The Art of Manliness - #433： The Adventure of Silence

00:00:00.000 This episode of the Art of Manliness podcast is brought to you by The Strenuous Life.

00:00:03.660 The Strenuous Life is an online platform that we created to help you put into action all the

00:00:06.900 things we've been writing about on The Art of Manliness and talking about on the podcast for

00:00:10.140 the past 10 years. We've done that by creating 50 different badges based around 50 different

00:00:13.900 skills, hard skills like self-defense, wilderness survival, and soft skills like personal finance

00:00:18.940 and social skills and entrepreneurship. We also provide weekly challenges and also accountability

00:00:23.020 for your physical fitness and doing a good deed every day so you can start thinking outside of

00:00:27.300 yourself. We've got enrollment coming up in a few weeks, the week of June 10th. If you want to be

00:00:30.580 one of the first to know when enrollment opens up, head over to strenuouslife.co, get your email on

00:00:34.500 our list. We'll send an email out when enrollment opens up. Spots fill fast. So as soon as you get

00:00:39.000 the email, sign up and make sure our email strenuouslife.co is whitelisted in your email

00:00:43.700 provider because sometimes it goes to spam and people miss out on the enrollment. So strenuouslife.co,

00:00:48.140 hope to see you there. This episode of The Art of Manliness podcast is brought to you by Athletic

00:00:52.140 Greens. Athletic Greens is more than just another greens product. It's been developed over 10 years

00:00:56.160 by doctors and nutritionists. It's the most complete whole food supplement available with

00:00:59.600 75 ingredients working together to help with five different areas of health. One scoop is like having

00:01:04.140 11 supplements in one. Also, it tastes good. Unlike a lot of other green products that taste like

00:01:08.700 licking the floor of a barn, this one has a nice little sweet taste. It's good. And now as a special

00:01:12.500 offer for my listeners, get 20 free travel packs valued at $99 with your first purchase when you go

00:01:17.140 to athleticgreens.com slash manliness. That's athleticgreens.com slash manliness to claim your special

00:01:22.660 offer today. Don't miss this. Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of

00:01:41.320 Manliness podcast. We live in an age of noise, not just audible noise, but visual noise as well.

00:01:47.180 Seems like you can't go anywhere these days without something or someone buying for your attention.

00:01:51.180 My guest today thinks all this noise has made us a bit crazy and that we need to recapture the power

00:01:55.880 of silence in our lives. He came to this realization while traveling alone by foot for 50 days to the

00:02:01.260 South Pole. Since having that experience of what he initially found to be a disturbing level of

00:02:05.000 silence, he thinks that other people need more space for quietude in their lives. His name is

00:02:08.960 Arlene Kage. He's an adventurer, philosopher, and the author of the book Silence in the Age of Noise.

00:02:13.540 Today on the show, Arlene shares his adventures of being the first person to the walk to the North Pole,

00:02:17.600 the South Pole, and Mount Everest alone, and why he thinks adventure is within reach of anyone who

00:02:22.160 desires it. We also discuss why creating intentional friction and discomfort is a necessity in our

00:02:26.520 modern world. We then shift gears to discussing the exploration of a different kind of terrain,

00:02:30.680 that is silence. Arlene shares what experiencing the silence of being alone in the South Pole is like,

00:02:34.980 what philosophers have said about silence, why people should embrace the challenge of seeking

00:02:38.680 silence, and how to find it even in our noisy modern world. After the show's over,

00:02:42.680 check out the show notes at aom.is slash silence.

00:02:59.400 Arlene Kage, welcome to the show.

00:03:02.000 Thank you, Brett. Thank you.

00:03:03.560 So you have a new book out called Silence in the Age of Noise, where you philosophize about silence. But

00:03:10.980 what's interesting about you, you have an interesting background, because besides being a philosopher,

00:03:14.940 a writer, you're also an explorer and adventurer. You were the first person to complete the Three

00:03:20.360 Poles Challenge. For those who aren't familiar with that, what is the Three Poles Challenge?

00:03:25.640 It is the North Pole, South Pole, and Mount Everest, which is called the Third Pole. So I guess the Third

00:03:35.340 Pole was something the Brits came up with when the Brits managed to reach the North Pole,

00:03:40.420 South Pole. They invented the name Third Pole for Mount Everest. So yes, I was the first to get to

00:03:47.860 those three places on foot.

00:03:49.980 On foot. And I'm curious, what led you to exploring? Was this something you always wanted to do as a

00:03:55.420 child? Or was there a moment in your young adult life where you thought, it's a good idea to go

00:04:00.300 by foot to the North, South Pole, and Mount Everest?

00:04:02.820 I think we're all born explorers in the sense that when I look at my own kids or other kids,

00:04:10.040 you know, they want to have more space around themselves. They're wondering what's hidden

00:04:15.980 behind the door. And, you know, we'd like to see what's beyond the horizon. So I think, you know,

00:04:22.160 we're all born in that way. But somehow, when we grow up already when we're three, four, five years old,

00:04:28.740 that spirit start to diminish because we have so many expectations from parents, friends,

00:04:34.160 not to mention schools. So, but it never goes to zero. So, but it's, it's slowly diminishes

00:04:40.740 through early life and through your teenagers. But somehow, I kept that spirit. It's enterprise of,

00:04:49.540 a spirit of enterprise. And I kept on dreaming about seeing the world.

00:04:54.600 And besides those feats, have you done anything else? Explored any other mountaintops or

00:05:00.180 any other things like that?

00:05:02.320 Yes. Through the 80s and the first half of the 90s, I sailed across the oceans, like the Atlantic

00:05:08.820 Ocean a couple of times. I sailed from New York to Panama and down all the southwards,

00:05:14.900 down to Antarctica next to South America. And I did long hikes. I went to many mountains.

00:05:22.860 I did all kinds of adventures. And I think, you know, it's life is very much about

00:05:30.420 fulfilling, fulfilling your own potentials. And for me, curiosity has always been a very

00:05:38.340 important thing. So, yes, I kept on doing it. And I still do some of it.

00:05:45.160 And what's interesting, too, during this time, you were also working as an attorney, as a lawyer.

00:05:50.060 So, I mean, how did you balance all your adventuring with your work a day life? I mean,

00:05:56.200 also during this time, did you have children?

00:05:58.400 Yes. I think, you know, obviously, I traveled to many remote areas, but I also traveled to

00:06:04.220 many cities and met people throughout the world. And my experience is that most people underestimate

00:06:11.200 their own possibilities in life, put too many limits on themselves. Of course, some people

00:06:17.360 overestimate themselves, but I think most common thing is that people don't see their own

00:06:22.540 possibilities in life. And as I said, for a while, I worked as a lawyer. I enjoyed it,

00:06:28.820 but it was not for me kind of to sit in the backseat and try to tell people what to do,

00:06:34.240 mainly after they did some mistakes. I enjoyed it. And yes, I also got three teenage daughters.

00:06:40.840 Obviously, I'm not living with the mother, but she's living in the next street here in Norway. So,

00:06:48.160 I have my daughters living with me half the time. And that's, of course, that's kind of the

00:06:53.920 fourth pole, even more demanding than the three first poles. But, you know, that also gives life

00:07:00.260 a greater meaning.

00:07:02.680 Yeah. So, yeah, I think a lot of people, when they hear, because we've had other adventurers and

00:07:07.540 explorers on the show, and a lot of these guys, they don't do it full-time. They also have day

00:07:12.100 jobs. And what you said about not putting limitations on you, they all say that too,

00:07:17.680 is that if you really want to do something, you can make it happen for you if you really

00:07:23.700 make it a priority in your life.

00:07:26.180 Yeah, I think that's a very good attitude in a sense that some people say, I think maybe the

00:07:33.580 most important and most common thing I heard as a kid was that, you know, this is not possible,

00:07:37.860 you can't do this, you're not going to succeed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And somehow,

00:07:43.340 it's just as, you know, correct to say to a kid that, you know, this is impossible, or everything

00:07:48.480 is impossible, as to tell a kid that everything is possible. But somehow, I never listened to those

00:07:55.280 people who said that this, you know, you will never succeed. Of course, sometimes they were

00:07:59.640 right, but quite often, they were incorrect. And I think that's, you know, that's, that's an

00:08:05.840 experience that we explorers kind of have in common. But I also think it's an experience

00:08:10.780 that, you know, most people have in common, that if you first decide to go for something,

00:08:15.160 and you're also willing to suffer on the way, it's quite likely you will reach a goal.

00:08:21.180 So after you completed the Three Pulse Challenge, you decided to attend Cambridge University to study

00:08:28.200 philosophy. Was there something about those adventures that led you to start studying

00:08:33.660 philosophy? Or was that something you always wanted to do?

00:08:36.240 I think life very much about curiosity. I try to keep up my curiosity. It's very easy to forget

00:08:43.720 in a daily grind in life, because of some of the things that kind of seems more important than to

00:08:49.060 explore your own mind, try to understand and getting to know yourself and also try to

00:08:54.740 fulfill your own potentials. But fortunately, after being on expeditions for years, and I also

00:09:02.300 became the first to walk alone to the South Pole, which was kind of a believed experience for me to

00:09:08.740 walk in total solitude for 50 days and nights without any radio contact under midnight sun. And especially

00:09:16.640 after that expedition, I felt more for exploring my own mind. And then I was fortunate to become a

00:09:25.200 so-called visiting scholar to Cambridge and read philosophy for a year. I think it's in one way,

00:09:32.320 although it doesn't have the physical dimension, I think it's still some of the same challenges as I

00:09:40.320 met as being an explorer, putting one foot in front of the other.

00:09:44.960 What kind of philosophy were you focusing on while you're at Cambridge?

00:09:49.200 I was focusing on moral philosophy, because my supervisor at the time, that was his field.

00:09:57.360 But for me, it was more about testing my limits, trying to understand, try to dig into something,

00:10:03.280 which I found really complicated. And I'm a strong believer in making life more difficult than

00:10:12.560 necessary. Obviously, if you're born in Southern Sudan, you don't need to have that attitude,

00:10:18.800 because life is extremely difficult. But living in Norway, which, you know, in the Western world,

00:10:25.040 I think it's important to voluntarily make your life more difficult than it has to be.

00:10:31.120 Why is that? Is it because we atrophy if we don't? What do you think about that?

00:10:37.360 Yeah, I think it's because I think it's because the kind of the struggle to survive, to have a fairly

00:10:45.760 good life, material-wise, that you have a place to live, which is okay, at least. And you also know

00:10:53.200 that you're going to have sufficient of food every day. In Norway, you probably get a job. So in that 0.67

00:11:00.560 sense, many of the things that used to be a struggle a hundred years ago in my country is now kind of

00:11:08.480 something obvious. It's something that most people experience. But I think we're born in a way that

00:11:15.600 we want to explore. We want to suffer a little bit. We need to suffer a little bit to reach our goals.

00:11:22.480 We need to, if life becomes too easy, it somehow feels meaningless. And life is very easily, you know,

00:11:33.280 filled up with boredom. Not boredom in the sense that I had as a kid that there was nothing to do,

00:11:39.360 that I was, and boredom was about being left out, not having anyone to play with. Nothing was happening.

00:11:46.560 It was about sadness. But when I look around today in 2018, boredom is very much about having too much

00:11:55.120 to do. It's too many TV series, games, apps, Instagram, Snap, Facebook, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:12:04.400 But that's another form of boredom. And those two boredoms are quite, you know, the result is quite the

00:12:11.840 same, that life feels empty. And you get this feeling that life moves very fast, that life is

00:12:19.520 very short. And I think life is short if you do the same things and kind of meaningless things every

00:12:26.160 day. While I think if you turn around and start to do more difficult things, challenge yourself,

00:12:34.640 have more variety in life, then life doesn't feel short anymore. Life feels long.

00:12:40.800 That's a nice segue to my next question, or to your book, discussing your book, Silence.

00:12:47.200 You mentioned this boredom, other type of boredom, where there's too much going on in our lives,

00:12:52.720 too much noise. And silence is the antidote. So before we discuss the benefits of silence,

00:12:59.600 how do you define silence? Is it simply the absence of sound, or is it something bigger than that?

00:13:05.120 Yeah, it's, when I sat down to write this book, which doesn't have that many words,

00:13:10.720 but I still spent a year and a half to write it, and in my life so far, the experiences to be able

00:13:17.040 to do it. I was focusing on silence as no sounds, being a quiet place. But after a while, I understood

00:13:28.240 that the most silence is the inner silence, not silence that surrounds you, but silence in your

00:13:34.400 mind. And at the time, I had, as I said, three teenage daughters. And I understood that those girls,

00:13:42.880 they did not know what silence is at all. Their life is filled up with noise. Not noise in the sense of

00:13:51.920 sounds, but noise in the sense of distractions throughout the whole day, that are always connected.

00:13:58.960 They're always living through a device. They kind of always try to be someone who they are not.

00:14:05.600 And they have all these expectations about being part of something and living through other people.

00:14:12.640 And all this is about noise. And then I think, and then again, of course,

00:14:18.800 noise is always easier to relate to than silence. So, but noise still is about forgetting yourself.

00:14:28.000 It's about living through your device. It's about living through other people. And the opposite to me

00:14:33.040 is silence is about turning around 180 degrees and focusing on yourself. Not in the sense that you

00:14:41.840 got to live a more egocentric life. I think silence is very much about seeing yourself. It's about

00:14:49.600 understanding the world. It's about respecting other people. It's about loving the earth even more.

00:14:55.760 So you studied philosophy. I'm curious, have philosophers said anything in regards to silence?

00:15:04.000 What do they think? Is it something that they value? How do they describe silence? How do they

00:15:10.640 describe the benefits of it? I think that's a very good question that I also asked myself when I

00:15:16.640 started to write a book because I had not read any philosophers writing, you know,

00:15:22.640 something really interesting about silence. And I kept on asking philosophers about it because

00:15:29.280 I didn't find it myself. And then I understood that somehow philosophers in general, at least the ones

00:15:37.280 I can buy, they have not been interested in silence. And I think that's based upon a

00:15:43.920 deep or grave misunderstanding in the sense that the first year when you read philosophy, you learn that

00:15:51.120 nothing comes from nothing. And of course, that's correct. It's also easy to think about

00:15:57.760 silence as nothing. And I think that's what many philosophers have been doing. But in my book,

00:16:04.880 as I try to show that silence is not nothing, silence is something. So something comes from something.

00:16:12.800 So I think that's, you know, maybe it's a mistake that philosophers have been doing for quite a few

00:16:18.960 hundred years. But of course, in the old days, like Aristotle and Plato and others, they said that

00:16:25.440 beyond the words, we can't find any more words, there's getting quiet, there's good silence.

00:16:31.600 Silence. That's then where you will experience the truth.

00:16:34.880 So you experienced silence, I'm sure, in the way you're talking about when you walked by foot in

00:16:42.080 the Antarctic, the South Pole, you were alone for 50 days. What was that like? I mean, what did that

00:16:49.200 experience of silence feel like? And also, I mean, what did you perceive, I guess? I'm just asking,

00:16:57.360 like, what was the phenomenological experience of silence, of being alone in the South Pole for 50

00:17:03.120 days? I think, you know, it's what was interesting. I think I experienced the same as most people have

00:17:08.960 done in the same place, that for the first hours or first couple of days, I found the silence disturbing,

00:17:17.040 especially the first day, my, also maybe the second day, my head was filled with noise. It was

00:17:23.040 absolutely silent around me. It was white all the way to the horizon. The skies were blue,

00:17:29.200 not the sun, but I still had all this noise in my head. I was thinking too much. I was not totally

00:17:35.760 present. But then I slowly started to adapt to circumstances. I stopped thinking, I started more

00:17:47.040 to experience the world as it was there and then. And then I started to feel more and more comfortable.

00:17:56.560 And as the days and weeks passed by, I started to see that it's not totally white in Antarctica,

00:18:03.600 after all. It has this small variation of bluish, greenish, yellowish, pinkish colors in the snow and

00:18:12.960 the ice. And it's not totally flat either. I start to see more and more details, stretches in the snow

00:18:19.760 and on the ice. So in that sense, the nature or the experience of the environment became richer and

00:18:27.120 richer. And I also became better and better at having a dialogue with the nature that comes

00:18:32.240 sending some ideas out and getting all the faults back again. And of course, many of these experiences

00:18:40.080 our experiences are kind of hard to put words on. That's also one of my points in my book, that

00:18:46.240 quite often words put limits on your experiences. If you've got to describe everything you go through

00:18:52.880 in life in words, you put limits on yourself. Because I think it's many things in life which is

00:18:58.160 which is beyond words. So for me, the silence through those 50 days and nights became, you know,

00:19:08.880 silence became somehow my best friend. And silence has its own language. So I think, you know,

00:19:16.880 it's very healthy to be alone for a while and be silent for a while. Of course, some parts of life,

00:19:23.440 it's not possible. But all the parts of life, you don't have to walk to the South Pole. Somehow,

00:19:28.160 you have to find your own South Pole. When you say you say you stopped thinking,

00:19:34.000 do you mean like you just stopped having that internal dialogue in your head?

00:19:37.600 Is that what you mean? Yeah, you know, it just started. I was still thinking about

00:19:42.400 life back home, worries. I was thinking about this girl I was in love with. She was not in love with me.

00:19:48.720 All, you know, this kind of daily struggles that we have. But then, you know, all this

00:19:56.160 worries somehow disappeared. And I became more and more present in my life, that the past didn't

00:20:04.080 matter. I didn't care about the future. It was only life there and then that mattered to me. And I

00:20:11.520 think that's, you know, that's a great luxury. I'm not interested in living, you know, having

00:20:18.000 that kind of life the rest of my life, because I think we're all born to be social. We're born to

00:20:23.280 be together with other people. But for me, it was a very healthy experience. And I quite often asked

00:20:31.760 from people that are wondering how I think they will react to me in such circumstances.

00:20:37.840 My answer is that I think, you know, most people would experience it more or less the same

00:20:43.520 way as I did. Not exactly the same way, but I think most people find it

00:20:48.320 enriching to be in silence for such a long time.

00:20:52.000 We're going to take a quick break before we reward more sponsors.

00:20:54.080 Jeremy here, producer for the AOM podcast. Support for today's show comes from Starbucks

00:20:58.800 Double Shot, a chilled coffee energy drink that gives you the energy to go from point A to point done.

00:21:03.680 As a husband, dad to two young kids, the youngest of which is not sleeping very well right now,

00:21:08.080 podcast producer, etc. I need a lot of energy to not just survive my day, but get through it,

00:21:13.200 make sure I get everything done that I need to and have some fun along the way. While I'm normally

00:21:16.800 a hot coffee guy on these blazing summer days here at the tail end of the season, the last thing I want

00:21:22.160 is a steaming hot beverage. Plus, your standard energy drinks always have those weird off-putting

00:21:26.640 flavors. That's where Starbucks Double Shot comes in. Starts with bold Starbucks coffee and is

00:21:30.800 blended with milk for a smooth, creamy flavor. It's then enhanced with ginseng, guarana,

00:21:35.120 and B vitamins to give you that little extra oomph you need. It comes in six delicious flavors,

00:21:39.120 mocha, vanilla, hazelnut, white chocolate, Mexican mocha, and coffee. That last one being

00:21:43.680 my personal favorite. Starbucks Double Shot. It's energy to do things you actually do.

00:21:48.000 Find it in your local convenience store. Also by Saks Underwear. Saks Underwear is the

00:21:52.080 underwear from the future. Saks Underwear recently released their new undercover collection. It's

00:21:56.160 breathable, moisture wicking, resistant odor, and made a super soft cotton modal that keeps you

00:22:00.560 cool no matter what. Saks is also the only men's underwear that actually designed with our anatomy

00:22:04.880 in mind. They created the revolutionary ballpark pouch with these internal mesh panels that keeps

00:22:08.400 everything in place and offers ultimate support. It's like Saks took a pair of underwear and catapulted

00:22:12.720 in the future. There's nothing else out there like that. Undercover collection is super comfortable.

00:22:16.720 Besides having the boxer brief, you're a boxer brief guy. They also have brief versions. So if you're

00:22:21.440 a whitey teddy kind of guy, they got those as well. If you'd like to try this out at a discount,

00:22:26.080 got an offer for you. For a limited time, shop from anywhere on their site and get $5 off.

00:22:30.160 Plus free shipping on your first purchase with the code AOM. That's AOM for art of manliness.

00:22:36.080 So to do this, go to Saks Underwear. That's S-A-X-X, two X's, .com. Use promo code AOM at

00:22:43.440 checkout for this great limited time deal. Again, that's SaksUnderwear.com. Promo code AOM for $5 off

00:22:48.640 plus free shipping on your first purchase. And while you're there, check out their undercover

00:22:52.080 collection. I think you're going to like it. SaksUnderwear.com, promo code AOM. And now back to the show.

00:22:56.760 And I'm curious, if you came to this feeling of being present, the past, the worries of the past,

00:23:03.480 the worries of the future no longer, because I'm sure we've all experienced that in fleeting moments.

00:23:08.040 And I'm sure you got a little bit longer while you're there. How long did that last when you came

00:23:13.080 back to civilization?

00:23:14.680 You know, you got back to daily life really quickly. You get home. It takes a long time

00:23:21.720 before, you know, quite a few weeks before you actually get home. But when you get home,

00:23:25.960 it's daily life again. I mean, your washing machine doesn't work. You get to have it repaired.

00:23:30.920 You need to pay your bills. You need to start to work. So then it goes really back to normal quickly.

00:23:37.720 But, you know, we are part of all that we have met in life. So in that sense, the experience remained

00:23:45.000 with me. And I still have it after all these years. And when I sat down to write a book on silence,

00:23:53.880 it was my experiences from the ice, from the oceans, from the mountains, from urban life,

00:24:01.160 from being a family father, from being an entrepreneur, being a lawyer for a short time.

00:24:07.480 All these experiences kind of made it possible for me to write about silence. If I only had been a

00:24:15.000 polar explorer, I think I could still write a book about silence, but I think it would be pretty boring.

00:24:21.000 Yeah. I thought it was interesting, too, how one of the observations you made about your experience

00:24:27.480 of the Antarctic alone was similar to, we wrote an article about Richard E. Byrd, who was at the

00:24:36.200 South Pole for five months by himself back in the 1930s. And one of the things he commented on

00:24:43.000 was that he stopped swearing. Like, he didn't use curse words. And you had that same thing. Like,

00:24:49.000 you didn't feel the urge or need to curse when you were by yourself.

00:24:54.200 Richard E. I didn't know that. That's interesting. I haven't read so much about birds, but it's,

00:25:00.760 yeah, that's, that's correct. It's, when I'm on an expedition, I never swear. I hardly,

00:25:07.960 I hardly utter a negative word. And it's not because it's blasphemy. I could be, you know,

00:25:15.160 good enough reason. But it's because it's so negative. When you swear, it drags you down.

00:25:21.720 And especially when you're alone, then you feel it much stronger than when I'm with other people,

00:25:26.920 because then I can swear and life goes on and the dialogue, you know, keeps going. But being alone

00:25:33.000 or being with one or two other people in this very kind of life on, you know, it's that you're very

00:25:40.840 much present in the situation through the whole day. If you're not, you know, it's, it could be very

00:25:46.040 dangerous. And then when you're so present in your life and live there and then, and you swear,

00:25:53.080 that feels like a totally stupid thing to do. If it's dangerous or if you're pissed off because 0.96

00:25:59.960 you did something silly or things that didn't work out the way you wanted. And then if you swear,

00:26:06.360 the situation is only getting worse. And if it's very more, you know, it keeps on swearing,

00:26:10.600 it's just gets worse and worse. Yeah. I remember on my expedition to the North Pole with my friend,

00:26:16.040 Berger Olsland. He decided not to swear, but on later expeditions, I never decided. I just don't do it.

00:26:23.560 Yeah. Just don't do it. I just thought that was interesting that you both had the same experience

00:26:28.040 in the South Pole. Yeah. And today, in daily life, I hardly swear anymore because when I was a kid,

00:26:35.720 a teenager, I was swearing. I thought that was cool. But today, I hardly swear at all.

00:26:41.720 So you mentioned earlier, you mentioned that when you first started your trek to the South Pole,

00:26:48.280 the silence was frightening, but then it became comforting. Why is that? I mean,

00:26:53.880 I think for a lot of people, silence is extremely frightening. The silence that happens when you're

00:26:59.080 in conversation with someone, for example, and there's that awkward silence and you feel uncomfortable.

00:27:04.680 What is it about silence that makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable?

00:27:08.680 Yeah, I think, you know, I agree. I also mentioned that when I was a kid, silence for me

00:27:16.680 was awful. When I was lonely, when I was sad, when nothing was happening, that was silence for me.

00:27:24.360 And of course, later in life, silence is very much about sadness. It could be about one minute of silence.

00:27:31.880 But many people have been writing about this kind of silence. And when I want to write about silence,

00:27:36.440 I want to write about this different silence, this silence which is enriching, which is good for you.

00:27:42.840 And I think the reason people try to avoid this silence. I'm writing about this course, this inner silence,

00:27:51.560 is because in this silence, you meet yourself. And a man has always tried to avoid silence.

00:28:00.600 And if he sits in a room in silence doing nothing, he will always try to start to do something.

00:28:15.960 And that's the beginning of all his problems. So this is not something new. And it's, as I said,

00:28:23.240 it's easier to live through noise than turning around and start to look into yourself. And I think

00:28:31.640 that's why it's quite tempting to go for easiest option to avoid yourself.

00:28:41.640 Yeah, I think I've read experiments there where they've had people sit alone by themselves. And all

00:28:48.520 they had was this button where they could push it and it would shock them. And people ended up like,

00:28:55.080 they'd rather shock themselves than be bored, right? So it's like they couldn't go very long

00:29:02.280 without some sort of stimulation, even though that stimulation was uncomfortable and unpleasant.

00:29:06.520 Yeah. And you know, it sounds always insane that people, instead of sitting in total silence,

00:29:14.280 not having anything to do for 50 minutes, rather have an electric shock than remain sitting. And I think

00:29:23.960 it's actually doesn't only sound insane, I think it is insane. And I think in one way, the world,

00:29:30.040 whole world has turned insane the last 20 years with internet, not to mention the last 11 years with

00:29:37.640 smartphones. If my grandmother, who died more than 20 years ago, if she had seen how we're living today,

00:29:45.880 she has seen grown men walking down the streets, having a phone close to the air, kind of like,

00:29:54.680 looks like, you know, all kind of carrying around all teddy bears, kind of taking them to over,

00:29:59.560 you know, to overhead them in the concert. I think she would think they're turned absolutely nuts.

00:30:06.440 And, but of course, if everybody is insane, insanity is the new normal. So I think, you know, 0.84

00:30:13.160 I think that's gone too far. I'm not negative to technology, not at all, but it's a way we relate

00:30:20.840 to technology, which is, I think it's not only strange, but I think it's, it's bad for us. It's

00:30:28.360 makes us even more lonely. It's like it's all even more depressed. It's like it's all even more

00:30:33.880 desperate. While I'm not negative technology as such, but I'm also very concerned that some of

00:30:40.200 the brightest minds in the world work day and night to make us addicted to different apps and

00:30:48.600 different technology. Yeah. No, I've, I've seen that too. Like the difference between say my generation

00:30:54.200 or our generation and my grandfather, my grandfather passed away a few years ago. He was 101 and my

00:31:00.760 cousin and I were having the discussion about how it never seemed like my grandfather was like anxious

00:31:08.520 or like there was some sort of like pent up anxiety in him. It was just really like centered, calm,

00:31:16.360 et cetera. And I mean, the one difference, I'm sure there's a lot of difference, but the one difference

00:31:19.800 was he never owned a smartphone. He never, he never had all, he never had all that noise constantly

00:31:26.360 bombarding him. Exactly. And it probably also had, you know, it was a different time in America. So

00:31:30.920 probably also had, you know, all the obligations that, you know, his life probably was, you know,

00:31:35.640 tougher in many ways than your life. And that also, you know, gave his life much more meaning

00:31:42.360 right away because, you know, it was the data struggle was different from your data struggles.

00:31:48.120 So besides, uh, being a lawyer, a philosopher and explorer, you also are an art collector. So you

00:31:56.200 are, you know, you're like the most interesting man in the world here. I'm curious, what can art

00:32:01.800 teach us about silence? Because it's art is like, we're talking about like paintings

00:32:06.200 are something you, you consume silently often.

00:32:10.040 You know, it's, I first have to say that, you know, it's a privilege to be interviewed by you,

00:32:14.040 but you know, for me, what we talk about now, you know, I just find it a true privilege that

00:32:20.600 people are interested in all in this thoughts I have about silence. And it's, to me, it's a great,

00:32:27.400 you know, positive surprise. But in terms of art, yeah, I think art is also very much about silence.

00:32:34.600 Let's say great art is about silence. I think quite often lousy art is about noise, but it's great art.

00:32:40.280 And I think about, you know, when you see it, if you're going to understand any of it,

00:32:44.840 you need to have some silence. Of course, some people can explain things to you. But if you're

00:32:49.640 going to appreciate great art, you need silence, inner silence. And the reason I'm saying this is

00:32:56.360 is because an art piece, it's a painting, sculpture, insulation or video, somehow has to contain

00:33:04.280 the artist's defeat, the artist's humor, the artist's love affairs, the artist's lovesickness,

00:33:11.800 the artist's loneliness, the artist's victories, the artist's doubts, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:33:18.440 And somehow, a lot of this has to go into the art piece. And then, of course,

00:33:24.040 it's very difficult to grasp what the art is about. And maybe it's not supposed to understand,

00:33:30.760 you know, everything about an art piece. But somehow, this art piece is a thinking box,

00:33:38.680 just this kind of item that has, you know, all these faults in it. To understand any of it,

00:33:45.400 I think you need to be silent. Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite things to do is go to an art museum

00:33:53.240 and just to look at, look at art. And what's interesting about art is that sometimes what

00:33:58.280 you see depicted, you can tell that there would be a lot of noise there, right? Like one of my

00:34:05.000 favorite paintings or something you see quite a bit, it's, it's a lot of artists have done is,

00:34:09.640 is Cato the Younger committing suicide, right? He decided, you know, he didn't want to be under the

00:34:15.240 rule of an emperor, commit suicide. And you see the, how the artist depict all this. You can tell

00:34:20.040 there's a lot of commotion and noise going on, but like, you don't hear anything. And you don't,

00:34:25.400 I don't, it's, it's a weird thing. Like you can, you can, you don't hear anything at the same time,

00:34:29.800 you, you can, you can hear what's going on in the painting. Exactly. I love that combination

00:34:35.640 because somehow, as I say, you know, this frozen moment, you know, taking off, you know,

00:34:42.760 and made into a painting, which is of course, sonless. And, and I, you know, I just, I just

00:34:50.760 like that, that, that combination that you can stand in peace, in the silence, and see a great piece

00:35:00.600 of art. And, and you, in your case that you know the story about Cato and why he committed suicide,

00:35:08.360 and see how the artist had interpreted that story. And of course also put so much of herself,

00:35:14.680 himself into the piece of art. That's great. So it's, I think that's, you know, something that

00:35:21.800 makes life even more meaningful. In my book on silence, I included several paintings by

00:35:27.560 your fellow American, Ed Rouchet. And one of those paintings is a blue background. And then it says

00:35:34.200 in huge yellow letters, noise. And the reason I had it because the painting is quiet, it's silent.

00:35:45.080 And then it just had this strong word all over the painting, and nothing else. So kind of the words

00:35:52.520 contradict the painting, kind of one to one. So that, that's something I found really interesting.

00:35:58.280 So you said earlier that people don't need to walk all the way to the South Pole to experience

00:36:05.160 the silence that you're talking about, the benefits of it. And then they can find their

00:36:09.160 own South Poles. Like, so how, how can regular people who just live in their work a day life, 1.00

00:36:14.760 experience silence on a regular basis? And does it have to be for extended periods of time? Can it,

00:36:20.280 can you just catch it in just a few minutes and still get the same benefit?

00:36:23.560 No, I think that's a very good question. It says that, that's, that's a question I'm asked quite

00:36:29.240 often. And then again, as I said earlier on, I think most people underestimate, underestimate

00:36:36.440 their own possibilities in life. Because even you're having kids, or if you're having a very busy job,

00:36:43.960 or if you have a complicated relationship, blah, blah, blah, you know, you can still experience

00:36:49.320 silence. And I find silence in the morning when I wake up in my bed. Of course, if you have kids,

00:36:55.720 babies screaming, it's not so easy, but still. And then I find silence when I prepare a breakfast

00:37:01.960 for my kids. Then I find silence when I, I quite often walk to my office, which takes

00:37:07.880 half an hour, but you can't always walk to your office, of course, but then can still find silence

00:37:13.480 walking the stairs up to my office. And then on the way back again from the office,

00:37:18.440 I can find silence during the stairs, or instead of taking the metro all the way home, I can jump

00:37:23.560 off from a station earlier and walk. And walking is very good for silence. And then cooking again,

00:37:31.160 I can find silence. And I find silence when I'm listening to music. I think that's quite often,

00:37:36.120 if it's too much noise in my life, I just turn on the music with a high volume. Then I find in the

00:37:42.760 silence, I find silence when I'm having a shower. I find silence when I'm breathing.

00:37:47.960 You can find it in the silence when you're having sex. You find it in the silence when you go to bed

00:37:52.760 to sleep again. Sometimes it is for two minutes. Other times it's for longer, like on the weekends,

00:37:58.440 I do hikes in the forest. So, you know, to find this in the silence, you know, you really have to

00:38:05.400 want it. And of course, you can find it also by having yoga, mindfulness, meditation. All that is

00:38:15.480 very good, I think. But somehow we have to prepare for it. You know, it requires a technique. But when

00:38:22.600 I sat down to write about silence, I want to write about this silence, which is there all the time.

00:38:28.760 It's inside you, waiting for you, but you have to go look for it.

00:38:33.640 Yeah. And one thing I noticed that all those examples you gave, you could interrupt it,

00:38:39.080 interrupt the silence by bringing your smartphone along. Because there are people

00:38:43.400 who will take part in all those activities, be in the forest. I've even read having sex,

00:38:48.280 and they'll still use their smartphone, which to me is ridiculous. 0.99

00:38:51.800 Yeah, it's ridiculous. I met a guy on the street the other day, and he said to me, 0.91

00:39:01.320 when I'm doing a walk, I shouldn't have nothing in my hands. That's the whole thing.

00:39:07.080 Of course, if you walk with your phone in your hands, you know, and you're not going to have

00:39:12.680 any silence. But if you turn off your phone, preferably leave it back home, or turn it off

00:39:18.440 and put it in your backpack or in your pocket, then it's so much easier to relax. Because I think

00:39:23.480 as long as the phone is on, and it's available, you're so attracted to that phone, and it's so

00:39:29.080 much complicated not to look at the phone, that you will do it. I read this article that people

00:39:34.760 on average touch their phones 2,600 times a day. That sounds a lot, but I have to say,

00:39:40.040 when I look at my daughters, and sometimes I look around at the metro, to me, it seems like people

00:39:45.640 touching their phones even more. Yeah, no, it's true. And it's like, I think it's important to

00:39:49.960 keep in mind that it's a total waste. No, yeah. It's not about not being connected to the world,

00:39:58.280 but you know, you Google something, you find what they're looking for, and 20 minutes later,

00:40:03.320 you're still Googling. You're checking the news, you see the news, and you keep on checking the news.

00:40:08.280 And you know, the news are quite alike throughout the whole day. Actually,

00:40:12.520 I think the news are always the same every day. So you know, it's about wasting this huge,

00:40:21.320 fantastic opportunity to have, to live a rich life.

00:40:24.920 And it's that fear of the silence. So like, once you feel that fear, you gotta embrace it.

00:40:31.400 It's a fear of the silence, a very common fear of the silence. And you can always say that it really

00:40:37.240 doesn't matter. But, but I think it's a bit sad, actually, that people are living through,

00:40:44.040 you know, that kind of, you know, running away from the self. And, and, and I've said that,

00:40:49.960 you know, sometimes I do it, do it too, that, you know, it's, I, I kind of get, you know, so much into

00:40:57.480 my phone or into a device that I check it all the time that I'm, you know, watching all this series,

00:41:04.280 that I'm checking the news again and again and again. And, and, you know, just after half an hour,

00:41:11.640 one over a few hours, I start to feel this, you know, having this really uncomfortable feeling, but I

00:41:18.200 still do it because it's, it's, you know, you get, you get, you get addicted. And of course,

00:41:23.400 every app is made for the user to get addicted. And, you know, so then they had to give, you know,

00:41:32.120 great promises and then you're going to be satisfied for a short period. They can't be satisfied for long

00:41:37.880 because that's of course, the basic of capitalism that you should be satisfied for a while. And then

00:41:43.720 you need to desire something totally new. So I'm not skeptical, skeptical to capitalism and blah,

00:41:50.360 blah, blah, but you know, you just have to be aware that's, that's the whole trick. And we have

00:41:56.840 to look through it and we have to, you know, choose a slightly more narrow path.

00:42:04.200 Is there some place people can go to learn more about your work in your book?

00:42:07.960 You know, absolutely. And I think, you know, I don't think people should listen too much to me,

00:42:14.200 because that's also why I want to write a little, really short book on silence. I asked three

00:42:19.160 questions. What is silence? Where is it? And why it's more important today than ever? And I tried to

00:42:26.280 give 33 really short answers so you can read it in one evening. And then after that, I think, you know,

00:42:33.240 you need to find your own path. Swamarga, as you know, as I said in Sanskrit, that it's not complicated

00:42:40.600 at all. As I said, the silence is there, but I think it's, you know, to read, spend one evening

00:42:46.120 to read about it, and then think through it. I think you will find your own silence. And I think

00:42:50.760 you need to keep in mind that you need to create your own silence and you need to keep that spirit.

00:42:58.040 But that's totally up to you.

00:43:00.600 Arlene, thanks so much for coming on. This has been a great conversation.

00:43:03.160 Thank you.

00:43:04.160 My guest here is Arlene Kaga. He is the author of the book,

00:43:06.780 Silence in the Age of Noise, available on amazon.com. Also check out our show notes at

00:43:11.480 aom.is slash silence. And if you're looking to embrace friction and discomfort, like Arlene was

00:43:17.500 talking about in the podcast, we do all the platform called The Strenuous Life that's designed

00:43:21.600 just for that. You sign up, it's a membership platform, you get weekly challenges, there's different

00:43:25.840 badges for different skills you can earn. It's all geared on making your life a little bit more

00:43:30.000 uncomfortable, a little more discomfort and getting you out of your comfort zone. So go check it out,

00:43:33.640 strenuouslife.co. Got an enrollment coming up. Get your name on the waiting list so you can be one

00:43:37.860 of the first to know when it goes live. So go check it out, strenuouslife.co.

00:43:41.300 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and

00:43:57.340 advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy

00:44:00.660 the show, I'd appreciate it if you give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. If you've

00:44:04.580 done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or family member who you

00:44:08.340 think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for giving support. Until next time,

00:44:11.680 this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 20, 2018

#433： The Adventure of Silence

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript