The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.640 Hi, everybody. This is Gad Saad on a Saturday evening. Just came back from my usual deep

00:00:08.400 dive into a used bookstore to find more books as if I need more books, given the huge personal

00:00:15.140 library that I have with many, many hundreds of books yet to be read. But I wanted to mention

00:00:21.520 a couple of things about the importance of reading and the importance of books and so

00:00:25.440 on. My last undergraduate class of the semester happened earlier this past week. And one

00:00:33.200 of the students came up to me at the end of the class and said, can you offer me some advice

00:00:39.000 as to, you know, how to better myself and so on. And I said, well, I've got three, you

00:00:44.620 know, key prescriptions. Number one, read. Number two, read. And number three, read. Some

00:00:52.340 of you may have heard me mention in the past, the oft-referenced finding that the biggest

00:00:59.660 predictor of a child's success is the number of books that are in the home. In any case,

00:01:07.280 I wanted today to, you know, tie that into something that just happened at the bookstore where I

00:01:13.020 was looking for, you know, these gems. Before I do that, I wanted to, well, let me just mention

00:01:21.380 it's about Leonardo da Vinci, one of my big heroes for many, many reasons. But I want to

00:01:27.320 discuss a little passage from, so this is in my latest book, The Sad Truth About Happiness. I

00:01:34.780 really, truly would love if you guys would consider getting a copy. It is such a fun book, so optimistic,

00:01:41.280 so, you know, personal anecdotes, ancient wisdoms, contemporary science dealing with happiness,

00:01:46.900 well-being, and so on, which is something that is particularly apropos as we enter the holiday

00:01:51.980 season. So, on page 120, this is in the chapter where I'm talking about variety as the spice of

00:01:58.500 life, and then in brackets, sometimes I'm talking about intellectual variety seeking. So, let me just

00:02:04.060 read you a passage, and then I'll link it to my latest book, Acquisition. Forgive me.

00:02:11.980 Back in 2014, I wrote a Psychology Today column listing the 10 historical figures I would invite

00:02:18.660 to a party, and I asked people on social media to offer their own lists. The two most popular

00:02:25.000 responses were Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. Here are mine in no particular order, Charles Darwin,

00:02:32.140 Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Galilei, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci,

00:02:39.200 Maimonides, and King Solomon. If I had to put one guest above the others, it would be

00:02:45.880 Da Vinci, because he was the ultimate Renaissance man, a polymath extraordinaire interested in anatomy,

00:02:52.700 botany, and cartography, who made astounding contributions as a painter, engineer, scientist,

00:02:58.640 sculptor, and architect. Some of his sketches were prophetic of future inventions, like the machine

00:03:04.380 gun, and the helicopter. A copy of Da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian man hangs in our

00:03:09.620 bedroom in honor of this great man's intellectual and artistic achievements. We also have another

00:03:13.900 sketch painting by Da Vinci in our bedroom. Now, why am I saying that, of course, is because

00:03:20.740 this is a copy of the first ever biography on Da Vinci that I bought. If memory serves me right,

00:03:30.760 I got this one, I think it was maybe when I was a visiting professor at Dartmouth, I had found this

00:03:37.980 incredible used bookstore, sort of like an entire barn and house, and I think I got it there. I'm not,

00:03:45.260 actually, no, I am wrong. I'm such an idiot. I am such an idiot. No, I just looked at the inscription. 1.00

00:03:52.280 This is a book that my former doctoral student had given me as a gift, and then he has a beautiful

00:04:01.980 inscription on the inside, which I won't read because it's private. I'm such an idiot. I confuse 1.00

00:04:07.860 it with another book. Anyway, so here's that. Now, that's one. Now, you would think, okay, once I've read

00:04:16.100 that book on Da Vinci, we're good, but that wasn't enough. I was giving a talk at USC this past March,

00:04:28.160 and I ended up going to the last bookstore in downtown LA. It was really fun because I had to

00:04:34.820 also avoid getting gang raped by homeless people, but that's just part of the cultural enrichment of

00:04:41.140 downtown LA because Democrats just generally, you know, manage cities better because they're

00:04:46.100 progressive, and so I got this book. Oh, my. Oh, my. So, the first one is Leonardo, the First Scientist

00:04:55.060 by Michael White, and again, to the former doctoral student who is himself a senior professor now,

00:05:05.580 thank you for that incredible gift and for, especially for the inscription inside.

00:05:10.120 The second book by Charles Nichol, Leonardo da Vinci, Flights of the Mind, right here,

00:05:16.860 and as if that's not enough, so today I walk into the used bookstore that I was at, and I asked,

00:05:24.380 hey, can I, do you have the latest biography on, by Walter Isaacson on Elon Musk? Because someone

00:05:33.440 had suggested that I read it. I'll mention who it is. That was actually Drew Pinsky,

00:05:37.420 and they said, no. I said, okay, well, you know what? You know, he's written a lot of other good

00:05:42.760 biographies. I'm particularly interested in the Da Vinci. Do you have the Da Vinci biography by Walter

00:05:50.400 Isaacson? So, he said, well, it could only be in one of two places, either in biographies or in artist

00:05:54.880 biographies. Well, it wasn't in biographies, but then he comes to me and he goes, look what I have.

00:05:59.580 Oh, my. Oh, my. Leonardo da Vinci

00:06:04.580 by Walter Isaacson, and so I said to him, well, here's my problem. I already have two massive

00:06:13.260 biographies on Da Vinci. He's one of my heroes. What do I do? He said, well, that's a no-brainer.

00:06:20.520 Just get it. So, here you go. So, never mind about loving books. Never mind about loving

00:06:25.960 to read. How about having, look at this. Look at this. Three biographies by Da Vinci,

00:06:36.520 and I hope to have enough time in life to actually not only read those three biographies, but to read

00:06:43.040 all of the books in my personal library, it just seems like an affront to human reason

00:06:51.100 to actually not have all of that knowledge somehow imparted into my brain, and so if I can offer you

00:06:58.480 any advice, read, read, read, right? What makes someone interesting? Well, there are many facets

00:07:04.880 to making someone interesting, but to the extent that people pay you money so that you write books,

00:07:09.680 pay you money so they can hear you speak, pay you money so that they can, you know, be at an event

00:07:14.460 with you, that comes from the fact that you're interesting and you have things to say, and that,

00:07:20.260 those interesting things that you have to say didn't just magically enter your brain. It came from,

00:07:27.020 you know, long hours where you sat and you nourished your mind. So, if there, you know,

00:07:33.580 two things you need to do is have a healthy mind and a healthy body, and a healthy mind needs to be

00:07:39.420 nourished with knowledge. So, go out there and read. Cheers, everybody.

Leonardo da Vinci and the Pleasures of Reading and Book Hoarding (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_626)

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