The Art of Manliness - #208： Trout Fishing, Boredom, and the Meaning of Life

00:00:00.000 we're at mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so

00:00:13.020 fishing has been used as a backdrop in literature film about finding meaning in life coming of age

00:00:21.160 stories you know a river runs through it comes to mind but oftentimes these fishing as life

00:00:26.460 metaphors that are made are become tropes they're trite things they consequently they lose some of

00:00:31.180 their significance my guest today uh wanted to write a book about fishing that's not about fishing

00:00:37.140 um to suss out different a broad range of philosophical ideas and just life ideas

00:00:42.960 without making fishing uh trite or you know making it a trope um and i think he did a good job with it

00:00:49.640 his name is mark keenwell he is a professor of philosophy at the university of toronto and

00:00:54.760 his book is called catch and release trout fishing in the meaning of life and in this book mark uh

00:01:00.940 explores or shares his his growing love of trout fishing that that he developed as an adult and

00:01:07.000 explores a broad way range of topics including masculinity uh boredom procrastination the active

00:01:14.540 versus the contemplative life and uh you know what we can possibly learn from fishing and what fishing

00:01:19.360 might teach us about these sorts of things uh anyways we have a fascinating conversation where we

00:01:23.880 discuss fishing manliness uh why style is an important aspect of manliness uh how you know

00:01:31.920 the philosophy of boredom and contemplation and um also the philosophy of procrastination

00:01:37.360 so it's a really in-depth broad conversation i think you're gonna like it if you are a fisherman

00:01:41.860 you will certainly like it even if you aren't an angler you will get something out of this podcast

00:01:46.520 uh give you something to chew on and think about so without further ado mark kingwell catch and

00:01:51.080 release trout fishing in the meaning of life and after you listen to the show make sure to check

00:01:54.460 out the show notes uh for links to resources we've mentioned so you can explore these topics even

00:01:58.360 more at aom.is slash kingwell mark kingwell welcome to the show hi thanks for having me on uh so uh

00:02:12.900 read your book catch and release really interesting book uh where dovetails philosophy with fly fishing but

00:02:20.460 before we get into uh the book uh can we talk a little bit about your background because you're a

00:02:25.200 philosophy professor uh i'm curious what's your area of focus in your work as a philosophy professor

00:02:31.380 yeah i i'm a philosophy professor at the university of toronto and um most of my academic work is in

00:02:38.720 political theory uh i write about issues like social justice and distribution schemes and things like

00:02:46.920 that i also write a lot about philosophy of art uh and architecture so i kind of branched out into

00:02:53.480 urbanism and the built environment but i see those also as part of the basic political theory

00:02:59.280 investigation uh so this this book the fishing book is obviously off to one side from those scholarly

00:03:05.360 interests right so i'm curious what what caused you to write about fishing because you talk about in the

00:03:12.640 book that as a child you weren't really fond of fishing and that you had to be seduced by it later

00:03:19.400 in life yeah i actually had some some early scarring experiences uh with respect to fishing in fact

00:03:25.820 literally scarring uh there's one that i recount in the book my my father was an avid fisherman a spinner

00:03:31.780 and he uh used to take me and my brothers out basically as helpers you know as factotums to to fetch and

00:03:40.540 carry things and i remember one one uh trip on prince edward island where we were living at the

00:03:45.840 time he was in the air force and he was stationed there and he'd forgotten his tackle box in the car

00:03:51.040 so he sent me back to get it and uh so you know trying to be compliant uh i i ran back and was running

00:03:57.980 back to where he was standing on the bank uh of this little lake and i tripped and fell and in the

00:04:05.060 process of falling uh smashed the tackle box open and then rolled down into this kind of

00:04:09.780 ditch and rolled down uh all of these you know triple double barbed hooks and and uh lures and

00:04:17.220 various things became entangled in in my fall and uh i couldn't i could actually literally i remember

00:04:23.880 this i couldn't move without something digging more deeply into some part of my body so i was lying

00:04:29.580 there yelling for help and he came over and was thoroughly disgusted by my incompetence

00:04:34.680 and uh early uh experience with fishing that didn't leave a good impression um but you know

00:04:41.940 the the book is is actually a lot about my father and my brothers um later in life much later i was

00:04:48.200 actually living in new york i was on sabbatical for my teaching job here and my younger brother

00:04:54.420 uh organized this trip uh to go fishing in british columbia and we my brothers and i and

00:05:01.340 my father all live in different cities uh around north america so this was a an opportunity our

00:05:06.540 father's uh was getting older in the 70s now in his 80s uh so i thought yeah i'll make the effort and

00:05:12.740 go on this trip and even though i won't be into the fishing i'll you know do it as a good son kind of

00:05:17.520 thing and maybe enjoy the fellowship and it turned out um and this is really what the book's about it

00:05:22.880 turned out that i i love fly fishing and it's become one of the chief joys of my my non-working

00:05:28.680 life uh since then yeah but it's funny because one chapter you have is that it's called you say 0.98

00:05:34.660 fishing is stupid um it's like bluntly said you also talk about how golfing is stupid too which i 0.98

00:05:40.720 thought was funny as well but uh why did you think fishing was stupid and at what point did you start 1.00

00:05:48.640 thinking that it's not so stupid after all i think i thought fishing was stupid for all the reasons that 0.99

00:05:54.360 most non-anglers do and when you look at it from the outside if you if you remember even once you 1.00

00:05:59.980 become a keen fisherman if you take one step back there is something absurd about this project and 0.97

00:06:05.840 there are different kinds of stupidity i guess i should try to be analytic about it uh you know 1.00

00:06:11.800 there's there's the stupidity of the kind of overbearing um technology heavy bass fishermen maybe 1.00

00:06:18.740 professional uh which is really a kind of just mastery of of nature through the force of of 0.99

00:06:25.460 technology and aggression and there's really no art to that uh so you're catching a lot of bass which

00:06:31.680 you're not going to eat anyway and it just if you weigh them and win some kind of contest i think that 0.94

00:06:35.940 strikes a lot of people as kind of stupid uh but then there's the other side of it which is on the far 0.93

00:06:41.460 end of of fly fishing a kind of self-conscious aestheticization of the experience where again 0.99

00:06:47.640 you're maybe fishing catch and release so you're not going to even eat the fish uh so you're doing 0.97

00:06:52.520 it all as a sort of self-indulgent um art form i guess of some kind and i thought that was stupid too 0.84

00:07:00.080 uh and even even just the basics you know why are we using these these tiny pieces of tackle

00:07:06.060 to to try to land fish uh even if we're going to eat them they're surely more efficient ways of

00:07:10.980 going about it so i i just i from from the outsider's point of view i just couldn't understand

00:07:15.820 why people would would find this so uh interesting and even something that they were passionate about

00:07:21.560 uh but then that something gets inside you and i think it's like learning to say appreciate baseball

00:07:28.680 if you're if you go from being a non-fan to being a fan or in a different context cricket or some

00:07:34.260 some game that isn't obviously sort of brutally appealing like um american football or you know

00:07:40.740 boxing or something that just has sort of crude physical appeal but instead depends upon a certain

00:07:46.560 amount of abstraction and conceptual play and i started to see uh fishing in that light and then

00:07:53.960 i thought well this is this is actually a natural extension of my my day job as a philosopher i mean this

00:07:59.800 is what i do is conceptual play and uh so now i'm doing it um alongside this physical activity which

00:08:06.500 is uh sort of attenuated or fine-tuned to a point where it almost doesn't matter whether you catch the

00:08:13.640 fish it's all about the performance and i know that sounds kind of goofy if you're if you're not

00:08:18.700 an angler but um i think if if there are any anglers who are hearing this they'll i think almost

00:08:23.880 certainly relate to that immediately yeah i think it's interesting i mean we've talked about how

00:08:27.800 i mean which kind of you've already touched on how fishing lends itself to philosophy a bit uh because

00:08:33.920 it's sort of this combination we can get into this later of contemplation but activity at the same

00:08:39.300 time but i think it's interesting is that you you quote these like anglers from the like 17th century

00:08:46.440 books on fishing and like they very they're very philosophic about uh fishing and sometimes like

00:08:53.140 esoteric even uh it was interesting i mean what i mean is that what is that why fishing lends itself

00:08:58.720 to philosophy is that it's both contemplative and uh active at the same time i think that's a huge part

00:09:05.960 of it and when you look at the tradition uh the tradition is vast and deep of thinking and writing

00:09:11.500 about fishing in both western and eastern uh philosophical and literary uh streams you know it's

00:09:18.560 a key part of confucian thought for example uh you see uh confucius often depicted as a fisherman and

00:09:24.640 and the idea of of being a fisher in the christian tradition the fisher of men and how the apostles were

00:09:31.700 were fishermen uh and then you know into uh the period that you mentioned in england especially during

00:09:39.100 the period of the english civil war isaac walton who writes uh the complete angler which is probably the

00:09:44.960 most famous book about fishing certainly in english maybe period and when you read a complete angler

00:09:51.200 what you realize is walton sets the standard because it's not a book really about fishing although

00:09:55.380 there's plenty of fishing advice in there uh some of it quite bizarre and arcane you know he um

00:10:01.300 he used little balls of dough as bait and uh you can still see kids doing that and when they're throwing

00:10:08.760 a hook over a reservoir or something but a lot of it is about uh the changing nature of england

00:10:14.660 it's about politics and culture and what you what you get with walton especially is a kind of

00:10:19.980 crystallization of this combination of contemplation and action where yes fishing is an activity but it's

00:10:26.560 also something that opens up a space of thought and since you spend a lot of time sort of uh not not

00:10:33.500 so much waiting for things to happen but making uh a kind of opening or clearing in which things are

00:10:39.980 possible and in that clearing of course you you know the the end point might be crudely put

00:10:46.940 hooking a fish but um there's also a lot of other things going on there because after all we're we're

00:10:52.620 complex creatures and our consciousness is restless so i think that's what started to appeal to me also

00:10:58.120 and then there are other things that um to go back to my my baseball comparison you know there's a lot

00:11:04.200 repetition uh especially in the cast in fly fishing for example the cast itself i write a lot about this

00:11:10.580 in the book the cast becomes almost a performance that has its own intrinsic value as you perfect your

00:11:17.900 cast record nobody really is perfect but as you try to get better at it uh and it's it's a bit like

00:11:23.700 you know taking grounders and and throwing to first there's sort of you want to build up the muscle

00:11:29.100 memory and make it almost a kind of thing of beauty in its own right and that then becomes

00:11:34.900 interesting at the kind of uh i don't know what to call it this sort of i don't then like is too

00:11:41.300 cliched but sort of um making yourself more automatic and exploring that uh that relationship

00:11:48.160 in your own mind between reflection and automaticity uh is is just endlessly fascinating to me yeah i thought

00:11:55.320 your section about the fly cast was interesting um because there's that age-old question of form

00:12:00.600 versus function right can something but be both beautiful and useful at the same time yeah yeah and

00:12:07.540 of course it is beautiful in the sense that a better cast is a more accurate and a longer cast

00:12:14.020 but a lot of times you know you can get your fly where it needs to be in a very ugly way and there you

00:12:21.840 know there are there are ugly casters out there lots of them and i'm sure i was one for a long time 0.70

00:12:26.600 i'd like to think i'm a little better now uh but then then when you start to appreciate just that the

00:12:32.940 art of the cast all by itself uh it's not that the the instrumentality falls away i mean obviously you're

00:12:38.760 still trying to get the fly to to be somewhere in particular in a certain manner you know especially

00:12:44.180 if it's a dry swine you want it to light on the water as if it were a real insect but the the um

00:12:50.280 the experience of it the physical experience of it is is quite you know i don't know beautiful really

00:12:56.360 from the inside and it has that quality of uh a certain sort of i don't know transcendent i guess uh

00:13:06.520 feeling that you are you beyond trying i think this is another kind of philosophical aspect of this

00:13:12.620 this is more maybe dow than ven if you try too hard with the cast you'll you'll muck it up because

00:13:18.540 you'll push too hard usually on the rod that's one of the common errors you have to let the cast sort

00:13:23.340 of cast itself and you're you're the uh the agent but not the controller and uh so this is very

00:13:30.840 interesting as you you know spend a lot of time on the water working on that so you're trying not to

00:13:35.420 try yeah exactly yeah and that paradoxicality i think is really something that you can see reflected

00:13:41.340 and lots of those kinds of activities you know that's uh you you're thinking but you try not to

00:13:47.660 think too much because if you overthink or over try uh that way lies disaster and uh so there's a purity

00:13:54.380 there this sort of sweet spot that you're trying to get to put yourself in in a position to experience

00:14:00.460 that uh and it's really quite wonderful mark you had this one section of your book that i thought

00:14:05.880 was interesting because um you know oftentimes with fishing and or sports in general there's this

00:14:11.280 tendency to um make analogies to life right like here's this lesson we can get from fishing to apply

00:14:18.760 to our life directly or this is what fishing represents and sometimes we fetishize it you know

00:14:23.460 philosophically fetishize it so how do you strike that balance between

00:14:26.520 just appreciating the you know the fishing for what it is you know because it's just fishing

00:14:32.260 um but at the same time making room for that i don't know for that intellectual play that you're

00:14:39.120 talking about yeah this is a really interesting question i guess maybe in a way it's a meta question

00:14:44.380 because when i was thinking after that first trip i mentioned to british columbia about writing it uh

00:14:50.140 about the experience i uh i talked to an editor uh at um one of the national papers here in canada

00:14:57.400 the national post i said i'm really not sure about this because isn't this especially after a river

00:15:03.040 runs through it and you know this this vast literature of trout fishing especially fly fishing

00:15:08.620 you know isn't isn't it almost like an enclosed space that you can't enter without falling into

00:15:14.800 cliche and and the worst kinds of cliches you know a sort of forced significance kind of thing

00:15:20.320 where we find life lessons on the water and so on and and she said no you know look at the really good

00:15:27.240 stuff uh and not that i i um think that it's my stuff is anywhere near this but if you read

00:15:33.700 uh mclean or if you read thomas mcgwain for example uh some of the the john gear act that some of the

00:15:39.960 great contemporary writers about fishing uh it's just like anything you know how do you write about

00:15:46.020 sex without making it seem at once cliched and overblown how do you write about relationships

00:15:52.940 love family i mean it's it's the challenge that every writer faces about every subject really so uh

00:15:59.200 it's back to the drawing board in a good way and yeah you have to avoid all the kind of common

00:16:06.020 errors of saying well there's there's you can immediately track fishing over to significance

00:16:11.160 in this you know uh whatever anglers make better business decisions or something silly like that

00:16:17.800 uh and once you get past that kind of thing then you're into the at least the interesting territory

00:16:22.500 where you're challenging yourself and saying well you know how do i describe in words an experience

00:16:28.240 which is entirely without words and try to find some ways to convey what's interesting and beautiful

00:16:35.400 about it without falling into any sort of um you know ham-fisted correspondence theory and uh

00:16:43.740 i think that's the challenge i mean that's why i've i've i haven't done a lot of fishing writing

00:16:48.320 since the book but i've done some and each time i try to make sure that i approach it as if for the

00:16:53.240 first time and and avoid all that that too literal kind of temptation right so they kind of take a

00:16:59.480 kicker guardian indirect approach yeah yeah i guess that that's kind of pretty yeah i guess okay i've

00:17:07.540 been reading kicker guard about his indirect communication lately so made me think of that

00:17:11.220 um so i thought there's another interesting section about you you talk about one of the

00:17:17.440 writers i think it's the same one uh from the 17th century talks has like this parable between uh

00:17:24.000 a fisherman and a falconer and uh i thought it was interesting you kind of use this to explore

00:17:29.460 hegel's idea between uh you know the relation between master and slave uh can you talk a little

00:17:37.020 bit about that yeah i mean in the original version actually there's a um a fisherman a falconer and a

00:17:44.600 hunter and it's an extended meditation it's become a kind of classic trope in the literature about

00:17:51.380 uh humankind's relationship to nature through these different uh outdoor pursuits and isaac walton

00:17:59.580 um following charles cotton uh says argues persuasively that that angling is the most

00:18:06.480 um satisfying the superior among those three because it is the one that is freest and most open so the

00:18:13.460 both the falconer and the hunter are using other animals in nature against nature so the uh the falconer

00:18:20.080 is using falconer the hawk to whatever to bring down rodents or you know to demonstrate the fact

00:18:27.900 that the hawk can be trained and the training is everything in falconry and falconry i should say

00:18:34.060 by the way i find fascinating and beautiful and my younger brother who's responsible for these fishing

00:18:39.100 trips is also a falconer and i talk about that a little bit in the book and that's quite amazing to

00:18:44.500 me but um walton says that the falconer and the hunter if the hunter is using uh dogs as was um

00:18:51.600 traditional at the time that he was writing nowadays hunters use you know weapons only i guess

00:18:56.860 uh i suppose they still use retrievers but anyway um in both the hunter and and the falconer you're

00:19:04.240 using elements of control and mastery so the hegelian point is you know famously in the phenomenology

00:19:10.940 of spirit hegel writes that one of the key stages of development in consciousness is realizing that

00:19:16.800 when you are the master of a slave in a relationship of dominance any any relationship of dominance and

00:19:23.080 submission actually it is the the slave position that holds the real power because it's what defines

00:19:29.520 the master as master and therefore the master is beholden to the slave in a in a curious way because

00:19:37.020 can only fulfill that identity insofar as the slave is present

00:19:41.240 and so that hegel suggests that at this moment we start to realize that

00:19:45.800 these relationships of dominance and submission are are fundamentally limited and we have to pass over

00:19:51.520 into more equal um and equally recognizing forms of relationship uh i mean that might seem a bit of a stretch

00:20:00.080 but i think it's really a poignant insight because insofar as we try to master things or have them do

00:20:05.860 things for us we are ourselves mastered you know we are tools of our own tools and uh there's something

00:20:13.120 that that needs to be acknowledged about this and and too frequently isn't and and simply in the

00:20:19.000 performance of of instrumental control so whether that really means fishing is superior i don't know

00:20:23.940 i mean i i know lots of anglers who are kind of enthralled to their own gear uh but at least you know

00:20:30.020 there's no issue there of training something or dominating something it's more like

00:20:34.040 the the rod and and the line are extensions of yourself and and maybe there is something a little

00:20:39.640 more free a little more pure in that but anyway it's an occasion for for an argument which i think

00:20:46.880 is the key point yeah i mean i thought there was a poignant scene when you talk about how your younger

00:20:51.020 brother when he trained try to train his first falcon and things were going well and like you said

00:20:56.520 like he depended upon the falcon to do the hunting for him or eventually but one day the falcon

00:21:02.040 left right and like yeah it's showing that he's showing that dependence right he depended upon that

00:21:06.980 falcon yeah it was it was really i mean it's a vivid memory that i have because we this is hard to

00:21:13.100 credit now because the suburbs around this city are so built up but we used to drive out into the

00:21:18.080 near countryside from our suburban townhouse and and catch these wild kestrels and he would try and

00:21:24.960 train them and the first time he did it and he was premature he was we were young he was i think

00:21:30.120 13 or 14 and i was 16 or 17 and uh and yeah he got into this i'm sure many falconers have a version

00:21:37.560 of the story where he uh he he tried to get too much out of this bird too soon and uh it didn't

00:21:45.220 return to his his fist you know with a glove um and and sort of at first uh perched on a power line in

00:21:54.460 the backyard of our house and stood looking at him you know and he had the little chunk of raw meat

00:21:59.280 on the glove and that's how you you know get the birds to come to you and it looked and it looked

00:22:04.140 and it looked and he stood out there and eventually tears were streaming down his face with this this

00:22:08.800 sense of futility because he couldn't get the bird back and eventually it flew away and uh it's i mean

00:22:15.560 to me it's just it's it's a great story in so many ways because it's like can you imagine there

00:22:20.480 aren't that many places left where suburban kids can actually do that kind of thing um and and then

00:22:26.540 this this really deep thing about you know nature is nature you know you you can over master you you

00:22:33.160 can overpower through training the natural instincts of a wild animal but it will always be a wild animal

00:22:39.600 and it's something really worth remembering in that so mark besides taking us down paths of with

00:22:45.260 heidegger and hegel uh in your book you also talk about masculinity uh in fishing and using fishing

00:22:52.120 sort of a platform to talk about that and one section i thought was really interesting is you

00:22:56.160 talk about uh canadian masculinity um i'm american so i have kind of my idea of masculinity and we're

00:23:03.400 not too far you know culturally we're not that much different but i'm curious what do you think are

00:23:07.960 some of the differences between american manliness and canadian manliness because i think a lot of

00:23:12.580 people imagine canadians like you know they're lumberjacks playing hockey you know typical manly

00:23:17.640 things um but is there some kind of is there a subtle difference between the two well i you know

00:23:22.880 i i make these generalizations in in a spirit of fun i hope right yeah of course yeah so a lot of

00:23:28.680 people get too serious with stuff but yeah this isn't this isn't sociology but uh gender studies

00:23:33.280 you know i i i think one of the things that struck me was um and has has always struck me about

00:23:38.520 the men that i know even the most macho men that i know yeah you've got this kind of lumberjack

00:23:43.800 hockey player thing and then there's this weird kind of sweetness and almost dandyish quality which

00:23:51.820 goes along with that and uh and you hear stories about say canadian soldiers in the second world war

00:23:57.560 being notoriously ferocious but also pussycats when they were you know off the battlefield and i think

00:24:04.120 there's something that that at least in our own self-image i think canadians cherish this idea that

00:24:09.520 yeah we can be as tough as nails when we want to but basically we're all just you know nice guys next

00:24:15.220 door um plus and increasingly in in recent um years anyway this this um dandyish quality so um you know

00:24:24.400 what we would now call lumbersexual uh vision of the bearded hipster um not that bearded hipsters

00:24:32.400 aren't found everywhere i guess they are but uh i don't know it struck me and i told a couple of

00:24:37.480 stories and it tells a couple of stories in the book about exchanges between canadian men where

00:24:43.060 there's something almost um homoerotic or or uh what's the word i want i mean kind of um

00:24:51.240 i don't know flirty uh which may sound weird and without any loss of of masculinity or manliness

00:24:59.080 taking on a different part of the spectrum of of manly behavior maybe and i i mean i'm fascinated

00:25:06.040 by this and i know you guys are because um you know the podcast you know what is manliness what

00:25:12.260 is virility these are really interesting questions that keep getting reframed and uh i think we're well

00:25:18.920 beyond sort of crude notions of machismo especially in current realities when you look at

00:25:25.420 you know partly the hipster thing partly the you know this just the changing norms of what it means

00:25:31.580 to to look up to somebody as a male ideal you know barack obama say is is to many people doesn't seem

00:25:40.600 manly enough because he's not tough talking he's not you know brutal uh on the other hand for for many

00:25:47.460 other people i think he's a paragon of of manliness because of his his other virtues so i think this is a

00:25:54.040 really interesting debate and we keep having to figure it out there's no not one answer yeah it's

00:25:58.800 been going on for a long time and for centuries millennia yeah absolutely yeah going back to

00:26:04.640 this kind of this dichotomy this this tenuous balance between being virile and full of vigor

00:26:10.900 but at the same time this dandy or fastidiousness right um i mean there's like this point where like

00:26:16.360 you know too much fastidiousness like too much emphasis on your clothes or how you look and etc is

00:26:21.980 like it's unseemly in men um for some reason um even i think it could be in women as well

00:26:28.440 but i mean why why is that why do we find when men are too over concerned with their appearance

00:26:35.160 and we're like uh i don't know i don't know about that yeah it's it's a really interesting question i

00:26:41.080 you know in the book i talk about um spreczatura which is this great uh concept in in italian history

00:26:48.280 and culture uh especially as a as a uh a norm for uh renaissance italian courtiers or or gentlemen

00:26:57.960 and spreczatura captures something really important and that's you know it's the fine carelessness or

00:27:03.200 the making things that are hard look easy and it's not just high spiritedness it's it's more like a

00:27:09.440 kind of elegance where uh you don't call attention to what it took to execute something or to look

00:27:16.980 good or whatever you just do it and i think a lot of a lot of people just admire that and if on by

00:27:24.540 contrast you are primping and preening in a way that's to call attention to what's going on and so

00:27:31.800 that fails the test of fine carelessness it's it's exhibiting the care rather than the careless and i

00:27:38.540 think that strikes people as pushing it in a different direction so the the actual self

00:27:44.380 presentation in in one sense might be the same you know two men and two beautiful suits say

00:27:49.840 uh but one one wears it the way cary grant wears it you know as if he just put it on that morning and

00:27:55.480 didn't think about it too much and the other one is you know constantly uh checking his cuffs to make

00:28:00.260 sure they're whatever 100 one and a half inches below the um the jacket sleeve and you know things

00:28:05.360 like that and i think that that just strikes us as as unseemly because it seems like you're not really

00:28:10.600 um concerned with what you're there to be concerned with you're not there you know to to be useful to

00:28:17.620 be of service or to be present socially uh you're only there kind of in your own mind and i think maybe

00:28:24.100 that's the root of this and that goes back to the the fly cast right you want to make it look great

00:28:30.020 but you don't want to look like you're trying too hard to make it look great yeah that's exactly

00:28:34.820 right and uh and i can i can tell you um among fly fishermen watching other people cast is is uh as

00:28:42.920 as much a judge of character as as anything that you can imagine certainly like you know the way

00:28:48.540 golfers watch each other you know golf has a revelatory of character the cast and fly fishing is

00:28:53.260 exactly the same thing who who is the guy who has the you know the perfect double haul cast but

00:28:58.140 makes it look easy every single time uh never calls attention to it who's the guy who's constantly

00:29:03.520 you know shouting about how long the cast is even when a long cast isn't what's required

00:29:08.220 uh who's who's the duffer who you know somehow manages to to toss some line out despite everything

00:29:14.420 uh every single person that reveals themselves when when they do that and i think it's it's really

00:29:19.760 part of the fun actually of being uh you know with other people fishing right so yeah it's kind

00:29:25.380 of manliness i think what you kind of hit on the book is like doing things but then doing looking

00:29:29.880 like doing them well doing it with a little bit of flair yeah and i you know i i mean i don't think

00:29:36.240 we should ever underestimate this that the pleasure in doing things well and especially uh if you can

00:29:42.440 if you can achieve that really that pinnacle of doing something well and making it look easy

00:29:47.420 i mean really it's the you know there's that all that tradition of thinking it's not just

00:29:53.260 male thinking but it's been dominated by male voices you know hemingway's grace under pressure

00:29:57.720 uh you know odysseus right like or achilles yeah it goes back to them right to be to be a clever

00:30:04.400 problem solver to to uh to get where you you're going against all obstacles to all these things

00:30:09.960 and to be stylishly engaged in that i mean we we all strive for this i think yeah so what is it about

00:30:17.540 fishing that allures men right like i mean i don't fish i'm not a regular fisher but i i like the idea

00:30:26.260 of fishing for some reason like the i don't know the image of it and like like fishing gear like i

00:30:32.120 don't fish but i have like i can appreciate a well-stocked tackle box for some reason i mean what

00:30:38.740 what is it what's going on there do you think part of it you put your finger right on it and that is

00:30:42.960 gear and i think we should never once again we should never underestimate the male fascination

00:30:48.640 with gear and just the idea of having tools for specific jobs and having the right thing for the

00:30:54.120 right purpose and and then to use them skillfully you know it's it's the pleasure you take whether

00:31:00.600 it's yourself or somebody else and you can watch somebody i don't know fix a kitchen leak with the

00:31:06.700 right tools and admire the skill of applying the tools in that that situation uh or or to you know

00:31:15.160 to extend it further you watch soldiers fighting for example and the way that they use their gear

00:31:20.500 and keep their gear in the condition that it has to be because their lives depend on it

00:31:25.740 there's something really intrinsic to our you know homo faber identities or our existence as users of 0.94

00:31:33.060 tools and so the gear itself becomes a big thing and you know again i think you can overdo this

00:31:38.960 uh i recently counted how many rods i have in my collection and and i'm embarrassed to say it's now up to

00:31:45.640 17 and clearly well i think it's clear i don't i don't really need 17 different rods but they're all

00:31:53.680 different lengths they're all different weights and they all have specific purposes that i might one day

00:31:57.680 put them to uh of course i have hundreds and hundreds of flies and reels and lines and there's

00:32:03.580 something just kind of just fascinating and beautiful about that too you know and for me when i look at my

00:32:09.100 own history the hobbies that i used to pursue you know i was really into skill modeling i was really into

00:32:15.080 other things where you making small objects using very very particular kinds of skills uh this just

00:32:23.820 seems like a natural extension it would be the same thing if i you know i don't do auto repair or hot

00:32:30.240 rodding but you could imagine you know somebody who was really into that for just the same reasons

00:32:34.340 you know to have that well-stocked tool chest and to be able to strip down a car or an engine and

00:32:39.840 create something so i think that's really basic uh the fishing adds the other thing that adds of course

00:32:45.600 is the outdoors element and uh that that's pretty atavistic for us you know to the smell of the

00:32:50.820 campfire the lake water the sky seeing the the rain come in over you know the the edge of the lake

00:32:57.760 all that stuff is really powerful at least in my imagination right um so a lot of folks don't like

00:33:05.200 fishing uh because they say it's boring but you argue that well that's not such a bad thing that's one of

00:33:11.180 the appeals of fishing so how can boredom be a good thing you know i've written a lot about boredom

00:33:18.700 both before and since the fishing book and i'm really i'm one of those philosophers who find

00:33:23.740 boredom endlessly fascinating you mentioned heidegger earlier heidegger has one of the greatest

00:33:28.400 discussions of boredom ever uh and and you know you can take that as a starting point where

00:33:34.000 what's happening in boredom is some failure of desire so we're not being satisfied in some way and

00:33:41.620 a kind of chasm opens up under our feet and in this condition there's there's a possibility of a

00:33:49.080 kind of existential crisis uh self-examination you know why am i bored what is it to be bored

00:33:55.620 why do i find the world unrewarding at this particular moment and i think that's really deeply

00:34:02.660 profoundly indicative of of the human condition uh you know boredom is it's sort of really ever

00:34:10.260 present if you think about all the things we do on a daily basis to distract ourselves from being

00:34:16.020 bored keeping ourselves occupied and stimulated uh what is it that we're so afraid of it seems to me

00:34:22.280 we're afraid of those moments where we don't have anything in particular to do we don't have a desire

00:34:28.260 that's specific but we have a desire for a desire or a wish for a desire as a psychoanalyst once put it

00:34:36.160 and uh that's that's really um you know that's something very uh um serious about who we are and

00:34:45.200 what we're like we're desiring machines uh but we we rarely reflect upon the structure of our own

00:34:51.800 desires we spend a lot of time trying to satisfy the specific one so it's in those moments when we

00:34:57.160 don't have a specific one when we feel like we're at a loss that may be the most uh

00:35:02.480 um what the most furious the most um indicative things about us are revealed so yeah i'm i'm i

00:35:10.440 think boredom is something that we shouldn't we should pay a lot more attention to and if people

00:35:14.140 think that fishing is boring then you know so much the better i do say in the book i never felt bored

00:35:20.540 when i was fishing i thought i would but i actually didn't and that was the first uh indication to me

00:35:27.580 that maybe this was going to be something that i was passionate about i would have welcomed it as boring

00:35:32.120 for the reasons i just said but it turned out it wasn't boring for me so i mean and you also talk

00:35:37.460 about procrastination um how is boredom and boredom and procrastination linked well it um there's this

00:35:46.220 sort of there's a little bit of technical analysis but the basic idea is imagine that that you have two

00:35:52.440 orders of desire so the first order desires are the ones that are active i i you know i want something

00:35:58.200 i do something about that wanting and then there's a second order which is your attitude with respect to

00:36:03.840 those first order desires and in in normal situations those two orders are aligned so i want

00:36:10.920 something at the first order and at the second order i want to want that so i'm okay with that

00:36:15.580 right so i don't know i'm hungry that means i want to eat something and at the second order it's okay

00:36:21.860 to be hungry i'm happy with being hungry because i know that you know it's good for my body to feed

00:36:26.280 itself uh but then sticking with with food suppose i have a first order desire for an ice cream cone

00:36:33.000 after i just ate a huge lunch uh i have the desire but at the second order i don't want to have it

00:36:39.280 i'd rather i didn't feel like i wanted an ice cream because i know it's bad for me at that point

00:36:45.060 it's unnecessary calories so there's a conflict between first and second order i'll extend that over

00:36:51.380 that that basic analysis boredom is the condition in which there's no first order desire i don't know

00:36:57.360 what i want but there is a second order desire that i should have a first order desire so that the

00:37:03.060 conflict now is not between a desire i have that i don't want to have but rather between a desire i

00:37:08.820 don't want to have i don't have but which i wish i did have yeah and and once again we feel a painful

00:37:14.620 experience procrastination is an interesting thing where uh again it's very close to boredom in some

00:37:21.000 ways i don't have the first order desire to say fill out my tax return but of course i do have

00:37:26.460 the second order desire that i did want to fill out my tax return because i know you know it's against

00:37:32.480 the law not to file one so all of these things have really interesting affinities and sorting out

00:37:37.760 very very interesting but but common experiences according to this metric is is really the kind of

00:37:44.260 thing that that philosophers do and to me it's very interesting because it reflects on on real life

00:37:49.800 with with with tools that maybe can help us understand ourselves a little bit better

00:37:53.160 you know i'm i'm not a procrastinator by and large uh but i i i do feel like a lot of people i feel

00:38:00.640 first order desires that i don't want to have so uh you know i'm not to the point of addiction

00:38:05.540 though that would be an extreme version of that right i want the heroin but i know i i shouldn't want

00:38:10.820 the heroin uh but we all feel different conflicts between those first and second orders very rare is the

00:38:18.000 person whose first order desires and second order desires are consistently and constantly aligned

00:38:23.360 it's much more common i think most of us know some version of some kind of conflict or or uh

00:38:30.840 contradiction between those orders no that was really fascinating and i guess then if that's the

00:38:36.320 case that most people have this conflict it's part is just part of human existence maybe we shouldn't

00:38:42.140 beat ourselves up so much about procrastinating well yeah i agree with that and in fact like

00:38:47.680 boredom it seems to me that procrastination is rich territory for philosophical reflection but also

00:38:53.280 self-reflection you know why why if i'm a procrastinator why am i a procrastinator what's going on there

00:38:58.600 and then there are other you know i've written a lot about this again before and since the fishing

00:39:03.800 book uh are there ways to overcome it well clearly the the most effective way to overcome

00:39:09.280 procrastination is to do something else so uh the philosopher john perry has written about what

00:39:15.080 he calls structured procrastination you know if the thing i'm supposed to be doing is filling out my

00:39:19.660 taxes there's no way in the world i'm going to be able to do that just through sheer force of will

00:39:25.540 at the second order if that were true i would have done it already so what i should do instead is some

00:39:30.960 other useful thing for which i have no conflict so you know maybe now is the time to do the laundry

00:39:36.660 or the dishes or or you know work in the yard because though it's not the thing i'm supposed to

00:39:41.880 be doing at least it's a useful thing to do and i don't have any conflict around that at the moment

00:39:46.720 and the moment i do have a conflict you know the moment i don't want to be working in the yard well

00:39:51.780 maybe that's when i can sort of slide over and do my taxes uh so there are lots of tricks that you

00:39:56.800 can do uh on yourself really to to make yourself frankly happier and less conflicted and self-punishing

00:40:04.920 about these these things so they really are basic to our our our condition as desiring agents and how

00:40:11.980 does this tie into fishing like you know this this this high level stuff we've been talking about

00:40:15.640 uh with boredom and procrastination is there some way the activity of fishing itself sort of uh you

00:40:21.980 know solves these problems like it kind of cuts through them it doesn't have the you don't have the

00:40:26.360 issues with boredom and procrastination i don't think it solves them no but i do think for me anyway

00:40:31.980 and this is what i kind of hope to achieve in those parts of the book it it's an opportunity

00:40:37.600 to think it through and it's it's like any kind of philosophical thought experiment it uses something

00:40:42.780 that is easily comprehensible something from everyday life to try to draw a larger conclusion

00:40:50.300 and i think you know most of all uh this this reflection on our our condition as desiring

00:40:56.640 uh agents or entities uh is is really something that a lot of the extant literature especially the

00:41:04.120 you know self-help literature and things that people often turn to even the therapeutic

00:41:08.620 stuff uh when people turn to these things they often don't have they don't get the philosophical

00:41:15.480 resources they need to to really plunge more deeply into it and have deeper insights about their own

00:41:22.060 problems so i'm not saying fishing is therapy but um there is something in in this this peculiar

00:41:28.880 activity non-activity this this combination of action and contemplation that does open up this this

00:41:34.820 space for thought and for me anyway it's been very illuminating and i that's what i hope to share

00:41:39.960 when writing about it well mark this has been a great conversation and we we scratched the surface

00:41:44.980 of it but we got deep in some parts i loved it um where can people find out more about your work

00:41:50.040 uh there is a i have a page on the university of toronto department of philosophy website and you

00:41:57.000 can just uh google my name mark kingwell k-i-n-g-w-e-l-l uh to get to there and um most of my books are

00:42:04.580 available on amazon.com or other online sites if people want to check out my my written work

00:42:09.400 uh i should say this might be a long shot but the um the french translation of catch and release the

00:42:14.880 fishing book we've been talking about is coming out this fall so if anybody likes to read french

00:42:19.640 uh it will be there awesome well mark kingwell thank you so much for your time it's been a

00:42:23.700 pleasure oh a pleasure of mine thank you my guest today was mark kingwell he's the author of the

00:42:28.540 book catch and release trout fishing in the meaning of life it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:42:33.280 everywhere and check out his other books he's written extensively about uh boredom and procrastination

00:42:37.580 um really fascinating topics the sort of the philosophy of it you can find those on amazon as

00:42:42.740 at as well and make sure to check out the show notes at aom.is slash kingwell for links to resources

00:42:48.860 we mentioned throughout the show so you can dig deeper into these topics

00:42:52.600 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:43:09.580 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:43:13.260 this show i'd appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher that'll help uh spread the

00:43:18.340 word about the show as always i appreciate your continued support and until next time this is

00:43:22.060 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:43:24.260 you

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00:43:49.060 you

The Art of Manliness - June 09, 2016

#208： Trout Fishing, Boredom, and the Meaning of Life

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