Scott Barry Kaufman || Transcend

Today we're going to do something a bit different. I'm going to be the guest today on the Psychology Podcast. I'm going to be interviewed by the physicist Sean Carroll about my new book, Transcend, the New Science of Self Actualization, which is out this week. Book is a culmination of many years of my research and readings of the wisdom

of the humanist psychologists from the thirties to sixties. I think that a lot of their ideas about how to become our best selves, how to fully realize our potential and even transcend and have peak experiences, these most wondrous moments that make life worth living even despite great times of great uncertainty, very important ideas that I'm trying to bring back and I think Maslow matters more now than ever. So just a little bit of a bio about my

interviewer today. Sean Carol is a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum mechanics, gravitation, cosmology, statistical mechanics, and foundations of physics, with occasional dabblings elsewhere. Sean is Research Professor of Physics at Caltech and external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His latest book, Something Deeply Hidden, is about quantum mechanics,

many worlds, and the emergence of time. His excellent podcast is called Mindscape, where he interviews smart people about interesting ideas. It was truly an honor for me to appear on his show, and I'm really excited to share that interview with you all today. Scott Berry Kaufman, Welcome to the Mindscape podcast. Oh thanks, Shan. I've been looking forward to this chat for a while. You know, I thought while thinking about this chat that in some ways psychology is

as ambitious as physics and cosmology. Right, Like physics and cosmology tries to understand the whole universe, which is very big, but psychology tries to understand people, which are very complicated. The idea of writing a book that actually gives useful advice to people living their lives and how they think and things like that. It's a daunting task. So before we get into before we even get into the details, I mean, what are your thoughts about the hubris of

being a psychologist and trying to help people with psychology? Okay? Sure? Yeah, So I think in a lot of ways, one could make the argument that studying humans is more complicated than studying the universe. Oh yeah, I get more communicated. Doubt well it let me. I was like, let me elaborate, because I feel like those are fighting words perhaps for you know, physicists. But I think that, you know, in some ways, humans are more unpredictable then you know, we

get the sun. You know, you get the sun. Okay, the sun rotates. Yeah that's fine. Okay, no, no, no, but I'm joking. But you know, we get we get how the universe works in some ways, right, and there's a certain predictability or regularity there, right, But my gosh, studying humans is so confusing because we first of all, there's individual differences, and as you know, that's the area

that I focus on mostly. I'm fascinated with human variation, and when you start looking at individual differences, then it's kind of like all bets are off in a sense. So some psychologists focus the universals and that may give us a false sense of predictability about humans. But then you say, well, well what if we look at the variation that you're as, Oh my gosh, like these these general principles really break down because you have this a hole who broke all the rules, you know what I mean.

It's like with the universe. You don't have that many a holes, you know, who get out of line when you have the equation that's beautiful. When when you come up with the beautiful equation? Am I right? You know? Yeah? No, I mean this is why it's not fighting words at all. Like I think that physicists and cosmologists be the first to agree that studying human beings is way more complicated. I mean, that's the beauty of physics is that it actually is at heart super simple and elegant and pristine.

But aside from so, so we totally agree that human beings are complicated and hard. So what gives you the sort of you know, how do you get through the day telling yourself, and nevertheless, I have really good insights to share with you all. Yeah, especially with all these replication crisses happening and and the fact that a lot of things aren't aren't coming out well. I think that it's just there's a spirit and excitement of let me

share with you what we discovered. But I think that you have to have that humility as a psychologist to not say we've found it once and for all in any sort of way, and and to not have such confidence that people can't change as well. You see, there's a lot of research on what is, and I think there's a dearth of research in psychology and what could be, you know. I mean, there are people to try to

do interventions, and a lot of interventions don't work. But you do see this tendency, especially like in the intelligence field, for instance, there's been no good intervention. I'm going to say this, you know right now, there's been no really strong intervention that has dramatically improved IQ scorers and intelligence researchers. There's a bunch of intelligence researchers who almost get a lee from that finding, which I don't understand why there's

a glee for it. You know, but almost a sense of like, see, we told you intelligence, don't you know, none of that doesn't change, but that it's it's pretty genetically determined, you know, or influence, very heavily influenced, and and and yet I still want to maintain the spirit of, oh that's interesting. Well, let's just keep trying, you know,

like like we shouldn't. It's not like we just stopped trying to do interventions just because we haven't been able to find the one that that really had a striking effect. You know, you're interested in the sort of the engineering and technology side of psychology as well as the science descriptive side of tech of psychology. Yeah, I think equally, which makes me weird, and not only weird, but it makes me it makes me have a fight within a civil war within myself because I have That was a

phrase mas Well used these. You know, it's in terms of like trying to become integrated human beings, you know, like we need to we need to transcend that civil war within ourselves, these these these different sides of ourselves that are fighting each other. But you know, I have the scientist hat, and when that hat is on in full force, it does not really like the intervention hat or side of myself, and when the intervention side of myself is on, I'm like, I'm not really into the

scientist that much. So it is it is an interesting sort of balance that I that I try to strike within myself. Well, you mentioned Maslow. Tell us about Maslow is we're going to go into your new book this is coming out called Transcendence. Is that right? That's it's called transcends. That's a verb, got it, transcend Is it? Is it like an order you're giving people or telling imperative please transcend? Yes, yes, that's the idea. It's an action,

you know, action word for sure. It's it's a hopefully an inspirational north Star kind of book that kind of shows what humans could be. Well, and it builds all the work of Abraham Maslow. So tell us a little bit about who he is. I mean, we all we've all heard of him, but fill us in as if we didn't know. Oh good, I'm really glad you said that, because I've had other people be well, no one's not good good nosing Maslow is? Why should anyone care about

your book? I'm like, thanks, appreciate that. So I like your attitude about that. Everyone knows mass well. I think most people who've taken an introductory psychology class, who have taken an introductory management class, have come across Maslow's writings. Yeah, for sure, I've come across at least if they never even heard of Maso, have come across that iconic pyramid. Now, so Abraham Azo was a humanistic psychologist, or the pyramid?

Is the hierarchy of needs that we're talking about. Correct Maso's hierarchy of needs, and it's usually depicted as a pyramid where you have an order of needs that must be met before one can become everything they're capable of becoming self, which is labeled self actualization. Now, this is the story. This is the this is the story that's being told to so many introductory psychology management students and

people who see it diagrammed on the internet. However, it turns out that Maso never drew a pyramid, and and there's so many misc inceptions about the hierarchy of needs. It's it's incorrect, how how it's been taught the past sixty years. So he did incorrect a list of needs, a hierarchy, but he just never drew them in the form of a pyramid. Correct, he never conceptualized in that way.

His theory was very developmental. He made it very clear that we are constantly in this dynamic of moving two steps forward and one step back, and that we can also that we can we can target multiple needs simultaneously. We don't have the weight to start self actualizing until everything else is done, until we check all the boxes. And also it's is, I like to say in the

book Later Life is not a video game. It's not like we reach one level of the hierarchy like connection and then some voice from above is like, congrats, you've unlocked esteem, you know, moratl Kombat or something. It's just that's not the way the world works. And Maso was very clear about that. So I really tried to infuse the spirit of what Maso actually meant as well as

the rest of the humanistic psychologist. And it really is an attempt more globally in this day and age, in this world today to bring back a lot of the ideas of the humanistic psychologists that have been lost. But tell us what the hierarchy is, what are the levels the original model and I revised it. I revised it, but in the original model, you had the safety needs or sorry even had below that. You had physiological needs like food, water, shelter, and you had safety needs need

for a certain sense of predictability in your environment. And then you have belonging in love and he lumped them together, which I've teased them apart, and we can talk about that in my my revised model. But he had love and belonging together, and then he had esteem needs, which is esteem from others. You know, that was a big component of self esteem. It's the esteem that others hold us in. Both I would say he has two self components of that, both esteem from others as well as

our own self esteem. But the problem with that is it's hard to actually disentangle that because we do draw so much of our own self esteem on the esteem it's almost like redundant in like ninety percent of humans. And then but then you can get to the self actualized individual. So that's so that's the next level is self actualization. So they's a big it's a big leap. It's I've always viewed that as quite a jump. I'm like, okay, I feel you know, really pumped up ego wise boom,

Now can self actualize. I I you know, it seems to be a lot of steps along the way there, and in a lot of ways. That's what I try to do in my book is connect those dots. And I mean I took self actualization out as a stage. It's not because it's not like we ever reach again,

life is not a video game. It's not like you ever reach self actuization and then you win the princess or whatever that was, whatever, my my video game metaphor from most people understand just an ordinary language, the words you know, physiology, safety, love, belonging, esteem, but self actualization. I'm betting most people heard either directly or indirectly from Meslow's hierarchy of needs. Can you can you tell us a little bit about what he meant by that concept?

Maslow talks about in different ways, but there is one quote he used to if you give me a moment to actually find it, I really love this quote. It was the best description of self actualization I could find. Okay, Sure, So I found an unpublished essay that he really wanted to publish. He was calling it critique of self actualization. This was really his attack. He really wanted to publish this before he died and instead it was left in

an unpublished collection. But this is the quote, and I think this really gets the heart of what he really thought about self actuisation. We try to make a rose into a good rose, rather than seek to change roses into lilli's. It necessitates a pleasure in the self actualization of a person who may be quite different from yourself. It even implies an ultimate respect and acknowledgment of the

sacredness and uniqueness of each kind of person. So, in a lot of ways, he viewed self actualization as being able to real it's that unique part of your human potential that is unique to you. Because these other forms of these other needs, these these basic needs that I mentioned are things we all share and we're we're all

striving toward. But the focus of self actuization is more in realizing that unique potential, potential potential within you that is in a lot of ways, some people would call it your best self, you know, in modern day language, although I don't like that phrase because I, you know, I think that there's no such thing as the real self. Well, I actually really don't like the phrase the real self

because there's no such thing. But you know, but you know, I think that's really what he was getting at, was this this unique, full potential of what we can all for the world. And I do think he There are misconceptions about it as being selfish. So David Brooks, you know, the the New York Times columnist was hating a Maslow in a column a couple of years ago, and I was like, oh, hell no, I was reading the column you actually got even though you update him, you're you know,

you're definitely is. I view him as a good friend, you know, who I've never met, you know, And I did what I do think as Maslow did. Mazwell thought this too, that we could have friends that from prior generations. It may sound a bit creepy, but but we could. You know, we can really have such a fondness for someone and get to know them so well. I mean, I met his Maslow's daughter only remaining daughter and granddaughter, granddaughter Jeanie, who he had ridden about lovingly in his

personal journal Personal Diaries. Genie was three years old when Maso died, but he would say that Genie was the greatest source of my peak experiences in life. And it kills me knowing that I won't be able to live to see how Genie turns out. So it was such a peak experience for me to meet Genie, you know, and and and she's looking at me as we're talking.

I'm geeking out over her grandfather, and she's like, my gosh, you know so much more about my grandfather than I know about my I even care to know about my grandfather. And there was there was something, there was something about that where it really made me feel connection to him even though I never met him. If that makes sense, yeah, no, absolutely, but the important good So that is very helpful to

understanding self actualization. And I do want to move on to your version of this, so I don't want to spend too much time, but I do want to tease out the idea that it's a hierarchy, because this is both important but also can be overdone and caricatured. Right, the idea that it's a hierarchy being that first you solve all your physiological needs or secure them, and then then you go on to safety, and then you go onto a love, et cetera. And is that the way

it works? Is that the way Maslow thought it worked, is that is that a good way of thinking about it. No, not that we must one hundred percent satisfy something before we can go onto the next That would be a mis representation case. He argued, at any given point in time, there's a certain percentage, certain fraction of each of those

needs that we have satisfied. So right now I could ask you, I could go down the list with you and ask you, you know, maybe you're sixty percent connection, maybe you're ninety percent esteem, you're pretty few a lot of Twitter followers, maybe you're you know, very high in safety, and and then some other needs. You know, if we talk about some of my needs that I added, and we can go down the percentages. So I think he made it clear that at any given time we can

target multiple needs simultaneously. We're not at one hundred percent on any of them. However, he did argue, he did make the case there was a hierarchy of prepotency is what he called it. And whenever I use that word in people, what are you talking about? I try to use that word my book. My public is like, no one's going to what prepotency means? Well, now what does he mean by that? Well? I think he are He did believe that there are certain needs that are he

called deprivation needs. When we're deprived of these things, they they shift our entire worldview and and narrow in a sense, they narrow our worldview to a particular worldview, and they really do make it harder to be all that we could become, which is self actualization. So they really do get in the way of self actualization. And I think

that is quite right. I think that what he really emphasized is not this lockstep progression of the of a triangle, you know, of like something that you have to climb, like a mountain new climb, but more of like an integrative process where if you don't have well integrated some of these deprivation needs, the whole system is really going to be out of whack. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, it actually does. It does make sense. But okay, so

I think so there. But there's a hierarchy in the sense that in Maslow's view, some of these needs are a little bit more basic, even though you don't one hundred percent satisfy them before moving on. As I think you correctly point out, there is there are levels. They're not just a list in random order. Yes, there are levels which could be are I don't think that a

firm scientific ground. We can say that the precise there is a precise order, because there's individual differences, there are culture differences in which of those are more propotent than others. We could probably all at the very basic level say

that things like food, water, shelter are essential. I think, well, you know, there's some things that they're hard to argue universally, but there are some cultures where a steam might be more important than connection, or some cultures connection might be. What I really wanted to emphasize was was this this distinction between I didn't want to get hung up on the precise order, but I wanted to talk about the dialect,

the very interesting dialect dialectical between security and growth. And that's really what what Maso was fascinated with was that dialectical and that leads us directly into your reimagining of it. So you've thrown away the pyramid two boring too stationary. You have a new metaphor. Yes, So I think a sail boat offers at multiple levels, so to speak, a different a better conceptisation of what it means to live a good life, what it means just just what it

means to live life. Period. You know, we're all in this vast unknown of the sea. We're all traveling in our own direction, but we're all in kind of the same sea of unpredictability. We don't know when there's going to be waves coming. We have to secure our boat as much as possible before we can go anywhere. If there's a leak in our boat, if there's severe deprivations, we're not going anywhere. But once we can do that, we can feel safe and comfortable to open our sail.

And how we open our sail also affects how where we can go, and how fast we can go, and all these things. So I really think that the sail boat does a nice job of capturing that that interaction between the boat and the sail, or between safety and growth.

Right So you if I understand it correctly, the hull of the boat sitting there in the water is the story of our security and you know, these needs that we absolutely have to have met, whereas the sail of the boat and the air around it is the story of growth and change and trying to move through life in the best way we can. Yes, and at the top of this sail is purpose and really having a clear, clear direction and being very focused and having the whole unit.

So another thing I like about the sail but metaphor is that it's all about an integration of a whole vehicle. It's the whole vehicle that travels through the ocean. You're not climbing piece by piece different parts of you up this mountain that it doesn't seem to be our humans or even how thermodynamic systems work. You know, like whole systems are greater than the sum of the parts. And that's a big, big thing I try to emphasize my

book because I am into evolutionary psychology. I mean I went through a phase of evolis psychology maybe like fifteen years ago, where that I thought it was the cat's pajamas. And now what I want to do is I want to really show that humans can be greater than the sum of their parts. We're not just identified with our modules. So I think there's something we can use the evolutionary

approach to understand the parts of us. But I'm ultimately interested in how the whole organism deals with those paradoxes of human existence and lives their own good life in their own way, you know, how do they self actualize in their own direction or as mass we put it, in their own style. And to me, that's what's really really fascinating about humans, our ability to supersede or to become greater than the sum of the parts. And this

is where the uniqueness of every person comes in. And you want to sort of emphasize yeah, well no, I ultimately one emphasize transcendence. Okay, well we'll get there. That's like I'm going to get all of the layers on the tables. I mean, even though you have a different metaphor for the sale board boat rather than the pyramid, you still have some needs, right, You still have a list of needs that we're meeting in the form of this sail boat. Do you do you even call them

needs still or do you have a different name? I do call them needs. I call them basicly, I call them human needs for sure. And there this is I call this the integrated hierarchy of needs, the revised hierarchy of the revised integrated hierarchy of needs, Yes, yes, good, and so which which are the needs associated with the

hull of the boat? Safety which I've combined Maslow's physiological and safety needs into one because I think there's so much research showing that how our body and mind are so interconnected, and it made sense to talk about a general level that should say level, but I don't know what to call it now, you know, general process in which there's a we can be pitched into the state of psychological entropy, the state of great uncertainty, where there's

too much unpredictable in our environment that our brain really is full of fear and anxiety. And so that that would be that stage, and that could happen from hunger, it could have happened from having no food on your on your table, or a roof on your head, on your head above your head, yep. Two. But it could also be living in an environment where there's a lot of violence in your environment that pervades your environment, or there's just things that are so unstable. So that would

all be under that aspect. And in the chapter on safety, you actually talk a lot about attachment to other people. So maybe that is not what comes to people's mind when you first start talking about safety, and it's it's part of safety is you know, having a house and food and water, but you're also there's that seems to be I would have put that in connection, but you put it in safety, the attachment we have to other people. Yes,

because the opposite of secure attachment is insecure attachment. When you're insecurely attached, there's such anxiety, especially if you're if you have the anxious attachment style, you're you're pitched into that state of inserting anxiety. You don't trust people. See. I see trust as a really core part of this of this need for safety, so coherence in the environment, but also trust that your environment will be safe to

me is a central part of this. This this need so an ability to treat other people like they're your friends, not your enemies, and that you can depend on them in times of of of great need. See that's what's That's what attachment theory is all about. Can I do I have trust and confidence in this caregiver when we're a vulnerable you know, And it's been studied a lot in children, but there also been a lot of studies

and adults as well. Like my relationship partner, do I trust that when I you know, when things really get tough, that that they'll protect and help me in those situations? And as a working psychologist. You must know I mean, you must be very familiar with all the different ways in which attachment is tricky, right, I mean attachment to other people. Like you can be overly attached, you can

be clingy, right. You want to have that trust and respect for other people without I don't know, without getting in their way. I'm not sure how you would put it, but there's definitely a balance to be struck there absolutely, So not to get too nerdy about this, but it's really good to view attachment styles as continuums not types.

I think that this type way of thinking is not really been very profitable for psychologists, and we really need to think about things as and this applies to everything. I mean, this is this is actually quite profound. I think a whole revision of the DSM needs to occur. So that could be a whole other conversation where we view everything, all disorders as as on a continue. But if we view there's two main dimensions that we all

differ on, anxious attachment style and avoidant attachment style. Those are the two fundamental dimensions we differ on. And and there's no such thing as secure attachment type. None of us are just like none of us are ever one hundred percent self actualized, none of us are ever one

hundred percent securely attached. So if you just have these two dimensions, anxious and avoidant attachment styles, you can actually create a space of different combinations of those two of different ways that one can be and securely attached, or or you can only and then you can only conceptualize secure attachment the extent to which both of those are high if you see what I'm say so, but explain to us what they are. What is an anxious attachment

continuum and what is the avoidance? Well, this is the place to get nerdy, go nuts? Can I really get nerdy? Okay, give me a moment I actually say it sometimes again, these moments where I've never said it better than I did in the book. So can I just find that part? Okay? Sure, so I think so. The anxious attachment dimension reflects a concern about being rejected and abandoned and is abandoned and is the product of beliefs about whether others will be

for you in times of great need. The avoidant attachment to mention has less to do with a sense of safety and more to do with how you regulate your emotions in response to stress, whether you use others as

a secure base or pull away and withdrawal from them. Now, it's interesting because I've looked really closely into the literature and found some thing that I think is interesting and that it's much more detrimental and mental health to score very very high on the anxious dimension then the avoidant dimension. I found interestingly that there are a lot of people who score high on just the anxious asseria, to score very high on the just the avoidance dimension, who are

quite content with their life. Well, I was going to say, from the description you just gave, it doesn't sound like one end or the other is clearly good and clearly bad for the anxious one. Yeah, being anxious is bad, being less anxious is good. But how much of ourselves we secure through other people? Seems like there's a happy

middle ground. Yes, I mean, there is a lot of research showing that if both of those dimensions are very very low, so very low avoidance attachment, very low anxious touch, it does tend to be correlated positive with lots of forms of well being in life and lots of other indicators of mental health, as well as even epigenetic research and how certain genes come activated in the stress response. So working as a interaction or combination I think is interesting.

But there are people who aren't very anxious attachment at all, but are very high and avoidant, and that's an interesting combination. I think it's been understudied in the research literature. There are plenty people who actually quite fine being single, you know, not being in a relationship. And we found doctor Keltner and their colleagues have done some interesting research looking at different correlations between these different attachment styles and personality traits.

And they found that those who who score very high on avoidant but not anxious, they just don't score particularly high on compassion. They're just not high in compassion and love, like, they don't report being a very well, I'm not a loving person, but they actually report higher levels of contentment in life. Yeah, so I think that's interesting. I think it's interesting. So this is a good point to digress a little bit because you're mentioning, you know, the research

that's been done. I mean, how much of the conversation we're having here is base on data, is based on experiments and empirical research, versus how much of it is a theory that you're hoping will be tested using data down the road. Oh my gosh, well if I may, if if I don't know, if I made what I want to, may do, but if I may full to my own horne in a second. I really meticulously tried to make sure everything I said in this book could be linked to robust studies. So I have a pretty

extensive references list in the back. This was a lot of footnotes. Yes, yeah, this was something that I've been working on for years and years and wanted to get right or at least as right as could be in the moment. So when you do when you make choices like collapsing Maslow's first two levels into one, sessed over it, like yeah, yeah, so you but you looked at the data when you chose to do that. It's not just like an idea you had that sounded cool, That's exactly right.

I mean I obsessed over every little detail of this book. For instance, I mean it gets really nerdy. I have some I put the most nerdy things in the footnotes. So you got that. Like, it's like, believe me when I say, like I say something like throw a line in the book like and modern personality. Psychologists have confirmed

this model of security and growth this distinction. But then I have like a huge footnote for any nerves that want to go to the back of the book to see what I actually mean, and I actually link it to recent research on cybernetics and research being done in artificial intelligence, not just in humans. I think that there's a whole there are lots of different areas of human knowledge that are coalescing that that I think is quite exciting pointing to this distinction that Maslow put out that

we did that a whole system. In order for fully to be fully functioning, it needs both the ability to resist distractions, so stability, as well as plasticity, the ability to have come up with new goals, so you can get really there's a level which you can get. I can like explain a lot of my decisions at the nerdiest level of physicus is what I'm trying to see. Let's let's get to some more of the decisions you're making here. So we're still in the hull of the boat.

There's three needs that we talked about in the hull. One is the safety we just talked about. The next is connection. What does that mean, yes, the need for connection is the need to have at least a minimal number of intimate, mutually loving, or appreciating relationships in your life. And so this is more than just getting likes on Twitter, correct, And this is the point I wanted to make, because I had two sub needs that comprise connection, and that's

the need for belonging and the need for intimacy. And I think a lot of people in the field of psychology have conflated the two, or maybe I've treated them as synonymous. But when I was really looking deep into the literature on bewall, it seems like there are lots and lots of instances in which people strive for the need to belong. They may do so in a way

that lacks intimacy. So let's say you join a violent extremism you know, or you join a cult or a religious organization or political organization because you have a desperate, desperate deprivation of the need to belong, and the leaders of this thing you join don't care at all about you. I mean, they only care about you to the extent

to which you are furthering their cause. But in what way is there a reciprocal loving relationship there, So it seemed to me like both of those things are really important. And also for the loneliness epidemic, it dawned on me that there's so much of a deprivation of a need for belonging that people are going about hope in the hopes that it will satisfy that whole within themselves of loneliness and then they're surprised when it never does. You know, Sorry,

is there a loneliness epidemic? Well? It I use that phrase. Then I had Stephen Pinker on my podcast and he's like, He's like, I would not call that. He's like, if you're wook at the history of you. I'm like, yeah, I get your shtick. Stephen Bigger. I love him. I love him to death. Don't get me wrong. He's a friend and all the good things about him. But he's got he likes to take the long, long, long view.

And I'm like, yes, but that's cold comfort for the billions of people on this planet who in this generation, right now, in this moment of history, would quite characterize it as an epidemic. Do you know what I'm saying?

But well, tell me, I mean, what do you mean by the lonelies and this epidemic, well, the rates, especially among the elderly, are quite staggering of reports, just simple reports of loneliness, like if you do self report questionnaires and you ask people to report how lonely they are, and it is really high among among the elderly. But you also see it even in college students. You see the rates are high end. And not just the rates, but the impact of loneliness. Yes, John Cappyopo, I believe

that's how you pronounce his name. He was a loneliness researcher and unfortunately passed away as I was researching the book. But he had shown that the effects of loneliness on our physical health is even greater than smoking or obesity or lots of other factors that we know are are our risk factors for mortality. This is a but you're saying that there is a you know, a quantitative difference the amount of loneliness now versus when versus last year. Yes,

so years ago, Yes, that is so. That is a if we want to take the long long view, I could get on board a pinker sort of argument that it's not technically an epidemic because it's hard to make the case that this generation is lonelier than the hippies were, for instance, you know, in the sixties. And I think there is a point there that could be made, so perhaps we shouldn't call it. And I want to say something as well, because I am very open to being,

you know, for people making these arguments. I after my podcast chat I had with Steven Pinker, I went back in my book and actually changed my book and I took I think I took out the word epidemic. So I'm just trying to understand is the claim that loneliness is increasing or is the claim simply that there's a

lot of it. There's a lot of it. I want to focus on the oh, there's a lot of it, yeah, aspect, And I don't want to get stuck too much on, you know, making it a competition of some sort with with with prior epics or generations, you know, but it is. I mean, I can totally get on board with the idea there's a lot of that's out there. Almost by definition, it can be hidden from us because if other people are lonely, maybe we're not connecting with them, and the

effects of it could be very bad. The effects that's also what I wanted to focus on because I was that was mind boggling to me to look into that literature and seeing just how strong an effect loneliness can have not just on our minds, but also our bodies and on mortality. And it's a risk factor for death. So that's a greater risk factor than a lot of physical risk factors that people look at. And so that's

where this connection need comes in. This is the second need in the whole of your sailboat, correct And how does it relate to the issue of introverts versus extroverts? Right? I mean we're introverts are having their day in the sun. Now we have Susan Kaine's book. You know, let us love introverts again, because it's not that they don't like people, it's just they need their own space. Is that related to this need for connections somehow, one way or the other.

I've done quite a bit of research on introverse extra versus dimension, but I actually see that as irrelevant to this need because the need suggests a minimal I said minimal number. We're talking about one or two, and I think that is a need regardless of where you are on the introversion extravers dimension of personality, and we could have a whole separate podcast on the science the latest science of introversion, because I'm super super interested in that

topic and I've written a lot about it. But I think that's a that's actually a separate dimension. That that dimension of personality has more to do with your levels of assertiveness and your levels of enthusiasm or what's called positive positive emotions that are of the high kind. So I think like introverts can have contentness and calmness, but you find extroverts tend to report higher levels of these other kinds of static states you know all the time,

and and also assertiveness, but that's a connection. Need is more about having you know, a small number of really solid stable minimal number of minimal number of stable and and and intimate, so mutual relatedness. There's a relatedness aspect to it. That's right, Okay, good? And the third need within the hull of the boat is self esteem. And you do put the word self in there. Yes, I just want more think about introverts. You could be the

most you know, introversion doesn't track anti sociality. This is a common misconception. So now you know at all. Right, yeah, and I know you know that, you know, I want to make that This is why I think this is separate from this basic need. I mean, we're talking something else. If you have this extreme sort of aversion of any human connection, well then I think there's something else going on with you, which we could talk about later, dark

triad stuff. But yeah, that's not introversion. Does that make sense right? Okay, yeah, one hundred percent. Well so maybe that's what introversion is. Not why don't tell us what introversion is? Oh boy? Well this is why this is so this is so hotly contested because scientists have a different view of what introversion is from what everyday people on the Internet who identify themselves self identify as introverts

think of themselves. So on the Internet, if you ask most people the intervious will say, well, it's how I recharge my batteries. You know. They'll say, yeah, it's you know, do I get energized by people or not energized by people? Well, scientists view it more in terms of levels of dopamine

and social reward. So it's it's more simply a matter in the scientific literature of if you're an introvert, you simply get less reward from social information or from social rewards, and that can conclude things like the possibility of getting esteem from person, a person you're talking to, or what you know, not like being excited for lots of novel social situations. That's why you tend to find that introverts tend to prefer a couple close people than going and

networking with a million people. It's because when you network with a million people, your dopamine system is more activated than your oxytocin system. And I think it's just simply a matter physiologically. Introverts don't get as much dopamine release at the possibility for social reward with novel social encounters. I think that's technically all all that dimension means. But people, Okay, that makes that makes sense, That makes sense, it does.

But now is there? And now I need a word for the feature that I need to be alone to have time to recharge my batteries. Well, what do we call that? I mean, there are some people who are energized by being out in public, and there's some people who are you know, the energy seeps away when they're well if if few, it is a dopamine thing, though, which is what's really going on. Then you can map it on too that in a way, because dopamine predicts how much effort we are motivated to put into something.

So if we're not getting a lot of dopamine push for something, it actually will take greater effort. It'll be more exhausting to put in the energy to do something. So they're not wrong. So that metaphor of the of the recharge battery thing, it can roughly be blamed physiologically through what we know about the dopamine system, as you have to work harder, like introverts would have to put in more effort to be motivated and to talk to lots and lots of people, and you could see how

it would be exhausting to them quicker than extroverts. However, I mean I did. I wrote a paper showing that there's some misconceptions here, because there's been some study showing that both introverts and extroverts do get tired. Extroverts do get tired from at a certain point. We're just talking about thresholds. That's all personality is. We're all human, like you know, we're all and this is a big point

in my book We're all human. We can get too stuck on these different types personality types, not realizing that, Look, you could talk to extroverts and they would still be able to resonate with that feeling of Yes, I've talked to too many people today. I need to sleep. Okay, they're human too, they're human too. So we're really just

talking about thresholds. And I think that it could be explained physio logically through the dopamine system and how we know don't mean when you have is an doping can be an energizing force, you know what I mean for things that are possibility of rewards. M Yeah, good, Okay, I think that does clear something up that's very easeful. Yeah, and it's certainly separate from your notion of connection. So let's move on to self esteem. That's the third need right there in the hull of the boat. So what

do you mean by that? So self esteem is uh and I focus on a healthy self esteem having just two components, a healthy sense of self worth of I'm good enough, doesn't mean that I'm better than others. And I go great pains to distinguish self esteem from narcissism because they're different things, and they have different developmental pathways.

It's just I'm worthy. And the second component of self of a healthy self esteem is mastery, or some people call it self competence or even just competence just or self efficacy, a generalized form of self efficacy. So across all the different areas of my life, I feel a general sense of I'm in control of my life. I'm the driver of this life. I can do things, I can make things happen. I have agency. And the self worth part is not just about agency. It is a

distinguishable component from competence. So with self worth, it's more tied to social relations. Am I valued social partner? We tend to tie our self worth to being viewed as a social partner as well as or liking ourselves. Some people actually will call that component in the psychologic culture, they're called self liking versus self competence, and they can

actually come apart these two forms of self esteem. You can so, for instance, those who score very very high in narcissism tend to feel a great sense of competence, almost an exaggerated sense, but they don't actually like They don't actually like themselves that much. This is fascinating when you have that'll be terrible to be that kind of narcissist. You can't even like yourself. Yeah, like narcissist at all, exactly. Well,

that's so funny. Well they can fully admit, especially grandiose narcissists. And I actually distinguish between different types of narcissists. I tell you I'm really nerdy, so, like, you know, I could distinguish between vulnerable, vulnerable, quiet, introverted form of narcissm from the more bragging, braggadoso or whatever that you know, form of narcisism. But grandiose narcissists, they they have such

an inflated sense of their competence. But if you do these kinds of even implicit self esteem measures, and you have measures like I'm a good person, or I'm a good I'm a valued social partner, or I like myself but I think i'm you know, I like myself. I'm They're kind of neutral to negative on that aspect. All right, Yes, that's good to know. We'll keep that. It's helpful knowledge when we meet narcissists to go like, yeah, you probably are not with yourself. Maybe that makes me a bad person.

That I want to do that. But okay, so that's security. We have it. We have it sused right. The water that our boat floats in and the boat itself are a story of safety and connection and self esteem. But you're kind of you know, as important as those things are, you really get juiced up when we start talking about the sale and how we can move and how we can do things. That the growth aspect of all this, that's exactly right that they as we called it, the

growing tip. You know, when you have a tree, there's a certain portion of the tree that grows much much more than the other parts of the tree. And I always like that metaphor of the growing tip. So that was kind of brilliant. But yeah, I'm really interested in what are these potentialities within us and humans that really help us grow and evolve as a species. And your first one, you again once again have three needs that we associate with this sale. The first one is exploration.

So what is that? That's right, you could in a way view these this whole thing is to two different triangles, two different two different hierarchies. When you're pitched in the state of security, and that's your whole world, that bas is safety. But when you're in the growth realm of human existence, so you can actually have two different realms

of human existence. I don't know if you knew that, Sean, I did not have, you know, the deprivation form of human existence, where everything becomes about you trying to impart on the world, you know, like you're making demands in the world like feed me, love me, respect me. But when you're in the growth realm of existence, which is the realm we're entering now in this conversation, the base of that is exploration. So you're no longer everything is

not pivoting around the need to resolve a deprivation. Now everything revolves around a general spirit of actively entering the unknown. Right, you can exist from moment to moment, but you're going to seek out some new experiences. Correct, you're excited by the unknown as opposed to fearing it intensely, which is

what you know psychological entropy is all about. Well, actually, let's talk about psychological entropy because I just had a good I know this is my thing, but I had a very interesting conversation with Carl Fristen, the neuroscientist who has a whole theory of free energy and so forth, and it gets very technical, but the very short version is that he thinks that brains and even organisms work to model the world in such a way so as

to minimize the surprise that they experience. And of course one question was, you know, but we seek out surprise all the time, like we do explore, we do read mystery novels or whatever. And his answer to that, which I thought was interesting, was that it seeks a strategy on the part of the brain to anticipate the future, so be surprised now so that you have a more complete and flexible model of the world so as to minimize a total amount of surprise integrated over your future life.

Do you think that makes sense? I do. I think that the need for exploration evolved as a need all in its own, but it primarily as an anxiety reducing function. So I think that's consistent with what he just what he said, and also by the way I could sold it these folks, I had skype chats with this whole the whole group that a lot of these people who studied the physics of being trying to apply it to

the brain. And I think that I could make and I hope I did make a good case in the book for the need for exploration having its own evolved function and not being reduced to the need for safety or anxiety. But I do think it evolved in order to help us with that anxiety reducing functioning. It helps, you know, the more that we can prepare ahead of time, and the more that we can reduce that uncertainty by actively seeking information. So I really connect the need for

exploration with with the information seeking aspects of dopamine. So there's some recent research distinguishing between the social aspects of dopamine or the more what are called competitive rewards cocaine, sex, you know, status, and there are dopamine pathways. They get us really excited at the possibility of those things. And they are listeners that when I said those three things, their brain, their brain is particularly releasing. It's just releasing

the dopamine in the synapse, is like in MOFO. But there are also and I suspect a lot of your listeners who just by what the nerdier we get in this conversation, they also are releasing dopamine into other dopamine projections more related to the dorsal lateral prefontal cortex. And I think that's a really interesting new line of research and understanding how there might be dopamine pathways that give us excitement, the possibility of information, not just the possibility

for mating opportunities. So you're saying that equations lead to dopamine release, Yes, I do. I think that there's there's some good. There's there's some there's some suggestive evidence that that that that that may be a separate pathway. And I think it can still be debated and we're still trying to understand is it really just the same pathways, But there's individual differences and etcetera. And and there's there's ways that this can be argued. But I think that

it is possible too. There are there are different pathways. There are pathways that project specifically to the dorser lateral prefontal cortex and are working memory that gives us excitement when our working memory is active with with with things that may give us greater information to survive. And yeah, I think this is your next book right here. You know why math releases dopamine like this is going to

be absolutely killer. There's there's I know, people who would buy this book Scott telling it, But also it makes me wonder about there are since we're talking about the uniqueness of different individuals, there are absolutely people who hate being in a routine, and there are absolutely other people who love being in a routine. Right. There are people who love having a job where you get to wear the same uniform every day, and there's other people who

would find that, you know, inner torment. So how do we distinguish between those people? How do we give them both space to be valid? Well, this is a great point, and this is where we get to the realm of individual differences. And as I talk about in the need for a Safety chapter, there are people who maybe the high in neuroticism personality trait. They have obsessive compulsive disorder at of our high level, or other things that give

them a intense need to control the world. And that may be a more pressing need for them than the need for exploration. And I've spent you know, maybe ten years of my career studying the personality trait openness to experience, which predicts, you know, to the extent which neuroticism predicts the need the need for security. Openness to experiences predicts the need for exploration, I think, and there these are elements in the Big five personality inventory, right, correct? Correct?

I just mentioned two of the Big five and we already went deep into the extraversion introversion one. So which are the ones we have left to discuss today? We call conscient grit, and we haven't talked about grit conscientiousness, and we haven't talked about agreeableness being a good person, although we did kind of talk about a holes a little bit. Yeah, we talked about agreeableness a little bit. Yeah,

we'll have to get to conscientious. But your question is good, and I wanted to make it clear that while these are all basic, While these are all needs of humans, we do differ quite a bit in at different points in our life how pressing they are for us. So I think, regardless of our personality, I think contextually as well, these things, these needs can ebb and flow. But also based on our own temper, these needs can can ebb

and flow. There are some people that really do. I think genetics plays a role here, care a lot more about being belonging and an intimacy. But I think that the lesson of what you're saying here is that I mean exploration is important as a part of this growth aspect of the needs, but it is something where you don't try to just push it to the maximum. You

don't be surprised every moment of your life. There is an appropriate amount of newness and newness to experience and exploration for any one person, given who they are and what they're interested in. Yes, I really do think that any fully functioning system requires both safety and growth. Security and growth. And also there's been other labels like I used earlier, like stability and plasticity, but I think any fully functioned system is going to have to reconcile with

both at some point in their life. Good. Okay, the next need on our sale is love you. So it's interesting because you're putting love here in the growth part of the needs, not in the security part. Yeah, I did, and I wanted to separate. So one thing I did is I separate belonging from intimacy within the need for connection. But the other thing I want to do is I wanted to separate an unconditional form of love, a higher spiritual form of love, entirely from connection. I wanted to

get it out. I wanted to get it out of the boat and into the sail, and into the sail, because when you project that in your sale, you can do that to anyone. It doesn't have to be those only the people you like or only the people you feel a sense of relatedness. Told, there's a more cosmic aspect of love. Yes, absolutely, it's an attitude. Love is

an attitude, not necessarily a feeling. In fact, you could hate someone if in terms of what the feeling you know, the label we put hate on the on that feeling, but still have be love. And this is what Maslow talk called bee love. Love for the being of others and the sacredness of others, even if they're different from who we who are being is we can just admire people for who they are, not what we're trying to get out of them or what they can or the

usefulness they have for us. Even in the level of connection, it's still about usefulness, you know. It's you know, you're still making demands on people to connect with me. But at the be love level of human existence, you don't make those sorts of demands. It's more that you're offering something to the world rather than just asking things of it. That's right, Okay, and and then the third need in

the sale is purpose. And this is the one I want to talk about the most, but because I have my doubts, but I want to hear your sales pitch first, So I can't wait to hear your your own thoughts on this because it's the most important one to you. I know, Well I wouldn't. I wouldn't actually say it's the most important if if you actually asked me to choose, I may actually choose like transcendency, which were where we're going in a second, you know. But but but purpose.

The point I wanted to make there is if I had to choose, I would choose the integration of them all. Then yeah, ok, yeah, yeah, that's that's that's like, that's like the spoiler, that's the spoiler ahead. Yeah. But but purpose, it's a tough one to define, although I do have a precise definition in the book How did I define it?

The need for purpose can be defined as the need for an overarching aspiration that energizes one's efforts and provides a central source of meaning and significance in one's life.

The way I think about purpose, and we can have multiple purposes, but it's a more superordinate goal, and it serves as an organizing framework, so to speak, for all of our other goals, so that we can see if our other goals in our hierarchy may be at a less abstract levels or broad levels of abstraction, are working together as a whole unit in making sure that we're realizing that highest level goal or aspiration, or one could just colloquially called a dream dream if we've lost everyone

and what I just said, we say just having a dream, you know, a really broad dream, making sure that we really can reach it to our full capacity, that we're not having things that are taking away unnecessarily from our capacity to realize that dream. But I'd love to get your thoughts. Yeah, well, I completely agree that having a purpose of the form that you talk about can really help, right, can really give somebody momentum, direction and fulfillment in their lives.

But I have a bunch of questions, one of which is do we really need that? I mean, can people be just as happy without some sort of big picture future goal in mind? Can there be real more living in the moment without necessarily having a purpose and can that be just as rewarding? Yeah? And this is a legitimate question. It's not like a leading question, like I'm open to whatever the answer might be. So yes, and

it's a terrific, terrific question. It's one that I had quite a bit back and forth with Kennon Sheldon, who did a lot of the research that I tried to synthesize in that chapter. He doesn't talk about he doesn't use the word purpose. He talks about self concordant goals, the importance of setting the right goals that will lead to growth. And when I told him I was kind of framing this in terms of purpose and everything, he

was very skeptical of that. And he, you know, he said, well, like I teach my students, don't worry about this purpose so dramatics, so dramatic and daunting, you know, but you know, there, I'm also can be a bit of a dramatic person too, So purpose, yeah, resonates more with my being, you know, like like, there's there's something exciting and thrilling about about uh, about having a a super ornate goal that that gives you like like a hierarchy of meaning in your life.

You know. They're like, I think it's fair to say there are some goals you have that give you a deeper sense of meaning than other goals, you know, like the goal to just get out of bed in the morning, you know, is not is not your purpose in life, you know, but it's an important goal. Well, I mean, this is where I mean, this is what I if I were to be more playing the devil's advocate, which I sometimes try to do in other podcast context. You know.

One of the criticisms against Maslow was that it was a little elitist his conception of psychology, right, like, he was looking at the people who had been most successful in life, not successful, I would correct you there, He didn't. He did not equate self actuization with achievement. Okay, but he was looking people like Gandhian Einstein and so forth, right, I mean, he was not looking at people who he met randomly on the street. Well, that's a fair point.

That's a fair point. Although he I saw an interview with his very precious interview with his wife Bertha after Mazow died, and their interviewing, you know, her about how he thought about self actuation, and she said, you know, he really thought my mother was self actualized, was way more self actualized than he thought he himself was and his and his his mother was really a good a good kind Her mother was a good kind person, but

not a not someone who had achieved a lot. And if you actually look at Mazow's writings, he started off the whole idea of self actualation. He started what's called what he called the Good human Being Notebook. He was just taking down notes of who he thought were the best specimens of humanity in the sense that they were good people. And I think that gets lost a lot in this notion of self actualation and actually the spirit

upon which he went into this. He thought that self actualized people represent what's best in humanity, but he did not equit it with high achievement. Okay, that aside Maslow's individual thoughts. Aside, I think that there is a danger because it's not so. I mean, for you, it might

have been Maslow for me. When I think about people in moral philosophy, for example, like John Stuart Mill trying to make distinctions between higher and lower pleasures, or people who talk about the meaning of life and they associate it with, you know, some sort of creative work or changing the world in some way, and all of this sounds and you know, I have those goals and purposes myself, but the idea that that's what it should be does

sound a little bit elitist to me. I think there's plenty of space out there again playing the Devil's advocate for just living, for just saying like, no, I don't wake up in the morning like with my grand plan. I just want to like be good at the day. And I can find meaningfulness in the competency and compassion with which I approach the everyday small things. And if you if you want to say, well that counts as

a purpose, then that's fine. But I don't think it's what people think of when you say the word purpose. I think you're right. And you know, if if you want to talk about transcendence, we do. We do. At some point. There is a kind of a there is a grand reveal or not Grandville. There is a twist. There's a twist ending to this book. And I've been holding off on it because it's like I want people to read the mood, but I you know, there is a twist ending and and and and okay, and it

gets to get what do you say? What do you say? Okay? M night shoveling. Oh I know, I know, I'm night shavel on them. Psychology. No, no, there, that speaks directly to the heart of what you're saying. And that was a twist of Masows as well, because he thought it was all about self actization, all about this grand purpose

and mission, having a mission outside your self. And then he faced his own mortality and he suddenly didn't care about any of that stuff anymore, and it confused the heck out of him, and he wrote, you know in his book, this is so strange that this experience of mortality, which has in a sense taken me all the way to the bottom, not of a pyramid, but you know, made me focus on this low or need, has actually increased my sense of transcendence and appreciation of the world

more than I've ever had in my entire life. And it has made me care less about the competitiveness drive, or the achievement drive, or the ego. So this was a real paradox that he was trying to work out in the last year and a half of his life before he did succumb to a heart attack at the age of sixty two. Suddenly, you know, you know, I think so yeah, this is good, and I do want to sort of I'm sorry about your book and your

dramatic instincts. I want to totally spoil the ending of your book here in the podcast and talk about transcendence. But I do have one more question about purpose, which is sure, I think you know one that many people will have, which is where is it supposed to come from? I mean, can it be completely arbitrary? Does it matter which purpose we have? You know, there are people here in the United States of America who, you know, build the world's largest ball of twine or something like that.

And is that just as good as people who find a cure for cancer? Oh? Just as good? Wow. Well, that's a heavy question. And I would be the last one to start to to claim I'm the arbitrator of whose purpose I think you are. I think it's your job. Oh boy, that's something. But I want to emphasize is that this is an integrated hierarchy of needs. We can't view any one of these as separate from the whole system or the whole sale boat, and and and and

and I've really thought this out. I really thought this out at a very a at a very very O C D level, but you know, if we're talking about building purpose on a foundation of expiation and love, that's the way of being that I think leads to the transcendence that I'm talking about. And I'm not talking about a purpose that's that's being driven by your deprivation needs like ego and and the desperate need to fulfill a hole within yourself. I do think that we can call purpose.

We can call it just a deep, deep or a goal that gives us a deep sense of satisfaction when we work toward it. If that, if that's fine, we can get let's get rid of that for the purpose of this conversation, just so we're on the same page.

We can get rid of the word purpose, and we just talk about a dream, an overarching aspiration, or even just a goal that is higher priority of meaning for us than other goals, even just that, even just at the basic level, and you combine that with a sense of exploration and a sense of bee love for humanity, it's being driven by a spirit of wanting to make the world a better place. I think those three things work as a whole unit in allowing us to transcend ourselves.

And that's the point I wanted to make in the book good. I mean, maybe let's uh, let's focus more specifically in on transcendence. You know, when I've read that part of your book, I thought of the Zen story about the monk who was asked, you know, what is the difference in his life before and after he became enlightened. Stop me if you've heard this one. But he said, well, you know, before I came in, before I became enlightened, I would chop wood and carry water, and now that

I'm in lifened, I chop wood and carry water. That's a that's the whole story I have. He does it in an enlightened way. Now, yeah, that is that related in some way to the idea of transcending the You know, I'm sure that he's sort of the idea was he conceptualized it and perceived it and got a different kind of satisfaction from it post enlightenment, But his stuff that he was doing to get through the day was just the same stuff. That's exactly That's right, That's very right.

And I do love that I talk about healthy transcendence as different from unhealthy transcendence. So there's a lot of this is an overarching framework for everything in life. By the way, I think everything in life is neither good or bad. It has a deprivation flavor to it and a growth flavor to it, and that can apply anything. You start to view the world that way. I think

it really opens your eyes up to a lot. You know, you can have deprivation humor, but you can which is very self deprecating or maybe aggressive towards others, but you can have a more growth, growth oriented form of humor. You can have a form of aggression that is very deprivation motivated, but you can have kind of the Martin Luther King kind of aggression, which is like, we're going to use this to uplift all of humanity. You can go down the line, you know. And I think the

same applies to transcendence. I think you have a deprivation form of transcendce, which you see in the world today with these so called gurus who who claim to be above humanity. They're like some I'm not saying all the gurus. I'm not trying to miss off the whole all the gurus here, but I'm saying there are some that you

see they abuse their position of power. You see that they they sort of have this, it's it's it's being it's being motivated clearly as I see it, through narcissism and and through uh, these these these security needs not through growth through growth. But I do think there's a form of healthy transcendence that sits that's well integrated and and is not about being above humanity, but it's about being a part of humanity as much as possible. And

I think that's very that's different. Those are different conceptulizations of what transcendence means. And the kind I'm talking about is a sense of great, great connectedness to the rest of humanity just by being who you are. I'm not saying that it's you are sacrificing yourself. There's a high level of integration where at the highest level of integration, there's a seamlessness between you and the world. Okay, no, no,

that's that's very good. The seamlessness between you and the world, I think is a very powerful image and maybe in fact it answers the question I was just going to ask, which is the word transcend or transcendence kind of begs the question about what is it that we are transcending? And do you have a simple answer to that? Is it a thing that we're transcending or is it more vague than that. Well, one could, at the most simplistic level, say you're transcending the ego. And then and then that's

a very simplistic way of saying. And then when we say, well, what is the ego? And and I would define the ego could be defined in a million different ways, and then and then the self has a million different definitions. But for purposes of our conversation, one could define the ego as all those aspects of ourself that are the defensive aspects of ourself, are the ones that tie us to security as much as possible, and to the relief from risk and the potential for pain. It's our defense mechanisms.

Mm hmm. So in a lot of ways, it really is transcending, no longer needing, no longer needing our needs in a way. Got it so that it's the needs that are being transcended, or the needs for our needs. Maybe that's a better way of saying it. Yeah, correct, correct, Okay, very good. Good is that is that people should read your book to find out more. I don't want to to think that they learned everything. There's a long book full of footnotes and a lot more detail than we

were able to get into here. Thank you. I appreciate that there is there is more, but you've really given me quite the opportunity here today to to really get hope. Not in the weeds. The leads is where we live. This is what. Believe me, I'm going to get a million comments on YouTube said, thank you for going into

the weeds. I truly hope that people do like to listen to us kind of nerd out at this level, and that they can gain value from that because this is not your I realized this is not your kind of self help book that I'm just telling you the five steps to lead a better life. And I do have an appendix of exercises. But I think and that there are enough people out there that don't want to just be told what to do. They want to know the theory and science behind it. And I try to

balance both those things. But let's make it clear for potential readers. I mean, in the book and also on your website, you do have actual, specific, actionable items that people can do to try to help themselves transcend in the sense you're talking about, right, I do, and a lot of these things I adapted from exercises. I call them growth challenges that have my students do. I teach a course on the science of living well, and you see,

I see transformations. This is not only tested through science in formally pure reviewed journal articles, through hundred and hundreds of students who have said that this way of thinking about the world and these kinds of exercises have helped them grow and transcend themselves in powerful ways. And these exercises are also a lot of them are not your standard sort of happiness exercises because happiness is not my goal here. My goal is growth. So yeah, this is

going to be deflationary. But I love the story in your book about Maslow moving to Brandeis and you know, teaching the class and then at the end, like the end of the semester, one of the students says, is this going to be on the test? Can you tell

me what's going to be in the final? And he's like, you've learned nothing from anything that I've taught you all this course, And ironically that happened to be in my class of course, and I couldn't help, but then relay the story of Maslow, and I could that student I didn't appreciate that obviously, that that's going to undermine that. And of course you also have a podcast. Tell me about your podcast, so they know about that. Sure, So I have something. I have a podcast called the Psychology

Podcast that I've been doing. It's great that you're able to steal it to to sort of you know, get that name before God, I got very good market. Yeah, now others have to try to steal mine. But I didn't steal anything. Yeah, you didn't steal any That was a mistake. You you were there first. I was there first. And it's such such a great opportunity for me to find the leading psychologists, maybe even names of psychologists that

that aren't the household psychologist names. But I could still give them a platform because I still think they're leading, and they're doing great and stuff and discussing all aspects of of of the human mind and human nature I and the human variation I. Nothing. Nothing's off limits for discussion respectfully and compassionately on my podcast. So that's been great, great fun. I really hope, uh, I think a lot.

I really do believe a lot of the listeners of your podcast it would enjoy some of the episodes, if not a lot of the episodes of my podcast. Yeah no, I think it's a great thought and a great place to end on Scott Perry Calprin, thanks so much for being on the Mind Skate Podcast. Thank you for having me on. It's been great. Thanks for listening to this

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