The Art of Manliness - #247： The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Antidote to Excessive Irony

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well thanks to

00:00:19.120 digital technology modern life often promises us a world full of limitless possibilities we'll

00:00:24.180 never have to be bored again but what if that promise of limitlessness and freedom actually

00:00:30.220 contributes to our lives feeling dull flat and full of anxiety and what if embracing constraints

00:00:35.920 and even boredom can give our lives more texture and heft well that's what my guest today argues in

00:00:40.820 his book play anything his name is ian bogost he's a professor of philosophy and get this a video game

00:00:46.720 designer today on the show ian and i discuss why modern life often can be filled with existential

00:00:51.440 angst why we live in an age of irony that's supercharged by the internet and how looking

00:00:55.800 at the world as a metaphorical playground can help you feel more grounded and present in reality this

00:01:00.280 show is full of counterintuitive wisdom and ready-to-work tools that can help you live a

00:01:03.420 more fulfilling life after the show is over check out the show notes at aom.is slash bogost that's

00:01:08.440 spelled b-o-g-o-s-t ian bogost welcome to the show thank you so much i'm glad to be here uh so you got

00:01:18.540 a great book out called play anything the pleasures of limits the uses of boredom and the secret of

00:01:23.880 games and really is one of the best books i've read this year because you hit on a lot awesome

00:01:28.000 you hit on a lot of topics and ideas that i've sort of felt and sort of couldn't articulate

00:01:33.360 about our modern day so i love it but before we get into the book let's talk about your background

00:01:38.980 because i think it'll uh help listeners get an idea of where you're coming from and also your

00:01:43.700 background is just really dang interesting you're a philosopher professor of media studies

00:01:48.380 and a video game designer which is two things you don't see paired together every day so how did that

00:01:55.100 happen how did you you know become a philosopher slash video game designer yeah yeah i mean it's

00:02:01.220 actually not as weird as it sounds but i admit it does sound very strange um and it's not as weird

00:02:06.760 as it sounds because actually there's a long history of philosophers um who worked in other media you

00:02:13.260 know as as artists and creators especially as novelists as playwrights you know sartre russo

00:02:19.000 nietzsche uh duchamp arsel duchamp is more more well known as an artist um eventually became a

00:02:25.840 a master chess player uh later in life so sometimes it goes the other way

00:02:29.700 too which isn't necessarily to like associate myself with with folks of that level of prestige

00:02:35.280 but just to sort of suggest that there's this there is this long history of of philosophy and

00:02:40.280 art intersecting and often it's because you know in in in games or in novels or in painting or in

00:02:45.740 chess even you know you see um you see aspects of of the abstract world which is what we think about

00:02:50.960 when we think about philosophy philosophy and philosophical questions they become they become

00:02:54.780 concretized and that's one way of of of bringing those worlds uh uh together but as far as me myself

00:03:01.960 i mean my background is not necessarily um that of of this sort of the sort of two universes that

00:03:08.460 never meet but the question of like what what does technology have to do with with arts and culture

00:03:13.660 and how do those how do those worlds converge it's kind of always been the the interest for me since i

00:03:18.140 was a since i was a kid even uh and games are a particularly interesting kind of of technology

00:03:23.700 kind of computer technology uh precisely because uh they were some of the first the sort of first

00:03:29.400 elements where computation became cultural you know uh entertainment became a place where we

00:03:35.560 tried to do something other than work uh with with machines and that's always been uh been

00:03:40.540 interesting to me um but also like games um offer this kind of like um this kind of way of getting

00:03:49.120 underneath some of the assumptions that we that we make there are these interesting philosophical

00:03:53.420 playgrounds they they kind of offer the this this strange skewed weird view of everyday life you know

00:04:00.120 like you take a a field and you add a ball and some lines to it and that transforms it into into a

00:04:05.640 soccer pitch into something totally different or you take some you know some cubes that are spotted

00:04:10.580 with dots and you hurl them onto a green felt and that becomes something entirely different this

00:04:16.500 trial for chance and and wagers or or even you know you stick four squares together in different

00:04:22.540 patterns and make them fall on the screen and that becomes tetris so so games are like this um

00:04:27.500 this this place where we trick ourselves into seeing and then working with things that we'd we'd

00:04:33.900 otherwise overlook uh and games certainly aren't the only way to do that but as i've sort of moved

00:04:39.400 through my my career as a as a philosopher and a game designer it's become clear that that's one of

00:04:44.180 the features of games that's most that's most interesting and kind of most relevant to both domains

00:04:48.020 right so i mean your your focus in philosophy is it games sort of like i mean it's like wittgenstein

00:04:52.300 right like wrote about games right if i if i remember from my philosophy had used games as an

00:04:56.720 example of of uh a particular problem with language uh because there's this this this challenge with

00:05:03.800 with uh with the word games so we don't really know what it refers to and games were an excellent

00:05:08.460 example of a a concept wittgenstein called family resemblance you know what what what different games have in

00:05:14.400 common is not that they're all instances of some superordinate uh category but that they share these

00:05:19.600 sort of overlapping features donuts are another example of that by the way it's sort of like what

00:05:23.720 makes what makes a donut a donut is that it comes in the donut box more or less uh but my interest in

00:05:29.400 philosophy is i mean you know it's related to games when it is but it's actually much higher level and a

00:05:34.200 bit broader the the area of philosophy that's of particular interest to me is called metaphysics

00:05:40.660 and metaphysics is a field that addresses the fundamental nature of of being so metaphysicians

00:05:47.860 ask questions like what does it mean for something to exist in the first place and what kinds of things

00:05:54.060 exist and what's the relationship between the things that do at some fundamental level at a level that

00:05:58.920 that is uh that sits before even a science before we begin engaging with how we might manipulate and

00:06:05.220 understand the material world uh and one of the problems in um in in this discipline in metaphysics

00:06:11.280 that i work on which which ends up being a theme of the book and i should clarify that you don't need

00:06:15.940 to know anything about uh philosophy to to get it in the book uh one of those themes is that people tend

00:06:21.960 to think of themselves as being at the center of existence and and this is true even like centuries

00:06:27.560 after the copernican revolution even when we know that the universe is enormous and we're this tiny

00:06:32.460 corner of it still nevertheless in in philosophy and and even in in science we tend to worry most about

00:06:40.040 the relationship between people and other things between ourselves or our communities and and the

00:06:45.740 rest of the world uh and that makes sense because we're we're in our bodies and in our neighborhoods

00:06:49.860 and in our countries and so forth but in doing that we we tend to overlook all of the equally

00:06:55.100 interesting and and kind of powerfully weird stuff that happens in between other stuff even the stuff

00:07:00.980 that we humans have have made so there's this this kind of infinite mystery in every toaster and on

00:07:06.740 every freeway and in every big box store and those problems at a philosophical level uh are of great

00:07:13.080 interest to me and there's some of the motivations for exploring uh the themes in the book right well

00:07:17.800 we'll get into uh that idea that we're the sort of the center of the universe how that kind of can

00:07:21.880 lead us astray um but how has your your philosophy career influenced your game design it's done so in a

00:07:29.100 in a number of ways uh so when i started working on uh on games uh professionally which is about 20

00:07:35.040 years ago sort of at the rise of uh of the internet and some of the games that that i worked on at that

00:07:39.760 time that i had the opportunity to work on um were very different than uh than than ordinary games

00:07:44.380 uh the the internet made it possible to distribute stuff uh uh directly and you know without kind of

00:07:51.200 the publishing apparatus that we were used to um in uh in store-bought materials and i happened to be

00:07:57.360 working in advertising at the time so i got involved in sort of the early days of of applying

00:08:02.700 games to to marketing and advertising and this was you know interesting enough uh at the time but one

00:08:08.180 of the questions i began asking myself then was well um you know i mean what other kinds of purposes

00:08:14.660 could gamers be put to you know this this is a kind of business use of an entertainment medium that

00:08:18.940 we tend to associate with kids we certainly don't associate with with utility uh and we you know

00:08:23.580 there'd been a long history of games as educational tools by that time you know everyone probably

00:08:27.500 played uh uh organ trail or other games uh like that in the in the 80s and 90s uh and that was one

00:08:34.160 one possible use uh and i began thinking about the relationships between those kinds of uses and

00:08:39.500 wondering what others there might be so i began working very extensively in uh games about uh kind of

00:08:44.920 social issues and politics uh at my studio we made the first uh official uh presidential campaign

00:08:51.240 game uh for howard dean and in 2003 we worked on on games about all sorts of strange issues you

00:08:57.200 wouldn't think of seeing in games like uh tort reform and uh uh errand running and uh uh you know

00:09:04.960 educational policy and we made some games about like airport security and the time when all of the

00:09:10.980 tsa stuff was happening um and the sort of philosophical motivation for some of those questions

00:09:16.160 was you know the field of of rhetoric the the philosophical domain of rhetoric how do you express

00:09:20.940 ideas how do you persuade people how do you change their opinions uh and games are different from speech

00:09:26.640 or from writing or from images in that in a game you can model something about the world you can kind

00:09:32.460 of like make this little miniature copy of it that you can work with that you can manipulate and in so

00:09:36.660 doing uh at least this is my contention as a as a philosopher as much as as a game designer

00:09:41.080 uh in manipulating that little model of the world you could experience something about like what it

00:09:46.260 what it might be like to live in a version of the world if those ideas have been implemented so

00:09:50.520 it's kind of like a natural uh a natural way of thinking about uh uh you know experimenting with

00:09:55.900 with social policy or with public policy or with uh with just ways of behaving and living

00:10:00.280 that are different uh from our own now now admittedly like you know this use of games is still

00:10:04.840 somewhat marginalized or hasn't hasn't become uh predominant in in the commercial sphere uh but it's

00:10:10.580 it's a good example of uh of one of the kind of underlying uses of games that like sits under

00:10:15.860 the radar and then yeah nevertheless is taking place every day awesome and we'll talk about your

00:10:20.420 game i think we can talk about cow clicker because i thought that was or click the cow or whatever maybe

00:10:25.460 we talk about that later on yeah we we can definitely i mean cow clicker is sort of the the my my uh

00:10:31.040 my uh my great infamy so it's it's always worth worth bringing up all right so let's talk about play

00:10:35.980 anything um where you take insights from your career as a philosopher and game designer

00:10:40.580 make what when i was reading it i was thinking as i was reading like this is a really counter

00:10:44.040 cultural case um on how to make our modern enemy filled lives more meaningful um but before we

00:10:52.200 get to the prescription let's talk about the cultural and philosophical problems you're trying

00:10:57.380 to address trying to address in the book um so start off like what and you mentioned it earlier

00:11:02.460 i think but i mean what are the underlying philosophical paradigms of our feelings of angst

00:11:08.900 and frustration and restlessness that we have a lot of people experience these days

00:11:12.440 yeah i mean one of the biggest uh problems of modern life i think is that we we live in this time of

00:11:20.260 enormous surplus enormous plenty uh we have more than we ever have had before we can get access to

00:11:26.720 almost anything uh immediately information is uh is is is so enormously uh accessible uh that it costs

00:11:35.940 nothing uh to access it uh but in spite of all this we still kind of feel miserable and we feel

00:11:41.140 miserable um more and more um and maybe even more intensely miserable kind of the more uh surplus the

00:11:48.020 more plenty we seem to acquire and this is kind of a paradox you know how is it that we ended up in a

00:11:52.860 situation where uh provided all of the all of the material wealth relatively speaking especially in the west

00:11:59.060 right um um that that we have access to that nevertheless we still feel like our lives are

00:12:04.860 getting worse uh worse and worse and you know there have been attempts to ask questions about this

00:12:09.960 problem uh before uh one of the uh one of the the figures that i talk about a little bit in the book

00:12:15.360 is the psychologist uh barry schwartz who uh who wrote this book called the paradox of choice

00:12:20.440 oh you know maybe a dozen years ago and you know one of his insights was that uh you know the the

00:12:27.900 when you have all these choices then in theory you should uh be more gratified because you have

00:12:33.600 uh so many options you have options for spouses and options for shampoo and mustard alike

00:12:38.820 um but the the problem actually is that the more options we have then the more a bad choice becomes

00:12:44.560 kind of kind of your fault you internalize that sense of of despair and of uh of regret

00:12:50.280 for having made what turned out to be a bad choice uh and it was really only a bad choice because

00:12:55.160 you felt like you had other choices um and you know if you kind of extend that to the the

00:13:00.920 contemporary world that condition hasn't gotten any better in fact it's only gotten worse uh and

00:13:06.440 online life has kind of amplified that you know in addition to uh infinite shampoos or mustards at the

00:13:13.640 at the store now we have access to kind of almost anything it's immediately accessible with almost no

00:13:20.100 switching costs and so and so we go through this anxiety of of all of the options we have all of

00:13:25.800 the missed opportunities or the potential missed opportunities that we face almost constantly you

00:13:30.840 know it's the kind of thing that makes you hold off until the very last minute to make plans with

00:13:36.160 people because you're just not sure if something better might come along that's like we do that with

00:13:40.540 everything um and in spite of all this we seem at the same time to believe that a relatively small and

00:13:47.580 maybe increasingly smaller uh number of things and people and activities uh could provide us with

00:13:53.500 the contentment that we that we supposedly that we supposedly savor um and i think fundamentally this

00:14:00.260 this problem it comes down to the idea of freedom of our interpretation of what it would mean to to be

00:14:06.340 free you know we're obsessed with this this idea of freedom but we think it means escape you know

00:14:13.420 if only i could kind of do what i want then i'd be content i need i just need to to rest myself out

00:14:19.300 of this this moil of stuff that i have to do that i don't want to do and then on the other side of it

00:14:24.240 i'll find the things that uh that can provide me pleasure once i overcome the supposed nuisances or

00:14:30.060 obstacles uh that are in the way uh but then once we do so those things that were supposedly going to

00:14:36.640 bring us pleasure only become additional nuisances and obstacles and so that becomes this sort of

00:14:43.320 endless chain of misery and that's the problem uh that we have to we have to overcome and and to

00:14:48.920 overcome it as you know as seems obvious once you start looking at the problem directly we'd have to

00:14:53.700 find a way of of finding not just not just contentment or satisfaction but but joy and delight in all of

00:15:00.700 those things that we previously characterized as as nuisances you know all of the the shopping trips and

00:15:05.700 the and the commuting and the uh and the and the lawn mowing and the ordinary stuff of daily life

00:15:11.420 right and i mean and i guess as you mentioned earlier too all these choices and all these things

00:15:15.940 like it puts us in the center of the universe right we live inside of our heads and when reality doesn't

00:15:21.500 match the ideal in our head like we get frustrated yeah which it never does because the world is outside

00:15:26.760 our head actually and you know the the the sense of entitlement that we have uh you know not not in the

00:15:34.260 sense that oh i think i deserve a certain kind of a job or a certain kind of partner uh but rather

00:15:38.580 just the sense that we are uh owed some some debt by the universe and that it should respond to us

00:15:45.260 uh in a in a way that gives us gratification uh you know this is this is a starting point of a whole

00:15:50.980 set of anxieties and and this is also where where anger and misery and even violence come from

00:15:56.020 uh but then to respond to that through negativity through nihilism to say oh well you know the universe

00:16:02.420 is fundamentally unconcerned and therefore nothing matters that that can't be the answer that can't

00:16:07.000 be the answer either uh it's understandable why we sometimes despair in that way but we know we know

00:16:12.940 exactly where that leads and it doesn't lead anywhere good so in in the face of the knowledge that we are

00:16:18.260 um that we live in this sort of you know secular age where we can't seek singular meaning outside of

00:16:24.260 ourselves whether it's in god or even in just culture because because culture is so multivarious now

00:16:30.160 um then we need a way for all of those individual encounters with ordinary objects ordinary things

00:16:36.320 ordinary people to bear meaning without that meaning having to be like produced from within us without

00:16:42.280 us having to invent it all the time right so it's kind of going against it sounds sort of like you're

00:16:47.420 going against existentialism a bit like that's the one thing i find existential is attractive but then

00:16:51.900 i'm think when you think about like that's a lot of pressure i gotta like come up with meaning for

00:16:55.840 my life that's hard it's it's too much pressure nobody can nobody can do it um and if you try you can do it

00:17:03.100 for a little while and then you become overwhelmed uh with the with the burden and and the the the the

00:17:08.220 funny thing about this this solution which is i mean one of the one of the people i talk about pretty

00:17:13.120 extensively in the book is the the the writer david foster wallace and and you know this is this is one of

00:17:17.880 the solutions that wallace uh suggests that uh you know if we can kind of um uh uh trick ourselves into

00:17:26.140 thinking that uh you know other people have it kind of might have it worse off than i do to kind of

00:17:33.160 flip the flip the bit on our sense of uh of despair or of uh of disorientation then this is one way of

00:17:40.780 uh of attaching ourselves to something to something larger and and you know like this is just a an

00:17:47.600 impossible um idea it's i mean it's it's nice to think about and certainly there are moments in your

00:17:51.760 life when you can calm yourself down or you can kind of you know resist ratcheting up a conflict or

00:17:56.120 something by by imagining that the you know the person in front of you at the supermarket line is

00:18:00.600 taking a long time you know has some some difficult challenge they're facing in their in their lives and

00:18:05.340 you should just chill out but that's just doomed to failure as a matter of course it's just a huge

00:18:10.060 enormous burden uh and even despite um the the the temptation maybe to to pursue that kind of logic

00:18:16.820 what why would we even have to like why why make up stories about the world uh as you might imagine it

00:18:22.780 to be uh when instead you could look at the world and see how much it has to offer uh for you to work

00:18:29.320 with uh and this requires you know a kind of different a different way of looking and then responding

00:18:34.720 to the things we find around us uh every day uh which is which is really the the fundamental idea

00:18:41.480 in the book that you can play anything and you know what i mean by that is that anything whatsoever

00:18:45.640 can become a source of of delight and pleasure if you work with it uh and treat it for what it is

00:18:50.980 right yeah that's i thought it was an interesting argument made with david foster wallace um because

00:18:55.560 yeah that that whole idea of like flipping the switch came from that essay that speech this is water

00:19:00.160 right yeah it was it was a uh uh commencement address at kenyan college right and but i mean

00:19:06.620 it sounds great but you're right though because like what it does is you're you're just basically

00:19:10.520 living reality in your head again like you have to create this reality in your head that might not

00:19:15.840 even exist oh right and you know and then like what are you supposed to do kind of come up with the

00:19:19.800 worst case scenario for every situation so that you make sure that you are kind of you know deferring your

00:19:24.680 own needs and desires to the worst possible response that someone else might have to it

00:19:28.840 you know it becomes this kind of like this like rat race for for worst case uh scenarios and so even

00:19:35.320 even the burden itself becomes its own burden as you imagine like even worse and worse and worse

00:19:39.820 explanations for for why other people or other situations are behaving in a way that you can't

00:19:44.080 respond to when you could be focusing all that energy and just actually working with the world doing

00:19:47.920 things with uh with the materials uh that are given to you but but of course it requires like

00:19:52.720 retraining ourselves um not not just you know in order that we don't get annoyed with the with the

00:19:58.520 slow driver in front of us or something which is you know where wallace's examples mostly live

00:20:02.640 but like with the act of driving itself or the act of shopping itself or the act of you know uh cleaning

00:20:08.240 up the leaves that are that are falling from the trees all of that stuff that we think of as chaff 0.56

00:20:13.640 you know it has to become meat it has there has to be some way that that we can that we can um we can

00:20:19.460 learn to attend uh to those opportunities and treat them as opportunities rather than as seeing them as

00:20:24.800 these these things that then we'd have to invent stories about in order that we could tolerate

00:20:27.920 being around them right so you you make the case that one response that we've um gone to in our

00:20:34.140 modern day to to handle this existential pressure this uh angst of so much choice and fomo is

00:20:41.640 irony um irony carries a lot of hip social cachet today everyone's trying to be ironic and be

00:20:48.220 meta and i'll admit that like i sometimes do i'll do that and but i i've i'd hate myself after i do it

00:20:54.800 i'm like why it's so dumb um so let's start off what how do you describe irony because i think

00:21:00.120 alanis morissette might have steered people in the wrong direction yeah i mean you know in its in its 0.75

00:21:06.260 in its kind of uh original meaning irony in its kind of literary sense is is uh language that says the

00:21:13.200 opposite of of what it means uh but it's actually become something slightly different and um and now

00:21:21.620 what irony means is saying or doing something in a way that prevents others from knowing if you even

00:21:28.860 meant to mean it or not to mean it you know yeah um so like when you when you wear the the trucker cap or

00:21:35.340 or drink pbr or you know post a an instagram of of some strange flavor of uh of potato chips that you

00:21:42.920 found or whatever it is that you do right uh riding the fixie bike all of these sort of these sort of

00:21:47.660 silly tropes of of hipster irony um it's not so much that they are treating things as these kind of

00:21:53.400 fetishes it's rather that you can't tell you can never tell uh whether you or anyone else uh means

00:21:59.720 to mean that they are attached and interested in those things or that they mean to spurn them and

00:22:05.020 score in them and kind of sneer at them so it's that like undecidability that that that that uh

00:22:10.480 uncertainty of knowing uh whether something is sincere or contemptuous that that characterizes

00:22:16.760 a contemporary irony and you know it's it's no surprise that we found ourselves uh in in this

00:22:23.560 situation uh because we have just all of this all of this stuff all of this this surplus of of ideas

00:22:29.160 and things and information and and encounters uh and in in the face of that of that surplus right

00:22:35.740 uh we're still not able to to find uh pleasure and delight in our lives uh we have all of the things

00:22:42.680 that we could possibly want and yet you know and yet we still find them we still find them wanting

00:22:46.720 and so you know we recognize that kind of under the surface that that there's this this inconsistency

00:22:52.140 and one response to it is to kind of hold things at this distance you know they they threaten us that

00:22:57.980 things might go awry i'm not sure if you know if that new that new ipa is going to be pleasurable or

00:23:03.480 not so i'll just you know i'll just kind of talk about what a silly name it has on the internet

00:23:07.140 um and some of the some of that anxiety that ironic anxiety does come from real social uh uh concern

00:23:15.620 and you know i think we're living in this this this time of uh of austerity even as we are also living

00:23:23.280 in a time of great surplus uh and i think the rise of irony you know with the with the rise of the

00:23:28.640 internet also corresponds with uh uh with austerity and with the the kind of economic collapse of the

00:23:34.660 post 2008 uh uh great recession and all of these things that we once were able to take for granted

00:23:41.280 at least to some extent uh many of those have fallen away and so our fear is is somewhat founded our fear

00:23:47.540 that that things might kind of kind of you know bite us in the brain for having thought about them

00:23:51.700 uh there are reasons why uh there are good reasons why that that anxiety exists but we've extended that

00:23:57.080 anxiety to kind of everything everything whatsoever through this this ironic distance this detachment

00:24:02.560 from things so irony allows us to hedge our bets right like it's a hedge yeah it allows you to hedge

00:24:07.880 your bets you know i might or might not come back to this and treat it for what it is and then of

00:24:11.060 course uh by by doing so we ensure that we never will right right and how does and how does the

00:24:16.440 internet um rocket boost this sense of irony that we we have that in our culture almost almost everything

00:24:24.320 we do online is is ironic to some extent some of it is more ironic than others so any meme or sort of

00:24:29.980 you know uh uh image uh that you see online can very quickly enter that that that ironic uh that

00:24:37.500 ironic mode you know someone uh someone photoshops uh an image of something in order to turn it into

00:24:42.680 something else or you know you've got infinite numbers of like uh trump or hillary photos after

00:24:48.300 the debates that then get you know turned into uh uh their own memes that then get turned into

00:24:53.480 still further memes and then people screenshot the tweets or the facebook posts of other people saying

00:24:58.600 things that they find ridiculous or absurd and transform those into these all of these like

00:25:03.080 layers upon layers upon layers of of reconsumption and distancing um and you know the the pop cultural

00:25:10.220 uh version of this is is also quite common um you know the uh the tendance that we have to talk

00:25:16.500 about talking about things oh you know here's here's a television show or uh you know or a video game or

00:25:22.500 whatever it is and uh and it can always produce these sort of these sort of images or gifts or what have

00:25:27.480 you um that allow you to kind of take a portion of it and and and use it as a joke or a gag that

00:25:33.240 appears to be engaging deeply with the material but also distances um that actually distances you from

00:25:39.760 from you know really treating it for for what it is and and you know through that exercise of like

00:25:45.180 meme making and and internet trips and so forth uh we've also ironized kind of ourself and our

00:25:51.780 relationship to others just as much and you don't even know anymore like someone someone says

00:25:56.160 something to you online um and you know there's the old joke about on the internet nobody knows

00:26:01.020 you're a dog uh but in fact you don't know that you don't know that someone's a dog or not you're 0.53

00:26:05.260 not you're not sure maybe they're a dog maybe they're not um you can't take something seriously

00:26:09.580 because it might be in jest or even if it was serious then the the you know your interlocutor might

00:26:14.340 say oh no no i was just kidding you misunderstood me so we live in this this kind of this kind of vat

00:26:19.420 where we're online where we're we're never really sure what's happening or why uh and part of it is

00:26:24.240 because we don't know anything about many of the folks that we encounter in this sort of anonymity

00:26:27.800 of online life uh but also even when we start to there's just a whole barrage another wave of new

00:26:33.060 material comes pouring out uh as our as our screens scroll through the through the new content on on

00:26:38.440 facebook or instagram or what have you uh so the internet is has just amplified that that existing

00:26:43.500 sense of of irony that was that was already present and um and because we spend so much of our lives

00:26:49.880 online you know we have to do work and you have to do uh you have to interact with your friends and

00:26:54.100 your family online you know it's impossible to avoid you just can't avoid it anymore right right

00:26:59.480 and yeah when i was reading that it made me think of the three wolves t-shirt howling at the moon that

00:27:04.960 was a great example from a few years ago so i think a lot of people like i think a lot of people actually

00:27:09.360 like the t-shirt but like they couldn't say they like the t-shirt because that wouldn't be cool so

00:27:14.880 they hedged their bets by saying well i'm wearing this thing but isn't it funny ha ha all right it's a

00:27:20.480 good example yeah that that that's sort of you know it was it was ironic to wear it but then it

00:27:24.680 was ironic to talk about not wearing it or maybe you were wearing it maybe you just photoshopped it

00:27:29.840 onto yourself so you didn't really have to wear it um and i think the t-shirt is one of the prime

00:27:35.480 examples because it's so easy to make a t-shirt now that you find t-shirts for everything it used

00:27:39.640 to be actually quite difficult to get something onto a t-shirt and it was time and expense you have to

00:27:43.880 silk screen it um but we have all these services that we can use which which you know so we have all

00:27:47.980 like infrastructure this infrastructure for irony that we can tap into uh and i'm i'm just as guilty

00:27:53.400 of this you know as anybody uh it's so tempting and so easy to do someone makes a quip online and

00:27:59.500 you take a screen i did this just the other week like you know someone said something and i i took

00:28:03.700 the screenshot and put it on a on a t-shirt that you could get on one of those on-demand printing

00:28:08.060 services you know it's it's so easy to do that uh that then and then of course you know the person i

00:28:14.260 was talking to went and bought the t-shirt and took and on the one hand there's there's this

00:28:18.300 opportunity to kind of engage with the conversation that we're having but on the other hand uh it's

00:28:22.700 it's it's easier just to kind of hold it at this distance or to kind of kind of cover it in plastic

00:28:27.020 like you know like your grandma's sofa in order that you don't have to engage with it and instead

00:28:31.380 you can talk about the idea of engaging with it instead right and it's i mean it's a solution that

00:28:36.840 we've gone to to sort of deal with this this infinite choice that we have but it works in the

00:28:43.740 short term it always works in the short term because you can kind of go haha look what i did

00:28:47.100 you know look how i made a i made a joke out about about the world and then everyone laughs and you

00:28:51.540 get a bunch of likes or retweets or whatever it is you're looking for and then you know five minutes

00:28:56.000 pass and it doesn't make you any happier or more content you just have to find another source of

00:29:00.140 that material it's almost almost like the the logic of addiction right right so it does it's not a

00:29:04.440 long-term solution it's not a long-term solution and then it's not even a short-term solution in

00:29:08.660 the sense that you're not taking delight in the joy of the the three wolves shirt either right you're

00:29:13.840 you're you're you're neither uh building a kind of platform through which you could you could develop

00:29:18.100 a long-term interest and meaning in something nor are you developing a method by which you could um

00:29:23.380 you could get pleasure in these these you know these all these random individual things that are

00:29:27.680 constantly scrolling by us right right and how do most folks um combat this irony and why does like

00:29:37.340 the way they usually approach it or try to combat it fail so uh you know the the there's this this

00:29:43.080 term i coined in the in the book paranoia which is sort of like paranoia for things right so paranoia

00:29:48.660 is the mistrust of people then paranoia is the is the mistrust of of things and that that act of

00:29:55.500 distancing of sort of holding things at arm's length you know and and saying okay well you know

00:30:00.340 there's something but i'm gonna just wait see if see if something better comes along or or perhaps i

00:30:04.900 mistrust that it might it might be of use or of interest to me um that maneuver is like half right

00:30:12.320 and and the half of it that's right is in in like stopping you know stopping your ordinary life and your

00:30:18.500 ordinary attention and noting that there's something before you in the universe right like okay here's this

00:30:23.760 here's this shirt or here's this person or here's this problem or here's you know here's the this

00:30:27.980 task that i have to do whatever it is um and then and then kind of kind of uh circumscribing it you

00:30:33.620 know saying i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna draw a circle around this so that i can focus on it

00:30:38.120 but but then the ironic maneuver what it does is says okay i've you know i've i've captured it you

00:30:43.040 know i've i've sealed it inside of this bubble like plastic wrap like i'm gonna put on the shelf

00:30:47.440 and now i can dispose of it you know i've i've i've successfully captured whatever that thing is in the

00:30:52.640 world uh and and i've i've caught it it's not going to be a further uh it's not going to do me further harm

00:30:58.160 and i'll just i'll just dispose of it as quickly as possible and move on to the next thing

00:31:01.900 um so the half that's right you know the kind of approach that's right is is in recognizing things

00:31:06.640 as they exist but then instead of instead of uh casting them aside you know waiting for the next

00:31:12.140 thing to come along you want to take that thing and begin to work with it to manipulate it

00:31:16.540 okay to figure out what you can do with it all right so let's talk about that let's talk about that

00:31:20.880 so i mean your solution to that is you you play with it right you play with it right but um i think

00:31:25.940 most people the way most people define play it's not exactly how i mean it's not exactly how you

00:31:30.500 define play um so how do you define play what do you mean by play because yeah most of the time when

00:31:36.920 we hear play we we think it's like the opposite of work you know play is what you get to do after

00:31:41.300 you're done with what you have to do a play is this uh this experience of a freedom or of being

00:31:47.080 unfettered you know not not being kind of held down by obligation or duty um and instead i would

00:31:55.120 suggest thinking of play not as the opposite of work but as as this thing that exists in materials so

00:32:02.440 when um one good analogy for this that we actually talk about as play is the the play that's present

00:32:08.920 in a mechanism you know like a steering column there's there's a little bit of play in the in the

00:32:13.980 mechanism before it engages and begins and begins turning the wheel um or if you think about other

00:32:19.440 uh other domains in which we that we use the word play uh uh for like uh instruments we play instruments

00:32:25.500 you play the guitar you play the piano it's not that you're like doing whatever you want with the

00:32:30.080 guitar or the piano that doesn't make any sense whatsoever when you play the guitar um you're taking

00:32:35.300 its its material properties the the strings and the fretboard and the body of it and you're holding

00:32:40.180 it in a certain way and you're and you're uh and you're manipulating it to produce the sounds uh that

00:32:44.840 it's capable of and and through that manipulation you can produce uh music that's what it means to play

00:32:49.900 so if you take that kind of analogy of of the way that you play the guitar and you apply it to anything

00:32:55.120 else anything whatsoever and then play is a process of of uh evaluating understanding and then responding to

00:33:02.760 the the the material properties of things so seeing what you can do with them how you can incorporate them

00:33:07.680 into your experience and and how you can treat them uh based on the the constraints and limitations that

00:33:13.960 they present to you rather than kind of seeing them as uh as these potential tools through which to

00:33:20.100 achieve your own desires as if you even knew what you wanted right so it was kind of take a step back

00:33:25.920 here so like um going back well so we we play in playgrounds like you make this analogy of playgrounds

00:33:31.360 and playgrounds are sort of these areas like we'll talk about like a typical playground you see the park

00:33:35.340 it's an area where you engage in play but you say you can create playgrounds anywhere like a playground

00:33:39.780 would be the musical instrument right like you have this they have these strings they have frets they

00:33:44.820 have this board and you have to that's the playground you have this constraint that you have to deal with

00:33:49.260 and then by dealing with that constraint you can actually create something pretty cool right and if

00:33:53.440 you if you were to sort of reject it if you say well this is preposterous look at this this this 0.87

00:33:57.040 idiotic object that someone claims i can i can play music with you know obviously i can't like i and and this is what 0.98

00:34:02.680 happens when you pick up something like a guitar for the first time or a piano or a or a set of golf 0.98

00:34:08.260 clubs is they're hard and they resist you because they don't they're not that concerned about your

00:34:12.460 pleasure the pleasure you derive from using them uh and in order to make good on them you know you

00:34:17.400 have to you have to engage with you have to take it seriously for a while okay like like how do i learn

00:34:21.420 to play the guitar what do i need to know about it what have other people done before me how does it

00:34:24.980 actually operate and then over time you can you can develop this relationship with it um and you know

00:34:31.100 some people would say well you know that's a guitar but you can you can't possibly do that with you

00:34:35.100 know errands or commuting or what have you um but i think that's that's absolutely false you can do it

00:34:40.240 with anything the trick is in is in delivering bringing that that um that deep attention and

00:34:46.300 commitment to it in the first place which is where like the idea of the playground you know is useful

00:34:51.400 you see kids do this all the time kids are just like so good at finding play in in anything um

00:34:57.400 and you can think of the playground as like a physical enclosure like like you see in the park

00:35:02.200 but it's also a conceptual one you know like if you if you send your kids outside you're like go play

00:35:06.880 outside and and they'll run outside and then you know very quickly kind of say okay what's here oh

00:35:10.840 there's some sticks what are these sticks oh let's make up some rules about what the sticks are for what

00:35:15.040 they do and then taking into account like the material properties of the stick is a thing that could be a

00:35:19.620 sword or that you know you could throw or what have you um and that sort of activity is is possible with

00:35:24.720 anything it just requires you know being willing uh and and um and open uh to seeing it for what

00:35:31.120 it is and asking how you can manipulate it how you can play it right so i mean it's not so it sounds

00:35:36.080 like what people do with irony they they make the playground right they like kind of take this object

00:35:41.500 they see it and they put a boundary around it but then they just like you said throw it away they stop

00:35:46.640 there yeah that's exactly right uh you know the first maneuver uh that ends up being an ironic one

00:35:52.360 is to to you know to take something to kind of remove it from the world to draw this this this

00:35:56.780 playground or this circumscription around it to say huh here's a thing here's the thing before me

00:36:00.980 that thing could you know i'm worried about it couldn't it couldn't possibly produce the pleasure

00:36:04.580 it promises or that it doesn't promise let's just talk about the idea that it might and then let's

00:36:09.660 dispose of it uh but if you if you engage with it really deeply uh if you sort of accept that invitation

00:36:14.900 to enter that sphere and take it seriously um then you find uh just impossible depth um you know one of

00:36:22.200 one of the examples i have in the book is the uh the uh the mcdonald's filet-o-fish sandwich which

00:36:27.920 is a favorite of mine and there was this uh there was this uh story a number of years ago about like

00:36:33.880 how to make your own filet-o-fish sandwich at home it's a great example of of a a moment online that

00:36:39.780 could go toward irony or could go toward play and you know the the kind of ironizing move is to is to

00:36:45.780 do this in order that you can kind of laugh at the the low quality food at mcdonald's or you can

00:36:51.000 take a picture of it haha i made a filet-o-fish at home or that you can kind of uh suspend

00:36:56.440 this uh uh this uh this sense of whether you mean to sort of exalt or to or to scorn uh the sandwich

00:37:04.580 by talking about it or making it in your own kitchen but the truth is that it's actually super

00:37:08.840 interesting to understand uh how industrial food is made and where it comes from and how you might

00:37:12.920 recreate it um in your own kitchen and by engaging with it in that in that in that serious way even

00:37:18.540 something as preposterous as a fast food sandwich um you've you've discovered something new about

00:37:23.900 the world and that discovery of of novelty is is where the contentment comes from if you allow it

00:37:29.060 to uh if you allow it to percolate you quoted this one i think it's philosopher anthropologist where he

00:37:33.800 makes he makes the case that play is actually the driving force of humor human culture yeah i mean if

00:37:39.600 you think of play in this very general way that you know play is the process of of of encircling

00:37:44.600 something and then manipulating the contents that are within it then all we're really doing

00:37:49.140 uh when we when we produce culture is is playing it's just that it's not it's not play as this this

00:37:54.500 kind of uh uh release or or um uh or as the opposite of work or of duty it's play as the the serious and

00:38:02.660 deliberate manipulation uh of the materials that we that we find and and you know when you think about

00:38:07.840 some of the examples this this is a a dutch anthropologist named johan hoitzinger and uh and one of the

00:38:13.820 examples that hoitzinger uses is the uh the court the courtroom you know so the courts are a stage

00:38:19.180 of play and they actually have something uh very much in common with uh with the theater in some

00:38:23.800 sense this is one of the reasons why we like to watch courtroom dramas on television in fact uh we

00:38:28.840 kind of have have individuals uh the judge and the and the jury and the and the attorneys and so

00:38:33.920 forth who are playing roles and they are they are speaking and using uh the rules of law in a way

00:38:39.500 that's different from the way that we ordinary use use language and performance uh in day-to-day

00:38:43.780 life and and through that manipulation of legal code of uh of rhetoric of performance uh they

00:38:50.860 create a very real outcomes right this is this is uh this is a a serious context um and you don't

00:38:56.880 necessarily need a serious context like that to understand how play produces uh culture rather

00:39:02.200 to understand that that when you see play as this process of of manipulating what you find rather than

00:39:07.760 this process of escaping the world into into the the dreams in your own head then you're always being

00:39:13.340 productive uh when you do it you're always being productive when you uh when you perform it all

00:39:17.540 right so it's interesting you brought the the the courtroom there's these roles these defined you

00:39:22.940 know words you're supposed to say so there's constraints which makes it awesome right like

00:39:27.000 we don't like as you said most people think of play as like oh you just do whatever you want

00:39:30.180 but you say in order for play to be actually fun we'll talk about what fun means there has to be

00:39:36.300 constraints and i thought it was interesting you argue in the book that the way we often go about

00:39:40.200 trying to find improve our lives is through restraints can you talk about the difference

00:39:44.660 between restraints and constraints and why constraints are the better way to go yeah uh

00:39:50.080 so we're obsessed with with asceticism uh suddenly right like uh and it's it's one of the responses to

00:39:56.580 this this world of of plenty uh that we live in right oh you know i shouldn't i should that or i

00:40:01.860 should i should really exercise more um you know i want to do this thing but i'm going to try to

00:40:06.700 resist uh doing it because it's it would be better for me to do this other thing you know

00:40:10.700 those are these sort of negative and potentially ironizing moves that uh that that the logic of

00:40:16.000 restraint uh demands that we perform um and if you kind of flip that on his head and you instead accept

00:40:21.780 the the natural sorts of constraint that are built into the things that we find which are sometimes

00:40:26.600 exactly the same things right like it's not that i'm going to resist eating cake it's that oh i'm

00:40:31.200 gonna you know i'm gonna if i'm interested in a certain kind of diet then i'm going to stock my

00:40:35.160 pantry and kitchen uh with the kinds of foods i want to eat let me figure out how i'm going to go

00:40:38.780 and find those uh and and purchase them in a way that puts the right stuff around me such that when

00:40:43.960 i when i go to eating i'm eating the things i want right or um the active constraint that you uh that

00:40:50.040 you accept when you um when you when you enter the sphere of a game right the the pitch or the or the

00:40:55.700 playground if you find yourself on the football or the soccer field and you say well you know i just

00:40:59.960 refuse to accept the rules of the game then you're not playing uh but by accepting those constraints

00:41:04.800 you're able to enter into the experience of sport and if you if you stop yourself as you know you

00:41:08.760 watch a soccer or a football game and you go this is ridiculous like what are these people doing they

00:41:12.880 could do anything they want um you know why why are they adhering to the rules of the game it doesn't

00:41:17.020 make any sense this is what makes the game what it is so by by looking for accepting and even inventing

00:41:23.040 and applying new constraints to our lives we can we can flip this this this ironizing uh tendency

00:41:29.280 to try to restrain ourselves like oh i'm you know i'm not going to have that second glass of wine or you

00:41:33.520 know i i i really shouldn't do this into uh into a a method of structuring our behavior around the

00:41:40.660 limitations that we've either deliberately set up or that we've accepted uh in the world that we find

00:41:45.200 you know what one example of a set of constraints um is the the constraints of uh of of the people and

00:41:51.980 uh uh and and things that we find in our in our daily lives right the the actual properties of our

00:41:57.460 family or our significant others the the actual properties of our of our homes or our jobs

00:42:02.380 um and we we complain about those things all the time right oh if only you know if only my wife or 1.00

00:42:07.400 my husband didn't do this thing then things would be better in my marriage or you know if only uh if

00:42:11.840 only my my uh my job weren't so miserable then i wouldn't hate going to it and you know even despite

00:42:17.080 those sensations you can always kind of flip them on their head and figure out okay well like what are

00:42:21.000 the properties of those circumstances what are the what are the limitations and constraints that i can

00:42:24.920 work within what can i do in these situations rather than and then how can i uh obsess over what is

00:42:30.260 impossible right so yeah accept the world as it is and work with it deal with it in a way right and

00:42:36.920 you know of course there's a point there's a point at which you know accepting the world becomes absurd

00:42:40.720 or or or unpalatable or even destructive so it's it's it's not kind of like a fatalistic suggestion

00:42:45.600 that we you know just take everything that already exists that's all that there can be we can always

00:42:49.580 alter that world too but we have the sense that um that we kind of have to dispose of things much

00:42:55.340 more rapidly than we really need to and and we and so we fail to to accept and to uh to evaluate to

00:43:01.400 find the the constraints that are present and to work within them and instead we kind of move

00:43:05.380 immediately to rejection uh and you know because there's so many other options now there's so many

00:43:10.520 other options for everything oh you don't like you know that beer or that shampoo there's another one

00:43:14.100 you didn't like this uh this potential significant other no problem you know just just swipe and find

00:43:18.200 another one um that we've kind of enculturated ourselves to that to that notion of rejection

00:43:22.820 rather than than admitting the opportunity to stop and say okay like i'm going to treat this for what

00:43:28.140 it is for a minute see if there's anything more that i can find and then inevitably inevitably there

00:43:31.920 is there's always these hidden depths and things uh once you allow yourself to discover them the other

00:43:36.600 problem with restraint is that it's exhausting it's like existentialism it's like trying to come up with

00:43:40.560 meaning like restraining yourself all the time just exhausts you and it ends up failing in the long run

00:43:45.820 right how many things can you reject before you're you're out of things and then you've got to find new

00:43:50.060 things which you then have been in the habit of rejecting and so you reject them too and you know

00:43:55.480 changing that attitude uh from from restraint to constraint is is difficult but we have these models

00:44:01.180 for it and you know games and play are one of the are one of the places we can look for those models

00:44:06.020 there are places where we um a game is a place where you accept the the arbitrary absurdity of the world

00:44:12.700 and instead of rejecting it you say okay like i'm going to take it for what it is and mess around with it

00:44:16.980 and that's what play is uh and if we can bring that same attitude to to ordinary life not just

00:44:22.520 to entertainment or not just a sport or not just to the places where we normally think of play

00:44:26.480 as taking place then we can apply that same that same ad that same attitude that same strategy for

00:44:32.100 seeking pleasure to to ordinary things as much as extraordinary ones right so the you talk about

00:44:37.120 in the book the result of play is fun like you usually we we put the two together well it's not play

00:44:41.340 if you're not having fun if you're not having fun well i'm going to stop doing this thing because

00:44:44.300 it's not playful um but fun is a word that gets thrown around quite a bit and we kind of use it

00:44:50.380 just sort of as this filler just to describe things even though we don't really mean it was fun it was

00:44:55.580 just sort of interesting um so how do most people use fun and how do you define fun fun is one of

00:45:02.340 these amazing words that means almost nothing if you stop yourself the next time you find yourself

00:45:07.380 saying fun or you hear someone saying something was fun and kind of ask well what am i saying what do

00:45:12.800 they mean you'll quickly realize i actually i'm not sure you know we have this intuitive sense that

00:45:17.960 fun means pleasure that that that fun is a kind of uh synonym uh for pleasure something was pleasurable

00:45:23.520 something was fun and that's what we desire most is to is to have fun to gain pleasure from things

00:45:28.060 uh but in fact many of the many of the experiences uh that we describe as fun they tend to be actually

00:45:35.400 quite difficult even even kind of miserable you know they the the you you come back in from a a long

00:45:42.200 run or uh uh or or a difficult uh uh day at the office um and uh you know you've you've taken some

00:45:50.100 gratification in the work that you've done it was harrowing but nevertheless it was it was positive

00:45:54.260 something something pleasurable uh emerged from it and so that like that like idea of fun is this sort

00:45:59.020 of lightweight um uh easy pleasure it just turns out to be to be totally wrong um and if you kind of

00:46:06.880 kind of dig under it what you find instead is that you know fun is like a placeholder for naming a

00:46:12.640 process of discovering something new in something familiar fun is that that that that process of

00:46:18.620 discovery of of novelty um and and the reason it's such a lightweight or um or thrown around placeholder

00:46:26.080 term is because we you know we tend not to be able to see and discover those those moments especially

00:46:31.380 when they occur in ordinary um in ordinary life when they're not part of something remarkable you

00:46:37.580 know you go out for for an evening or like after dinner drinks or whatever or you're you're hanging

00:46:41.980 out with some friends or some co-workers or whatever and you get back home and uh and your roommate or

00:46:46.920 your spouse or whatever says you know how was it oh yeah i had fun it's like what you really mean by

00:46:51.800 that is that you know you've you found yourself in a situation that was the same one that you did

00:46:56.620 last week that you've done a million times um but there was still something new or there's still

00:47:00.980 something to learn about your friends or there's you know there's still something interesting to be had

00:47:04.780 in commiserating about about life at the office uh or there's still something interesting and novel

00:47:09.440 uh to discover about this you know the exact same path that you take on your on your uh on your jog or on

00:47:15.620 your on your bicycle route um and that's what fun is it's uh it's the discovery of novelty and

00:47:20.780 especially the discovery of novelty in the kind of the kind of uh you know uh almost almost sickening

00:47:27.440 context of familiarity when you can dig through and under familiarity and still find something new

00:47:32.400 that's where fun comes from right so it's like taking a look at the playgrounds in our lives the

00:47:36.880 conceptual and the real ones and then playing in them and then finding new things in the playground

00:47:42.500 that you didn't see before which which demands repetition right i mean this is one of the features of

00:47:47.560 games is that they're very repetitive you go back again and again you do the same things over and

00:47:52.740 over and over again rather than trying them once and then kind of you know testing whether they're

00:47:57.760 worthwhile and asking okay well if so i'll continue if not i'll give i'll give it up because

00:48:02.880 there's something else i could pursue instead so that that need to return to something uh is part

00:48:08.700 of it's intrinsic to play and it's also required uh for fun for fun to emerge uh it's very very

00:48:15.480 easy now not to uh not to bother trying something a second time or to kind of go back and go deeper

00:48:20.260 but there are many things that we can't resist trying a second time like you're going to have

00:48:24.560 to empty the dishwasher tomorrow just like you did today and you're gonna have to drive to work

00:48:27.940 tomorrow like you did today and you're gonna have to balance your checkbook and do your taxes all

00:48:31.680 this stuff that we construe as miserable we still have to do we have to do it every day um and if we

00:48:37.760 can dig under that that familiarity and and through play find novelty in those experiences

00:48:43.640 then they can be just as fun uh as the supposedly delightful uh uh activities that we pursue in

00:48:49.920 order uh to to seek pleasure that's awesome so the sub part of the subtitle of your book is the

00:48:55.700 pleasures of boredom why i mean we often think that boredom is terrible like that's like that's

00:49:00.060 how people get into trouble boredom is what leads to people through the bottle to porn to all

00:49:04.760 these sort of distractions to distract them from the boredom but you argue boredom's a good thing

00:49:09.900 why is boredom a good thing boredom is a sign it's a signal it's like a flare that goes up that says

00:49:16.200 okay you know now you're ready to start uh when you find yourself bored you've you've kind of

00:49:22.140 expended all the obvious choices you know you've you've you've done the easy things uh and now the

00:49:28.060 work can start and really determining what's you know what's in a situation what's something what

00:49:31.920 something means so you know one of the places that you might find yourself a board is at work or you

00:49:36.800 know in your car or you know you've got to go out and do do errands or you you know uh you find

00:49:41.000 one of the examples i use in the book is the the long haul flight you know at 14 hours on a plane

00:49:45.940 and you know you start and you you kind of do all the things that aren't being on a plane you watch

00:49:50.480 watch the movies and you eat the food and you read a book and you listen to music and play some games

00:49:55.060 and you do all this stuff that's meant to distract you from the experience of being of being stuck in

00:50:00.120 this metal tube five miles above earth hurtling through space at 500 miles an hour

00:50:06.060 and then once once you kind of get over that once you've done all the things that are not being in a

00:50:10.580 plane just by being in a plane um then you're faced with its reality and that's terrifying it's one of

00:50:16.660 the reasons why when we when we when we feel boredom we also feel anxiety i don't i don't know who i am i

00:50:22.520 don't know what i'm going to do next uh and that's where the fear begins to come from but when when you

00:50:27.820 find boredom kind of percolating up uh into your brain it's it's a good sign that um that you're you know

00:50:33.440 you've you've done all the easy work you've sort of you've sort of expended the um uh the the obvious

00:50:38.300 choices and then and then the invitation of boredom is to look again you know rather than to kind of go

00:50:43.300 okay there's nothing there's nothing more to do here i got to go find something else to look again

00:50:47.340 you know what else can be played what are the other uh the other opportunities that are presented by the

00:50:52.100 uh by the experience you find yourself in uh and often you know that is the kind of prerequisite

00:50:57.540 uh to finding meaning you know after you after you get through the the easy tasks of doing whatever

00:51:04.060 it is that you do in your job over and over and over again you know then you can say hmm okay how

00:51:09.160 could i improve this or why am i even doing these things in the first place let me try to go find out

00:51:13.120 or how could i make it better uh or even like okay well maybe i need to be some doing something else

00:51:17.700 entirely all of those kinds of revelations um almost you almost require you first to face boredom

00:51:24.200 and then through boredom uh to um uh to direct your attention to what might might overcome it what

00:51:31.440 might be possible in the face of that boredom so let's let's let's put these principles into action

00:51:35.740 we've kind of done it a bit we've given some examples uh throughout the conversation but like

00:51:39.560 let's take the airplane example right so you're bored you've done all the the the low-hanging fruit

00:51:44.780 you've read you played your games you're still on the plane how do you play right how do you approach

00:51:50.560 the airplane with a playful mindset right and you know the airplane is like uh it's it's my my

00:51:57.120 kryptonite almost i find it so difficult and so you know as an example it's it's it's uh an

00:52:02.460 interesting exercise i think for all of us because you know what it means to be uh to be on a plane is

00:52:07.480 you know to face uh the the sense of being uh uh uh crushed inside of your seat or to be next to

00:52:13.400 someone that you maybe do or don't want to talk to uh or to or to uh to ask what you know what

00:52:18.300 what the magazine says that uh uh that you might read instead of uh instead of pursuing some other

00:52:23.940 activity all of those kinds of like little meaning seemingly meaningless activities right

00:52:28.420 they're kind of what make flight what it is uh even like the the cramped bathroom with the you know

00:52:34.480 with the the strange smell uh walking down the aisle uncomfortably and being and being uh uh kind

00:52:39.940 of tilted off your feet by turbulence you know those kind of small experiences as they add up

00:52:44.700 uh they produce this sort of sum total effect of of being on the plane now you know maybe this isn't

00:52:49.720 something that you know you can kind of do over and over again or that you even find yourself in

00:52:53.320 a situation where it matters but it's an exercise it's like an exercise you perform in order that you

00:52:58.180 can do it later with anything else so i'll give you another example uh which is which comes from i mean

00:53:04.280 many of the examples in the book you know just come from my own life because if the x if the if the

00:53:08.380 if the premise i'm advancing is that you need to find a way for your ordinary life to be meaningful

00:53:12.500 then i better be able to look in my ordinary life uh to find meaning uh so one of the things one of

00:53:18.140 the things that uh that i've you know been facing in in my community is uh a few years ago i got like

00:53:24.500 kind of accidentally involved in in local local land use politics and this sounds like the most boring

00:53:30.640 thing ever right like zoning and uh and all of the kind of regulations of zoning variances and how to

00:53:36.400 change zoning and then uh you know how to how to manage uh approvals for for new and old construction

00:53:41.440 in a historic district and these sorts of activities um i as i was thrust into them they

00:53:47.100 just seemed like overwhelming ridiculous um but as i got more and more involved uh in in this process

00:53:52.900 of sort of you know being a a citizen member of uh of a community and and engaging with the the

00:53:59.200 aspects of planning uh the the development of the future of my of my neighborhood and my and my city

00:54:04.380 and my county and so forth i realized huh like there's there's this whole universe underneath where i

00:54:08.960 wanted to stop you know and the place i wanted to stop was oh somebody wants to build something i

00:54:13.240 don't like or something right but in fact you know once you dig below that you realize there's actually

00:54:18.660 a whole jolly pillar urban planners and there's a whole universe of of knowledge that you can you

00:54:23.040 could do your whole career around this um like who am i to kind of cast it aside and pretend uh like

00:54:28.700 there's nothing meaningful to to be found there and as i begin to understand the constraints and

00:54:32.740 limitations you know legal uh dealing with with individuals in the community uh uh managing the

00:54:38.220 time that's required to kind of meet with a builder or or or to uh to figure out how to how to you

00:54:44.060 know get something done on the calendar of the of the planning commission all of these sorts of things uh

00:54:48.920 those became the aspects of play and you know it's it takes it takes a bit of squinting it takes a bit

00:54:53.620 of work before you can kind of see um these these supposed nuisances like you know like dealing with

00:54:59.060 land use politics as uh as a game like anything else right and i even like i've you know i read

00:55:04.820 the book just a few weeks ago but like even just like trying to like do you know squint and try to

00:55:09.880 find those things it's helped me um look at things that i otherwise would have think as thought of the

00:55:14.900 nuisance as like that's an opportunity to like play with it and it suddenly becomes not such a nuisance

00:55:20.700 actually kind of it's kind of fun it becomes an opportunity because what else were you going to be

00:55:24.920 doing with your time uh you know and every time i find myself faced with something that i where

00:55:30.580 we're news like either it's either boredom or it's nuisance where those are the sensations that

00:55:34.980 kind of well up in me um then i just try to kind of stop and say oh okay well like what more is there

00:55:41.120 that i'm not seeing you know like my my uh my my sink uh my kitchen sink got uh clogged a few weeks

00:55:48.480 back like pretty seriously clogged um and you know i've become reasonably handy over my life but uh but

00:55:54.240 this was this was really puzzling me uh and so you know you can get annoyed i got instead of watching

00:55:58.960 tv now i have to clear the sink but this is an opportunity to understand something else about

00:56:02.940 how plumbing works i can kind of kind of improve my uh my competence in uh in uh in diy home maintenance

00:56:09.900 and and and through doing so also learn something more about how my particular sink is constructed

00:56:14.500 and maybe if it's not constructed properly i could i could pursue the remedy of that either through

00:56:19.280 my own hands or or by hiring my plumber which you know then also requires you to find a plumber that

00:56:24.940 you want to use so like all of those like little moments um even though they seem like just just like

00:56:29.560 detritus the things that we we don't want to think about so we can get on to the good stuff

00:56:33.480 there's still meaning there too it's just that you have to treat it as such right um and as you said

00:56:38.620 earlier um this isn't a fatalistic approach like you're not just supposed to you don't necessarily

00:56:43.440 have to accept everything the way it is right there's sometimes you have to just like

00:56:47.900 take the reality that or the ideal in your head and you actually have to make that a reality

00:56:52.040 um because like the current reality is like is completely unacceptable yeah and you know play

00:56:57.280 it doesn't mean accepting all of the conditions of a particular set of constraints forever like you

00:57:03.180 know as if they were sort of sort of brought down from the mountain or dictated uh by by fate play can

00:57:08.320 also involve applying new conditions new constraints new limitations or disposing of old ones and and this

00:57:17.020 is like minor or major matters you know the kind of play that involves remedying the leaky faucet that

00:57:21.960 i just mentioned it's not like well you know this is my life my my uh you know my uh my my sink's

00:57:28.300 gonna leak and my and it's gonna be clogged and that's all i can do you know no i have to i have

00:57:32.100 to involve something else i have to introduce new concepts and new materials into the playground that

00:57:36.880 is my my sink uh and the same is true of of much weightier you know matters uh if you think about

00:57:42.880 you know like social conditions or injustices and that you want to remedy because the you know the

00:57:47.300 the limitations of living in a world of of of racial violence for example are unacceptable

00:57:52.180 you know then it's not that you say well that's it you know there's nothing i could do about it it's

00:57:55.880 that you you have to muster kind of a different imaginary circle different playground around those

00:58:00.500 elements of the world and then say well how could we manipulate them differently to produce a

00:58:04.280 different outcome right so you create a new playground that's what you're doing yeah but but you know like

00:58:08.060 to make that change in the first place to make that new playground you first start by acknowledging

00:58:12.300 the reality that you want to change you have to treat it for what it is and part of that part of

00:58:18.160 that process is accepting and understanding the circumstances rather than buying them awesome well

00:58:22.760 ian this has been a great conversation where can people learn more about your book yeah so uh you

00:58:26.880 know the book's available at your favorite bookseller and you can also check out my website at bogost.com

00:58:32.060 b-o-g-o-s-t.com there's information about the book and links to other conversations and articles i've

00:58:36.860 written that are on the same theme all right ian bogost thank you so much for your time it's been

00:58:40.620 a pleasure thank you my guest is ian bogost he's the author of the book play anything it's available

00:58:44.980 on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also find more information about ian's work at bogost.com

00:58:50.280 and also check out the show notes at aom.is slash bogost for links to resources where you can

00:58:54.580 delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:59:09.840 for more manly tips and advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at

00:59:12.920 artofmanliness.com our show is edited by creative audio lab here in tulsa oklahoma if you have any

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00:59:25.780 us out a lot as always i appreciate your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay

00:59:29.780 telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - October 28, 2016

#247： The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Antidote to Excessive Irony

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