The Art of Manliness - The Joy of Touching Grass (and Knobs, Buttons, and Boarding Passes)

00:00:00.560 Summer's winding down, and at our house, that means life is about to get a whole lot busier.

00:00:04.820 School starts in a few weeks, the kids' sports are ramping back up, evening's getting packed

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00:01:05.840 So one project Kate and I are working on

00:01:07.540 before summer winds down

00:01:08.620 is creating a fire pit area in our backyard.

00:01:11.060 Kids are getting older and we wanted a place

00:01:12.620 where they can invite their friends over

00:01:13.840 to roast marshmallows and hot dogs,

00:01:15.740 hang out and just spend time together.

00:01:17.600 And Kate and I are looking forward to sitting out there

00:01:19.380 in the evenings after dinner

00:01:20.460 once things finally have cooled off.

00:01:22.520 We've been using Wafer to help pull it all together.

00:01:24.460 They have a huge selection of fire pits,

00:01:26.240 outdoor benches, Adirondack chairs, and outdoor furniture, so it's been easy to compare different

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00:02:16.660 Wayfair, every style, every home.

00:02:18.620 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the aom podcast which since 2008 has featured

00:02:24.800 conversations with the world's best authors thinkers and leaders that glean their edifying

00:02:29.320 life-improving insights without the fluff and filler the aom podcast is just one part of the

00:02:34.120 mckay mission to help individuals practice timeless virtues through thought word and deed

00:02:38.680 also be sure to explore our articles and art of manliness.com read the deeper dives we do in our

00:02:43.120 sub stack newsletter at dyingbreed.net and turn our content into real world action by joining the

00:02:47.840 Strenuous Life program at strenuouslife.com. Now on to the show.

00:02:59.440 Remember those old hotel ice machines? The kind where you'd slide your bucket under the chute

00:03:03.660 and hear the avalanche of cubes crashing into it? There's something so fun and strangely gratifying

00:03:08.680 about that thing. Or think about breaking an icicle off the edge of a roof. Such a gratifying

00:03:13.600 feeling from such a small act. My guest has written an ode to the outsized pleasures that

00:03:18.160 arise from these kinds of everyday interactions with the physical world. His name is Ian Bogost

00:03:22.220 and his new book is The Small Stuff. Taking the show, Ian argues that fulfilling life isn't built

00:03:27.040 solely by chasing the big components of happiness, but also by embracing the small moments of

00:03:31.140 gratification that are woven throughout ordinary life. We discuss how those moments can be found

00:03:35.100 in tactile experiences like shifting a manual transmission, turning a well-made knob, or

00:03:39.260 flipping through the pages of a real menu. We explore how these small opportunities for

00:03:42.960 engagement for contact, connection, and control have been disappearing as the world becomes more

00:03:47.820 digitized and automated and everything becomes a touchscreen. And Ian shares how opportunities

00:03:52.260 for sensory enchantment can still be found in an increasingly dematerialized world.

00:03:56.940 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash small stuff.

00:04:00.280 all right Ian Bogost welcome back to the show great to be here so the last time we had you

00:04:16.360 on was 10 years ago my god it's been a long time we discussed your I know we discussed your book

00:04:21.580 play anything I really enjoyed that conversation you got a new book out where you explore really

00:04:28.100 taking the time to experience and enjoy the small pleasures that come with interacting with our

00:04:35.480 material world. So we're talking about the way a coffee cup feels in your hand or the feeling of

00:04:41.560 painting a wall with really nice paint. What kickstarted this exploration? Was there a moment

00:04:47.320 you had, you're enjoying some small thing where you thought, I should write an entire book about

00:04:52.420 this yeah it's a really great opportunity for me to kind of spill the beans on my life i guess

00:05:00.600 because i mean for for your listeners who remember our conversation about my last book 10 years ago

00:05:06.160 i realized i was working on this project then and maybe even before then and the playbook was really

00:05:11.600 about ordinary life too it was about you know enjoying the constraints of of everyday life

00:05:17.100 and um not so much like turning it into a game but understanding what we could learn from

00:05:21.760 the concepts of play and fun that related to ordinary, ordinary life. And even before that,

00:05:28.040 you know, I'd been writing about toasters and slippers and slushies and that kind of thing

00:05:32.360 at the Atlantic. And I did this philosophy book about things. And I think I've just been obsessed

00:05:38.240 with this my whole life. And it was only over the last five years that it coalesced and I allowed

00:05:43.380 it to happen. And the catalyst was a story I did a few years ago, maybe in 2022, about the end of

00:05:50.520 the stick shift automobile for the Atlantic, which is not a new idea, right? And people have

00:05:56.820 been lamenting or writing elegies to the stick shift car for years and years, but it continues

00:06:03.020 to decline and electric vehicles don't have multi-speed transmissions at all. So, you know,

00:06:09.300 we're kind of at the end of the line. I got so much response from that story. So many readers

00:06:14.060 and they wrote in and they sent me postcards and they were just very deeply connected to that

00:06:20.300 example. And that was when I realized, oh, wait, this is bigger than I've given it credit for.

00:06:25.680 This isn't just about the stick shift. And it's kind of related to all those prior thoughts I'd

00:06:30.600 had and was maybe a little ashamed about. Like, why am I so interested in toasters and doorknobs

00:06:36.620 and slushy machines and all the rest? And I decided to just like sit down and try to figure

00:06:42.660 it out and put it together. And that was the start of the book. When people were writing you

00:06:47.140 about the stick shift article what were they saying i mean what was it that that caused the

00:06:51.940 reaction yeah what was interesting is that it was somewhat nostalgic and elegiac at times you know

00:06:57.880 like well i remember my father teaching me how to drive one or i you know i still enjoy driving it

00:07:02.240 but i'm you know i missed the time when i had this you know when the friction point was harder to find

00:07:06.260 or but it was not it was not like tender or it wasn't about loss it was about this deep sense

00:07:13.500 of connection that people were describing with that particular apparatus. And some of it was

00:07:19.220 mechanical. Some of it was more conceptual, like just watching someone else drive one and seeing

00:07:24.680 and hearing the gears change, even if you didn't have your hand on the gear shift. And it opened

00:07:30.340 up new ideas. There's a story I tell in the book about this. Somebody wrote me a physical letter

00:07:36.460 and there was like a stamp on it. And I remember having that stamp in a stamp collection as a kid.

00:07:42.140 And it just opened up this whole list of things that felt similar, like, you know, tearing off the perforations of stamps and licking them and putting them on envelopes.

00:07:51.340 And I realized that I think what people were telling me was I didn't choose this change in my life.

00:07:57.560 I didn't choose not to have that sense of contact and control and engagement and delight, but it happened anyway.

00:08:04.620 It wasn't even quite a loss.

00:08:05.960 It was more like a strong longing for that kind of contact with the world.

00:08:12.400 It was very subtle and even difficult to describe.

00:08:15.920 Like a lot of people are like obsessed with nostalgia right now.

00:08:18.560 And that's not it.

00:08:19.280 It's not about looking backward.

00:08:20.600 It was just about these very deep, rich examples of feeling strongly connected to the physical world.

00:08:26.260 Yeah.

00:08:26.780 You talk about in the book that connection to the physical world, whether you're shifting a car or licking a stamp.

00:08:33.480 you know we we look back and we think well man that was kind of mundane yeah it didn't matter

00:08:38.700 right yeah like okay and that's why you don't miss it like oh yeah oh yeah well who cares who

00:08:42.980 cares exactly but you also talk about there is a it feels good it feels when you do pay attention

00:08:48.560 yeah and and something you do the beginning of the book is you delineate three ideas it's happiness

00:08:54.800 satisfaction and gratification yeah what is the difference between happiness satisfaction and

00:08:59.860 gratification and why did you think it was important to differentiate them? I'm going to

00:09:04.280 start with the why that I think it was important. We have for some reason kind of overloaded

00:09:09.580 contentment into one singular concept and that's usually happiness. So when we think about what it

00:09:16.600 means to be content in your life, there's kind of one flavor of it and we've named it happiness

00:09:21.120 and nobody really quite knows what happiness is. If you ask someone, are you happy? They'll be like,

00:09:27.200 I don't know, like, what would it mean to be happy, right? And the psychologists and behavioral

00:09:31.720 scientists, whatever, who study it, the way that they define this term is often by just asking

00:09:36.380 people overall, if they're happy, you know, which is sort of like a circular argument. So I think

00:09:41.160 of happiness as big picture, overall life contentment, all things being equal, how are

00:09:47.900 things going? It's usually associated with big stuff, right? The opposite of small stuff. So

00:09:52.860 like, you know, is your job well matched to you? Do you feel purpose in doing it? Are you happy at

00:09:59.520 home? Are your partnerships and relationships good? Do you feel like your community is something

00:10:04.540 you're engaged with? Are you healthy? Are your children doing well? Do you have the resources

00:10:10.520 you need to get by? It's that sort of very big picture kind of stuff. And what might make you

00:10:15.320 happier is like saving up for a big vacation or a bigger house or getting your kids into the right

00:10:21.000 school or finding the right life partner or advancing in your career or whatever it might

00:10:25.580 be. So that's happiness, big picture contentment. It's hard. It requires work. It's usually something

00:10:32.420 that you don't experience in the present, but more like as you reflect on what's just happened

00:10:36.580 to you in the past. It's kind of retrospective. Satisfaction is still big, but it's smaller. And

00:10:41.700 I think of satisfaction as pride in accomplishment. So you finish a project at your job or you're

00:10:48.440 doing some work around the house and you look at the garden you built or whatever it is and you

00:10:52.260 kind of put your hands in your hips and you stare at it and you think, huh, like I did well there.

00:10:57.020 Or like people sometimes talk about being satisfied when they eat a nice meal, you know,

00:11:01.580 when they cook a nice meal, it's a really satisfying meal. And they mean like they've

00:11:04.840 ingested it and now they feel full of it, but also they've connected with the kin, the people

00:11:09.660 in their lives around the table and broken bread together. And that's satisfying too. Pride and

00:11:14.260 accomplishment. It's still big, it's still hard, but it works at a smaller scale. It's often

00:11:19.720 associated with smaller scale projects on the way to bigger picture happiness. And then gratification

00:11:24.800 is a totally different kind of contentment. And it's the one the book's about. And it's the one

00:11:29.560 that I think we've undervalued and maybe even just looked past on our path to satisfaction and

00:11:35.440 happiness. Gratification is the sensory enchantment of everyday life, the good feeling of connecting

00:11:42.760 your body and your senses with the physical and material world in which you live. It's weird

00:11:48.200 because it happens to you in the moment. It's not a past tense kind of thing and it's not a future

00:11:53.940 planning kind of thing. Like when you have a good sensory experience, that feeling of the gear shift

00:11:58.840 in your hand, the roundness of it or the coolness or the chunk chunk of it as it moves through the

00:12:04.320 gears, you can't like save that for later. It happens right in the moment. Like a breeze hits

00:12:09.600 your face on a warm day and you feel its cooling effect. That's something that happens to you right

00:12:14.620 away. Or like right now, as I'm talking to you, I can touch the smooth walnut desk in front of me

00:12:21.680 where like the oils of my hands have over months and years, smoothed it out and made it a little

00:12:26.800 shiny. And that sensation, I either take it right now or it's gone forever. But that gone forever

00:12:33.620 is not really a problem because it's right there the next moment as much as I want it. So gratification

00:12:39.440 is happening to us all the time in a way if we simply learn to allow the gifts of the physical

00:12:46.220 world to be gifts that we receive rather than that we ignore. So that good feeling of contact,

00:12:52.640 connection, and control of the physical environment could be natural, it could be

00:12:56.940 designed, it could be human constructed. Anything that you make contact with with your body has the

00:13:03.380 opportunity to gratify. So those are like maybe not the only ways of slicing up the world of

00:13:09.080 contentment but to me they were like an extremely useful way of dividing up different categories

00:13:14.100 and i just want to say like i'm in favor of all of them this is not a an argument against happiness

00:13:20.100 it's rather an argument that happiness doesn't tell the whole picture the whole story of what

00:13:25.000 a good life feels like and gratification has a big role to play in that life so gratification is kind

00:13:31.100 of uh is it like stop and smell the roses type yeah or don't stop and smell the roses just smell

00:13:36.220 them you know like there's no need to stop you smell the roses like you're walking past them and

00:13:40.780 oh that there's roses and that's it that's like an interesting distinction because we have this

00:13:45.580 sense that somehow doing things of any kind requires not doing something else that we have

00:13:51.160 to steal time or energy from big picture big stuff accomplishments in order to do small and i think

00:13:56.760 that's why we overlook them so yeah just smell the roses instead of stop and smell the roses if you

00:14:01.580 want so gratification is happening it can happen all the time you just have to pay attention to it

00:14:05.980 So it's interesting. Yes, I totally agree with that. But I've actually tried not to use attention as the way of helping people find the feeling of gratification, because it kind of puts the effort back into your brain. And we live in our heads so much. And we're just like tied in knots all the time about how we can feel better. And attention is like, oh, I need to pay attention. I forgot to like, you know, feel the tink of the dishes against one another as I was putting them away in the cupboard.

00:14:32.300 darn, like I missed that opportunity for gratification. And that's not really how it

00:14:37.040 works. It's more like acceptance than attention. Because like I was talking about my desk and in

00:14:42.980 the few minutes since we've talked about my desk, the desk is still there. I just stopped paying

00:14:47.320 attention to it, stopped noticing it. I stopped kind of engaging with it. And now it's back and

00:14:52.100 I'm talking about it again and here it is and I can feel it once more. So I think of it as this

00:14:58.000 enormous surplus gratification. There's this tremendous surplus of sensory life that's always

00:15:02.440 available to us. It's like a stream that's constantly running. And all you need to do is

00:15:06.520 kind of dip your toe in and you feel its current. And it's always there. It's always accessible and

00:15:11.420 available so long as you're a physical body in the world. So that's a shift I think is like really

00:15:16.920 important, that shift from attention to acceptance. Okay, I like that. Yeah, because I can see that

00:15:22.240 becoming another chore. Right, exactly. Oh, gosh, like what if I keep a gratification journal,

00:15:28.000 make sure you have this many gratification experience in that. You're just going to lose

00:15:31.480 if you take that attitude. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, one of the examples of a gratifying experience

00:15:35.960 that you described in the book and when I read it, I was like, oh yeah, I felt that too, is

00:15:39.440 the feeling after you make a turn in a car and then you let the steering wheel go straight and

00:15:45.720 it just runs through your hands. Oh, I love it. And it feels great. But I think if I were to like

00:15:50.200 think about it, I got to really pay attention to how this feels. I think I would lose that

00:15:55.200 gratifying experience. Yeah. And you know, your brain can't handle it, right? Speaking of brains,

00:15:59.640 you know, like there's a reason why we stop sensing things moment to moment and sort of that

00:16:03.480 we can kind of get on with the work that we're actually doing. You know, so if you're like

00:16:07.020 typing on a keyboard, you don't like feel the keyboard physically all the time, or you'd kind

00:16:11.520 of lose your mind. But if you stop for a minute, and you like extend the sensation of feeling those

00:16:16.540 keys and the clickiness of them, then you can sense them in a gratifying way. And then you can

00:16:20.600 kind of go back into the experience of using them for a purpose. So that like idea of occupying a

00:16:28.340 moment, like you're driving and you feel the wheel and, you know, every now and then, maybe not every

00:16:33.060 turn, but every 10th or 20th turn, you kind of let it happen. It rises above the noise and you're

00:16:39.540 reminded, oh yes, I do. I love this. I love that sensation. I'm glad I got the car that had the

00:16:44.700 thick leather steering wheel or the ribbed wooden one. And that's it. That's all I'm asking. Occupy

00:16:50.340 that moment and then move on to the next because another one will be available. But sometimes it

00:16:55.740 feels strange to do that. Even like the steering wheel is like, I think everyone can agree that

00:17:01.720 it's immensely gratifying, that it's delightful to feel that. But they probably haven't talked

00:17:06.800 about it before. They haven't, you know, allowed it to feel good or to be normal that it would feel

00:17:11.420 good. And that's some work that has to be done to make gratification accessible. All right. So

00:17:16.640 gratification is everywhere. It's easy to experience. But you argue that despite being

00:17:20.760 easy to experience, the opportunities to experience gratification are decreasing in

00:17:27.320 our modern world. Why is that? Yeah, it's a little bit weird and counterintuitive. Because

00:17:33.160 if gratification is everywhere, like why do we feel so ungratified? And it goes back to something

00:17:38.320 like the stick shift. It's like we used to have a more diverse set of sensory engagements that

00:17:45.620 were just available not just available to us but we kind of like had to deal with all the time you

00:17:51.320 know maybe you didn't have to shift your car but you had to like roll the window down with the with

00:17:55.140 the roller you know instead of using the button although the button is also gratifying i don't

00:17:59.360 have a key like you have a key to your car but you don't put the key in the ignition anymore right

00:18:03.720 like it just sits in your pocket because that's more convenient then you press a button and

00:18:07.300 pressing the button might be gratifying but you don't get to like jingle the keys in your hand

00:18:11.620 I have like a brand new minivan that we bought and it like yells at me if I close the hatch with

00:18:18.380 my hand if I sort of feel the the tension of it pulling down it'll it'll take no like that's

00:18:23.740 inappropriate it beeps and it wants me to press the button instead so it can use a motor to do

00:18:28.040 it on its own we have all these systems like that of automation and convenience and some of them are

00:18:33.620 bureaucratic and some of them are economic but they have distanced us they've disconnected us

00:18:38.460 from those physical encounters in the world maybe the best example one that everybody knows and has

00:18:44.160 experienced is the way that like a public restroom works you know you don't get to use the faucet

00:18:49.060 anymore no you don't turn the knob you don't set it to the temperature and the pressure you want

00:18:53.520 you put your hands under it and hope that it operates by sensor and then the soap is like

00:18:58.420 that and the towel dispenser is like that and the toilet you just came out of flushed for you and

00:19:03.660 those may not seem like maybe you even think well i don't want to touch anything in the bathroom

00:19:07.520 right you're like i'd rather not touch but you didn't make the choice to do that that that choice

00:19:12.360 was made for you in order that the whole world could be made more efficient mostly for other

00:19:16.580 people's benefit and here you are decoupled from those tangible experiences that you once

00:19:22.240 had to engage with and this is just this stuff is just everywhere now all this stuff that we

00:19:27.500 used to do we used to get to do and now we just kind of can't anymore every now and then one of

00:19:33.520 them pokes its head out and reminds you and i think that's what the stick shift did another one

00:19:38.000 that people seem to light up about when i bring it up is the um remember during the covid pandemic

00:19:43.540 and all the restaurants stopped using menus they had a qr code on the table yes i hate those it's

00:19:48.600 enough to touch a menu anymore and that just kind of persisted and there was something just magical

00:19:53.660 and delightful and gratifying about going out to eat and being handed a menu and it was big and

00:19:58.560 you kind of hide in it and maybe it was laminated or maybe it wasn't and you could spill salsa on

00:20:03.380 You sort of entered the space of the menu and perused the options in a different way than using your phone, which is the same place that you get email and notifications and kind of do everything.

00:20:13.620 And that's another good example of this phenomenon I call dematerialization, where you don't get to use a menu anymore.

00:20:19.900 Now that whole experience is siphoned back through your phone.

00:20:25.520 And it's certainly more convenient.

00:20:27.060 There's less printing.

00:20:27.980 There's less waste.

00:20:28.880 You don't have to spill on it.

00:20:30.020 You don't have to touch something that someone else touched.

00:20:32.120 but at the same time you miss out on this small encounter with a very particular thing in the

00:20:37.880 world and i think if you start to look around and think about it you realize just how many of those

00:20:42.520 kind of experiences have been outmoded so yeah you talk about it's the world is being dematerialized

00:20:48.980 yeah that's the name i give for it yeah the name for being disconnected from sensory life from

00:20:55.260 sensory experience to the point that it's taken as a given that you wouldn't want to be which is

00:21:01.000 really the the biggest loss that it's a waste of time to have a menu or that it's obviously

00:21:06.940 undesirable to turn on a a faucet or to shift a car to be able to open a door by force of hand

00:21:13.320 and muscle instead of by pushing a button or you know there's there's like economic factors too as

00:21:18.680 i as i mentioned one that i talk about in the book fairly extensively is just ownership in general is

00:21:23.340 is harder to access you know if you if you own an automobile or a homer or a lawnmower for that

00:21:30.300 matter, then you have this apparatus that you have an opportunity to repair, to engage with,

00:21:35.320 or to tend to, or to improve, and you have an incentive to do so. But if you just lease your

00:21:41.800 car and then you hire out your lawn care and maybe you can't afford to buy a home and so you're just

00:21:47.140 renting and you'll be punished if you try to make a change to your apartment or your condo because

00:21:51.740 they'll take it out of your security deposit, then those are also dematerializing experiences,

00:21:56.520 places where you would have had a reason and an incentive to contact the world and now you have

00:22:01.420 a disincentive instead. I think the car is a great place to see that dematerialization. So

00:22:06.060 we mentioned the stick shift, but also we don't have knobs anymore. Everything's on the screen.

00:22:11.040 Oh, the knobs. Yeah, the knobs. I love knobs on a car. And actually, I think some car makers are

00:22:16.640 bringing them back. The tides are turning finally. Yeah, because it's unsafe, right, to look at a

00:22:22.100 screen on your car while you're driving. But it's funny that we required that kind of safety

00:22:26.860 rationale to turn back. And that's really what it took was, you know, the realization that you

00:22:31.420 can't look at the road while you're also trying to change your climate control with your fingertips

00:22:35.140 on a screen, instead of concluding the correct answer, which is that knobs are delightful.

00:22:41.580 People just love to have a knob and a dial. And obviously, the fact that it's safer to use one

00:22:47.040 is great, but it doesn't have to be. It's just that we love those knurled knobs and the click

00:22:52.080 of turning them. So it's almost like there was this feedback loop of, you know, the reason why

00:22:56.960 it was delightful and gratifying to operate a car, but also safer to operate one that you could do by

00:23:01.920 touch rather than turning your eyes off the road also made it more gratifying. It was like a

00:23:07.340 connection between the designed environment and the industrial design choices that automakers made

00:23:12.880 and the sense of gratification you got out of them. But then we decided that like everything

00:23:17.600 should be a touch screen. Basically, elevators are like this too. I noticed this more and more.

00:23:22.480 You don't press the buttons on an elevator. There's a touch screen outside and you press

00:23:27.280 your floor and this allows it to be routed more efficiently. But then you don't get to press the

00:23:31.640 button anymore. And that's a loss. You just love pressing the button as a way of saying

00:23:36.300 to the elevator, here I am. We are together. So this stuff is everywhere. And the knobs,

00:23:42.160 the loss of knobs is, I think, a very palpable example because they were so rich and gratifying

00:23:47.280 experience. Yeah. Another one where you see vending machines, they also are going to the

00:23:52.280 screens, which I don't like. I like the big button. I love the big button. Oh, the button.

00:23:57.240 It's one of my strongest and most delightful memories from being a kid was the big fat button

00:24:04.220 on the vending machine, feeling the coin drop into the machine too. You don't get to do that

00:24:09.300 anymore. Maybe you swipe a card and that's also gratifying with that chunk clunk of the quarter

00:24:15.020 falling into the vending machine and then there was a big old button and there would usually be

00:24:18.940 one that was larger than the others like the lead soda yeah and you kind of hit it with your fist

00:24:24.080 that sense of like i mean it's not a violent act to hit it it was more just like a you really had

00:24:30.260 to physically connect with the vending machine and there was this sense of contact and of presence

00:24:36.180 of engagement with it that i also felt in other kinds of apparatuses like an old telephone handset

00:24:41.840 is like that where it's heavy and you can kind of feel the intimacy of it near your mouth and

00:24:46.360 against your ear and you know there was something about these kinds of objects that just made you

00:24:51.740 feel like they were partners this is i mean i talk about this in the book that like it sounds

00:24:57.040 ridiculous at first but i really really mean it if you can treat these objects in your life as

00:25:01.720 friends more like pets than like entities like object inanimate objects then that's one way to

00:25:08.360 find gratification again. And I think that sense of like going up to the vending machine and just

00:25:12.880 knowing you're going to get to push the button, it's a kind of friendship. And we just decided

00:25:17.740 that that kind of friendship was like not desirable or useless or a waste of time or

00:25:22.720 just something that we were going to accidentally erase from the world. And that's the sense that

00:25:27.680 you're missing when you don't have it anymore. Another one where you see a screen replacing

00:25:31.720 things, soda fountains. Yeah. So Quick Trip has been replacing their soda fountains with those

00:25:36.960 digital screens where they got a bajillion flavors. Right. But I don't like them because

00:25:41.520 when you hit pour, I feel like I don't have as much control over what I get in my cup.

00:25:47.360 Yeah, it's just like the stick shift, isn't it? Yeah. And you know, like, it's funny because

00:25:49.920 people are totally ready to talk about feeling control of their automobile. You know, it's like

00:25:54.180 a performance experience to drive a machine like that. But it's kind of the same thing with almost

00:26:00.260 anything with a toaster or with a soda fountain. The way you describe it as

00:26:06.700 control is like a sense that that your intentions your body and your your sort of whole sensory

00:26:13.120 apparatus that's engaging with it the way that that machine is designed and the way that it

00:26:17.560 responds to your interaction that those are all like copacetic that they're working kind of

00:26:22.000 together and that they match it's almost like you know being with being with someone that you know

00:26:26.900 very well and you kind of finish one another's sentences it's that kind of feeling but with the

00:26:31.200 with the physical world and you know in this respect there is a sense that the designed

00:26:37.220 environment used to be more deliberate and it used to offer that kind of sense of partnership

00:26:43.020 more than it does today in part because the reason those systems are designed the way they are is to

00:26:48.520 make them more efficient to operate for like the quick trip vendor or the quick trip franchisee

00:26:53.460 rather than for you someone looking to get the most out of your soda dispensing experience but

00:26:59.380 you do still get to dispense the ice, right?

00:27:01.800 And you feel it fall into the glass.

00:27:03.580 And it's not gone.

00:27:04.660 It's just different.

00:27:05.500 It's like a sign.

00:27:06.260 Oh, yeah, this is something that's still there,

00:27:08.280 but it's shifted.

00:27:09.500 I love that example.

00:27:11.040 And there's a reason why people love the soda fountain,

00:27:13.880 you know, the self-serve soda fountain.

00:27:15.560 It's because it's gratifying.

00:27:16.920 Yeah, it is gratifying.

00:27:18.240 I love getting it when you just get it perfect.

00:27:19.920 Like you know how much you got to press

00:27:21.940 and how long and you get it just right.

00:27:24.480 That's a very gratifying feeling.

00:27:26.680 I love that.

00:27:27.420 Yeah, that sense of like weird goals that people set for themselves that kind of don't matter, that's a good sign that gratification is happening too.

00:27:35.140 Like we are a very goal-oriented culture now and I think to a fault really.

00:27:39.980 It's one of the problems.

00:27:40.980 It's one of the reasons why we're so obsessed with big stuff happiness pursuits instead of treating gratification as enough, at least on occasion.

00:27:48.580 But one of the things that small goals can provide is an excuse to engage with those gratifying encounters more fully and more deliberately.

00:27:58.320 Even when you mess up, it's still delightful.

00:28:01.360 Like, oh, I kind of got too much foam and I'm going to pour it out into the drain and then I'm going to go back to the well and get more.

00:28:07.420 That too is gratifying.

00:28:09.220 And again, like I think that the more you take seriously, even if it feels foolish, maybe especially if it feels foolish, if you take seriously those kinds of moments, which you know, you know in your heart are delightful, that you're enjoying them and allow them to be delightful, accept that gift of delight that you're offering.

00:28:27.380 Then they sometimes like open like a flower.

00:28:29.460 They show even more delights right behind them.

00:28:31.540 And the soda fountain is a great example.

00:28:33.340 I wish I'd talked about it in the book.

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00:33:21.620 And now back to the show.

00:33:23.440 So yeah, the world's becoming dematerialized.

00:33:25.680 You mentioned that we're kind of turning

00:33:26.980 into a renter society.

00:33:28.140 Everything's becoming a subscription.

00:33:29.660 And so that gives us fewer opportunities

00:33:31.080 to tinker with our stuff and mess with it.

00:33:33.900 But you also talk about how our work

00:33:35.720 is becoming dematerialized

00:33:37.340 and work has become less gratifying.

00:33:41.180 What are some ways that work

00:33:42.460 has become less gratifying, you think?

00:33:44.640 One of the most obvious ways is,

00:33:46.600 you know, in the white collar world,

00:33:48.840 you've heard this term email job.

00:33:50.700 you know where like nobody kind of knows what they're doing or why they're just moving symbols

00:33:55.240 around on a computer because everything got digitized and that sense of like not really

00:34:00.740 knowing what you're doing moment to moment and how it connects with the world i think that's a

00:34:05.280 widespread sensibility in white collar work but also in professional work and this is a distinction

00:34:10.900 that we don't need to go into in detail but like when i think of a professional i don't think of

00:34:14.500 just a white collar worker i think of someone who had like have to have special education or licensure

00:34:19.700 And like a lawyer, a doctor, an architect, a real estate broker, those are professions.

00:34:26.180 And the interesting thing about professions is that they used to require specific contact with specific places and people in the world.

00:34:34.080 Like you have to go to the clinic or do rounds in the hospital if you're a doctor or the lawyer has to go to the courtroom or to another law office to take a deposition.

00:34:43.880 And the architect has to be on the job site or the real estate broker does.

00:34:47.440 so like those kinds of experiences they still exist but they're less and less necessary because

00:34:53.700 we can do so many things online even if you work in like sales you know and like how would a sales

00:34:59.280 person have worked decades ago you would have made telephone calls you would have taken lunches you

00:35:04.580 would have gone on site to meetings to close the deal you would have schmoozed and you know now

00:35:09.720 you're sending emails right maybe you're getting on zoom so there are just like less surface area

00:35:14.760 for physical contact in the world.

00:35:17.380 And that's in the sort of office job kind of space.

00:35:20.180 In the trades, people are very interested in trade work all of a sudden.

00:35:23.220 And one reason is because it's more gratifying.

00:35:25.880 It connects gratification, satisfaction, and happiness more.

00:35:29.880 And we know that so-called blue-collar jobs in industry in America

00:35:35.080 have been on the decline for decades.

00:35:37.480 And one of the things about that kind of work,

00:35:39.120 I mean, it was sometimes dangerous

00:35:40.660 and there were downsides to that kind of work too.

00:35:43.720 but it was strongly gratifying to be a plumber or a tile setter or to work a trade because every

00:35:49.980 moment of your job is deeply connected not just to outcomes but to the experience of doing it you

00:35:55.840 know why you're doing what you're doing moment to moment so like the resurgence of interest in

00:36:01.280 trade work isn't just because of ai or because actually like you know a trades person can make

00:36:06.580 quite a bit of money these days it's a good business to be in but also because there's a

00:36:10.800 strong coupling between gratification and satisfaction in the work that I think is missing

00:36:15.660 from from office work these days. And then of course, there's a whole business of work from

00:36:19.400 home and hybrid work, which, you know, has been an issue that we've been debating since before the

00:36:24.520 COVID pandemic, but especially during and after people really believe they don't want to be in

00:36:29.340 the office, they don't want to commute, they want time to do their laundry or whatever to do a

00:36:33.560 workout. But they're also a little confused about why and what they lose by not being able to move

00:36:39.940 through the world in order to get to work and get from it and be with our co-workers and just be in

00:36:44.800 the kitchen making a coffee in the morning and feeling the warmth of the mug and using the

00:36:49.160 particular mug that you use at work that's a part of your work life too as you're talking i was

00:36:54.480 thinking about my dad's office when i was a kid he was a federal game warden and i loved going to

00:37:01.180 his office because it was just a sensory delight you'd go in it had like faux wood paneling i love

00:37:08.740 touching it and i love going into his office in particular because he had he had a typewriter

00:37:12.960 loved hitting the keys and the thing i remember the most that i really loved was for the tickets

00:37:20.220 that he would issue hunters you know duck hunters it was on carbon copy paper oh i don't remember

00:37:25.340 that stuff that was so good yeah first i loved the smell it just smelled really good and then

00:37:29.280 i just loved writing and like that satisfying feeling of seeing your writing on the white

00:37:35.260 page, go through the yellow into the pink. These are such great examples. And it has nothing to do

00:37:39.320 with the work, right? It was all like mechanisms you needed in order to get the work done. But the

00:37:44.400 experience of doing the work, the moment to moment experience of doing it, or in your case, sort of

00:37:48.280 encountering it as a spectator, that provided enormous background gratification that just

00:37:54.140 happened as a part of everyday life. You know, I remember when carbon paper was used in credit

00:38:01.540 card transactions every time that was that was a satisfying thing to watch yeah yeah that that

00:38:06.060 chunk chunk of the reader and it took more time and there's a reason why i got replaced with

00:38:10.240 digital systems but it was satisfying to do it was satisfying to hear to watch and then you get

00:38:14.960 the paper and even even the sort of you know feeling of the ink on your hands you sometimes

00:38:19.740 get like a make a mess with the carbon paper that too was gratifying because it was like here i am

00:38:24.920 alive on earth with this ink in and and that that is something meaningful now i can go wash it off

00:38:31.320 by turning the faucet on and the sink, right?

00:38:35.380 It's like the life of gratification

00:38:37.840 opened up new moments of gratification along the way.

00:38:41.480 I love that example of the office

00:38:42.920 because I could see it, your father's office,

00:38:45.440 I could see it in my mind's eye

00:38:47.240 the moment you brought it up,

00:38:49.040 even without knowing exactly what kind of office

00:38:51.440 you were talking about.

00:38:52.860 Because the design world was more varied, you know?

00:38:55.420 Like that wood paneling was an example

00:38:57.140 of a gratifying visual and textural encounter

00:39:00.680 that you know these days you just wouldn't find like everything's white yeah everything's white

00:39:04.480 well speaking of credit cards another thing that's gone away that was gratifying was the credit card

00:39:08.840 itself it had the embossed print with your credit card number and i love love that's gone or it had

00:39:14.440 the hologram oh my god of the eagle and it was fun when you're a kid you take your mom's credit

00:39:19.440 card out and like yeah it's shining the light that's gone too no more delightful yeah yeah i

00:39:24.860 mean it's so easy to find these examples it's like the world just delivers them and you know that

00:39:29.860 that sense of loss or of dematerialization really is widespread but at the same time it's not fully

00:39:37.040 lost so you know i have a credit card in my wallet still and yeah it's not embossed anymore and yes

00:39:41.280 it doesn't have the hologram but it's still a physical object that i can take in and out of

00:39:45.120 my wallet it has smoothness or i can feel like the edges where they've started to wear there's a

00:39:50.520 little chip with an indentation and i can run my finger across it or when i seed it into the reader

00:39:56.320 and I feel it click in, that's still gratifying.

00:39:59.500 So it's still there.

00:40:01.120 It's different, but it's not left us

00:40:03.100 because we still live in our bodies

00:40:04.760 with objects that are made of atoms

00:40:07.060 and we have to engage with.

00:40:09.140 All right, let's talk about some ways

00:40:10.220 we can reclaim our sensory life

00:40:11.800 and experience more of this gratifying feeling.

00:40:14.460 How can thinking like Andy Rooney help us do that?

00:40:17.960 And for our listeners who aren't familiar with Andy Rooney,

00:40:20.020 can you explain your shtick?

00:40:21.180 It's possible that it's been a while.

00:40:23.080 Yeah, it has been a while.

00:40:23.740 It's been a while.

00:40:24.360 So Andy Rooney was best known as a TV personality who appeared on 60 Minutes on the TV magazine, 60 Minutes at the end of the broadcast.

00:40:31.800 And this was like a weekly news magazine, you know, back in the days of three networks.

00:40:36.060 And every Sunday would come on and it would be like an hour of like very hardcore, intense, deep, difficult news about the world.

00:40:44.660 And then at the end, Andy Rooney would sit at this messy desk and he would talk about some ordinary thing like pocket knives or towel dispensers.

00:40:54.360 or soap. And he had this kind of disposition, this kind of like curmudgeonly disposition.

00:41:00.680 And that allowed him a kind of ability to get underneath things to talk about them in a

00:41:06.660 different way. And through doing so, he drew attention to this kind of ordinary truth of

00:41:12.580 real reality of like, you know, like respecting someone who had a pocket knife because they could

00:41:17.540 fix things or of talking about like using the largest possible knife to cut an olive because

00:41:23.100 he felt that sense of control that we were talking about earlier with the big

00:41:26.820 vending machine button. And this was just an enormous, it was daring and brave to give the

00:41:34.440 world this gift of analysis of ordinary life in this prime time slot on television when everyone

00:41:40.100 watched television to get information and in a way that treated it as seriously as important

00:41:46.220 current events, which is what the rest of the program was about. And he did this for years and

00:41:50.840 years and years and only retired in his 90s. And I just find him, you know, he sometimes said

00:41:58.520 things he shouldn't have, but that deep respect and commitment to truth seeking in every crevice

00:42:04.900 and corner of the world, that is just an amazing gift that Andy Rooney gave us and that we can

00:42:10.680 take, that we can just take and do in our own lives. Yeah. And you seem to be doing that with

00:42:14.800 your work, with your articles in The Atlantic or your Twitter feed. I love, you know, I was a big

00:42:19.060 follower of your twitter feed and you'd you'd make these observations like this is something

00:42:22.920 andy rooney would talk about one of them was that i remember because i've had this exact same thought

00:42:27.840 it was about ice cream scoops so you go to the ice cream shop and you say i want one scoop of

00:42:33.260 ice cream because you know you're you're full you want something sweet but you don't want to

00:42:37.240 overdo it so you ask for a scoop and you think you're going to get one single scoop and then

00:42:40.680 you see the the scoop person put one in and they go back for another scoop and then another scoop

00:42:46.280 it's like wait a minute this is not a scoop of ice cream this is three scoops of ice cream right

00:42:49.920 right it's just like an amazing little thing like this small moment and in this kind of

00:42:56.240 anti-reading way it's kind of a gripe like gripes are one way of getting to the truth it's almost

00:43:00.220 like caricatures are a way of getting to the truth you don't gripe just to complain people

00:43:04.280 mistake gripes for complaints sometimes when what they really are is an attempt to get underneath

00:43:09.820 something yeah i think the gripes are that's when we typically notice the material world

00:43:15.540 Yeah, it's like the world has made its way above the fray, and you can see it.

00:43:21.160 Yeah.

00:43:21.620 So, I mean, annoyances can lead to gratification.

00:43:23.900 I mean, here's an example that I was thinking of.

00:43:25.780 Let's take your zipper gets stuck.

00:43:28.260 And that's frustrating.

00:43:29.740 So you have to give it a close look, and you have to look at the mechanism of the zipper.

00:43:34.360 You have to remove some of the cloth, or maybe you have to line up the teeth better.

00:43:39.560 and then you know after a few seconds of fiddling with it which itself can be kind of satisfying

00:43:45.540 you have that gratifying feeling of the zip of those interlocking teeth you know after being

00:43:52.400 stymied so annoyance can lead to gratification if you use it to ask you know what's what's going on

00:43:59.080 here yeah yeah nuisance embarrassment is another one that's like that if you feel like why like

00:44:06.460 this is a little weird like why am I doing this or you feel like even shame like oh did someone

00:44:11.600 see me like pull eight towels out of the dispenser or whatever those are tells those are moments

00:44:17.160 where you can kind of go oh okay this is where gratification happens instead of feeling embarrassed

00:44:21.880 or grouchy or ashamed or whatever let me kind of get through that feeling let me use it as a board

00:44:27.260 let me get let me use it as a way to get through that initial sentiment and then get on to allowing

00:44:32.360 the gratifying sensation to open up and to deliver itself to me so that's that's one thing you can do

00:44:38.940 is to pay attention to your sense of grouchiness or to embarrassment and just allow yourself to

00:44:45.260 move through them or at a higher level take any moment you're in and just let it linger a little

00:44:50.700 longer than it would otherwise like we were talking about with the steering wheel it's not

00:44:54.460 really about doing anything different you're not stopping you're not like searching your brain for

00:44:59.200 whether you're paying attention to your steering wheel you're just letting that moment linger a

00:45:03.660 slightly longer than it would and that's when you kind of realize oh yes the delight of my steering

00:45:09.500 wheel and you can do that like almost all the time all you need is just like another second

00:45:13.840 just spend like another second in that space and then you'll feel more comfortable doing so but

00:45:19.160 you'll also receive that little payload of gratification more often and then it's like a

00:45:24.440 drip drip drip feeling of contentment like instead of instead of filling the the glass of contentment

00:45:29.760 all the way all at once like happiness tries to do gratification delivers little bits of it over

00:45:34.840 time so everyone seems to be minimalism maxine yeah but you make the case that we need to start

00:45:40.660 keeping more junk around yeah i think i mean to the point of you brought up your father's office

00:45:46.000 i have some examples from my dad's office too like business cards i remember his business cards

00:45:50.180 i love it they were printed in a certain way that i could feel the texture of the type on them and

00:45:54.200 that kind of thing and you know just just having some junk can really help because you have

00:45:59.960 something to engage with physically I have a little notepad I use at my desk even though I

00:46:04.740 don't write with a pen and paper I'll sort of plan my day with a pen and paper and and then you know

00:46:09.380 every week I tear it off and I crumple it up and I put it in the wastebasket or I don't put it in

00:46:13.520 the wastebasket or when you go somewhere and you get like a receipt and you just kind of keep it

00:46:18.520 around or a ticket from a show or the program from the concert or a flyer that gets delivered

00:46:25.260 to your door whatever it is those are just additional opportunities not to get information

00:46:31.200 not to solve problems just to engage with a wider variety of textural experiences one of the things

00:46:38.940 i love doing is uh like crinkling you know soda or water cans and putting them into the recycling

00:46:45.920 that's that's yeah well that's a gratifying feeling when you stomp it you get it you stomp

00:46:50.280 it right clean right and i remember that being a much bigger part of life even before recycling

00:46:56.180 was widespread than it is today right now you're just like well i'll just i'll just toss it into

00:47:00.240 the recycling because it'll take care of itself but you used to have to take that stuff out yourself

00:47:04.560 and that was one of the ways that the world sort of sort of encouraged you to engage with that kind

00:47:09.160 of detritus having things you can rummage through that junk drawer experience a little cup full of

00:47:15.220 pens, something that gives you an opportunity to take a little break from the norm, to engage

00:47:22.300 with your senses in a different way, and then to get back to it. That can be really gratifying.

00:47:27.220 One of the things people do a lot at work is they'll decorate their workspaces, their cubicles

00:47:32.320 or whatever, but they usually do it just visually. And if you have a toy, I have a Rubik's Cube on

00:47:37.880 my desk, and I just can't stand the Rubik's Cube. I'm not trying to solve it, but I'll pick it up

00:47:42.600 every now and then and spend it a little it has that like plastic creaky sound you know what i

00:47:46.360 mean can you hear it if i if i put it next to the microphone yeah that too it's not exactly like

00:47:52.660 keeping junk around but the thing that's here is not just here to be decor or here to signal

00:47:58.260 something about like you know my style or my attitude it's also there for me to see to touch

00:48:03.920 to hear you mentioned tickets how do you do that because it seems like more and more tickets are

00:48:10.060 going digital yeah they went the qr code route with the menus you know and that feels like a

00:48:17.380 particular loss to me because that sense of being like deeply engaged with this piece of paper that

00:48:22.020 you could easily lose and that maybe cost you hundreds of dollars and then you're out the

00:48:26.460 opportunity to go the stakes were high yeah the stakes were high and so it connected you to it

00:48:30.700 but usually when there's a loss like that a dematerializing effect there's something else

00:48:35.460 that takes its place that's available and that might be you know the program that you get at

00:48:41.000 the theater like some people will bring back their playbill from a broadway show and they'll put it

00:48:44.940 in an album but it's equally gratifying to take the brochure of the program and kind of like roll

00:48:49.600 it up you know and put it in your jacket pocket and then not really trying to save it for later

00:48:54.420 necessarily you just want a thing that gives you this sort of additional sensory connection to the

00:48:59.320 experience or maybe you find it a year later in your jacket pocket when the seasons roll around

00:49:04.360 again. And yeah, you remember going to the show, but then there's this little surprise that you

00:49:08.500 can engage with and perhaps just throw away. You can buy, I mean, like it's been turned into

00:49:13.540 commerce, right? Now you can buy a souvenir instead where you used to have the ticket

00:49:17.380 to take with you. And that's okay, I think. I mean, I think we need to recognize that

00:49:22.360 as the world has shifted, taking advantage of opportunities to be engaged with our senses

00:49:27.660 is something that's worth pursuing, that's even worth spending money on. So you can buy these

00:49:32.800 like souvenir tickets now for certain shows where you go to like a football game or whatever and

00:49:36.900 you buy like the the version of the ticket that you used to get on paper and now you've got to

00:49:41.620 pay money and it's put behind plastic and it feels ridiculous but it's okay because what you're

00:49:46.740 trying to get is like a tactile experience not just a memory and getting that via a service or

00:49:52.140 even an object is all right is all right like that that counts as living in the world in a more

00:49:56.580 gaugeway as well yeah our family we prefer paper tickets when we fly always get a paper right i

00:50:03.140 haven't i haven't done the phone yet we haven't done it but there's a hierarchy of paper tickets

00:50:07.560 you know there is there's the one that you get at the self-service kiosk is that flimsy

00:50:11.280 yeah i'll take that but my favorite paper plane tickets are when you get them at the gate

00:50:16.580 so i know exactly and it's the old the hard card stock and then like they're still using the

00:50:21.600 computer that's running cobalt or whatever that's right i love that ticket it's just like it's

00:50:26.180 sturdy and i love the way it feels and it bends and it perforates you can tear it it's gratifying

00:50:31.700 you know and the thing about that example is that it's it's not gone it's not gone it's it's not

00:50:36.900 automatic but the thing i love about this is you can go up to the ticket to the gate agent

00:50:42.340 and you can ask them for a boarding pass they won't blink they'll print one for you right away

00:50:46.640 and then you'll have it and you can hold it and you can fold it and you can tear off that little

00:50:50.860 bit that you're talking about and you can put it in the seat in front of you and forget it or you

00:50:54.540 can put it in your bag and take it home it's still there and still available and you might as well

00:50:59.180 take advantage of it if that moment is worthwhile to you which in your case it is there's other

00:51:04.120 people like i don't want to have that ticket i you know i'm actually fine with the gratifying

00:51:07.960 feeling of of hearing and seeing the qr code scan so it's not like there's a right way to do this

00:51:13.920 but where it's available just take it and even the experience of like going to the gate agent

00:51:19.840 and like looking them in the eyes

00:51:21.620 and talking to them with actual language, right?

00:51:24.860 That's a moment of gratification too

00:51:26.760 that's available to you

00:51:27.760 where you connect with another person doing their work.

00:51:30.980 And they're right there.

00:51:32.180 They're right there.

00:51:32.680 All you need to do is not be embarrassed or ashamed

00:51:35.480 or think it's weird to do it

00:51:36.880 because it's perfectly normal.

00:51:38.400 Another way you can experience more gratifying moments

00:51:41.740 is to talk about them.

00:51:43.080 That's something I've noticed

00:51:43.820 as we had this conversation.

00:51:45.460 I've been, as we've been talking,

00:51:47.080 more and more memories of gratifying experience

00:51:49.340 have popped up in my head. You talk about this in the book. You had a discussion with a colleague

00:51:54.080 about Diet Coke that led you down this gratification rabbit hole. What happened there?

00:51:59.680 Yeah, I was at a work trip out of town and a colleague of mine who was, I'm really into Diet

00:52:05.580 Coke and she is too. And we were like talking about Diet Coke delivery vessels. You know,

00:52:11.560 like I prefer the fountain. Some people prefer the bottle, which is like a glass bottle is one

00:52:17.220 thing but those plastic bottles i just can't really abide them no drinking my diet it's the

00:52:21.680 worst it's always flat it's always flat and i just don't like holding them we were talking about this

00:52:25.800 and she brought up those big like like usually they were red tumbler cups that used to get at

00:52:30.280 like a place like pizza hut or whatever they were all over the american south which is where i

00:52:34.080 remember seeing giant cups and like the feeling of putting your whole face inside of them and she

00:52:39.140 asked me she was like does it like taste better is there like a science to it does it taste better

00:52:43.120 And I talked to this food scientist friend of mine about it at length and the whole discussion

00:52:47.880 is in the book.

00:52:49.280 But the point is like, yes, all of that matters.

00:52:52.320 And it's not so much about what's better.

00:52:54.520 It's about the experience of difference.

00:52:57.000 It's about engaging with like the feeling of the carbonation hitting your face in a

00:53:02.280 cup from an open lid or from one that's delivered to you at a table at a restaurant versus just

00:53:08.140 sipping it through the opening of a can.

00:53:10.420 Like those things matter.

00:53:11.880 they're worth doing and the varied versions of them also give you kind of different surface

00:53:16.780 areas for gratification but as you said maybe even more important than that is just normalizing them

00:53:22.500 making them feel like they're a real and active and reasonable part of your life and that's where

00:53:29.020 the talking comes in i've found not just over the course of our conversation but as i've been

00:53:33.580 talking about gratification now with lots and lots of different people they're all very willing

00:53:38.000 They're right there with me at every moment.

00:53:40.100 None of it feels weird or strange once you start talking about it.

00:53:43.620 But before you start talking about it, it does feel weird and strange.

00:53:46.940 It feels like, are they going to think I'm crazy for having like a favorite Diet Coke delivery vessel?

00:53:51.140 And then it turns out, no, no, like you're right there with me on the bottles.

00:53:54.720 So just giving this stuff voice, you know, like you're at the airport and you say to your travel companion, I think I'm going to go get a boarding pass.

00:54:01.640 And they're like, great idea.

00:54:02.660 Then we'll have a boarding pass.

00:54:03.740 Like that's all it takes.

00:54:04.880 And then you have it.

00:54:06.020 Or you talk about why you like it.

00:54:07.500 So that part is so easy to do.

00:54:10.220 It just requires a little bit of openness.

00:54:12.940 And it delivers right away.

00:54:15.460 And I mean, you can share stuff on the internet.

00:54:17.020 That's one of the things I miss about Twitter in the early days.

00:54:19.240 People would just share stuff like that.

00:54:20.900 And then it got really serious and had to be your hot takes.

00:54:24.720 I mean, one of the best things about the social internet at its best,

00:54:29.040 when it's really working,

00:54:30.640 is that it really did give us an excuse to talk about our ordinary lives.

00:54:35.840 You know, that's sort of what's happening now provocation that Twitter and other platforms offered.

00:54:41.200 And, you know, yeah, like people would post their meals and whatever, but there was an opportunity and a deep engagement with mundane, ordinary life that was deeply rich and normalizing.

00:54:51.520 and that has been it hasn't been entirely lost but that was what i liked the most about like the

00:54:57.180 heyday of of twitter was that ability to to talk about things like we're discussing now and to

00:55:03.560 have people treat them as insightful and to recognize them as valuable that's harder to do

00:55:08.620 yeah now it's all like you know like politics or argument or what have you one more thing you

00:55:13.420 mentioned that you can do to experience more gratifying moments in your life is to live your

00:55:17.880 life sideways what does that mean so there's this concept called orthogonality that i borrowed from

00:55:24.600 mathematics and from game design and basically all it means is like it's interesting when you're in

00:55:28.860 a system that has something that does one thing and then there's something else that does it kind

00:55:32.780 of like perpendicular to it so in game design we talk about like in chess think about in chess

00:55:38.280 you've got like pieces that move like a rook does in straight lines and then you've got pieces that

00:55:43.260 move like a bishop or a queen does on diagonals. So they're like literally orthogonal to one

00:55:48.520 another. And what that does is it gives you a different sensation. There's different kind of

00:55:53.140 strategies you can use in a game of chess. But you could also think about your sensory life

00:55:57.180 as one that can benefit from orthogonality. So whatever it is that you normally encounter with

00:56:03.500 your body and your senses at home or at work or in whatever you do, if you seek out opportunities

00:56:09.440 for sensory engagement that are orthogonal to it, that are different from the norm,

00:56:14.320 then you're kind of creating this opportunity for a more diverse sensory regimen. So like a simple

00:56:20.480 example is, you know, if you work in an office all day and you're sitting and, you know, you come

00:56:24.260 home and you're like, actually, like I just kind of want to feel my fingers like sink into the wet

00:56:28.780 moistness of the dirt outside in my garden. And that's orthogonality. And the trick is not to

00:56:35.100 turn it into like a task or a job or a goal. But what you're really looking for is just a

00:56:39.740 different sensory experience than you have in your, you know, you got to be a normal routine

00:56:44.680 or in your day, you know, like when you stop and you're like, I think I'm going to, I'm going to

00:56:48.400 go, you know, I work at home, I'm going to go downstairs and I'm going to make lunch. That's

00:56:52.480 also an opportunity for orthogonality, like something different from what you do in your

00:56:56.600 ordinary life or in the ordinary moments that you encounter. Exercise your senses in different ways.

00:57:02.120 I love that. Well, Ian, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more

00:57:05.900 about the book and your work? The book is called The Small Stuff. If you go to smallstuffbook.com,

00:57:11.800 that's the easiest way to get from there to more information about it. And you can find it at your

00:57:16.340 favorite bookseller. The rest of my work is at bogost.com, B-O-G-O-S-T.com. And I'm just really

00:57:24.820 grateful for the opportunity to talk to you about it. Well, Ian Bogost, next time. It's been a

00:57:28.300 pleasure. My guest here was Ian Bogos. He's the author of the book, The Small Stuff. It's available

00:57:33.100 on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his

00:57:36.560 website bogos.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash the small stuff. We find links

00:57:41.660 to resources. We delve deeper into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM

00:57:53.580 podcast. If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate it. Take one minute to give us a

00:57:57.200 View on the podcast player that you use to listen to the show.

00:57:59.700 And if you've done that already, thank you.

00:58:01.440 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think was something out of it.

00:58:05.220 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:58:07.140 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

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The Art of Manliness - August 11, 2026

The Joy of Touching Grass (and Knobs, Buttons, and Boarding Passes)

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