I'll get a team. Welcome to another installming the show. Craig Anthony Harper, Bill Roger, John Brian Sullivan and Tiffany and Margaret Cook Ki TIV.
That's a new name. You've never pulled Roger out into the middle name for thora before.
No, No, we just do you know. When I was growing up, my dad told me as a child, and I believed it till I was about sixteen that his actual name was Ronald Edward Persualarence Terrence, James Ambrose, Allowish has Harper, and I thought that was and I don't know why, but he told me that I believe that. So I like a lot of middle names.
You just roll them off the towngue. They just roll off. It makes my ant feel very insignificant.
Let's say hello to doctor Bill, because I want to talk to you about one more thing. But we can't ignore the most important, the person that we're actually here for, who I might say, I've really thrown under the bus today because he came with an idea and you and I went and then and then he went, well, what do you want to talk about? And I went, ouck, I don't know, hi.
Doc, Hello, is this thing on am I here.
All right, dude, what matter? Lucky? We'll say you so much?
Bill.
Yeah, I'll tell you what today will double it. Yeah, welcome to the rabble, Welcome to the fucking intellectual mayhem that is the U Project. How have you been?
Who mean you're talking to me?
You?
I've been great. I'm apparently doing a lot better than someone who's trying desperately to finish up their thesis.
Oah, yeah, that is true. As we record, it's eleven forty four. I've got a meeting with my supervisor at twelve thirty, which I'm ill prepared for. You know that you remer man?
Are you prepared for anything today? Well?
I know, I think I've got too much shit on.
I think i'm for real, for real, good luck with finishing up your thesis and meeting with your supervisor. For those who haven't been through this terrible ordeal, it's it's hell man, It's really tough, and I you know, I sympathize with you, and I wish that you can somehow muster up the energy to get across the finish line.
Yeah. Well, I'm no spring chicken. Speaking of spring chickens, just quickly, if I showed one of my friends. You interviewing your one hundred and one year old granddad. I've got to say, I love him. He is so amazing, isn't he lovable?
Isn't he? I'm so proud. I'm so proud, and I feel so grateful to have been able to capture.
That as I was watching that exactly that. So tell doctor Bill what you where you were the last week and what you did, because I think this is a really interesting story from a genetics point of view and a bunch of other reasons. Yeah.
So, doctor Bill, I'm from Tazzy and every year I go home, but the last few years, since my pop turned ninety nine, I started going home in February for his birthday instead of Christmas. And so this year I decided to take my podcasting gear and capture a conversation
with him after his one hundred and first birthday. And he's amazing, Like, he is so amazing, and I just feel really grateful, and I'm excited because all of the family are so excited, and every time I put a clip up, they're like, that is so great, like and it's just so much meaning behind it.
No, that is awesome. That's an incredible age to reach. I hope we're all that lucky, and it's really wonderful that you can have those special times together. I'd love to hear that discussion.
Actually, yeah, I got to editing.
There's so much wisdom that people who reach that age can impart to us younger people so that we can maybe improve the quality of our lives.
When I was preparing to set it up, I thought to myself, how do I gauge like what it was like? And I did a search on when TV reached Australia, When Australia got TV, and my prop was thirty two years old. His first thirty two years were sans television, and you just go, wow, that's and look at how much life has changed now. And now I'm sitting down with him to have a podcast that you know, thousands of people will be able to listen to whenever they want.
What a weird thing that is? That is very weird. I mean, you go back one hundred years and I think radio was just becoming a thing, and here he is on this this futuristic form of radio caled podcasts that no one could ever imagined. You know, my kids were born into that era. So they don't know life without Netflix much less. They don't actually know what TV is anymore either. How weird is that it comes full
circle like that. You know, they watch everything on their phone screens or their iPads or computers, right, so like watching something on TV is a little weird to them. It's old fashioned.
Yeah, they've never had to get up to change the channel.
So check that out, Craig. And like, one generation we've gone without TV with TV and now we're kind of, you know, a different type of way we ingest media and entertainment these days. Really, we won't be long before we just kind of like, you know, put a chip into the hard drive that's in our brain or something to download the material.
I think that's already happened. It's called neurallink. But that's terrifying as well. But what I love about your granddad is, you know, twenty four, nineteen twenty four, like I mean, five years after the First World War and way before the Second World War. So by the time the Second World War started he was fifteen. I mean, the Second
World War was a million years ago, seemingly. And yeah, you're right, like the evolution, I mean, think of the amount of changes, technological and other that have happened since he was born. It's crazy.
Well, I asked him about high school and he said, oh, you had to be privileged to go to high school. I mean it was twelve to fourteen miles away, Like, how do you get there? And I was like, oh, on the school bus. Oh they weren't buses.
Yeah. I remember him saying that, and I thought that's He's like, yeah, exactly, it's twelve to forty miles and well that's over twenty k's and then he's like, and that's all well and good, but how do you get there? Exactly? It's like, because it's not what are you going to walk twenty eight miles a day?
And some of the friends he walks to school with they didn't have shoes, so that other boys would take their shoes off so they would all walk with no shoes. Like that gives me goosebumps thinking about that no shoes.
Yeah, well, he's What you've also done is you've created a little time capsule that like your your family, they can go back and listen to that forever, and so can you. You know, and let's hope you do another one next year when he's one hundred and two. But you know what I was thinking, I hope Ron's not listening.
But my dad, Ron's eighty five, and I reckon, your granddad's a little bit sharper than Ron, and he's one hundred and one, so sharp, like there is other than the fact that he talks gently and a little bit slower, but not definitely.
Not that's just tasmy It's just.
That's indicative of the geographical kind of requirements. But that I was going to say, motherfucker, that would be inappropriate. But that motherfucker is switched on, like there's no cognitive decline or very little. I mean, he seems straight up normal.
Yeah yeah, and funny, yeah yeah yeah.
So what does that mean for Tiff moving forward? Doc, do you reckon, all things being equal, she might get old?
Well, I would hope. So, I mean, you certainly got the genetic potential there that you know, if there is a genetic component to old age, and I'm sure that there is at least to a certain degree, then yeah, Nati, Tiff has that potential for those longevity genes. You know, just maybe don't do anything that might put you in harm's way, like boxing or something like that.
Or riding or riding motorbikes for completing a thesis.
No chance.
But anyway, if anything's going to aid you, it's a PhD. When you get accepted, you're like, whooo, look at me. And then then you get in and you're like, oh, what have I done? This is horrible? Oh what am I doing? The dumbest thing you can do is tell everyone in the world what you're doing.
That's like before and after pictures in every thesis. You know what you look like before you started and what you look like after. Always than by anyone who wants to go through that gauntlet.
Yeah, when people look at me and they're like, as your PhD, I'll go, well, have a look at me. I'm only twenty nine. They're like, okay, so it's hard. I in the middle of the rabble, we decided we might talk about but we might talk about the biology of happiness, if that's a if that's a thing, and or the influence of genetics and our biology on maybe more broadly, just emotions and feelings in general. Doc I
was saying a tiff yesterday. There are not many times, but sometimes when I have a day where I feel really flat and or a bit sad or not often maybe two or three days a year, but where there's no apparent reason. It's not like something happened and I'm thinking about that thing and now I'm sad. But is that tied in perhaps to just something that's going on in my body.
Absolutely, I mean, all the feelings and sensations that we experience are biochemistry based, So it's all based in our brain chemistry, and there's evolutionary reasons for this. So it's always, I think, useful to have a discussion about happiness or its counterpart sadness in the context of what these feelings
truly are from a biological perspective. We experience them subjectively, I feel happy or you know, I feel melancholy and don't maybe sometimes you don't know why, but we know that it's a biochemical reaction because it can be manipulated. You know, you can artificially induce happiness through various drugs. You can artificially induce or alleviate depression through either certain
substances or medication, respectively. So we have to appreciate that this is a biological a biochemical reaction in the brain, and what's happening is that these chemicals are binding to certain receptors on our brain cells, and they are kind of creating this feedback loop that gives us a subjective experience.
And the reason for all of that is so that our bodies can discern things about our environment, or so we can remember experiences we just had had as either pleasurable something we might want to repeat or painful something we want to avoid. So there's an evolutionary basis for why we experience happiness, sadness, and all the other emotions that are subjective in nature. You know, there's a tangible biological reason for them. So why why would our bodies
be designed to be sad? You can think of a variety of reasons, but it's basically a warning signal not to repeat that behavior or eat that food, or you know, say that thing to someone. These are kind of warning signs that this experience should not be repeated. It's not advantageous for our survival or maybe our reproductive fitness, which in biological terms means our chances of procuring a mate and you know, reproducing our DNA. So that's what these
negative emotions are for. Positive ones are for the opposite you know, if we do something that is biologically rewarding, then we're going to feel a pleasurable sensation.
You know.
That's why sex is probably one of the most ultimate pleasurable experiences the brain registers because at our core, our biology wants us to reproduce, so we seek out sex in order to do that, and we are rewarded, you know, through brain chemistry that hey, DNA likes it when you're trying to procreate, so we're going to reward you with this fantastic experience called the orgasm. Same thing happens when you eat something that has a lot of sugar, you know,
or fat. These were rare nutrients to come by back in the day when we were evolving over you know, tens of thousands of years, so our brain has built in, hardwired an intense pleasurable response when sugar, salt, or fat hits our tongue. It's actually maladaptive now, as we've discussed several times on our show, because that same pleasurable experience
is tied to our brain. Even though these substances are not scarce any longer, they're actually really easy to come by, so we actually become obese and overeat because of that pleasurable sensation that helped us evolve a long time ago. So does that make sense where these positive and negative emotions come from and what they mean?
Yeah? Completely, So Tiff, what that tells me is you shouldn't come back from tasmania.
That's what my biology told me.
That's what your biology can. I throw you under the bus and feel free to alive. You know, a little bit bottom lip, that a little bit flat, And I went, what's gone on? And you went, I don't know, and you were kind of maybe had a fit, but like you, you just didn't feel great for no obvious reason. Right, Yeah, what did you do? You have any revelations since then?
Oh?
Not since then? But I think, you know, like listening to Bill talk and discussions I've had with other people, it's it's understanding when what the what leavers you need to pull in life when you haven't necessarily changed anything. So, like I think one of the big leavers for me is almost forty two, and I don't recover the way I used to do in training. So everything that I that has been great for me isn't working as well.
So I've had to change things. So it's understanding what leavers do I need, what's the thing in my environment that hasn't drastically changed that's now functioning differently to how it was. And the thing that clued me off is I got to tazzy and just like when I got to the Himalayas, my heart resting heart rate immediately dropped eight to ten beats a minute, and I went, there's something in the way that I'm living my day today that's not good for my nervous system and I need
to figure that out. And so I guess that played on my mind. And then when I got back here, I had some out of my control chaos unfold the day or two before, so I had no resilience for that. I've just felt like I have got no mind for this right now and it was exhausting. And yeah, and.
You think that that's about like you said to me, Yeah, your heart rate dropped like a ten beats and also you slept phenomenally right. Yeah, whereas you over here, So we're talking about Victoria and Tasmania, doctor Bill, So bottom of Australia. Where we are Victoria off the bottom of Australia, which is still part of Australia, which is Tasmania the island, so that's where tips from. But when you're there, it's like your body responds differently in that environment.
Yeah, yeah, And I think maybe it's I've got a lot of isolation around me here that I have created, and I guess when I go home, there's all the old there's old friendships, there's family, there's connection, there's people around, there's peace and there's calm then And it was the same in India. I was with a group and there was a whole change of scenery and people in it with me, and I was like, that's one of the big things that highlights like no one in it with
you in life like day to day. So yeah, it's interesting Stage checked.
Isn't it amazing, doctor Bill? How our biology responds to different environments or different people, or different social settings, like literally heart rate up or down, blood pressure up or down, sleep better or worse, just because of where you are and perhaps who you're around.
Yeah, that's amazing, And it's one of the reasons why I think a lot of therapists and doctors will encourage people to journal experiences so that you can have a physical record of what sort of environments or what sort of experiences make you happy, sad or just met. You know, you want to leverage those happy experiences so that you can repeat them again or maybe even all to your life, so that you can enrich your life with those experiences.
So the specifics that Tiff mentioned are very interesting because it reminds me of two things that always come up in research on happiness. The first of which is the return home. There's something about home, and you know, assuming that it offers the secure environment that it does for many people, Obviously, if you've had a horrible home life,
this is not going to be the same experience. But when you return home, you get these wonderful feelings of nostalgia, you get feelings of security, you get you know, these wonderful memories. Fully, they're wonderful of growing up without a care in the world, which is what most kids experience. You know, you don't have a job, you don't have to pay bills, all this kind of stuff is taken
care of for you. That's a tremendous source of happiness, and it's something that we can tap into more regularly if we take a different perspective on life and if we realize that if we can build just enough shelter and acquire just enough of our basic needs, you know, the monetary means to provide food and safety, and you know, give us a little something to do, that's really all
you need. Community is really important, and that's another reason why home and revisiting with friends is extremely important variable in the equation for happiness. Now, the other dimension you mentioned TIF is also equally important and comes up again time and time again and happiness research. And if I understood you correctly, the trip you had to India, was it India?
Yeah?
Yeah, that trip seems to have inspired a great sense of awe within you, and that experience of all and realizing that there is so much more to this world than our little lives is something that creates this immense pleasure in most people. And I think part of that pleasure relates to the fact that life is so much bigger than our day to day petty experiences, our little
trials and tribulations. They seem to take a back seat when you're confronted with something that fills you with all, like being at the ocean, or climbing a mountain, or almost anything in nature can do that sort of thing, or even if you're about you're reading about these wonderful things that humans have done that can fill you with all as well. I mean, we're pretty remarkable species despite
all of our flaws. You know, we were talking about your one hundred and one year old grandfather who has gone from an era where we didn't even have antibiotics, television, you know, cancer treatments and all these all these things that have improved the quality of life to a lifetime now which probably looks like a playground compared to some of the things he might have experience. My grandparents were
the same way. I hear about what they had to endure as immigrants to the United States, coming here with virtually nothing you know, in their hands, not even being able to go to high school, much like your your your story there and the lives that they were able to build. If they could see what we live now, it would fill them with all. And I think that's why a lot of people, as we each tend to get happier and happier. So those two experiences, you know,
this is probably going to benefit your listeners, Craig. If you can find community, whether that be at home or just with friends, and if you can find something an experience that will bring all or fill you with that sensation, you know, and give you perspective on life. Those are two drivers of happiness that come up again and again in psychological surveys.
You know, what's interesting that that was all interesting? What else though we were? I don't know if you and I talked about it on our last chat or before or maybe, but this idea of interpersonal neurobiology, the way that the impact that other people have just you know, it's like being near somebody could turn out or basically trigger your parasympathetic nervous system because you love being around them. They put you at ease, They relieve anxiety for you,
they make you calm, you feel loved and safe. Or the same individual being around another person who doesn't necessarily do anything to them, not hurt them, not talk to them, but just being near them could create the opposite response. And it's this impact that you know. I was coaching a lady recently and she was talking about how she
gets anxiety just seeing her boss. He doesn't even have to do anything or talk, and she sits in her car in the car park before work just to do some box breathing to try to get everything in check. And she says, when I feel it's like as the elevator goes up, my blood pressure goes up. And I'm like wow, And she goes, And the days like sometimes he's into state, she goes, none of that happens. I'm like, wow,
isn't that interesting? The way that that how you expect aperience another person can change your biology drastically.
Yeah, that's a really great point too. And our connections with other people, whether they be family, friends, employers, and so on, can really have a dramatic impact for better or worse.
Yeah.
Now, what I've found is that you can certainly incorporate more of the positive moments in your life. If there are people in your life who bring you joy, certain family member, a friend, what have you, Craig Harper, whatever, be with that person more. You know, create more moments and opportunities in your life to be with the people who make you happy. And on the flip side, suppress the people or you know, don't engage with them. If you don't have to, just minimize the presence in your
life of people who bring you down. You know, there's no obligation you have to hang out with certain people or to engage with them, So minimize it, you know, if they're not if they're not making it work for you. What I also found, and I don't mean to sound like I'm blaming the victim here, but this, this is a tried and true psychological technique. And you can you
can interject if I'm wrong on this, Craig. But we have a lot more power than we think when it comes to the emotions that are generated from external things, whether it be a person or a situation. How that affects us is under our control. Okay, and this is really important. It's it's almost like an earth shattering revelation that many people just don't appreciate. Yeah, let's take your example, Craig or tif. You know the example you brought up. A boss or some other person is an antagonist in
your life. You can't even think about them without a whole bunch of fiery emotions going off that that ruined your day. Whose fault is that? You could say it's your boss, yes, but he's an external person. The reality you create in your head is what you get your brain to decide. Okay, you get to you have the agency over how you are going to handle that person
in your life. And if that person is creating emotions in you that are negative, you have a very empowering ability to change those emotions.
You can.
I'm not saying you you know, you don't experience it. I'm not trying to negate that that sensation. It happens. It's a biological reality. It's measurable, you know. But you can talk to your You can talk to yourself in a very positive way and in a very productive way to recognize the emotion and transform remit into something either neutral or positive. And you can radically change your state of happiness by that simple exercise.
Yeah, I love that. I actually put up a post the other day, three days ago in fact, which speaks to this, So the white on my Instagram, I wrote, the problem with the when you do this you make me feel that mindset is that you make me feel. Part of that statement as telling the world and yourself that someone else is in control of your feelings. And then I wrote, yes, some people are going to say and do nasty shit, even people who allegedly love us.
Welcome to life. Fortunately, you and I wrisk. How you and I respond and react is optional. It's not easy, of course, but optional. And I think there's that I love what you said, you know, just that awareness that what's going on in me is an individual reaction to an inbound stimulus, you know, and this thing that's happened. It's like another silly example, but is I've been riding motorbikes forever. Tip rides motorbikes. Some people I'll put on the back and we'll go for a ride. It'll be
the worst experience of their life. They'll be terrified, they're traumatized. They get back, they've got PTSD, not really, you know, but they hate it. Somebody else shall do the exact same thing, and they want to get straight back on and go somewhere else. It's like, it's not about the motorbike or the ride, it's about how you relate to that, what that means to you, how you feel around that. And this is not good or bad, and the same with you know, you make me feel. It's a very
understandable mindset. But as you said, it's like, I think this is the that's a real self awareness kind of exploration.
There exactly exactly, and it's really empowering to know that you have it within yourself to make that change. You can certainly recognize those emotions boiling up in you when that person pisses you off, You get angry, you get mad. But when that happens and you don't do something about it mentally, okay, talk yourself out of it. If you will, they win. You know, they got the best of you. They got into your head. And what I'm trying to do is get you to be an exorcist to those
emotions that they put into you. You know, you have the ability to cast them out. And like you said, it is easier said than done. It takes a little bit of training, It takes a little bit of you know, practice to be able to control your emotions like that. But I tell you, once you master that ability, it will change your life.
Yeah. And I think also in close proximity to that is the awareness that we create anxiety via our thoughts. You know, something happens and I go, oh my god, that's a stressful situation, and I get stressed, and TIFF's in the same situation, and Tiff goes, this is not a problem at all, and she's not stressed, like her body is calm. I'm elevated We're in the same situation, but we didn't have the same experience, and we didn't have the same outcome, not because of the event or
the situation, but because of the individual reaction. And like trying to get people to understand the role that they play in their own anxiety. And I'm not saying anxiety is not real and it's not a battle. Of course, it's real and it's a battle, but understanding out the contribution we make to that.
Absolutely. Yeah. I don't mean to trivialize anxiety either, and I'll give you a rather trivial example to compare to what some other people go through, But I think it's one that a lot of people can relate to. And that's public's speaking. Okay, I do this a lot. I get up in front of crowds quite a bit, talk about the book, talk about this and that. You know, go on these wonderful podcasts, and you know, it's natural to feel anxious about what's going to happen. Oh my gosh,
Am I going to say something stupid? Are people going to hate me? Are people going to make fun of me? You know, you know, you can run through all these scenarios in your head and I used to have a problem with that. Every time, you know, like an hour or so before, my mind would just go crazy with all these possibilities, okay, these what ifs, and you have to learn to control that. And you can simply do it by shifting what your mind is thinking about. And again,
with practice, this gets easier. But what I've come to do is appreciate that. First of all, you know, I remind myself that I trained for this, I practiced, I rehearsed, I've done this before. The audience is not going to be mean. They're not out to get me. Run through more positive thoughts. You know, maybe they're going to really
appreciate what I say. Maybe what I say is going to make them think, these are some things that you can do instead of dwelling on all the negatives and my complete fail safe if all that fails is that I and everyone who is listening to me will be dead soon and none of this will matter. That works wonders.
Except TIFF's granddad. He's going to be here in a hundred He'll remember everything that all bug is going nowhere. God bless him.
That We'll put an asterisk by what I said, except for TIFF's granddad.
Yeah, yeah, it is. I was thinking when you were talking about essentially almost it sounds like the biology of belief a bit. It's like, what do you believe? I believe that's terrifying. Therefore I'm terrified. I believe that's funny, so I'm amused. I believe that's interesting, so I'm fascinated. I believe that's an opportunity to grow. So I'm fucking
in boots and all. You know, I think there's these self limiting and empowering beliefs, but I think also, I don't know about you, but I've always to a degree felt like an impost or not good enough for you know, self doubt, self loathing, all of that stuff. But then as an older person being able to recognize that, oh, I can still feel these things, but also that doesn't need to control my behavior like I do over one hundred corporate gigs a year. I never before, I never
think I'm amazing, They're going to fucking love me. I never think that. I don't think I'm going to crash and burn. But I'm always there's this low level anxiety. There's this awareness that this could go or not, you know, there's no arrogance in it. I don't. But I think for me, having that a little bit of self doubt keeps me focused. I don't know, that's just how I work. Well.
That is the biological purpose of anxiety. It's to get us motivate us to prepare for something. Right, So if you're feeling anxious about an exam or you know, a public performance you have to do, or a date you're going on, that is just your body's way of saying, let's prepare for this. It's a motivator, yes, but it can certainly go out of control. And that's where this beneficial,
you know, component to our biology can become maladaptive. And some people it's so bad they legitimately need medication to get those biochemicals under control. And that's that's perfectly fine. But I think you can make a lot of headway, you know, no pun intended. You can make a lot of difference just by retuning the inner monologue that you
experience in your brain. You know, you can talk to yourself in a very different way and reframe the situation to get that anxiety to tick back down to a level where you know it's acceptable, and that it's driving you to do positive things rather than overdriving you to, you know, feel bad.
Yeah, I made that little bit of self doubt and that I remember. I was talking to somebody about this the other day. This is a weird thing. I don't know what you think of this, but you know, most people want to Most people want to look good. That's not a bad thing, men and women. Most people want
to look good. But I was when I was a kid, I didn't necessarily want to look good, as in be attractive, but I wanted to look This is going to sound I've never said this in two thousand episodes, but I wanted to look intimidating because I felt weak, like I felt insecure, and I felt weak, and I thought people knew, and I thought, fuck, if I could look intimidating, people won't know a week I am. And I thought, I wonder if there's a name for that. And I did
some research here. It's called dominant signaling or social status assertion or aggressive aggressive posturing. You know, there's all this stuff in evolutionary psychology. And I'm like, oh, that's what I was. I mean, now I don't care, but I really cared that. It's like this fucking evolutionary driver that I looked scary or that I looked I mean, not that I wanted to do anything to anyone, but I was so insecure, and I thought I was so weak that there was this drive for me to I didn't
necessarily care if I looked attractive. I just wanted to look intimidating because I felt the opposite of that. How funny is that.
Well, I don't. I don't think it's funny at all. I mean, I think it's perfectly natural. You'd be weird if you weren't worried about your status, because that is another aspect of our biology that's been hardwired into us for for eons. You know, even non human primates struggle with status. We got the whole alpha male situation you know in non human primates and other species as well. This and it is downright funny when you put it
into an evolutionary context. So all the things you described, Craig, and all the other similar experiences people have, all the struggles that we that we aim for in life. Okay, whether it be excelling intellectually in the classroom, or excelling at the gym, or looking intimidating. All these things that we try to dominate are evoluente lutionary ghosts, and I've
talked about those before. The status game, if you will, is a trick that our biology plays on us so that we increase our odds of looking attractive for mates. That's the evolutionary psychology behind the whole thing. And when you put those behaviors, you know, imagine yourself as an alien visiting this planet and studying our species and watching us do these silly things, you know, working so hard
to achieve these meaningless status games. You'd almost laugh yourself off the chair if you were watching it from the outside, you know, if you like, for just a quick example, you can watch like a documentary of apes or gorillas or something, and you watch them do these little status games, you know, play around, you know, bully other lower primates so that you have more mating opportunities than that one, or that you have more food than that one. You'd
almost think, oh, this is really kind of silly. Why can't they just all, you know, come together and talk this out or get along. We have echoes of that in our own species. And this is what politics and global problems the whole root of all of that is a status gain, okay, and it doesn't need to exist in this world because we don't have the scarce resources that those evolutionary tools were designed to succumb to, design to overcome. So in a scarce or stressful environment, status
can be critically important. In today's environment, we just pretend that it is. And if we can lose that illusion, we can make this world heaven on Earth, okay, because cooperation is also embedded deep within our genes. But we fool ourselves. We delude our self that competition and the alpha male is natural and the way we need to proceed. That may be true if resources were scarce, but they're
not scarce anymore. They're just, you know, unequally divided. And if we came together as a species and lived more intelligently, the world would be a much better place. We don't have to live the way that evolution designed us to.
Yeah, it's so true. We don't live in that place or that time, all that kind of reality. Did you ever see did you see Chimp Empire doc? Which was a.
Big yeah, Yeah, it was fantastic and I still to this day, I meant to check on this but how the hell did they film that? It was remarkable, and they put these stories together almost like a soap opera, you know, about what these chimps are going through. It's a wonderful documentary. I highly recommend it.
Yeah, originally that some researchers in there who weren't filming. They were just researching, and then I think this is the story TIF you might know. But and then these doco makers wanted to film, and so they integrated into
the research team. But the chimps were very, very familiar with humans, and as long as humans didn't they obviously couldn't have any food, they couldn't smell, like, they had to have no smell, no food, no sense, and basically they became The humans kind of became invisible to the chimps after a period of time, and so by the time they started filming, I think those researchers had already been embedded in the tribe or whatever for the best part of a decade. So I think that's how they
got that up close. I mean, yeah, you're right, it was like they were right in the middle of everything.
Yeah, it was incredible, you know, I was bewildered at some of the shots, But I was entranced by how human like so many of the behaviors that these chimps exhibited. It was striking, and I'm pretty familiar with them, you know, and it was still to see it on the screen like that just took it to a whole other level. You see all the emotions, you see all the politics, all the social games that we play, all in these chimps,
And that's our history, Craig, that's our history. And we're still living like we're just a bunch of chimps with scarce resources in the forest. And we don't need to live that way anymore. We've conquered so much, we've come so far. We can just divide it up better and
everyone would be better off for it. Because getting circling back to happiness, what study after study shows is that the more material things you accumulate, the more money you have, the more external rewards you have, it doesn't wait with a proportional rise in happiness.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the converse of that. People who live relatively meek lives can still be incredibly happy. Monks who live on virtually nothing are some of the happiest people in the world. So happiness is a state of mind. And if we continue to fool ourselves and kill ourselves to get more money, to get more material things. Fancy your cars, fancy your jewelry, You're going down the wrong road, my friend. That's not going to bring you the contentment that you seek.
It's not going to sustain happiness.
Yeah, yep, yep. There's lots of theology and philosophy and psychology and research around that. So you're on the money. Uh tif, we hope you have, we hype you have a better day today.
Picked up, it's picked up, already.
Picked up a little bit. Like Doctor Bill's like Xanax with headphones.
On, isn't he? He's like, no.
What's the other one? What's the one that makes you feel good? Happy? Prozac? He's like, Prozac with specs.
That's going to be my new that's my new tagline, Prozac with specs. Yeah, Prozac with specs. I don't know if a lot of Americans will realize spex means glasses.
But that's okay, Oh really, you don't use that.
It's not really my specs though. It's what I'm saying. I'm I'm verbal prozac.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, You're like a soothing bomb to the anxiety of the written Australian. You're like a lotion we can just pour on people once a month. All right, enough with the metaphors, Doctor Bill. Where can people find you and follow you and connect with you and get some more soothing?
You can always find what I'm up to my latest writing at all Bill Sullivan dot com. And quite a bit of what we talked about here is actually described in my book Please to Meet Me, Jeans, Germs and the curious forces that make us who we are. It's available wherever books are sold.
Thank you, sir. We'll say goodbye TIF. Thank you, And I think you might need to sell a lot of your stuff, according to doctor Bill, including your motorbike. I'll take care of it so you can find some in a piece.
I'm not going to call him doctor Prozac anymore. Then that doesn't make me happy.
Thanks everyone.
There's nothing I said that would imply that she has to give up things in order to increase her happiness. All I'm saying is that five motorbikes are not necessarily going to make Tiff five times as happy.
Did you write that down, Harps? Did you write that particular piece of information.
Now, I don't have five motorbikes.
I think was the number bill for four make you happy?
Yeah, four, You'll reach a certain plateau and anything after that just doesn't matter.
I feel like I'm being bullied right now. Thanks everyone,