Based Camp： Why Do So Many Self-Help Gurus Have Terrible Lives？
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Summary
In this episode, we talk about how the dating guru space has become so prevalent in our culture, and how it affects our perception of who to trust as a source of information. We also discuss the lack of transparency in the legal industry, and why this is such a problem.
Transcript
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hello malcolm collins hello simone collins are we gonna try to use our names even though we're
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married yes mr malcolm collins i don't know branding i don't like it maybe we'll just do
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malcolm and simone going forwards but there are a lot of people out there on the internet who are
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like life advice gurus and we definitely do not style ourselves as life advice gurus
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that said a lot of these people seem to be giving very bad advice and as people who aren't life
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advice gurus but who seem to have their lives together more than a lot of society these days
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this is what always gets me about the life guru space but i also see this within the dating guru
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space is that many of these people don't have successful relationships or they don't seem to
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really have their lives together and i actually was talking to i remember a long time ago somebody in
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the dating guru space and i was like why are you giving people like why is your job this was her
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job giving people dating advice and i was like when you don't have a good relationship or even have a
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partner right now and she goes i date more than any other dating coach i know and i'm like that does
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seem true that does seem true but i don't know i i think and this could be a cultural perspective as
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well that some cultures when they're trying to decide who to trust as a source of information
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what they'll do is they'll look towards the crowd right they'll say who is the crowd looking to as a
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source of information or they'll look to some sort of external certifying agency right so yeah this
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people might have had 10 terrible marriages but they do have their phd in relationship counseling
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whereas i think our cultural perspective places a huge amount of weight on what the individual
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has been able to achieve within their own life and the belief that you can't really make it past that
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point yeah so if you are getting advice from someone keep in mind that it will get you to exactly where
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they are now so if you really like where someone is getting life advice for them is is pretty good but
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just doing it because they are famous or they're telling you things that sound or feel good probably
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not the best course of action to take and this can be a problem with it was in what we call the
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the viral life coach sort of meme when we talk about memetic clusters it began to grow accidentally
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i remember in the bay area i was adjacent to this community where it started was one life coach and
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then everyone they were coaching ended up becoming life coaches no which makes perfect sense because what
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like what is the life coach have figured out and how to do they figured out how to be a good life coach
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so they're probably going to lead people in that general direction but if i don't think that's
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what they went if you had been able to take them aside at the beginning and said is your goal was
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this to become a life coach they might have said no this is the thing not all life coaches are like
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this some life coaches are like specifically very good at preventing this and i think that there's a
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way that you can sort for this look at their other clients who have worked with them for a while
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did they end up becoming more successful or did they end up becoming less successful
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there's something that's really interesting about this actually this might be too much of a tangent
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but we were introduced at one point to a company that would take law firms and lawyers and actually
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show you their outcomes vis-a-vis specific judges for example and in certain courts and what you
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realize after looking at this data is that there's this profound disconnect in the legal industry at least
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in the united states between like expensive law firms prestigious law firms famous lawyers and actually
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good court records and you could see on the graphs like the track record of different lawyers against
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certain judges in certain districts so if your case is likely to end up in front of this particular judge
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often what you're doing is someone's oh yeah like this lawyer sees this judge like all the time they know
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them really well like you're going to be in really good hands and then you look and you see there's all
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these judges that like or sorry lawyers there are all these lawyers who see certain judges a ton but they're like
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always lose they always lose and no one knows that going into it because unfortunately the system
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isn't set up in a way where people are looking at outcomes instead they're looking at prestige they're
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looking at signaling they're looking at how people choose to market themselves and i think this is not
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just something that's a problem in the legal industry it's a problem around the i mean also look at
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teaching like where are teachers going to get you they're going to get you where they are and that's why many
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people when they're young want to be a teacher when they grow up of course
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and i think that it's critical something to note was the lawyer example is this was a company i don't
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even know if the company is still around but like this data was out there in public and not that many
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people were using it the vast majority of people when choosing a lawyer were not looking at this data
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that's out there about how frequently they won cases like theirs but we're looking at the prestige of
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their firm or like marketing materials and what blew our minds too is that there seemed to be zero
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correlation between what you paid for and what you got in terms of outcomes oh my god
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but this is just a lawyer right this is just hundreds of thousands of dollars
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there's young people who go out there and take advice from gurus just because they're like
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famous within their ideological circles and they're like this guy is ideologically approved or
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this girl is ideologically approved therefore their advice must be efficacious and it's important
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to remember that just because someone is smart it doesn't mean that they have great so when a person
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rises to fame within sort of life advice circles there's typically three reasons that's going to
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happen okay one that person is telling people what one specific ideological group wants to hear
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but they're telling it to them in a way that like sounds smarter or more sophisticated than they're used
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to hearing it or edgier than they're used to hearing it or something it's what they all right
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want to hear but with some sort of spin put on it some sort of flavor agent added the next is uh
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people telling people that none of their problems are actually their fault and that they're all
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actually everyone else's fault and they're actually should be totally happy doing nothing
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basically this group is just trying to convince you to be happier with whatever you're doing right
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now the first group typically is more oh your traditions are actually all right all of your
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instincts on how to handle this are right and then another deviation of this second group are people
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who will tell you okay actually you do have problems but you can solve it with wishy thinking
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wishy thinking coaches are really big wishy thinking we i named this after they're the great skit on this
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from the it crowd but it's basically it's actually a psychological trick which is really fascinating and
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it's prevalent throughout history as like a scam the best modern example is the secret but there's
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been lots of examples it basically pops back up every 20 years or so the secret was from my generation
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there's been probably some new generation like as soon as i describe it you'll be like oh i know what
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you're talking about so the way it works is this is the guru will tell you if you really wish for
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something it will become more likely to become true and then they'll add there's some ways that
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the formula is typically altered as well to make it work a bit better they'll say it works better if
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you forgot that you were wishing for that thing so they'll say like first really wish for something
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write it down then throw that thing away and forget that you wish for it as hard as you can or they'll do
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some other things like like wish for thing and then perform some ritual around that like maybe
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masturbation or something like that something they see as these gathering spirits or something but what
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they're really doing here is they're building something for which you can build confirmation
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bias around which is to say if things move a bit in the direction of that thing you'll be like ah yes
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this was all correct the reason some iterations have evolved culturally this tendency of saying oh you need
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to forget about it is because through forgetting about the thing it's harder to remember it if it
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doesn't end up becoming true so you don't remember that it didn't work but then if it does end up
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becoming true you will almost certainly remember that you tried to forget about it in this whole
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ceremony that you pulled and so you're like oh something definitely happened there and so it's yeah
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it's just a confirmation bias like more specifically it allows the guru to say oh you remembered it that's
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that's why it didn't work but then if it works and you remembered it they say well you remembered it
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because it worked and so there's always an excuse which is actually really clever do you have any
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thoughts on was she thinking simone it is also known what as manifesting vision boards postulating
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it's shown up in both like really woo woo circles but also i would say like more hard line like
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preying on it too preying for something i think it shows up there so don't think that your cultural
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group is immune to it somehow it is because the vast majority of public intellectuals who are
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sort of gurus around life advice rise to fame for the three above reasons either they're promoting
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wishy thinking they are telling people something that the person already wants to believe because it
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aligns with their cultural predilections around how the world works or should work but they put some
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sort of new flavor on it or they are telling people that their problems aren't their fault
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is actually why disproportionately you see these public gurus living these terrible lives and and so
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unable to make things work for themselves life advice that leads to fame and that sells is specifically
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adversarial often to life advice which is beneficial to the individual uh it's just fascinating to us that
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this doesn't disconfirm their expertise to most of the general public yeah and then the final group
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is unfortunately usually only accessible to rich people and these are people who actually help
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people and people who generally have their own lives together uh and the reason they're typically
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only available to rich people so like consider financial advisors right if someone if a financial
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advisor guru they wouldn't need to do that if they were actually really good at investing right most of
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them and so it's much rarer for them to go into financial advising unless they're just like
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actually altruistically motivated that's why when i'm taking crypto investing advice i look for the
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most autistic people out there because i know they're doing it because they're like just obsessed
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with the numbers and that's why they continue to broadcast even though they have enough money they
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don't need to do it anymore but that's a good thing but it's also true with like relationships or other
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aspects of your life generally if somebody has some like base level of competence they've got some
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other career path laid out for them and if they've been able to succeed with the masses they likely
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like efficacious advice actually does very poorly with the masses um obvious reasons it's not palatable
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like it doesn't tell them what they already want to believe it doesn't tell them that everything's not
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their fault and it takes a while before it's realized and even though it takes a while before it's
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realized once it is realized then the person's likely too successful or is stuff going on in their life so
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they're not out there proselytizing to whatever the next group is whereas people who undergo this
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sort of sunk cost fallacy they end up proselytizing these other systems especially systems that build
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dependency and that's where you really need to be careful so let's dive into signs that we think so
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when i does give legitimate advice that we listen to aside from the fact that they're like living the
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life that we want to live tell me if you hold this intuitively as well or if i am completely off base
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with this but i often give extra points to someone if they they have something i value or i'm trying to
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get right so i can trust that sort of their heuristics will get me there but they're also not obsessed with
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that thing so for example if they're not obsessed with finding a spouse that they love but they just
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happen to be in a really loving relationship and they did so intentionally and it wasn't just luck
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then i i trust that more or if they are not obsessed with wealth but they are wealthy and they didn't
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get that through luck or chance obviously which a lot of people have right they inherited their wealth
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or they were in the right place at the right time etc then i listen to them extra because i do think
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that there is also a dangerous signaling effect where if someone for example like really has to see
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themselves as being in an amazing relationship they might falsely signal how good their relationship is
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yes i think what you're saying here which is really true is if it's an aspect of their self-identity
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if their identity is i am good at relationships i am good at being happy i am good at finance they're
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much more likely to falsely signal in a way that could lead you to over trusting their advice that's a
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really good signal that i hadn't considered but now also it dovetails with our philosophy on like how to
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actually get happiness even if you really care about happiness but we don't which is i don't know
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you give the pitch malcolm what do you think our secret to happiness is well i mean happiness is a
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reward for a life of efficaciously lived if you set goals for yourself and those are goals that you
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believe to some extent have real value are actually moving you towards some sort of intrinsic truth
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as you achieve those goals your body rewards you with happiness meaningful happiness not
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the cheap kind of happiness which ends up hurting you in the long run i think that the worst thing
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you can do in regards to any sort of positive emotional state is to chase the emotional state
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for its own sake more broadly i'd say the actual big question when somebody's okay how do i live a good
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life or something like this and this is why we wrote the pragmatist guide to life the goal of that book
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was to try to help people come to their own answers just why do i exist without biasing them towards
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any answer because i think that once you've answered that question once this is why i think i exist this
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is like my purpose in the universe or this is what i think is like an intrinsically good action in the
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universe that action will give me a sort of list of things that i know when i've accomplished them i've
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done something meaningful and then when i go out and accomplish those things our biology is such
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that it rewards us with a very meaningful long lasting and in no way bittersweet reward whereas i think
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most forms of pleasure if they're gotten through almost any other mechanism it typically cause more
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damage in the long run well and i would add to that so i think that there are other underlying
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mechanisms to this that really matter like if you let's say that you really want to be happy and you
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don't pursue this path and instead you pursue whatever is going to make you happiest i think
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there's a genuine risk of the hedonic treadmill with pretty much anything that you can find that
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can give you happiness at first you're going to adjust to it it is going to lose its luster and then
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you're going to find yourself back to where you were when you started and i also think that we've seen
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across i can't point to one peer-reviewed study on this unfortunately but across many different
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domains both anecdotally historically when we're looking at populations but then also in terms of
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studies that like there's this sort of ennui that comes from being comfortable from having all your
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problems solved maybe from being really wealthy maybe just from being comfortable and bored and
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surrounded by comfort and surrounded by pleasure that actually leads to a sort of deep emptiness and
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depression where it's not necessarily a hedonic treadmill problem it is a nothing really matters
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because nothing's really hard problem and i think that's that could be one of the most depressing
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states to ever be in and i think it's one reason why many people do suffer from depression because
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while many people have tons and tons of problems in life in the end a lot of those problems are
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self-inflicted it's like anxiety they're not existential problems yeah they're not yeah they're not
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starving to death and where they are worried about like potential death it's from like overeating or
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something like that yeah self-inflicted to a large extent but more than that they're not even really
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worried about death if you don't have people depending on you in a big way you're not really
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worried about death you're worried about what you might lose like throwing something away that you like
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but there's not the same genuine fear in the same way that there isn't genuine hardship often in the
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lifestyle of developed country um and i think you're right that does cause a level of ennui but i think
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another thing that really causes that is that these people aren't taught to look for what genuinely
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matters in life they are told by society this is what's good this is what's bad and they incorrectly
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like most people in history have incorrectly assumed that they were at the moral nexus of history
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which is to say whatever society thinks is moral is what's moral and we are definitely not at the
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moral nexus of history everyone has always thought that okay our society now has finally figured
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things out and sometimes you'll talk to progressives and they're like but society becomes more moral as
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it moves into the future and i was like what are you talking about like you as a progressive
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obviously believe that lgbt rights are a moral thing we have those multiple times throughout history
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and then had them stripped away and then they became even a sign of immorality to future generations
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that the zeitgeist says something is moral does not mean it is and i think that they know this and
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this is where the ennui comes from they don't believe what the zeitgeist is telling them is moral
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but they do see it as a sign for status signaling and almost nothing will sap your personal vitality like
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we're not the types who believe in souls but i do believe that humans have a vitality to their
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sentience that can be feasted upon and drained from them and one of the things that just drains
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it faster is a life dedicated to status signaling and there are many ways an individual can do this
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you'll see pictures of somebody at a beach being like haha not wasting my time buying fancy cars
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hashtag whatever or it's like what that's just a different form of status signaling you're signaling
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the free time you have your signaling the things you can do or and where we see this now and where
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i would really encourage people to not focus on this is a new form of status signaling i've seen in
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both the far right and the far left is body status signaling so people have convinced themselves
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that their physical presentation is their identity oh i see the most important part of their identity
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and where this plays out in the left i think is very obvious but that's not to say that we don't
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have the same problems on the far right in terms of body dysmorphia i see these young people who are
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doing surgeries to themselves who are trying to look like the perfect male or trying to look like i guess
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what they think the perfect female looks like and why like how could that be a thing of intrinsic value
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how could what you physically look like matter other than in how it makes your significant other feel
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i i just and once you have a significant other who cares for you i can guarantee whether they're male
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or female they might be like oh you could edit this or this but they're definitely not min-maxing your
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body unless they're min-maxing you for a status signal themselves and then that's probably a problem
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am i that what's a trophy wife right you look at these trophy wives i've been in communities where
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some people had trophy wives it's a wife that's not chosen because the individual thinks that
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they're maximally attracted because i know these people they cheat on their wives i see who they're
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cheating on their wives with they're not like supermodels it's a woman who you have modified in a
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way that you think positively augments your own status when you go to a party or online or in social
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media broadly this is the most basic of takes yet it is something that i think so many people
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they see other people's status signaling and they don't see status signaling in themselves
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and they don't see that they have optimized their lives around a form of status signaling and that is
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hurting the same way forms of status signaling that they see as vapid are hurting other people
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here's a question though because to repeat what we think will make you really happy
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is successful pursuit of your values and i actually think that someone can live an extremely happy
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life in successful pursuit of optimizing around a certain character i genuinely think that and i want
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you to try to refute this let's say that like my whole life is around being this like quirky artist
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who like hosts my little salons and like creates really cool art and has cats that i paint to be like
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zoo animals oh weird stuff but i'm really good at doing it it's what i care about so you've set an
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easy goal and you've accomplished simple things related to that goal keep in mind that the level
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of deep satisfaction you're going to get from accomplishing any goal is directly proportional
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to how challenging you believe that goal was now if you believe these goals were actually very
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challenging you'll get a lot of reward from it or let me push back because i think if your views
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around maximizing a certain self-image of yourself there is no ceiling to how well you can maximize
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it and you can spend your entire life in pursuit of that and really struggle because obviously like
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the ultimate version of whatever it is you're world famous for being that person right you get just
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more famous and there's a reality tv show about you or you just become even more entrenched in this
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community even higher in a dominance hierarchy i actually think that someone could spend an entire life
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investing in this and really feel like there's still a lot more they could do i agree with that
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if you move high with it yes you could get good emotional reward but then i think the second thing
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to remember is there's a part of your brain that i think recognizes whether or not what you are doing
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is something you genuinely believe has value and some of these people might believe that living this
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archetype does have value okay if you can convince yourself of that and if the only thing that matters is
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feeling good in life you'll do okay however i think that's a really weird way to structure your life
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and i can't imagine recommending somebody to do that i'd be like if you are just absolutely convinced
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that nothing matters in the world and only your happiness matters then you might be able to structure
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your life in the way that this model would suggest i'm not saying that you can't find meaningful
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happiness through other avenues i just can't imagine why you would chase them when instead
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you could do some deep philosophical inquiry into what you think has genuine meaning in the world and
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what you think an actual life well lived looks like yeah but i think some people don't believe there's
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genuine meaning in the world and they really want to maximize how happy they feel and they think that
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what they can be best at is being a character no and that's true and i'm not saying fine do that i
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think the type of person you're talking about is an incredibly small portion of the population
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so much so that it's a trivial portion of the population maybe i think i think you are overestimating
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how willing people are to like really think through deep philosophical subjects and then commit to them
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and i think people spend a lot of time thinking about what character am i and what is my persona
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and how do i get people to see me that way and that society spends a lot more time elevating and
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valorizing people who are amazing colorful characters that everyone knows about than they do people who are
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extremely thoughtful in their philosophical underpinnings and dedicated to their faith come on
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no i'm not saying that people aren't bombarded by this stuff i'm just saying it won't it may fulfill
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this happiness quota but i don't think it'll leave them feeling fulfilled in the same way that you
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are selling it i think it may for a sliver of the population and i think that you're underestimating the
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average person i think that the only reason why genuine philosophical inquiry isn't that common in our
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society today like what's actually right and wrong is our school system has been terrified of teaching
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people to ask those questions first because they were afraid of pissing off religious people
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and then because they were afraid of pissing off progressives but both sides like whoever the
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dominant group in in society at the moment or whoever the dominant group is within any local community
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they have a vested interest in making sure kids never learn how to ask like what is good and what is
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evil how do i determine this for myself because if a person doesn't know how to do that then they're
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going to believe what the people around them say which generally benefits whatever the
00:25:08.540
socially dominant group is at the moment maybe i i think had i not met you i again i think you
00:25:13.920
underestimate just how hard it is to find people who are willing to broach these conversations and
00:25:17.880
push people into making these tough decisions and i think had i not met you i would have totally
00:25:25.240
chosen some kind of shallow pursuit and totally loved it really yeah i actually i'm gonna push back
00:25:31.380
hard here i think you would have hit 30 40 you would have started wanting kids you didn't expect
00:25:37.240
i'm way too hormonally imbalanced to go through that oh okay okay okay delta you change your mind you
00:25:44.840
specifically the one person who didn't get a chance to fully hormonally normalize you wouldn't feel this
00:25:53.720
you'd be totally happy living in your house with your 30 cats and being i wouldn't have 30 cats gross
00:26:00.100
no knocking on people who do but that's not my thing it's unsanitary but no malcolm i really i don't
00:26:07.060
think that suddenly wanting kids is something that makes people get philosophical either i think it
00:26:12.360
just no i'm not saying suddenly wanting kids i want to be clear about this people go through different
00:26:17.120
life stages where different things fulfill basic there's a like we're talking about like deep
00:26:22.500
fulfillment here in terms of what this conversation is about but i think there's a lower level pond of
00:26:27.680
fulfillment which is like basic fulfillment to not feel like everything's falling apart in your life
00:26:32.660
is a wreck okay that basic fulfillment pool changes as you age your biology changes and it
00:26:38.920
changes what it tells you you need when you are a toddler your desires are going to be different from
00:26:43.980
when you're in middle school and when you're in high school and when you're an adult of childbearing
00:26:48.400
ages because your ancestors who survived were doing different things during their different age ranges i think
00:26:55.720
what you're missing is when you are either not a parent or not taking on certain roles in your
00:27:00.960
community um at a certain age and i'm not saying you necessarily having kids or not having kids
00:27:06.480
you are going to feel a type of unfulfillment that you may not be able to point out that you may not be
00:27:12.420
able to articulate but every single person you are a descendant of or who is one of your ancestors
00:27:22.300
hadn't raised kids except for a few rare cases where somebody was adopted or something like that
00:27:29.520
that you don't think that would imprint itself onto how you relate to the world i think is just
00:27:34.960
unrealistic even outside of your weird hormonal profile
00:27:38.640
i don't know people in the comments can i don't know chime in on i guess probably our viewers are
00:27:46.480
more thoughtful philosophically than the average person by a long shot but still i question i question
00:27:53.920
and because even people that we encounter who are very philosophically deep we ask them like okay then
00:27:58.680
what is your objective function what are you maximizing for and they're like oh i just want
00:28:02.400
to learn a lot or i want to be happy and i respect that and they're logically consistent in that
00:28:06.360
conclusion again i think if that's what you're and we know people in our lives whose objective
00:28:11.060
functions more or less optimize around looking a certain way or wanting to be an interesting character
00:28:18.760
what matters to them is like how interesting their narrative they're looking at themselves like a
00:28:23.480
character in a book and they want to look cool i just i think this is way more pervasive than you
00:28:28.380
want to let out my my takeaway would be for people when you're looking at people who you're getting advice
00:28:35.160
from okay the advice they give you no matter how famous they are no matter how recommended they come
00:28:42.380
will only get to you to where they are in life don't expect it to take you further than that
00:28:48.480
so do invest a little bit of time into finding out the actual life circumstances of the people
00:28:55.200
who you are using to shape your world perspective the other thing i would suggest
00:29:00.480
is that our listeners ask themselves why do you exist and if you don't have a good answer to that
00:29:09.720
question then that's literally the most important thing for you to do every day like more important
00:29:16.260
than feeding yourself because if you don't know why you exist if you don't know why you want to exist
00:29:21.120
then you don't know what the function is you're optimizing your life around you can say i just go
00:29:27.220
with the flow but at that point then you're optimizing around going with the flow and the question is why are
00:29:35.760
you optimizing around that if you don't have any logic with that then it's just to survive and i understand
00:29:40.600
a lot of people are just interested in surviving but i don't know and it's like and it's okay to
00:29:46.980
have your vices look in this video i am drinking beer this does not move me towards any of my goals
00:29:52.340
doing things that don't lead you toward the things that you think have long-term value in the world
00:29:58.900
doesn't make you an evil person or it makes you a person and as evil as any human is and that we are
00:30:05.460
all wretched and fallen except i think it's important that people learn to accept that are
00:30:10.180
out themselves and not try to be perfect but try to be the best they can at doing the things they
00:30:17.720
matter in the world or doing the things they think matter in the world so there's one final hitch in
00:30:22.640
this that i think is really important and that i think there's a gradient of sensitivity people have
00:30:27.620
i think probably being on the spectrum i'm way more sensitive to stuff like this where i could be
00:30:32.680
in successful pursuit of my goals but want to die because various proclivities i have are not being
00:30:39.480
met and by that like there are some environments in which like based on the schedule or the amount
00:30:44.880
of control i have over my day or the setting i'm in it doesn't matter if i'm living in alignment with
00:30:50.920
my goals i am miserable and i think that is something that maybe dovetails with maslow's hierarchy of
00:30:57.500
needs and maybe doesn't but there are some things essentially that you need to have in order
00:31:02.100
if you are to function properly not just be happy or unhappy but like basically be able to function
00:31:08.320
and that can differ pretty significantly from one person to another so i think lasso's hierarchy of
00:31:14.580
needs is pointless it just points out what simone is saying sometimes for some people you need one
00:31:21.400
thing before you can clearly focus on something else and that is true and that changes between
00:31:26.640
individuals what those things are however it's also very important that you don't become indulgent
00:31:31.780
in what those things are because at the end of the day the only person you have to be responsible to
00:31:36.240
is yourself and so it's very easy to use these things to create justifications to the people
00:31:41.120
around you around why you're not living the life you should be living um so i almost worry if that
00:31:47.340
knowledge is dangerous but i think you're right because it helps people understand that they are going to
00:31:52.160
fail to be perfectly efficacious in many ways and that's the natural part of being human
00:31:58.140
yeah i think the key is to know what your minimum needs are but also like to orient around those
00:32:06.820
because i think there's a lot of people who are like oh first i have to get to like these levels
00:32:10.520
and maslow's hierarchy of needs or like first i have to create my retirement fund and do all these
00:32:15.160
other things and then i can focus on the meaning of life and if you get caught up trying to go with
00:32:19.840
like societal default or cultural default foundations before you start focusing on whatever
00:32:25.780
it is that gives you meaning and true happiness you are really screwing yourself over because first
00:32:31.700
there's a lot of these things that are fundamental for either like societal defaults or maslow's
00:32:37.020
hierarchy of need defaults or even like your friend and family's defaults that really don't matter to
00:32:41.220
you for example there are some people who are like listen i have to have a certain level of income
00:32:45.640
and wealth to feel comfortable there are other people who like honestly just really don't need
00:32:50.220
it and really don't care some people need to have their house like really clean and really nice other
00:32:54.120
people like don't like oh for example you and me malcolm like when we each live independently
00:32:58.460
we live in so different environments like you just need like a mattress on the ground and like a small
00:33:05.180
like the smallest possible place doesn't matter if there's any natural light if there is
00:33:09.420
wi-fi and like a little bit of privacy right like you're good if i have something soft to sleep on
00:33:16.360
and it's got wi-fi that's all i care about yeah whereas i'm like is it pretty is it clean is it a
00:33:22.980
neighborhood that makes me feel nice what's the natural light situation like so i think really
00:33:27.240
understanding that is important because it but many of those are indulgences you were quite efficient
00:33:32.800
and you knew why you existed even in environments where you didn't have those things
00:33:36.660
i think the question as to why you exist is not a question that has precursors unless you're
00:33:42.800
literally burning to death in a fire right now because it determines everything else that you
00:33:48.160
are prioritizing and it is not a question you put off yes although there were periods in my life
00:33:54.400
where i was deeply depressed and verging on suicidal and mostly as soon as i changed my setting
00:34:02.160
away from these things that really bothered me it was not a problem gone like
00:34:06.340
i don't know maybe this is an autistic person experience i think that might be because you're
00:34:11.400
autistic in very unique circumstances and you might feel really it could be but but that may be a
00:34:17.440
situation that someone's in and if they haven't tried changing their situation that is something
00:34:21.880
that they can try if they're feeling that way i just don't know if that's yeah i just think that
00:34:27.800
there are two really important parts to the equation right like one important part is do you have the
00:34:32.960
basic things you need to not be artificially depressed in your life and then aside from
00:34:37.480
that it's about successful pursuit of whatever you think intentionally has value oh and the final
00:34:42.900
thing that i'd note here to not forget this is that maintaining the aesthetics of a specific lifestyle
00:34:50.340
once you're at a level where you have everything else handled so don't aspire to the aesthetics of a
00:34:57.620
lifestyle until you have everything else handled but doing that can add a layer on top of everything
00:35:05.520
else you're totally right about right here is how to get your daily sugar this is uh how do you add
00:35:11.460
flavoring agents to it and aesthetics of a lifestyle can be a very planned thing like i am going to do x or y
00:35:19.680
because it fits this aesthetic goal that i have for myself but i think that's very different than
00:35:25.620
aesthetics as an end goal or aesthetics as a status signaling yeah and let me just add to this to
00:35:33.000
illustrate what you mean which is sometimes we will do things that we won't enjoy in the moment because
00:35:39.140
we know it creates happy narratives and memories and images that tell us all something about our lives
00:35:46.160
about us enjoying the moment and whatnot so it might be like a really hot summer day and none of us really
00:35:51.180
wants to go out and take a walk somewhere beautiful but we do it anyway and we take photos of it and we
00:35:56.220
act happy and we just do it and then in the end we're really happy that it happened and we're probably
00:36:01.080
on average a little bit more happy because we are playing out that narrative so there is and it's funny
00:36:08.900
because when you flip that away like and when you make that happen independent of someone having values
00:36:14.120
and you make that just like the person who's taking the instagram vacation and it's miserable and they're just
00:36:19.360
there and they're snapping photos and they're not enjoying anything it's terrible it's dystopian it is
00:36:24.220
like exactly the opposite of any advice that you'd give to people and yet somehow on the flip side of
00:36:30.440
this like when you add it like you say is like the cherry on top it really does add this sparkle and
00:36:36.240
luster that genuinely makes us but it needs to be time efficient it needs to be the type of thing you're
00:36:40.800
not doing a whole vacation to 100 yeah which reminds me simone we still have some blackberries we
00:36:45.580
haven't picked in the yard time to do that and the chickens we just got little baby chicks for the
00:36:51.280
kids i need to go pick up the kids to introduce them to them oh my gosh they're gonna be so excited
00:36:55.260
all right let's do this i'm so stoked chicken time love you malcolm