55: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

and entrepreneur. In his own words, he writes personal development advice that doesn't suck. His latest book is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, a counterintuitive approach to living a good life. Great to have you on the show. Mark, Good to be here, Scott, Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, I actually was deliberating for a good five minutes whether not to say the word fuck or not. And I decided because on iTunes like they get put in explicit

rating when you do. And I decided that we'll make this entire show completely uncensored in the spirit of your book, you decided not to give a fuck exactly for this for this episode. I think if every single one of the Psychology Podcast episodes were rated E. It would take it into another category, maybe of it would take it out of social sciences. And I don't know, but I'm really great to have you on the show. I really enjoyed reading your book. It resonated a lot of levels cool, awesome.

So I want to start with Charles Bukowski. What does he illustrate about why it might be a good thing not to give a fuck? Well, I wanted to One of my big goals with this book was I wanted to write kind of a self helpish style book that

focused very heavily on negativity. And there's a variety of reasons for that, and we can we can kind of get into that, but I was actually I wrote all of chapter one, which kind of the point of the chapter one is to just introduce some of the concepts, the idea of not giving a fuck or giving a fox or whatever, and and kind of introducing the reader to the style and the overall theme of the book.

But I needed to fill in, you know, you have to have that opening story that every uh like nonfiction book is required by law to have, and I couldn't quite figure one out. And then I kind of I decided. I was, like, you know what I want. I want to find somebody who is maybe like the absolutely worst role model that you could possibly have, or the best one for your book. Yeah, exactly. And uh and and

I'm a huge Bukowski fan. I've written about him on my site before, and he came to mind, and I actually realized that it was perfect because on paper, Bukowski's story is it's class, it's a classic one of success. He was a failed writer for over thirty years. He had all sorts of personal struggles, he was broke all the time, and then suddenly in his fifties, he broke through and became this this big success. But the funny thing about him is that there's not him as a person.

There's nothing admirable about him, Like he wasn't waking up at five am and meditating and like doing affirmations, like he was getting drunk and wasting his money both before and after his fame and success. And so I really liked kind of using him to illustrate this idea that personal growth and success sometimes happen together, but they don't always happen together, and that it's important that people kind of realize that they're they're different things. So how does

the story illustrate that exactly? Well, because he was still a loser, like, okay, good, okay, even once he became famous, Like he he used to go to his like his readings, and he would he would be so drunk he like couldn't even stand up, and he would start screaming at the audience. And he still got arrested for hiring prostitutes, even you know, even after he was making all this money. So it's like he was actually just this a really

horrible person. And well, you know that's so interesting. So so yeah, you can be a success and be a loser at the same time. Yeah. And and and if you read Bukowski's work, like, one of the things, the thing that makes his work so amazing, yeah, is that he never flinches from that, like he is he knows who he is, he knows he's a fuck up, and he knows that he's never going to be this like

glamorous literary figure. Yeah. Uh. And and it's the fact that he is so painfully honest about that in his work, like who he is and how dysfunctional he is is actually what makes his work great and So I love that. I that that theme of of you know what, and this kind of leads into the rest of the book. But it's like, we shouldn't be striving to like become this great, amazing person. And it's more we should strive to become comfortable with with our failures and our faults

and our dysfunction. That's one element of that. Is another element of it that that I get from the story as an importance of authenticity, yeah, or honesty, And that's a that's like another point. Probably, So I want to quote you. It might be weird if I'm going to be quoting you a couple of times thout this interview to hear yourself, but I hope you could deal with it. So the key to a good life is not giving

a fuck about more. It's about giving a fuck about giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important. You just maybe say the word fuck three times in word sentence thank you, and you had to send it call in to just like elongate the pain. I'm here to destroy your shows. Thanks a lot. Man. It felt slightly uncomfortable saying that, but but maybe that's your point. Maybe I should learn to become more comfortable.

So yeah, can we a lot of ways? I thought that was kind of a big essence of the whole book, was that sentence, right, Yeah, Yeah, I again coming back to this idea of like a negative form of self help, like so much there's so much pressure on us, both in like the personal growth and self development industry, but also I think just in our culture at large, to always be striving for more, and there's just this implication that more is always better, So more success, more happiness,

more stuff, you know, more better relationship, more relationships, more friendships, more money, you know. And I think there's there's a certain point, like it's good to have, you know, to

strive for things and to want to accomplish things. But I think I almost think that our culture has kind of reached a point where it's it's becoming unhealthy a little bit, where this constant striving for more and more and more creates this feeling that we're never enough, and then that leads to a very like emotionally unhealthy place, or it doesn't necessarily lead, but it supports kind of

like an unhealthy relationship with oneself. And I really love the idea, I mean, in my own life I've always found that when I kind of have these breakthroughs or these periods where I feel like I become a better person, it's usually because I'm simplifying my life rather than trying to, you know, become like the best at everything and do everything. And and so I really wanted to write, I guess, like a self help book about caring about less, like

pursuing less. Yeah, and you know, you put a really fastenating spin on it. I mean obviously others have written about that, Like the word you know, deep work by Cal Newport is about getting deep into your work and ignoring distractions. And you know, uh ars, Charles duhig right wrote you know, Faster, Stronger whatever, the book that all the books called. I just I just I just had him on my podcast and I can't remember his name, so but he it's a good book. I just say

it's a good book. Uh yeah. And it talks he talks a lot about and by the way, in the spirit of this, I'm not going to edit that. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna let it all out in this podcast. I'm gonna be human, I'm gonna be here, I'm gonna show that I'm human right be be authentic so that I'm getting Alzheimer's the age of thirty seven, I can't remember anything, okay, but yeah, and so so this is in the air, this idea of focus on what matters. But you know it is and you know when I

reading your book, you know, I got new insights. And it's kind of the framing of this as caring less about the things that don't matter. Not just like caring less, but you know, like this aspect of of of of the paradox of everything that is positive as negative, and then pursuing the negative generates the positive. I mean that's like a really that is a counterintuitive idea, right, yeah,

so can you impack that quite that that a little more. Yeah, it's it's actually an idea that comes from Alan Watts and well, and he got the idea from from studying Buddhism. But you love Alan Watts. But he called it the backwards law, which is basically, the more you try to pursue positive experiences, that the pursuit itself is a negative experience because what you're doing when you're chasing after happiness or you're chasing after some kind of like ideal idealization.

You're putting yourself in the state where you're you're not good enough already, where you're lacking something, where you're insufficient in some way. And counterintuitively, when you accept and embrace the negative parts of your life, the pain in your life, the struggle in your life, that acceptance or that embracing is itself a positive experience. And so there's something actually very liberating in acknowledging your own weaknesses or exposing your

own insecurities because they don't they don't control you anymore. Yeah, I really like that. That's a common theme throughout the whole book of Relinquishing. There are a lot of power paradoxical ways where we really push that control and we get better outcomes without directly striving for it. And I really like that point a lot. I know it's another common theme throughout the whole book is the word entitlement. That seems to be a very common threat in almost

every chapter. So what does Why is entitlement not a good thing? Well? I loosely define entitlement in the book, and it's funny you you noted that I had a lot of trouble choosing which word to put on this concept, and eventually I think my editor and I talked about

it and we settle on entitlement. But the way I describe in my book is entitlement is basically a sense or belief that you deserve special treatment, or that you deserve something that you didn't necessarily earn or aren't responsible for.

In the classic man of station of this is you know, it's all the like the articles shitting on millennials saying that you know, oh, these kids they demand they want to make six figure jobs, have six figure jobs without you know, working for it, and they want their parents to pay for their apartments and all this stuff like that's one form of entitlement. But in the book, I talk about entitlement more in terms of like it's kind

of a figment of a delusional self perception. So people who have an irrational sense of how important they are or how good they are at things, and also people who have an irrational sense of how bad they are. So entitlement I describe like entitlement actually comes in two forms. You have two You have one group of people who says like, I'm amazing and everyone else sucks, so I

deserve special treatment. And then you have another form of entitlement, which is I suck and everyone else is amazing, so I deserve special treatments. And the trick of like being a rounded human being is kind of like just realizing that you're actually not very special at all, and that pretty much all the pain and suffering that's going on in your life is going on in millions of other

people's lives as well. But isn't that also to have a just have a realistic sense of self that's neither inflated or deflated, but just is what it is exactly, Because you know, in the psychological literature there's there's two forms of narcissism that map onto the two forms you just talked about. There's vulnerable or covert or closet narcissism, which is, you know, I'm really what was me, I'm horrible, I'm a victim. The world doesn't really realize how special

I am. And then there's the grandiose form of narcissism, which is the other form you talk about. And it seems like the way forward is to not, yeah, just not be too inflated or too deflated. Yeah, it is to just be grounded and and kind of humble, about it. And it's funny you pointed that out because I I originally wrote the book with narcissism as the term because I done some research on it, and I'm sure you came across the underground narcissist. Yeah. Yeah, I just made

up that phrase. But yeah. But but when it got to like my editor was like, dude, you got to chill out on the narciss Like it's like, this isn't really that fun to read. It was like, is there another word of Like how about entitlement? How about entitled people? Is that that's like in all the headlines these days? But all right, But honestly, honestly, I say this, I

say this, you know, seriously, I think you nailed. You nailed the core of it, because I actually just the last podcast I had it was with Kristin Dombek, who wrote the Selfishness of Others and actually putting up that episode after yours. I'm trying to get yours out quickly because of the book. But the listener, so the listener is listening to this right now, will be like, yeah,

where's that episode? But no, you'll get it. But basically my conversation, oh my god, what was I going to say, just now, my god, wait, what do you say about talking about narcissism? And I have to use the word entitlement? Oh okay, okay. So christ and I were trying to talk about what is selfishness? What is the essence of narcissism? Is it just grandiosity? Well, no, it's not. We want people to have to have ambition. You know, having ambition

is not narcissism. What about other common things that we tend to conflate with narcissm Well, vulnerability. Vulnerability is not necessarily narcissism. It could have But so it does seem like the core is entitlement. Uh So without even saying it, you know, without directly saying the word, I think you still nailed the core of it. So anyway, if you wanted any justification at all, Yeah, And it's it's it's funny because like I often have to stop myself from

I mean, this book it's it's it's geared. The purpose of this book was very much written for like an individual person, but in the course of writing it, I often had to like stop myself like veering off into cultural commentary. Right, and and you're as you're I'm sure you're aware, and a lot of listeners are aware, Like there's a lot of discussion and research going on in terms of around the idea that our culture is becoming

more narcissistic, particularly younger generations are becoming more narcissistic. And uh, and I'm absolutely fascinated by this topic and and so I try to touch on I tried to touch on it in a number of ways in the book that you know, wouldn't necessarily like set off alarm bells, trigger, trigger, But I do think it is something that is it's a legit thing that's going on, and I see it as is not necessarily uh, you know, like helicopter parenting

or or whatever, but it's I think there's something kind of innate in all the technology these days, like having like having all this information. What I think what tends to happen is the technology selects information that or is heavily bias towards information that makes us feel good and that reaffirms our own biases and what we want to

hear about ourselves. And I think that is what's leading to a culture of people who just feel like they deserve all this because you turn on the TV and It's like a Budweiser is telling you like you deserve to be happy this weekend. And I think that stuff

starts to sink in after a while. Hey, let me ask you a question, because I've read, you know, Brandon's work all the self esteem, his books on self esteem and stuff, and he says high self esteem is not being entitled to happiness, but feeling as though you're you're worthy of happiness. That does seem like a good thing to me, to be worthy to feel like, you know what, it's I'm allowed. But maybe that's different than entitled. Yeah,

I think so. I think entitled is that I deserve yes and good and I and I think I think it's. If there's one thing I try to get across in my book, it's that like it's okay, yeah, like everybody deserves to be happy sometimes, but you you don't deserve to be happy all the time. You don't everybody like life is full of problems, it's full of suffering, it's full of struggle, and and nobody is above that. Hey, speak for yourself, man, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm happy

all the time. Yeah, do not see my golden crusted water bottle here, I'm joking to the readers. To the listeners, listen to readers. No, it's a great point. So you know, you got me thinking about all sorts of things in this book. You talk about how people you know don't give a fuck, They just do it, like they stop thinking about it at a point, do it. And you know it does apply to social anxiety, Like, can we clearly link this to social anxiety for a second, because

you do talk about your personal's personal struggles. And I want to be very honest here, I have I struggle with this too, very much, and I actually find humor is like the best tool for me to overcome it. I don't know if you found that has been helpful in your own battle with the social anxiety. But this idea of just doing it and kind of letting the feedback from whatever action you just took kind of guide you then to the next action without just planning it

all ahead of time. I love this idea. I love it well. It's so throughout the book. I've got a I've got a few different chapters in the book where I try to and again the book is very negative focused, so I have a chapter based on all about being wrong, you know, And that's one area that people, like, there's some people that are just really terrified of being wrong about something or people finding out that they're wrong about something.

And then I have a chapter on failure, and then I have a chapter on rejection, and I have a chapter on death, and it's I chose these these topics as chapters because, like, the overarching goal of the book is to get people to stop seeing these things as bad things. To stop seeing being wrong is a bad thing, to stop seeing being rejected is a bad thing. And sure it feels bad, but just because it feels bad

doesn't necessarily mean it is bad for your life. And I think where a lot of this anxiety comes from, Like you said, social anxiety, it comes with the meaning

that we attach to the social rejection. And I don't know about you, but like for me personally, when I struggled with social anxiety in my early twenties and my teens, and looking back, I think it's because I had this kind of narrative in my head that if I, like went to a party or something, or if I sat down in class next to somebody and tried to talk to them and they didn't want to talk to me.

That necessarily meant that I was not They didn't think I was cool enough or smart enough, or which may have been true, which may have been true, which may who cames a fuck? Yeah, yeah exactly. And but I had this whole narrative in my head of like that every single social interaction was like this judgment on my character as a human being. And it wasn't until I

let that go that I just realized that. You know, like, first of all, if you walk into a room at a party, half the people there are just as anxious as you are, and that could have all It's like nobody's going to, like if you'd like spill mustard on your shirt or something like, nobody's going to remember it in ten minutes, you know. And it's just it's like relinquishing these these these stories that we tell ourselves in

this eating that we create around this stuff. Yeah, and you know you talk about you know, seeking, you saw validation through lots of sexual experiences, just like the numbers as opposed to the quality. Right. Yeah, didn't you write a book about models about how to get a model? No? I wrote a book called Models Attract Women through Honesty. So I started out, my career started out, I wrote dating advice, Oh so interesting, primarily for men. Yeah, and and so that was that was kind of an extension

of my own fixation on my sex life. I guess you could say, so this has been quite a journey for you then, like it leading up to this, Like you couldn't like this book you wrote, couldn't have probably in terms of order of your life, probably wouldn't have been as rich if you wrote before the Model's book. Right. Oh no, I was completely unprepared. Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to. Yeah, but in a lot of ways, like you needed that in order to make this book

what it is, right, So that's really cool. So yeah, you said you don't know if this it was like this for me, and I feel like you're being so vulnerable, like I should be honest as well. Yeah. I felt for my especially in my twenties, like if I were if I went on dates and stuff and I felt like the girl didn't look like she was interested. That I became so preoccupied with that that it didn't even dawn to me to ask myself, am I happy with her? Yeah?

Like I spend an entire date thinking like something's wrong with me? Why isn't she interested? And then trying to make a relationship work just so that I get validated, and that I wasn't even happy in the relationship, And so it never even like dawned in me to ask, wait a minute, an't I allowed? Again? Not entitled, but allowed? Aren't I allowed to not be happy with this person myself? I don't know if you resonate with that at all, but oh totally. I actually wrote I wrote an article

years ago, probably like twenty ten. Yeah, it was called change your Mind about Dating, and it was basically the entire article was like, next time, if you're worrying if the person across from you likes you, maybe stop and ask yourself if you like them. You're worried that it's great, I don't think you're attractive, stop and ask yourself if you think they're attractive. It just went through like a

laundry list of these questions. Yeah, basically, just like, stop worried about yourself for a while, right right, because think about the person in front of you. Because the universe has does have a funny way of working itself out in a sense that there's probably a reason there, like if this person seems wholly uninterested in you, like there might be like a reason there in the sense like it might not be a good fit. And that doesn't

mean you're a crumb a shitty person. By the way, if it's not a good fit, you know, it means it's not a good fit. Like just stop there, you know, like, yeah, oh, that's really cool. So you talk about happiness, which is I mean, this is cool. Like I don't know if you know anything about me or whatever, but I'm in the field called positive psychology. I do research on this, you know, Like so is some of the field of posit psychology talks about various aspects of all being, which

is not just happiness. Is also meaning purpose relationships, good quality relationships, like values. You talk about about dues, a lots of things you're told you're definitely interested in, But happiness seems to be disproportionately focused on in popular self help books and things you're right, you're right like pulled out as like even though it's only one source of well being, you know, but you know, it does get magnified.

So when you wrote this chapter happiness is a problem, I was like, first of all, I was like, yeah, go, you know, Mark Manson, No, it's really cool. So you frame happiness as so finding a problem to solve can just not organically lead to happiness. Is that right? Without like just saying I'm buying a book on how to be happy? Yeah, it's uh. I really wanted to find

a way. And it's funny, I struggled. I struggled like putting words around this concept for a long time, and then ultimately I kind of landed on the problem language. But I wanted to find a way to kind of just demonstrate that that happiness requires some degree of struggle in your life. Like it's not like like if you just want to feel good all the time. And I know, like in positive psychology, you guys, you differentiate between like pleasure and fulfillmentonia. Yeah, yeah, and and so I I

wanted to make that distinction clear. And then I also wanted to kind of make make the point that like if you think about everything in your life that makes you happy, it's there's some sort of like struggle or low level problem solving that's involved. You know, it's it's a sense of accomplishment requires overcoming some sort of resistance, you know, a sense of satisfaction with yourself requires some some perception that like you've overcome something or grown from something.

And so I wanted and I feel like most of the self help stuff out there, it focuses on happiness in such a way and that people are just running away from what makes them feel bad. It's like, oh, here's a bunch of tools that if you stand in front of a mirror and say them, or if you go to a seminar and repeat after me, like, you'll feel good for a while. And and I just I saw that as it's just offering kind of I guess you'd say, like the hethonic solution, like just the pleasure

based solution. And I wanted to try to offer the I'm totally gonna mispronounce it that you did monic solution. I think I think different people honestly pronounce the different ways. I say, you pnemonia, but yeah, but it's I wanted to, like, I wanted to show that like a lasting long term happiness or satisfaction with oneself, is it requires these struggles in your life, It requires challenge and pain, and is

it comes from how you deal with it. But you also make the point that you it also you have to choose your struggles wisely. Yeah, you know, because a lot there are a lot of struggles that are really so stupid. I'm just because like you know, like like like I I've chosen, and we don't realize we can choose. I don't think that's a word. I just made that up.

I don't think we can realize, like you know what, Like I keep replaying and ruminating my head over and over again, like what is this person like when I said that earlier today, Like oh my gosh, maybe they misinterpreted it. Oh my gosh, maybe like I'm not like I should have said this and that. Can I just decide, you know what, I'm going to choose to struggle with that today. Yeah, I don't know. I never know what's going to come out of my mouth. But but yeah,

so are you Can you give me permission? Mark Manson too when I kind of get in this like ruminative existential rut sometimes or not even existential, because sometimes those are actually good issues, but just like a stupid problem that I can just be like, you know what, I'm going to choose that one. Just don't give a fuck about it many like it's yeah, yeah, it all comes back to that. Yeah, I mean I joke with people

like I've been so I've been doing it. I've been doing a bunch of interviews about this and people, you know, the you it wasn't your first question, but it was like a lot of like the more generic interviews, Like the first thing comes out of their mouth is they're like, so,

why shouldn't we give a fuck about things? And I what I end up telling him was, I'm like, look, I wanted to write a book about values, but nobody's going to go out and buy a book about values, so but so, especially especially a bunch of like struggling millennial kids. So I needed to start. I needed to couch it in this this language of like not giving fucks and being a big badass to get to get people start asking themselves these questions about like what is

important in my life? Like what do I value? What do I care about? Why do I care about this? Should I? Is it worth it? It's so evident to me that that is the core of the book. Like, you know, and especially when you get you get to the latter parts of your book, you talk about the difference in good values and shitty values, and it's it's like, ah, this is really like what his heart is you know, into here. Yeah, it's a lot. I mean it's to

me at least, it's evident. Yeah. So you talk about that like emotions are overrated, and but what you really mean there is not emotions are like we should be psychopaths? Is you? You? Your I mean, your book is hilarious. So you make a point there about how like I'm not saying you should be empty inside? You know, that

would mean you're really fucking psychopath. What I'm saying, what you're saying is that the meaning we are with like letting emotions control our lives is overrated pretty much, right, Yeah, right. I think people put generally put too much emphasis on their emotions, and I think there's a number of influences in the culture that kind of encourage people to to overemphasize their emotions. And and yeah, it's it's not that

emotions aren't important. It's just that they are one piece of our psychological puzzle that we need to like pay attention to. It's it's it's an important part of of I guess use the the your term well being. But it's it's not the whole pie itself. Absolutely, No, that's a that's a great point that kind of needs to be made. I I just want to pick some other sort of sentences because it's pretty cool. I don't Sometimes I read like a couple of paragraphs and then I'll

type like one sentence summary of it. So I read about three pages and then I realized the one in the summary of it was accept your mundane existence. Yes, and and I and I will just that phrase asself. So can you unpack those three pages for me? But I but for podcasts. I thought for podcast purposes. If I knew that if I just said that sentence, it would it would spring a lot of what you were saying. Yeah, it's funny, this this idea. I became really intrigued with

this idea about a year and a half ago. I actually wrote an article called in Defense of Being Average, and the whole article was kind of like encouraging people to not try to be so extraordinary all the time. But where this actually started, where it came from, is you know, like get I get tons of reader emails through my website and my audience at Skews Younger. But it's you know, it's it's pretty broad but I'd say the bulk of it is like people in their twenties, twenties,

early thirties. And I noticed I was getting tons and tons of emails from like college kids, people just out of school, people who are like twenty six, twenty seven, figuring out their career. And they would they would send me their like people can't see me, but I'm doing air quotes, their quote problem in their life, And basically the only problem was they had these astronomical expectations for themselves.

I think they saw like way too many movies or like YouTube videos of people just doing incredible shit all the time, and and they were upset. Like they would they would describe their life and I'm like, wow, this is a really smart, successful, upper middle class twenty five year old who's doing great. And then they would they but they would talk about it as if their life was just this utter failure and that they had like everything they were and they were doing was kind of worthless.

And it just intrigued me that the bar for some people was being pushed so high and why that was happening, and why that's not that that's like not necessarily like a healthy thing. And I know, for for me personally, like I used to get really excited, Like I used to love astronomy in school, and one of the reasons I loved it was just how massively, like if you spend an hour contemplating how massive the universe is, you

start feeling so insignificant yourself. And for some reason that always felt like very liberating for me, because it really I suddenly realized, you know, like when you start thinking about like how big the galaxy is for an hour and then you think back to like the stupid thing you said to the cute girl after lunch, like you're like, wow, that really doesn't matter, Like it's like such a like a non issue in terms of universe. It's so well, but you know it doesn't matter to the universe, but

yeah it could matter. I mean it's like all it's all you have, though, Yeah, it's like oh yeah, but it's by the way, I lay in my bed all night thinking about this stuff too, so yeah, but it's like you get to choose what it means, you know, Like it's no, there's no like definitive law saying like you're a dork because you like embarrass yourself in front of an attractive person. And at least when I was younger, I always found this like very all mean in a

weird way and all what do you say? Call mean? Call oh call me? Got yeah, call mean? And so yeah, I wanted to. I think it's important to just remember, like how inconsequential ninety percent of our actions are. And you have a very existential philosophical approach to life, yeah, or stoic as well, yes, yeah, yeah, I mean I I tend to as well, which I think is why I resonated so much with this book. And but it also the humor of the book is very essential too, right,

It's yeah, I can't explain it, but it is. That's just what it is. It's it is, right, It's it's you're aware, you're of the absurdity. You're of the meta absurdities of existence or not of existence, of of what what we put you know, the kind of things that we worry about, you know, in our existence. Yeah, and

that's very freeing too. Yeah. So you probably could have been a comedy writer as well, right, in a different career maybe, I mean, it's I mean, especially if you look at some of the articles on my site, like it's there's a lot of comedy in there, and and I feel like i've honestly, I feel like some of my biggest influences are people like like George Carlin and

John Stewart. It's like, like I I grew up loving Carlin not just because of how funny he was, but like he could take like a really deep, insightful, kind of painful philosophical point and show it to you and just make you laugh your ass off while hearing it. You know, like he could like change your life while you're laughing about it. And I always loved that. And Stuart. I felt like Stuart was really good at doing that with like world events and politics and things like that.

So I draw a lot of inspiration from those guys. Yeah, totally. And you know, the in the ego defense or the defense mechanism literature, you know, they have they label all these defenses like immature defenses like projection and displacement all this stuff, and then you have neurotic defenses. But one of the mature defenses is humor, and in that exact way, not in a way that puts yourself down, but puts things in perspective by magnifying it. You know, in the

other direction. So, yeah, you have a good coping mechanism to the reality of it, of existence, which is that re existence is inevitably shitty, right, totally, Like I mean, well, it's like no extanded cause doesn't exist, or finding out for the first time. What if some of our listeners for the first time are finding out, you know, that that their existence is really shitty and insignificant. I'm sorry

my apology. I guess the point is it's supposed to inspire, inspire them to Well, well, you would be the first one to say the point in this book is not to inspire you. But I think I think as an outcome, because I don't want to offend your sensibilities, but I would say your book could be inspirational as an as an unintentional outcome, because it lets you kind of relax. Right, Well,

I see it. I see my work in general as it's Yeah, it's not inspiring it and in fact, like it's it should be uncomfortable to read sometimes for people, And I get those emails a lot that people are like this, this was hard to read. Oh, I'm sure I'm going to get shut down. I'm sure my podcast will get shut down after this interview because all the appos. Yeah,

but I I see this stuff as liberating. I mean it comes back to the the kind of the original point that like embracing the negative aspects of your life actually frees you from them. And and so if you can find a way that like you can like hold somebody's hold, a reader's hand or a listener's hand and like guide them into that place to do it, you know, whether it's through humor or storytelling or whatever. Like I

think it's a very liberating thing. Like one of my one of the most popular articles on my site is an article it's called love is Not Enough, And I get emails from people who are like I cried from like sadness reading this. But it's also one of the most you know, important things I've read from my relationship or my marriage or whatever, because it's just it's it's shocking, but like they need to hear it, so I'll have

to read that one. Yeah, it's uh, it's funny. I did another interview I did the listeners won't understand this reference, so you can just edit it out. Like I did another interview I did. The guy was like, oh, so you are disappointment Panda like, Oh, yeah, that's your that's that's who you are. I'm like, yeah, that's your superhero.

You're you're the superhero. Yeah. And but for the record, I actually have this cheeky idea I'm gonna just be the first psychology podcast episode that's one hundred percent raw and uncut. So I'm just gonna leave it all. I think I'm gonna leave. I think I'll do that. I love it. But now that I've said that, I'm gonna be the now actually cant of for the next twenty minutes. No, but now that, now that I'm my conscious of that that I made that decision. But no, what, so what

is the difference between good value and a shitty value? What?

What is the difference? So, yeah, this is where it gets nerdy and philosophical because it's so I mean, let me just preface this by saying that anybody, anybody listening to this who wants to write a book about values, uh, don't because it's like, it's such it's such an abstract concept to describe and and and like boil down into like like example, because everything when you reach that level of abstractions, like everything relates to everything and uh yeah,

I'm sure, I'm sure, Like especially you being in like academia, like you probably run into this all the time. But like, uh I my definition of good values versus bad values is good values are reality based, socially constructive, and they're immediately controllable by you. Bad values are superstitious, socially destructive,

and not immediate or controllable. And you can take that in like so many different directions that we're just like we're just like smoking pots someday and like and you're like, what are good better? I mean, how does how do you come up with that? Like it makes a lot of sense, but how did you? Yeah, it took a long time. Well, I mean I knew so valuing things that are immediately immediate, controllable like that that is self

help one on one. So any self help seminar you go to people are like, you know, you should only care about things you can control or you can you know, if if something's out of your control, then just like let it go, don't let it affect you or whatever.

I added the socially constructive socially destructive because one of the big problems I have with the self help industry in general is that it takes a bunch of miserable people and turns them into narcissistic, feel good people who unknowingly or unintentionally like maybe a little bit socially destructive in their behaviors. Would you say a lot of the gurus who write the books have the same exact personality profile. Sometimes I definitely think that there's got to be there's

a common threat there somewhere. There's definitely some sort of like, let me just put it this way, I think self help gurus as a population would score extremely high on the narcissistic personality as or whatever. Okay, I just I agree. I agree, But I just got something in my head that I'm want to run it by you, because I don't It's just entered my head, So I don't know. It could be not true. You talk, really, you talk

the best interesting way. You say that the person who likes playing the victim and the person who is deeply insecure and depends on other on helping others for their own sense of self esteem and value, they actually tend to go well together. But it's a very destructive relationship. Is that the relationship that we're talking here about the guru and the I just thought of that for that, I just thought of that. But I does that make sense?

It's a codependent relationship? Could that be true? It doesn't in my opinion. It doesn't just apply to relationships. You can see it in friendships. You can see it in family relationships. You can see and you could see it in and self help guru client relationships. And I used to so I used to do uh, used to be used to be I I flirted with gurudom earlier in my career and I quickly developed a distaste for it,

and I try to avoid it now. But it's weird because when you when your whole job is to write about life advice, it's a sticky situation. But I used to us. I used to do some some like personal consulting with people. And I noticed that I would get clients that they basically just wanted me to save them, like they wanted they were willing to sit, to do or try any like crazy half baked idea I had, and and it made me one, it made me uncomfortable

having that much power and responsibility. But two, I I quickly started to realize that like that itself was their problem was that they were looking for somebody to come save them rather than trying to work on saving themselves. And and as soon as I realized that, I realized that I was also part of their problem, and therefore the best thing I could do for them is to just refuse their money and not not work with them anymore.

So I ended, I ended. I stopped doing personal consulting years ago, and that and that was one of the big reasons why. Yeah, makes a lot, a lot a lot of other sense, and I, yeah, I think there's such a good linkage there. And cool, Well, thanks for letting me just play that idea out and discuss it with me, because I think there is something there with that relationship. Yeah, I do so like that. Yeah, it's unhealthy. Was it Spider Man who said that with great power

comes great responsibility? It's Uncle Ben? Uncle Okay, so uncle I think some people attribute that to Spider Man. But so Uncle Ben said that. But you're saying Uncle Ben was off his rocker. He uh, he kind of got that mixed up. Yes, he had it backwards the whole time. Uncle Ben had it backwards. Senility. Yes, so let's not let's not speak poorly of the dead. Do you mean the fictional dead. The fictional dead uncle Ben died a very tragic death. Okay, fair enough, we shouldn't be too

harsh on it enough, but yeah, it's uh. I actually I heard this, and of all places, I heard this in a marketing seminar, somebody said. Somebody was like, yeah, if you flip those around it also, it makes even more sense with great response, with great responsibility comes great power. And I was like, WHOA mind blown because that that

just and I don't think, yeah you said it. He was talking about, like I don't know, buying Google ads or something, but like as soon as he said that, I was like, that applies to so much psychologically in life, Like this is huge, and uh yeah, well could you explain to the reader what that what that means about

the importance of accepting responsibility. So it basically it's I have a chapter on the chapter is called you are Always Choosing, and I make the point that and it's it's a it's a very classic, I guess life advice point, which is, you know, no matter what happens to you, no matter how bad things get, no matter how victimized you are, you always you're always able to choose both the meaning you attach to the event and also your response, how you react what's going on around you. And so

in fact, we're always choosing in every moment. You know, It's like if if a car hits you and you end up in the hospital like you didn't, it's not your it's not your fault that a car hit you, but it's still your responsibility to deal with that car hitting you. And so in a sense, we are. It's it's this radical form of responsibility that we are always responsible for every moment of our life, everything that happens in our life, because we are always responsible for making

the choices of how we react to everything. And and there's a there's a huge sense of personal empowerment that comes with that, and in that sense that we are we are in control of our own destiny and that and that we always have some sort of influence on the events of our lives. Are you there? I am? I am? Okay? Oh? Were you done talking? I was the cadence of that laws it didn't didn't feel like it was. It was done. I won't edit this out. I won't out you were deep in thought about your

next question? Yes? Yes, so can you repeat the last sentence you said, a crap, what was the last sense it was? Uh? I mean basically, and and I think you find this in the the literature as well, the psychological literature is that like people, people need to feel a sense that like they have some degree of control over their own lives, and that the more they feel they're able to like affect what's going on in their life,

the the you know, the better they feel about their life. Yeah, self efficacy, that's what psychologist would call Albert Bandora would call it self efficacy. Uh. But also you know, you are you are very existential because you know a lot of the like Sauter, a lot of people talked about there was the points of taking responsibility. So yeah, actually I got this idea. I didn't mention him in the book,

but I read some starter in college. I don't even remember what it was, but he talked about how like you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Yeah, and I remember that was. That was one of those like nineteen year old mind blow blown moments for me, you know, like sitting in my dorm room hung over, like, oh my god, this is amazing. Yeah, no, it is. It is quite profound when you understand the applications of

it fully. Yeah. Yeah, So you talk about the importance of saying no and the and and the importance with that of being committed to things you do want to say yes to, whether it's a relationship partner, whether it's a job, et cetera, and the kind of freedom that comes from that. And that's also a very existential point as well. But could you collaborate a little bit more on what might be a counterti about the relationship between

commitment and freedom. So, one thing I in my when I was younger, I very much Well, first of all, let's get this out there. I've always been a commitment fobe. It's like it's been one of my most sensitive areas in my life. And I think, as kind of a side effect of that, my ambitions when I was younger were generally all outwardly directed and directed towards like an accumulation of experiences or events or whatever, you know. So it was I wanted to travel the world, but I

wanted to travel like everywhere and do everything. And in my personal relationships, I wanted to have like tons and tons of friends and date tons and tons of women and learn a bunch of languages and study this subject and stuff multiple businesses and do all this stuff and and so it was this constant process in my life of jumping from one thing to another. And there's a lot of uh, there's a lot of language in our

culture that that sees that as freedom. You know, the idea that you can go like you can start an online business and go live anywhere in the world, and you can teach yourself anything and work your own hours and all this stuff like this is it's a very conventional notion of freedom. And I was a little bit obsessive with this kind of interpretation of like a freedom

and living life that way. And but eventually, uh, you know, you start to mature a little bit and you and you realize, like, wait a second, Like if I ever want to get like really really good at something, I need to work on it for a long time and get good at it. Or if I want to build like a really great business or a great career, I need the buckle down and like put a couple of

decades into it. And similarly, I met my my fiance, and I was like I started to realize once I'd been with her for a while that it's there's there's this whole there's this whole level of experience that you don't achieve without like it's depth based basically, Yeah, it's

we everything. All the freedom that I the ideas of freedom that I had bought into when I was younger, were based on like a breath of experience and a breath of options, Whereas there are some things in life that you just you simply can't access unless you've worked on it for ten years or less. There's or a relationship that you've had for ten twenty years, Like, there's just certain parts of the human experience that you can't access without that commit And that realization for me was

a real game changer. It was. It was very eye opening for me because it kind of went against I guess you would say the the way that all the stuff that I had been telling myself for years due to like my insecurities. No, that makes a lot of sense. Well, thanks for being so honest about all that. Yeah, dude, Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah, No, I agreed, Absolutely agreed. So let's this has been an extremely long interview and but the extremely interesting and I want to end with

the fitting topic of death. Yeah, well, hopefully none of those will die the second after this podcast is over. Yeah wait wait till podcast is all ye die? Yeah, exactly exactly, or buy my book didn't die. Yeah, well that was narcissistic thing to say, but so, I mean,

I'm really happy you bring up Ernest Becker's book. Ernest, I guess Ernest Becker's book, And yeah, it's a it's I found it a profound, profound book as well, And and I think it's really interesting that he wrote that in the last couple of years of his life and maybe only get that kind of work out of out of it when when you kind of your your your your your mortality is so salient. But what what do you get? What do you what? What do you what?

What does death acceptance by you? I guess how I would ask that, I think, I mean, and this was Becker's point is that, well Becker's Becker's kind of his whole point was that a lot of what we think is so important or the things that we cling to in our life desperately, which we often cling to them because it's it's our way of feeling as though we can become immortal or escape death, that we can create something or create some sort of influence that will outlive

our physical selves. And and Becker pointed out that a lot of this that clingage to something, to some you know, ideology or movement or piece of work or whatever, actually leads to a lot of the violence and strife and

suffering that happens in the world. And he basically kind of ended on the note that it's the more comfortable we get with you know, we're never going to be completely comfortable with our own our own death, but the more we think about it and make some space for it, I think, I think when I die, I'll feel pretty comfortable. Do you think so when I'm actually dead? Oh well, yeah, it was a joke. So it was a joke, but it Yeah, if we make some space for thinking about

our own death, it I think it does two things. One, it helps us relinquish some of like the more like like fervent beliefs or impulses that we have. And then two it also it puts things in perspective. You know. I actually I had a friend recently who somebody close to them just died, and uh, she it inspired her to basically like in her marriage, and but she talked

about it. It It wasn't like a negative thing. It was just like wow, Like my friend's death showed me, Ah showed me that what was actually real in my life and what was in all like the bullshit that I'd been telling myself for years and years and years. It has, death like has some ability to just clarify things for people.

And I think I think most people who who've experienced, who have been close to death before, I've experienced that in some sense, like they you know, again, the book is about values, and so it's death is the single thing that that shines a very bright light on your values and whether they're they're really worth it or not. That's pretty uh pretty, I mean, I think that's true. It's also you know, it's profound. But I think people who have first hand faced that mortality definitely will resonate

a lot with what you're saying. So, you guys, this question, you say, is this it? You know, like you talk about the sunny side of death is testing? You know, when framing it, you always want to end your whole book on a on a a positive note. You know, the sunny side of death? Is this it? You know, when you said, is this it. It reminded me I read a blog post of yours once that had stuck in my mind. You say something like, and then there's just the silence. Yeah, do you remember what blog post

that was? I think you kind of like ended the whole blog post with that. I did. It's funny. I I have a weird habit of getting extremely existential and yeah, I love it. I don't nowhere I'll have a blog post about like yeah, and then there's silence, yeah, and then and then all have a paragraph that just kind of like, oh, by the way, you know that that dating that we were just talking about it means nothing because the universe is ever expansive. Yeah, yeah, I don't.

I don't remember, but I have. I have a handful of articles that sure throw stuff like that in and and it's just yeah, I don't know, like sometimes I just get this. I don't know how to describe it. I I so I got really into zen Buddhism for a while, and and so I'm very I'm very influenced by that. And I remember there used to be this feeling that I would get when I would I would go do like meditation retreats, or I would listen to like Dharmatox, and every once in a while I would

kind of like enter this state. It's not even I can't even say it's a feeling, because it wasn't an emotion. It was just this. It was this level of awareness of that I guess I was able to just see like the impermanence of everything, yes, and be able to observe everything within myself and also without myself in like just kind of a very indifferent way. And I think that there are just moments where I just get really into like writing something very philosophical, that that state kind

of washes over me again. And and I talk about in that chapter that that one thing that brings me back to that place is like putting myself in these kind of crazy situations that make me think about my own death. And so yeah, sometimes it just comes out and it's and you know, one of the great things about being a blogger is you don't have like an editor screaming at you, telling you're crazy and you have to delete all this stuff, and so I just say

fuck it. I mean, I put it up. But it's funny because I did stick in my head and I remember, you know, I must have read that a while ago, and and yet you know, that's what. I can't remember the rest of the post, but that, yeah, right, that really sticks in my head. You know, do you feel are you like me as well? Where are you like?

Because I I do try to practice mindfulness, meditation and things and and and read on zen and stuff, but it kind of makes me snap back and forth between two modes of thought, one where I'm like I am human and I'm experiencing the world, and the other where I'm the observer and I'm standing outside of my body and it's like I can they're they're dratically different things like when you're in like you know, in a club

or whatever and you're like doing normal human things. Like you don't want to always be existential about it because at some point you won't be happy if if you never actually exist be you know like like like say stupid things to all one or do something stupid like sometimes you want to do that, right, Yeah, but then you'll snap back into you know, observer of your self mode and then it just changes the whole frame of reference of everything. Yeah. It's a it's a weird thing.

I mean, I never I was always wary I never like got fully aboard the the Buddhist meditation train and went like hardcore about it. And I think, I think what you just said is kind of the thing that prevented me is because and who knows, Like I mean, if you talk to a zen master, they would probably say like, oh, yeah, that's your ego like resisting its own death, and uh, that's that's their answer for everything.

Yeah yeah, yeah, like excuse me, excuse me, can you give me directions to wah wah, And They'll be like, that's your ego preventing the existence everyone, do you like, uh, oh okay, but yeah, but yeah, I just I I always had this kind of the same as you, like this overwhelming sense of like well yeah, but like I need to like live my life, you know. Yeah, sometimes you just gotta like deuce like normal human things, yeah, you know, and be in it, be in it versus

be above it. Yeah yeah, And I mean what I wish. But on the flip side, I've tried to maintain like a casual meditation practice for years and I'm horrible at it. I think most people are horrible at it. Like I go months without doing it and I'm always telling myself, I should do it, and it's really something about it.

It's really really hard to do, but I know how, like I know how beneficial, not just in terms of like health and energy and things like that, it is incredibly beneficial, but also like having that perspective occasionally it's it's really nice to go back to that place, and you know, maybe it's kind of I was talking earlier about being an astronomy class, like trying to conceptualize how big the universe actually is and how that put me in a state like it was very similar where you

have that you just zoom out so far that it's called the overview effect. Yeah, yeah, well that I mean that's what one technology. Yeah, in psychology, my colleague David yayden Is is studying that and has this virtual reality system that he puts on people and where you see, you're this see it from that vantage point of an

astronaut in space. You just see that little pale dot, or you see the universe of Earth and you're and it changes your perspective after being in that virtual reality environment. It didn't didn't the there was some astronaut who said something like that, Oh yeah, who said or maybe there are multiple of them, but I don't remember what, but I think there are multiple astronauts who are like, yeah, like going like absolutely seeing the Earth from far away,

it changed changed my beliefs, changed my perspective on everything. Yeah, that's where this came from. That's where this came from. This because they wanted to study it and the laboratory and be like, well, because it's hard to be an astronaut. So yeah, so like they thought it'd be easier to put a virtual reality thing on your head. But it seems like anyone could benefit from that change in perspective. Can I ask, are there people who have like adverse

reactions to that? Like are there people that like get freaked out and scared or It's a great question. I'll have to ask my colleague. I'll like follow up with you an email about that. But I'm not sure. I I know that I personally when I you know, because he took me, my friend David, you know, he brought me in his in his office is like try this, and and to me it was it was pretty all inspiring. Yeah, so yeah, me too. I don't know. Maybe, uh, I

don't know. I had like cheeked questions afterwards for him like you know, along the lines of like like I mean, like you could imagine something being like really narcissistic or something and not getting from it like oh wow, well how significant I am. But like, wow, look at all those suckers like an Earth and I'm I'm out of affording in space motherfuckers. Yeah, look at all those people

that I'm better than. Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. But so I want to have this interview because it's been a really long interview, and I look, I want to say to my listeners who are still with us, like, thank you so much for getting going through this journey that we just had, and hope you are okay with the f bombs and we'll listen to future episodes of the Psychology podcast. But I want to end with one thing. So you in the sunny side of death. I think a big sunny side of it is something you say,

this is the basic root of all happiness? And what is this? That's a great question. Let me pull out my book. It's so funny because like this keeps happening. So I wrote this book. I spent two years with this book, wrote it, edited it multiple times. It actually got to the point by like the fifth pass through, I was like completely sick of it. And this was back maybe like six months ago. And so once it was done done, like, I haven't read it in like

six months, and so I keep getting questions. They're like, you know, so MARKT chapter three, you tell us what the most important thing about this is? What is that? And I'm like, I don't know, I know, I know what you mean. I know, I know you mean though, Yeah, well, let me read it for you. Yeah. Please. The only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as something bigger than yourself. To choose values that stretch beyond serving yourself, that are simple and immediate,

controllable and tolerant of the chaotic quade around you. So it seems to me, you go, you return back to the values at the end of the day as being the basic root of all happiness. Yeah, I mean, well, I another way to think about it is, I think values are like the fundamental unit of human psychology in a way like it's it's because our ability to think about anything or feel about anything, I think comes back to how relatively important or unimportant we consider it to be. Yeah,

And so in a sense. I see them as like literally the building block of not only our identity but also our human experience. And and so I think, and that's never going to change. And so I think the questions that I raised in this book of developing that ability to question what you're giving a fuck about? What are you finding it important? What do you care about?

That is literally I think I even I like jokingly say in chapter one, but I'm only kind of joking as I say, it is literally the most important question of your life. And yeah, I think it comes back to that. So and making sure that you choose the the best values, yeah, or healthy one healthy ones? Yeah. Yeah, And and it's I I really I try to be delicate in the book about not choosing values for people because I really don't. I don't like that and I don't think I but you do give examples of shit

of what you call shitty values. So yeah, and and they tend to be and they tend to be like pretty obvious. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like chasing money is a pretty shitty value to have. And I think I think everybody kind of knows that, and there's lots of research about that. Yeah, I think that I think it.

It gets so like I'm willing to kind of make statements about stuff like that, but you know, at the end of the day, everybody, everybody's different, and everybody's you know, psychology is different, their biology is different, their experiences are different, their culture is different. So I try not to specifically boil down like here are the six most important values in your life, and here's my twelve step method to

make you a happy person. It's it's really just I want to be the person who gets people to ask these questions for themselves, because I think most people don't, or at least they don't do it very often, and or they don't do it in a very conscious way. So that's really just the goal of the book is to get people to look at their values, look at what they care about, and decide if it's helping them

or hurting them. And everything else I present is really just it's it's I guess, just principles to follow in terms of doing that. You know, it's like these tend to be what these these values, these types of values tend to create more happiness, These types of values tend to create more misery. Evaluate your own life and choose at your own discretion. I really like that approach. Mark, thanks so much for chatting with me today, and good

luck with the book. Thanks Scott, it's been great being here. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for listening to The Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott barrk Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just as thought for booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes, you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com.