in the car to get them off their screens because audible helps your imagination soar. It helps you

read efficiently, find time to read when maybe you can't have a physical book in front of you and then it also lets you discover new kinds of books, re-listen to books you've already read from exciting new narrators. You can explore bestsellers, new releases. My new book is up, plus thousands of included audio books and originals, all with an Audible membership.

You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audio book for free. You'll get right thing right now, totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. for free, visit audible.ca to sign up. Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the

weekend when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. Several years ago now, my conception of time is all screwed up because of COVID. I was going through security at LAX. I don't know why I was there. I'm trying to remember. I was going through security at LAX and I see this guy, I recognize he's got white hair. He's young but he has white hair. And I know we have a mutual friend. It's Max Joseph from the show

Catfish. And let me just do an aside. I love the show Catfish. I love the show Catfish because it's such an interesting look at human psychology and the way we are willing to fool ourselves when our identity is at stake. Right? In almost every case, if you don't know what Catfish is, there's this fascinating MTV documentary about it, and then they made an MTV series that ran for many seasons. I think it's still on. But Max is usually the guy with the camera. He's like sort of the sidekick on the show.

Nev is the main guy. But anyways, it's about people who think they're in a relationship with someone, and it turns out it's not a real person. It's someone fooling them on the other end, because they're a troll, because they're mentally disturbed, because I don't know.

What was amazing about the show to me always was that almost without question, the person that they think they're in a relationship with is like wildly out of their league. But this person can't see that, or else they'd have to see themselves and the mess that their life is in. And so it becomes this sort of delusion

that they're complicit in. Feynman said, the first rule is you can't fool yourself and you're the easiest person to fool. And they're fooling themselves. I've always found the show absolutely riveting and fascinating and sad. And an insight into just how the wreckage of so much of American life, you know, these are people that were failed by so many different institutions in American

life. Their family life is bad, their health is bad, their opportunities are bad. And so the internet becomes this escape. I don't know, I thought sociologicallyologically I always, always loved this show. Anyways, I see Max at the airport and it's always this weird thing like do you want to say something, do you not want to say something? And then he came up to me and said, hey you're on holiday. And it turned out we had a friend in common, Robert Greene, and as we talk about in today's episode, he had this awesome video he was doing about bookstores,

and I was in the process of opening the painted porch then. So he and I have become friends, we've stayed in touch. I was just in New York for the launch of Right Thing Right Now, where I ran with our mutual friend Casey Neistat, and both Casey and Max were sort of really instrumental into me starting to make videos for YouTube and Daily Stoic.

So when I heard that Max was working on a new docuseries about happiness, I was just excited to watch it as a fan. And as it turns out, it's awesome. You'll hear me talking about it in today's episode because I watched it and I loved it. I'll link to it in today's show notes. A lot of times I get guests on the show and they're like, you gotta watch this movie that's coming out or you gotta buy this book. This one's free.

You can just watch this documentary. It's free on YouTube and it's awesome. It's so good, it shouldn't be free, but it is. And he popped by the painted porch. We talked about it. He was actually doing a screening at Tim Urban's house, which I didn't get to go to, but also past guest on the show.

And you've seen him on Catfish. You can check out his video bookstores, how to read more books in the golden age of content. His other one, Dix, Do You Need to Be One to Be a Successful Leader, features the one and only Robert Greene. And his new one on happiness is absolutely fantastic. He also made his feature film debut with the movie We Are Your Friends, which starred Zac Efron. And I actually thought it was pretty good,

but as we talked about, sometimes you make something that you really care about, you pour yourself into, and it doesn't work, you know, commercially the way you think it should. So this is part one with Max. You can follow Max on social at Max Joseph on Instagram and Max Joseph director on YouTube. Enjoy. Joseph on Instagram and Max Joseph Director on YouTube. Enjoy!

We used to have a dog scent, but they're magnificent and horrendous at the same time. It's like basically all the things you wouldn't want in a dog in one dog and then a bunch of amazing things at the same time. They're very needy. Yes. And like very attached. Yes, and then extremely loud and then extremely determined, independent, but then also extremely needy. The worst dog is a corgi. The worst dog you could have is a corgi because none of the things you

would want in a dog, like you couldn't go running with it, it can't do anything, and then it's got all the downsides of a dachshund and would shed a lot more. That's my theory on dogs. Brokamp Well, Simon's amazing. We don't need a leash for him. Lewis Wow. Brokamp Yeah, he will stick close to us. In the city, in New York, in Malay, we kind of don't need a leash. And so so that's amazing. He's great when he's outside of the house and he doesn't bark. He hates certain breeds and he'll, you know,

he hates any kind of bulldog or pug or anything like that. Does it just look weird? Yeah, I think so. It's kind of mean. But and then but when he's inside the house, he gets barky, right? He hears a sound or anything like that. But I mean, I worship him. And positive negative, they live for fucking ever. We had to put ours down last year, but it was she was 16 or 17. Wow.

So it's like, we got this dog, my wife and I got it when we were in college. And then like, I mean, now we have a seven year old. Like you obviously want your dog to live a long time, but that's also so long. The idea of imagining 16 years in the future when I was 19 was insane. You know what I mean?

Your dog could have written a really nice memoir about your growth as a human being. Let's hope it'd be nice. From college to now, to being the father of a six-year-old. It's crazy. Yeah, they live forever. Except they can't jump on... Their thing is they jump on everything, right? But they're not good at it because they're comical. So, the last, let's say, five years are not so fun. I know. We try to not... I mean, he doesn't go up or down stairs and hasn't.

Yes, that's good. I mean, there are a few times he does, but we're very diligent. But yeah, he'll jump on the couch and off the couch. But we get low. Everything is now... Everything's about... Or you're like, hey, we have to pick a specific kind of bed because we don't want the dog on this bed. Oh yeah, no, no, no. Everything, all our furniture, even the apartment we move into, it's like, can't have stairs.

Right. Bed needs to be low, like one of those Japanese beds, like couch needs to be low. Everything is built around preserving his back. Okay, so I was trying to think about where we met. We met in an airport, right? That's right.

Yes, security at LAX? Yep, no, no, no, no. We were through security. I came up to you, I think. I's right. Yes. Yeah. Security at LAX. Yep. No, no, no, no. We were, we were through security. I came up to you, I think. I think so. We were, yeah, we were in like a terminal at LAX and I saw you and I think I had just seen you do a Q&A with Robert Green. Yes. Over laws of human nature in LA. And then I recognized you and I came up to you and I was like, you know, dealing with my own anxieties about certain things, I came up to you

and I just was like, Ryan. And then I proceeded to try to like get you to give me advice on various different things. Well, it's weird because like you recognize people and then I obviously recognized you and then you have the very distinctive hair. And then I didn't feel like I had a good in. I was going to be like, oh, because we have a mutual friend, Casey Neistat.

And I was like, oh, we both know the same person is never a good one because you realize 90% of the time when people say that they don't actually know the other person, it's just a lie, and then you're just like, so whatever. I didn't have a good end. But then you had just seen me, which I hadn't expected. Yeah, and I know that you had worked a lot with Robert. Yes. And I'd interviewed Robert before,

and I'd read a lot of his books. I think you had just done your documentary, your bookstore documentary. Because I think you were like, hey, I want to show you this thing that's coming out. And I don't think I did. I tell you, I was literally in the middle of opening a bookstore. You might you.

I think you did like that. Like there was already an overlap in like the love of of books and bookstores in particular. That thing crushed, didn't it? That documentary was huge, right? Yeah, it did really well. That thing crushed, didn't it? That documentary was huge, right? Yeah, it did really well. I loved it, of course.

What would you say your favorite bookstores are? Cook and Book in Brussels, which is like the Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory of bookstores. Like there are nine different rooms. I mean, like they're almost like planets. And each one is completely different than the other, like, based on what the theme of that room is.

There's the cooking, the cookbook room, and then there's the children's room, it's kind of an obvious one, but then there's the graphic novel room, there's the art bookstore room, there's the literature room, there's the English bookstore room, there's the literature room, there's the English bookstore room because it's in Brussels,

and they're each so well set designed, like production designed. Then I would say, now that's my favorite one. You've been to the last bookstore? Yeah. That's incredible. It's great, yeah. I shot that too. It didn't make it into the documentary.

That's why I was gonna ask, is I didn't remember it being in there. It, I shot that too. It didn't make it into the documentary. That's why I was gonna ask, because I didn't remember it being in there. It is in there in like shots, like there's shots of it in there, but I didn't like do a full on profile on it. And I will. You know BookSoup is for sale? I do know that.

I was looking at it. It's too expensive. I was like, well, it's too expensive for me in the sense that I would then own a business in Los Angeles, which I don't want to do. Like this one works for me expensive for me in the sense that I would then own a business in Los Angeles, which I don't want to do. This one works for me because for me and my wife, because it's also our sort of headquarters slash like home base.

So if you can make it, which it's funny, I was talking to the who was then the CEO of BookSoup when I was thinking about doing this and she was like, the number one thing is it has to have multiple uses. She's like, if you're just trying to make it work as a bookstore, that's really, really hard. And the math isn't that great. But if you're using it for other stuff, so it's like a podcast studio and it's in office and we do e-commerce for a daily stoke out of here, like then the bookstore can, it's sort of subsidized by other things in the way that it's subsidized

even on Amazon, right? Like Amazon is selling refrigerators, that's where the money actually is, whatever, batteries. And then books are like this extra thing. So the math on just doing a bookstore is very hard. I can imagine. I mean, it's also LA, so like how many people are actually reading. Yeah. I can only imagine the rent on a building on Sunset Boulevard

What I would really like to buy have you ever been to the bookstore behind book soup? Yes, I would like that. The first edition store. That's a very special And how they're not the same is insane to me. It's kind of like the bookstore equivalent of the Buffalo Wild Wings Pizza Hut combo. But they're not. They're totally separate businesses. Yes. Right.

There's one in New Orleans that I love that's like that. It's called Faulkner House Books. And it's like one of those old tall New Orleans style, like three story buildings that Faulkner lived in when he was writing his first novel. And so the woman who owns it or the family owns it, they live upstairs and then downstairs is a book store, mostly sort of Southern writer, Faulkner themed. And then they just sell lots of like super rare Faulkner first editions, which probably pays for,

they sell one of those a month or whatever, it pays for everything. That's a really cool one, I like that one. I need to make a second edition of that. You should. Yeah, I should because there are plenty, because after you make one of those, everyone starts sending you.

You didn't even know about the ones you didn't know about. No, right. And now of course, they're all those amazing ones in Asia that like, you know, you see on Instagram that now I just need to do a whole like Asia trip just for the bookstore tour. Bookstore tour. Bookstore tour.

There's one in Manhattan that I haven't been to that I keep meaning to go, but like something you can only have in New York, I guess, but it's a Churchill bookstore. It's only books about, it's called Churchill Books. And it's basically only Churchill Books. Imagine being such a prolific writer and historical figure that there could be there'd be enough books about you to fill an entire bookstore. That's pretty insane.

I need to I need to see that. I just moved to New York. I just moved back to. Oh, really? Why? Yeah. I'd been in L.A. for 20 years and I just I grew up in New York. So my family and friends are there. And so there are multiple reasons I wanted to move back, but just on a creative level, I just wanted more different stimulation, different cultural input.

But on the topic of bookstores, in the dock, there's this hotel in Portugal called the Literary Man Hotel. All the walls of the hotel look like this and every room, like there's like a chamber inside. It's like a reading room, but there are no windows. In the hotel or in the chamber? In the chamber. And it's like all, it looks like it's out of a children's book about like magical libraries. I'm thinking of that Erin Morgenstern book,

which I'm reading right now called The Starless Sea. I don't know if you remember. But it's like, it's very magical. And so it's not, it's not a bookstore in itself, but as far as like book lovers go and people who love libraries and bookstores like it is it's kind of a fantasy like fantasy camp Peyton it's happening. You're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time.

I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris. And me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondry's newest podcast,

Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done but when. You are so messy for that but we will be giving you the b-sides don't you worry the deep cuts the niche the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother

to many. Follow, let me say this on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to episodes everywhere on May 22nd, or you can listen ad free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app on Apple Podcast. How much do you really know about Black History? Like really, really know.

Wondery's new podcast, Black History for Real, weaves black history's most overlooked figures back into their rightful place in culture and the world at large. Listen to Black History for Real on the Wanderer app or wherever you get your podcast. Did you actually solve your reading problem, which inspired the doc? I did. I did. Because for people to know, you're inspired by Tim Urban, who also lives here now, but he had this sort of chart of like how many books you're going to read in your life.

And that there's sort of this ticking clock on it, right? We think we're going to read stuff later, or we'll read more at some other point in our life But you probably won't and so the urgency of kind of meditating on your mortality Does create an urgency about reading and I think also an urgency about quitting books that suck which we should talk about but So it did it for you like you're back on track. I'm back on track I was an English major in school So like I used to read a lot, but I started reading late as a kid.

Like I, like my parents weren't like, you're not gonna watch TV, you're gonna read books, which I kind of wish they had done. But then maybe I wouldn't end up making movies. So I guess there's a trade off. I've gotten back in the habit and that habit is generally like 30 minutes in the morning. Like first thing when I wake up.

Yeah. Instead of the phone? Definitely. Yeah, my day, like it's so kind of binary. If I start the day looking at my phone, my day goes this way. Yes. And it's not in a great direction. And if I start the day reading, and it's reading fiction,

fiction in the morning, nonfiction in the evening. Okay. Because I'm just, like, transitioning out of, like, the dream state, my brain is super, like, plasticky, and, like, I don't know, it's so easy to just get into it, like, whatever I'm reading, and that's why fiction in the morning. It's the opposite of, let's say, reading, like,

the news first thing. It's like, all of let's say, reading, like, the news first thing. It's like, all of a sudden, like, when you look at your phone, you read the news, like, you're in that kind of transitional state, and then you're having all these kind of reactive emotions, and that reverberates, like, you know, through the rest of your morning, and then your day starts off completely influenced by that. But if you start fiction, you're distanced enough from it that your emotional reactions, even if they're strong

because you're further down in a book, like you know on some level that it's not real and that it's happening in there. Well, it's like, are you gonna start the day by playing Russian roulette, right? Like, I better hope nobody sent me any frustrating texts while I was sleeping. No work crises arose while I was sleeping. That's my email inbox. Nobody said anything stupid or awful on social media. Never going to happen.

And then, no negative news events in the world. The chances of all those lining up are so extremely low. Or just even looking at your calendar, right? You're like, oh, fuck, I forgot all the things I committed to two weeks ago for today, right? So the chance that you're going to wake up and you're going to grab the phone and it's going to be a thing that sets a positive course for the day is essentially zero. So it's actually worse than Russian roulette. Like the odds are definitely not in your favor. It's like there's five rounds in the chamber. And yeah, it's just why play that game. It's better I think you get up a tad early. Because if you're getting up late, then you don't have the luxury of like putting things off.

But if you can get up early, and I try to keep like a 30 minutes to one hour buffer before I go into that. Yeah, because I can't remember the last time there was something I saw that couldn't have waited that long. Yeah, what really sucks is like when you're, like sometimes I'm doing like a commercial or a project with people in the UK. And in LA it was actually worse

because you're the last to wake up. Right, so and if you're working with people in the UK. And in LA, it was actually worse because you're the last to wake up. Right. So and if you're working with people in New York or LA, like there are a lot of emails and texts that are like urgent. And this is lunchtime. You like wake up right into like right into the day. It's very stressful. It's like, yeah. You have like a very early zoom or something. Yeah. And you have to have read something to prepare for it, like an email or something. But yeah, being in that fiction mind space in the morning is really, I don't know, really sets the day out.

And talking about buffers, it does create this shock absorption buffer that you go through the day. I mean, yeah, it kind of fits with your stoic thing, where it's just like, you know, you're able to kind of encounter bumps in the road and all those things, and without being like jolted too hard and finding yourself in a super reactive state.

And I kind of feel like, yeah, the more you read in the morning, that stuff. And then in the evening, yeah, the more you read in the morning, that stuff. And then in the evening, like, I find it really hard to read fiction at night because I'm so... I don't know, I'm... You've been living in the real world all day. I've been living... Now you have to go to Mars or something.

Right, right. It's hard to transition out of it. And I'm very, by the end of the day, I'm like very self-centered. Not in a selfish way, but I'm like, I've been dealing with things all day, and so I find it helpful to read non-fiction that is like serving some sort of value, whether it's like helping me out,

like that's the thing I'm most interested in at the end of the day, are things that are gonna help me solve my problems. I think when I read fiction, yeah, I'm thinking like, the cognitive load of fiction is you have to enter and assume all the facts of a not real world, right? Especially if you're reading like science fiction or something that's even different than just fictional characters.

But you have to enter this world and there is a certain mental load to that that I find is hard to do when you're tired or fried, unless it's amazing, right? Like when you're reading the greatest novel ever, you'd probably pick it up at any time, but when it's a stretch. If you're already in it, it's easier. But if you're just still getting into it, I'm like, wait, what?

How does that work or who was that person? Just like at the end of the day, it's hard to remember all the people you talk to or who your wife's telling you some story and you're like, wait, who are we talking about again? But to do that in a novel, you got to remember all these people and all these things that happened.

The only thing I have heard about fiction at night, which is it's good to read before bed because it puts you to sleep. No, just because of that, right? Like it's slower than like, you're reading some self-help book before bed. You're like, it's getting your mind firing, which is the opposite of what you want

to be happening before bed. At the same time though, like if I'm reading, like recently reread, How to Stop Worrying by Dale Carnegie. Yeah, so it's How to Stop Worrying, which is great. And each chapter has a little gem. And you read it, and you get this little gem, and you're like, ah.

And then it's nice. And then you feel a little relieved. You feel a little catharsis. And then you can go to sleep. Yeah, so for me, when I'm reading too much stuff at night, it's like, oh, I'm gonna use this, right? So it gets, it's like getting the work brain going again, so I try not to do that too much before, but...

I don't remember you talking in the documentary, maybe you did, but one of my favorite reading rules is about quitting books. You give every book 100 pages minus your age. And so like never heard that. So broken down to such a precise formula. And it's funny because I, my grandmother's 94 and 95. And I just, so like, I'm like, give this book like five pages. Like if it's not good, you got to move on.

But because I like the idea of thinking about like, okay, we only have so many books we're going to read in our life. We only have so much time. Obviously, there are some times you really struggle through a book and it pays off halfway through or three quarters of the way through, or you're glad you read it afterwards. But most of the time, no. If it's not doing it early, it's never going to do it. And it's not because it's challenging your assumptions that you're not liking it.

You're not liking it because it's not making the argument well or it's not because it's challenging your assumptions that you're not liking it. You're not liking it because it's not making the argument well or it's not entertaining or the writing is poor. But I do think part of the trying to read a lot in the short amount of time that you have in life, what I find with people who are good at reading is they quit books and they don't feel guilty about quitting books that suck. Well, I definitely don't feel guilty.

We do talk about it a little bit in the doc, but it's interesting, because I like reading, and I know I'm alone on this, but I love reading on my iPad, because I can make notes, I can highlight things, and then export them, save them in a way that I can't do that when I'm... And also, I. Right. Like save them in a way that like I can't do that like when I'm, and also I can hold it with one hand

in bed like in every angle. When I look though at like a lot of the books on my iPad I can see that like a lot of them, like I've stopped reading them around 30%. Yes. But sometimes years after I've started them, I will circle back. Sure.

And then I find that around like 35%, 36%, maybe 40% is like when I like actually enter like the world of the book, but I need to get over that like 30% hump. Like the beginning's always fun. It's like meeting someone. It's like meeting, you know, a girl for the first time. You're like, oh, first two dates, first three dates are great. And then you kind of hit like a little bit of a lull and like there's like, you know, it gets a little slow and you're like, I don't know. I don't really

know if I want to stay in this, like start looking around some more. And then you get over, like, 40% and you're like, I'm in, I'm into the end. But the worst is when you're reading a book and you're building a case against the book. Because you're like, I don't know, you haven't let go. You haven't surrendered to it. Am I not liking this because I'm close-minded, I have these assumptions, or am I not liking this because it's garbage

and the person is wrong? That is a tension, right? Because you wanna, like, if you're only reading books that you agree with, you're not really getting the benefit of reading, which is learning new things. But at the same time, like, I think about it, one as an author, like, my job is to make the book

readable and interesting. It's like, oh, my job is to make the book readable and interesting. It's like, oh, you just didn't get the movie. No, the movie, your job is to make me get the movie, right? Like if it's boring, it's the filmmakers fault, I feel like. And the same is true with books. But then, you know, is this not working because there's something fundamentally faulty about what they're saying

or about their point of view or whatever and Should you keep reading? I read a book the other day where like there was something I saw in the acknowledgments That ruined it for me like right there like the person had said something about their husband Who I knew something about and it just like it wasn't like this Seinfeldian like super nitpicky thing but it was like this person was like saying something about their like thanking their husband who their husband who they subsequently got divorced from who got in all this trouble and I was like wait so like you didn't even see this in like your own I was just like I'm the case for me started like literally

one sentence. No and what's worse than like going page by page and like not just having the author's voice in your head, but your own like kind of reactive, like cynical voice. Like that's the voice you don't want when you're reading. And then if that tension is there the whole time, like you're just digging yourself into a hole. Yes, and you might, so you might as well read something you're actually gonna yourself into a hole. Yes. So you might as well read something that you're actually gonna get something out of

instead of this thing that their fault or your fault, your head fucked about, and it's not gonna do anything. You wanna surrender. Yes. And when you surrender, you wanna make sure that you're surrendering to someone with like, who's worthy to surrender to. It's true.

Like, you wanna know that you're in good hands of someone with more wisdom or someone who's like, this is going to take me somewhere. And until you surrender, and that works with movies too. Yes. Movies though, it's like a, it's a smaller time commitment. Yes. But still I'll walk out of a movie.

If I'm watching a movie and like I'm building a case against it while I'm watching it, I'll ask myself, oh, maybe I'm being closed minded, maybe I came in with a judgment, try to put it away. But if I'm just building a case over the course of a movie, I'll walk out. Yeah, well, that's the sunk cost fallacy, right? Should you keep doing a thing just because,

you paid for the ticket, so should you take the ride? No, you paid for the ticket. So should you keep, should you take the ride? No, you paid for it either way. Do you want to pay for it and waste two hours of your life? Or would you rather pay for it and only waste one hour of your life? It's hard for us to do that math. You're like, I'm already 500 pages in. You know, like you're reading these huge books.

It's like, that's probably too many. You know, like, but it's hard to quit because we feel like that's an act of ill discipline when actually the discipline is to quit. Have you ever heard of the term nuclear family? The term was coined by an anthropologist in the 1920s to describe the family structure of a straight married couple and their kids. Well now, over a century later, that definition of family describes only 18% of American households. From this is actually happening comes the 82% modern stories of love and family, a six-part series

focused on those who have challenged some of our deepest societal norms by reimagining what love and family can be. From an asexual educator and activist raising a child with two other co-parents, to a gay man and the clergy who chose the path of celibacy and created a unique family unit with his straight best friend. Each episode offers an intimate first person perspective from those whose family lives have taken different shapes. To listen to the 82% series, follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad free on Wondry+. It is kind of case by case. If you're reading a book that you know is in the canon, right? I was an English Lit major, and so there were plenty of books where I'm reading and I'm like, this is real, this is work.

This is work. But why did people appreciate it for so long? Why am I supposed to get out of this? And I often, on those, I go, okay, it's not Shakespeare here that's the problem. It's me. So what do I need to read or ask questions? How do I need to figure out how to get from the thing? Now, sometimes the emperor doesn't have any clothes and there's a few classics that definitely

suck. But like, I think, and those ones I go, okay, I'm not enjoying it because I'm not understanding what's happening. That's really what's the problem. And so I'm going to go like, I don understanding what's happening. That's really what's the problem. And so I'm gonna go like, I don't believe in spoilers when it comes to books. So I'll like, I'll figure out what's happening and then I can appreciate what's being said

as I've understood what's happened. I mean, that's exactly why I was an English major because I always kind of I love history too. But history is like, I can read a history book and like it can, it's more cut and dry. I don't need someone to unpack a history book with me. There's so much literature is dense and some of it's really hard to understand.

If you have a great teacher and I've had some great English, I mean, I think they just turned me on in general. And like, I had a great teacher who taught us Moby Dick. And just like, if I had just read Moby Dick on my own, no way. Sure. No way would I understand. I mean, I still don't understand.

Like a lot of it, it's so dense and there's so many ways to read things. There's so many layers. To have a great guide, a Sherpa kind of taking you up that mountain. That's what really, I don't know. I recommend that to anybody. But like you said, if you're reading something from the Canon and, and you're doing it on your own, it is like kind of climbing a mountain on your own without a guide. Like you do need a now with the internet,

you can go on and kind of- Watch a video about it. Right. Like I try to go find like good reviews about a thing. Like, yeah, you're reading Moby Dick. Like chances are some new edition has come out, you know, in the last 150 years. So the New York Times Book Review will have like

some in-depth article about Moby Dick and what it means and why it matters. just read that and then you're like, okay now I know what the fuck's happening, right and Now I have my bearings I can I can understand all the things that people are saying and why they why they matter here Yeah, you you need just someone to like give you a little like a little push And so and like oh, these are the themes. Oh, I see. These are the big themes we're talking about. This is what he's like,

this is what he's dipping his toe into. This is the whale kind of represents this, that, and the other. We're realizing too, like the person that you're reading this article or this teacher, they haven't read the book one time. They've read the book like 50 times. And so they missed what you missed the first time too.

That's the point is you want someone, if you want a guide climbing a mountain, you don't just get another person who's climbing the mountain at the same time. You get someone who's climbed this mountain hundreds and hundreds of times, and they know the things that are true on some days and not on other days.

You know, they know it at a level that you're not gonna get on your own, and you wanna save yourself having to read it 50 times. They know it at a level that you're not gonna get on your own and you wanna save yourself having to read it 50 times. It is crazy how, whether it's watching a movie twice, like I've often just said to myself, like you've never seen a movie unless you've seen it twice. Yeah.

Like, and you probably have never really read a book unless you've read it twice, but I've read very few books twice. And how many books have you read? Like 10 times or 20 times? Most of those books I've read multiple times are kind of more nonfiction books or like full out. Like I've read Robert Green's books a couple of times. Like I've read Mastery. Oh, that's an incredible book. I've read Mastery like I think I read it like a bunch, like two years ago. I listened to it as

I was running. Like I went through the it like a bunch, like two years ago, I listened to it as I was running. Like, I went through the whole thing a couple times. When I think also understanding that the idea that you're never actually, I would say you can't read a book two times, right? You can never read the same book more than once, right? Because it's a different book, you're different. And so the idea that you're evolving with it,

and then also if you can get to a point where you don't have to start on page one with something. Like there's books that you can dip in and dip out of, those are amazing. Like I need like a pick me up. Yeah, or like, I know there's a chapter about this in this book, and I'm just gonna go grab that. And I think Robert's books are amazing

in that they're sort of designed to do that. They're like, they're this modular thing. They're like Talmudic. Yes. Like they're so dense. And then there are the stories, like there are the, and then there are the keys. And then there's a, yeah, reading it for the first time is really like, you're only getting your, what's going in is only like a small fraction.

And you're only open to hearing what you needed at that time. You're reading it. And then you're like, Oh, oh, you know, he was talking to someone who's going through it at this other level or in this different way. You know, you think about you think about how strange it is that we have like teenagers read these like like what? What did me as a 17 year old need to get from The Great Gatsby? Like this is a book about like a man who's trying to go back in time written by a guy who's in his 30s,

sort of deciding what direction to take his life. Like there's almost nothing a 16 year old can get about that. And so like it's a book you have to read, not when you're older, but like, when you reread it when you're older, you you go, Oh, I didn't even understand all these things that I was missing. Totally. And that's something special. You're like, I can't even I don't even remember that this happened in this book and now and that was like the most like that's the most beautiful like poetic instructive part of this. I don't even remember this scene.

Yes. There's a Joan Didion quote where she says, writing is a hostile act. You're trying to get someone to see something the way you see it. And so that's my point too about quitting bad books. It is a hard thing to convince someone of something. And sometimes a person can't convince you

because the argument is stupid. Sometimes they can't do it because the argument is stupid. Sometimes they can't do it because they don't have the chops to do it. But I think it's wrong to just think of books as this like, a book is in a painting where someone just made this thing. Not that that's what painters are doing, but like a book is an argument, right? Or it's a world and it has to be this self-contained, and it either does the job or it doesn't. And I think, unfortunately,

a lot of books don't do the job. But the job is different for each book. Like you said, it's such a multiplicity of goals that a book can have. Like you said, it could be a world, it could be someone setting out to kind of map out a message or a, but you want there to be a tension between what the person has set out to do and what they're doing if there's no tension because the thing, the thing they set out to do is simple and

they're just rehashing it. You get that too. You're like, I get it. Yes. Like you made like some books should only be one chapter. Although sometimes people, I'll see this in reviews of my books, which you're not supposed to look at, but people will go, people will go like, oh, it was, it got repetitive, you know, towards the end or it repeats himself. And there's some, there's a narcissism that we all have when we read something, we go, um, oh, there's, it's repetitive. And it's like, it's repetitive

to you because you got it. And so what's hard about a book project and in a movie or a documentary is understanding that the audience is different and understands things at different levels or brings a different level of knowledge to it, right? And so some people, you have to beat over the head with it. Some people got it in the first five seconds

and most people are somewhere in between there. And so it's like, I've the head with it. Some people got it in the first five seconds. And most people are somewhere in between there. And so it's like, I've had to take it. It's like, okay, that's a compliment. They told me I won earlier than I expected to win. And so- It's a great way to read your reviews. But if I listen to that advice, then there's gonna be a whole bunch of other people

on the next one that go, he didn't make his point. I didn't get it. And so, so like, you have to understand that, like, that's what's tough about art is it has to, it has to be something to you first and foremost. And then it has to be something to a multiplicity of people who are at different places and phases and familiarities and, and cultures and all this stuff. And that to really do something for a lot of people is a magical thing. Totally. Yeah. Like I feel like in the Robert Greene example,

like he's setting out to map out this like very big, ambitious idea. And like he's reaching really far. And like Moby Dick, same thing. Like Melville is like, he's grasping at something and the book is the space between the grasping and the goal. Yes. And if that tension is too slack,

or if it's like too facile, like he can just grab it, then the book is not as, like, it doesn't have the charge that it needs to have. So you want there to be, like, some sort of gap between the grasping and the thing, which is what's keeping the writer or the artist, like, going. Yeah, if they're not challenging themselves, there's not going to have the energy. But also, if they're biting off more than they can chew, it's not going to work either. So they're always biting themselves, there's not gonna have the energy, but also if they're biting off more than they can chew It's not gonna work either. So they're they're always biting off danger

They're always trying to bite off more than they can chew and the quit and like the and right whether they kind of get it Or chew it at all. Right Like you don't what you don't want them. They're kind of it's it's kind of condescending if they are not biting off enough Yes They're kind of it's it's kind of condescending if they are not biting off enough Yes, and it's also like very frustrating if they're biting off so much that it's just like what do you do? Like what are we doing here? You don't get it right? You don't get what you're talking like I'm not sure you wrapped your head around it right. Yeah. Thank you for for for Implanting incepting in my mind like this for implanting, incepting in my mind, like this vomitus of ideas

that you weren't able to organize. Well, I have to tell, like a lot of authors will do books like, they'll be like, the paradox of X, or the book would be called like the whatever paradox. And I'll go, like, I've said this to multiple people who've done books like that. I go, here's the problem.

What you're telling me from the outset is that you didn't figure it out. You're like, it's complicated, right? You're like, it's a little of this and a little of that. It's like, I already knew that. You got to find the part of this that you do understand. Or conversely, when someone will write a biography and they're like, I kind of love them and I kind of hate them.

And you're like, okay. But if you haven't cracked the puzzle on insert, I'm not saying that everyone is all good or all bad. But if you haven't made up your mind about, I need you to tell me why you hate this person having spent years of your life with them, or you love this person. Either the good outweighs the bad, and that's why you wrote the book, or the bad does not outweigh the good, and that's why you wrote the book. But if you've got this sort of,

like sometimes academics will just have this kind of middling take on the person. Survey. Yeah, yeah, it's a survey course of all the things that happened to them. This is why it's become a cliche, but if you haven't figured out the rosebud thing that unlocks why this person is either worth understanding

or why you, the story you decided to tell about this person that unlocked them for you personally then then again it's not gonna have the energy well that that gets into documentary that's very relevant in terms of documentaries yes because unlike a narrative feature where you basically you know where you're gonna end you've you've already telling the story of firefest or something. Well, I'm talking about in a narrative feature where it's scripted.

Oh, okay, sure. It's like you're, you know, you have a script, you know what happens at the end, and then it's like, it's not painting by numbers because obviously like an actor brings something to it, there are ways that you're gonna interpret the material, you're kind of like kneading, you're kneading the dough, and you're in,

but you know where you're going for the most part. With a documentary, you start, I mean, different documentaries are different, but like often you start with a question. What is this about? Or what happened here? And if it's a good documentary, I think like the filmmaker doesn't know.

And so you're, but you're taking a gamble. Yes. You're like, by the time I'm done with this, which should, you know, for financial and time management reasons, needs to be like, you know, by two years into this, three years into this, I'm gambling that I will get to, I will get to that rosebud thing.

Well, there's the expression of like jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down. You better hope or a parachute. You better have assembled something towards the end or it's just gonna go with the thought because you're like, what am I watching? I see there's lots of footage here and you put lots of time, but what are you telling me?

Well, that's what's, and that's what's so exciting about making documentaries. A, because when you wake up in the morning and you get your gear together and you go somewhere, you don't know what you're gonna get. It's like digging. You can kind of change the direction of the dig based on what you find.

Then when you get something, it feels like such a discovery. And that's not the same with scripted filmmaking. It's like, oh, you get a great performance that really brought the material to life. But it's not the same as like, oh my God, that moment. Like, did you plan- It just told me something that I didn't know or I didn't know about them

or that they'd never shown before. And I was filming it. Yes, yes. And it's like, I captured something while it was happening that is not just left an impression on me, but I now know that I can, if I represent that or bring it into the work,

that it will impact other people too. Yeah, I think like your new one, it's like if the end of it, you're like, happiness is complicated, nobody knows, you know? I'm like, what am I watching, right? At the end of it, you're like, happiness is complicated, nobody knows, I'm like, what am I watching? At the same time, if it's like, here are the seven steps to happiness, you're also full of shit. Because it is more complicated than that. It's like science. You have a hypothesis or you have a sense of where you're going, but

at the end of the day, I don't want to hear about the experiments that didn't work out. There's this moment where you unlock it. Maybe it's not what you expect, but you unlock, here's what I have to say about this thing. And that is a magical feeling. For me, obviously, you sit down to write a book, you have to know where you're going. If you do the thing, you're going to figure it out while you're doing it. You're going to get hopelessly lost. But there is a moment where maybe like two-thirds of the way in like I'm probably roughly half on the book I'm doing right now. And so you're doing it every day, but you're not sure it's working. And there is a moment where it clicks and you go, okay, I am doing it. Like, this is going somewhere. It's come together. I could still crash and die,

you know, I don't know how to fly a plane, but like there's wings here, whatever you wanna do, the metaphor. It started to come together to a degree where you're like, okay, I didn't just waste two years of my life. That's a magical feeling. Right, but that's like the,

that's the exhilaration of being, kind of making these pieces of art that are kind of art plus instruction, which is like you are jumping off the cliff and you're like, am I gonna pull this off? Like you don't know, you might not, but you have a feeling you will. 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 would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey.