I'm here with the one and only. Derek sivers in the flesh.
A very special treat. We've never.
Recorded anything live? No, I mean you, you live on the
other side of the world. So I only get to.
See you, you live on the other side of the world.
We'll get into that. We'll get into that.
So I mean, we only see each other in person maybe every five
years or so. So this is a very special treat.
Good to have you back on the pod.
Founder of CD Baby, author of many books.
The new book is useful. Not true.
And yeah, I'm excited to get into it with you.
So I, I actually want to start every time I see you it, it was
actually like giving me anxiety because we had, we had brunch
before we came into the studio and we had such good
conversations over brunch and my like, I had this professional
anxiety of like, no, save it. Put the words back in your
mouth. You're like, you're gonna waste
it all before we start recording.
But every time we hang out, we have like such good
conversations. I'm curious, where do you find
ideas and inspiration? I was sitting in your hotel
lobby and I was looking at this Chinese dictionary and seeing
how the characters were formed. And to me, there's like, oh,
there's something really interesting in there about how
some characters have meaning and some just don't.
You shouldn't try to put meaning into these characters.
And I like taking little things like that and applying it to
life in some other way. Same way as when you're writing
music you don't want to, you don't want to imitate The
Beatles too much, right? Or, or whatever genre you're in.
If you're doing heavy metal, you don't want to be a clone of Iron
Maiden, whatever. You want to take some of their
influence and mix it in something that nobody would ever
expect, whether it's like some, you know, Syrian wedding dance
or who knows what, some Dixie ragtime thing.
But now you're heavy metal band is going to do this and people
go, whoa, what a unique sound. But you actually know exactly
what those two influences were. You know that you totally nicked
to this Dixieland jazz thing and mixed it with Steve Harris Iron
Maiden bass lines. It's funny because my brain
works in similar. We're both musicians, which I
find interesting and that are both of us kind of work this way
because in creative fields you hear about this all the time.
Everything's a remix. You know, there's a, the old,
the Picasso quote of, you know, bad artists borrow, great
artists steal, you know, you steal something from over here,
you steal something from over here.
And then the actual creativity is merging them together into
something that sounds completely new or looks completely new.
And it's funny because I feel like in our space, call it the
thought leadership or. Public.
Wanking, public wanking. It's probably more accurate
term. You know, you know, authors, non
fiction thinkers, whatever in Internet personalities, navel
gazers. Navel gazers you don't you see
less remixing you you see a lot of stealing and less remixing.
And it's it's like I see a lot of non fiction.
I get sent a lot of books, a lot of non fiction books from
Myspace and and so many of them just feel like clones.
Of the other contemporary ones. Exactly, which is akin to what
you were saying. It's like starting a metal band
and trying to sound exactly like Iron Maiden and it that that's
never going to work. That doesn't make sense unless
you want to be a cover band like that doesn't make sense.
What works is taking, you know, the Iron Maiden song structure
and applying it to Blues grass and then like throwing in jazz
harmony and then you know, voila, you have a unique
composition all. Right.
So audience, just before we walked into the studio, what we
were talking about was Bob Dylan, Miles Davis.
This idea of once you're successful at something, it
means you should stop. Like, yeah, Miles Davis was the
man for for bebop trumpet playing alongside Charlie
Parker. So it's like, right, I did that.
Now I need to do something new, even though my fans are going to
be upset. I need to change genres and push
myself to do what I don't know how to do.
It's almost, it's like the artistic imperative.
You must do this. You can't just rest on your
laurels. Well, you can be ACDC and just
do the same damn thing for 40 years, and some people really
appreciate that. But if you are creatively
ambitious, that's not what you want.
So Bob Dylan did that a bit. His fans were furious when he
went electric. David Bowie made himself like,
take on a new persona every few years.
And these were my early influences because I wanted to
be a successful musician. So to me, like these formative
years of age, 13 through 20, I was poring over these interviews
with musicians, like just hanging on their every word and
just watching how they live their life going.
This is the way. So of course, when I do
something and it's successful, it just feels completely normal
to me to say, like, all right now, it's time to stop doing
that. Not I need to double down, get
the money. I think no, I need to leave that
and get the challenge. Do you feel like you're
reinventing yourself as a writer?
Because this is your 5th book, right?
Yeah, I don't know. Only my last two books, How to
Live and Useful. Not true.
Really felt like I was really writing a book.
Those first three were like just a collection of blog posts.
Then you know, How to Live was definitely like a flash of
inspiration that it took four years to go from flash to
finished thing. And I was like following this
single vision that whole time. And this new 1 was definitely an
exploration. But wait, before we, you know
that. So Led Zeppelin, let's go.
Let's. Get back to the serious stuff.
So Led Zeppelin, one of the band members, said something in an
interview that I read as a teenager that I think of all the
damn time and I think has completely shaped my life and
what I'm doing and where I live and all of it because of a line
I read in an interview when I was 14.
And it was Robert Planter, Jimmy Page said.
The reason that we stood out from the pack is we weren't part
of the London scene. We lived in the countryside in
Wales. We had no idea what they were
doing in London. We were just off like listening
to Arabic music and trying new things to mix Arabic scales with
the Blues off in the Welsh countryside.
And that's why we made something unique and that's why we stood
out. And to me, that's so core to how
I see the world that I don't look at podcasts, for example.
And when you see the guy, they always have the fucking
bookshelf. What's what?
The fucking why does everybody, they say, well, we're podcast,
I'm going to do a podcast, so let me get the bookshelf.
Yeah. And I mean, look, we're actually
using different microphones today.
But you know, usually every, everybody says the exact same
microphone, the same sure mic, the same bookshelf behind them
with everything neatly stacked down when you have it.
And if it's their own book, then they push it facing forward.
And there are these norms that I think, no, that is just the
worst thing you could do. That's like being in the middle
of the London scene and doing the exact same thing as
everybody else. I think it's like our our
challenge almost our our imperative to force yourself to
do something different. You look at what everybody else
is doing. OK, well, not that.
But then you have to be a little more look inside instead of just
deliberately doing the opposite. You think, well, in my perfect
world, how would it be? How do I think it should be?
It becomes a reflection of yourself.
It's funny you bring this up because you were the 1st guest
on this podcast. Right.
And now you're also going to be the last guest on this podcast.
Don't freak out, listeners. There's still going to be a
podcast. It's just going to be very
different. I want to hang on this for a
minute One because this like directly effects my listeners,
but also because I think this is a good example of what you're
talking about. I've really enjoyed having the
podcast this past year, but I feel, I feel like I'm in the
London scene and I'm doing the same thing all the guys in
London are doing and I feel like I need to get to the Welsh
countryside and start fucking with Arabic.
Scales because it's. You know, when I look at all the
big podcasts in this space, first of all, most of them have
been doing it for like 10 years now and they've just built this
machine. But so much of it is, is based
off of booking guests and then like researching into the
minutia and getting like the perfect questions.
So you can have the perfect Instagram reel of that guest
that you can post and it goes viral and all this shit.
And like, and look, there's a lot of guy, like I'm friends
with a lot of guys in this space that like are amazing at it And,
and I look at them and I'm like AI probably it's going to be
really hard to compete with them.
And then BI don't want to do that.
Like I don't want to do the same thing everybody else is doing.
I fuck, I hate booking guests. And no offense, like I, I like
most of the guests that have come on the show and I've
enjoyed talking to most of them, but like, I don't like
researching for guests. I, it took me 20 episodes to
figure that out. I'm like, I don't actually like
this format. And so we're actually going to
relaunch the show into something completely different.
There'll be a formal announcement, everybody, don't
worry, stay tuned. But it's funny that you brought
that up because that's exactly what I've been going through
creatively with the show. And it's, and it's also, it's
very, I thought it was very poetic to bring you on as both
the last guest and you were the 1st guest as well.
So thank. You.
Yeah, and this is maybe rudely blunt of me to say, but I was a
little worried when you said I'm going to do a podcast.
I was like oh fuck. Mark another one, but.
You see, like, to me, like, your writing is so original.
Yeah. Your books were so like, like
nothing else. There was nothing until
everybody started clothing fucking the title.
Everything you did was so unique and when you said you were going
to do a podcast, went Oh no, no, no, like don't do another
fucking podcast. But I mean, luckily you did
already start to take it somewhere new right away.
We tried, yeah, yeah. So it's huge relief, it's been
change. Like any creative process,
right, Like you have to learn the rules before you can break
them, right? Like we, we tried to break some
rules early and it, we just fell on our faces.
And so we kind of fell into this rhythm of, OK, let's just book
the same guests. You know, I, at this point, I'm
friends with half the people in this world.
So it's it, it, you know, most of the time all it took was a
text message, right? And, and even then I was like, I
hate booking guests. Like you said, I, I have this
almost like compulsive need to be contrarian and original or
different. Like I'd rather be different.
And and suffer the consequences of failure than to just
replicate what everybody else is doing that's working.
Even if it rewards. You exactly and especially at
this point in my career so. Wait, let's pause right there.
Because I think it's considerate for the audience to challenge
yourself to be different. It's not that it's it's not ego
driven and I don't correct me if I'm for you, but but for me it's
not ego driven. It's like they already have this
shit. Yeah, you know, ABCABCABCABC.
I'm not going to jump in and go ABCABCABC for their sake.
I want to say the thing that other people aren't saying.
I want to do it in a different way that nobody had considered
in every way, even my whole like whether it's technology wise,
the way I do my site, the way I do my whatever.
I try to just think, well, what's the underrepresented
angle in the big chorus? Like I know I'm not the lead
singer in their life. I know I am 1 little voice in
the choir. So it's like, well, what note is
not being sung that I can? Contribute, I like that it's
also just a critique that I have of, of podcasting in this space
too, is that it is getting, it's getting mundane, it's getting
repetitive. It's the same the, the all the
shows are doing the same thing with the same guests, same
topics. You know, anytime a a new book
comes out, you know the I'm sure you've done you're, you're
either have done or you're going to do a bunch of the same shows,
which I get it's part of the it's part of promoting a book.
Yeah. I just, I don't find it
interesting. And, and so I what I find
interesting is trying to reinvent the format or the
medium or just do something disruptive.
Even even if it doesn't, you know, even if I make less money
or I lose some audience or whatever, it's like, let's just
let's do something interesting and fun and original and see
what happens. Let's break some shit.
See, that to me goes back to the musical example.
I finally just listened to the legendary David Bowie albums
produced by Brian Eno called Low and Crap.
I forget the other, but he made this like after he was already
famous for Ziggy Stardust and such.
Then he went and made three really artsy albums with Brian
Eno. It was just such a wonderful,
bold, creative step that it's hard to imagine.
Well, OK, it's hard to imagine Taylor Swift doing it, but it's
it's actually easy to imagine some other popular musicians
these days doing it. But even like Peter Gabriel back
in the 80s and 90s, suddenly he did the soundtrack to the movie
The The Last Temptation of Christ, and then went out and
put out a bunch of like traditional world music albums
that like released through his label.
And it's just something that most of his fans would not have
followed him to do that. But I thought it was so bold of
him to do that, almost like a creative reset.
It's like, all right, I'm popular.
I'm popular. Yeah, let me, let me do
something that none of you will like, except maybe like 1% of
you will get what I'm doing. And that's what I want.
Let's let's reduce my audience again.
It's funny because I definitely feel that tension, like I I've
been very aware for a long time now that I can just keep hitting
the fuck note on the piano for the next 20 years and just keep
collecting the paychecks. There is a legitimate temptation
to do that. Like it it is.
It's easy, it's comfortable. People know what to expect.
Oh my God you could just have like a an LLM just generate Mark
Manson book title is seriously Asterix in the fuck.
Seriously, I mean, we, we could, we could be on Fuck book #8 by
now. You know, if I if I wanted to
go. It was funny because I remember
having a conversation with my publisher pretty early on and
they actually brought that up. They're like, we think this
could be a franchise. We think you could do 8 or 10
books like this with the same cover and the same style and the
same tone. And, you know, you just repeat
the same advice. And and I remember my exact
response was I will not be chicken soup for the soul for
fuck faces. Nice.
You know, you mentioned ACDC, like I get, I get why.
Like if you love it and you like, like you're happy hitting
that note again and again and it pays the bills and the audience
is happy with you hitting that note again and again, you know,
why not do it? But I definitely am more, I
think I'm born more of like the Miles Davis or or like the
Radiohead ilk of just like if I don't try to reinvent myself,
I'm going to go crazy at some point.
But I want to get back. I want to get back to you in
this cross pollination of ideas and modalities.
I read the your new book on the flights down here and I found
consistently my favorite parts of the book were where you
brought in very, I guess, orthogonal references.
Like there's a section on religion.
You talk about nation states at some point, by the way,
everybody that the book is about beliefs and how beliefs can
still be useful if even if they are not necessarily true.
And so there's a lot of very individual examples, right?
You know, we tend to a lot of us have beliefs that are useful,
not true, and a lot of us have beliefs that are not useful and
not true. To me, the most exciting stuff
was like, you know, is a religion a useful, not true
belief? Is a nation state a useful, not
true? Is culture useful not true or
like social norms like all that stuff like that gets me super
that that's what that's like when you take a Iron Maiden and
you play it with a banjo like that's that was that was a lot
It's is that the stuff that you find the most fun or?
Yeah, when you surprise yourself, isn't that nice?
When you're writing, sometimes you sit down to write and you
know what you're going to say. But sometimes you sit down with
more of a question and you privately explore this subject.
You're typing. You're writing and you're
typing. And then suddenly you go whoa.
And you surprise yourself. Yeah, that's the best feeling
when you're writing because if you know, you and I have read a
lot of books, if, if I've never heard this idea before, I'm
like, oh, wow, I've never heard this idea before.
This is badass. Yeah.
I want to put this out there because if I've never heard it,
then most people probably haven't heard it.
Or what happens sometimes is so I can put an idea out and
somebody says, you know, what you should look into.
Like what you're saying right now kind of sounds like this,
which I guess could, you know, like you think you're doing
something unique musically. And they say you should check
out Tom Waits. There you go.
Oh, OK. Wow.
So that is still the thrill for me is to surprise myself.
So writing useful. Not true.
I surprised myself a lot because I was talking about something I
didn't already know about. I went in, you know, with this
question for two years. I just was devouring everything,
reading all these books about philosophy and religion, and I
read the Bible cover to cover. We talked about in our first
episode and reading the Quran, reading about Islam, reading
about Hinduism, reading about just theology in general, which
is just something I'd never looked into because in America,
growing up in America, it felt like a don't go there subject
because if you go there at all, you're just going to have this
kind of just Christianity, just join our church.
Just come to Bible study with me.
That was the only like any mention of religion felt like it
was just going to go there and that's that.
It could never stay one level zoomed out about why we even
have religion and how it's beneficial and what, what does
it do for us and how does it improve our actions and all
that. It's just, no, it's just here's,
here's what my parents taught me and that's that.
So this this two year investigation into this concept
of useful but not true beliefs. You know, in the book you talk
about how 99.9% of our views, our perspectives, not facts, and
how you can put down and pick up perspectives at will in order to
enhance yourself or help yourself.
I'm curious after this two year investigation, what were the
biggest perspectival shifts that you've experienced?
Like how is Derek different post book versus pre book?
Like what? What did you change your mind on
or your perspective on and and what was the significance of
that? I think the big one was
realizing that ultimately all that really matters are the
actions we take that that beliefs that you could choose to
adopt do something for your emotional state.
If you choose to adopt A belief that everything sucks, it gives
you this emotional state. If you have the you take the
belief that I'm surrounded by opportunities, you know, it
gives you this emotional state. And then depending on your state
is going to completely affect your actions, whether you just
decide to just fuck it and eat some ice cream on the couch, or
if you decide to throw out the ice cream you bought last night,
stop drinking alcohol, get your shit together, and go take this
action. Because it's just a slight tweak
of thinking a slightly different belief completely changes your
direction with your actions. And none of the beliefs are
necessarily true, by the way. So we got it, you know,
audience, like the first page of the book says, look, I need to
define this word true. Yeah.
Because for the whole book, I don't want to always say
necessarily, absolutely, objectively, empirically,
observably, observably true. So whenever I say true, what I
really mean is absolutely, necessarily, objectively,
observably true. But the reason to define it like
that is because whatever you've defined as true, that's closed.
You're done. No more questioning that.
And I think that was so interesting to realize that,
yeah, opening that up again to say that might not necessarily
be true, that you asked the actions that changed for me or
what it changed in how I see the world.
It was, for one, realizing that everything is.
I just need to judge it by its actions it creates and then I
need to keep challenging myself whenever I I still catch myself
saying things like, well, that was stupid or or this is
battered, that's amazing. And I'm like.
Is it? Not necessarily.
Like even though I've been focused on this subject for two
years, I still catch myself having viewpoints that feel
absolutely true. I have to catch myself like.
I wonder how much of that is is is a product of like semantics
and language, right? Because it's one of the things
that you point out repeatedly in the book is that there are all
sorts of normative things that we will say, like she is very
polite or the weather is bad today.
And we, we just through saying that there's an implicit
assumption that that is factually true, right?
But and we are unaware of all of the normative and subjective
assumptions that have to happen underneath that statement.
But then sometimes I wonder, just like we, we just don't have
the language to like equip that right?
Like you, like you just said, there's a version of this book
where the word empirically or objectively is inserted before
the word true 500 times and. Or there might be some language
on earth that has different words.
Like apparently the French have 20 different words for friend
whereas in in English we just have this word friend that gets
you know suitcased in the meaning so like.
Maybe we should just have a different word for truth.
Like there's a word for objective, empirical, verifiable
truth, and then there's a word for like truthish, you're.
Right you. Know it works for me.
It works for me. Yeah.
It's, you know, David Foster
Wallace used to call it capital T True.
And and he also said that almost nothing is verifiably capital T
true. Which, OK, by the way, you know,
so I don't get into political zeitgeist.
I don't follow news and try to get into the conversation
dujour. But so when I told some people I
was writing this book, a lot of people said, Oh, are you going
to finally, you know, talk about those people that just go lie in
the media and and deny? There's a like, no, it's not
denialism because denialism is where you take observable facts
that are verifiable and necessary and absolute facts.
And you say, no, that didn't happen.
That's not true. You know, no, the we didn't lose
the election. No, vaccines don't work.
It's like, no, you can look at data microscope and you can see
the little vaccines doing their job.
This isn't about denying what's true, but it's it is about
drawing that line between there's some things in life that
are absolutely true, Sure, and everything else of the mind is
just we can choose another perspective.
Well, and I think you talked about this when we talked last
year of, you know, the first object objection that people
bring up. It's like, well, then I'll just,
I'm just going to believe that I'm Superman and that, you know,
I'm a billionaire and everybody loves me and you know, all this
stuff. And it you pointed out, you
said, yes, you can believe those things, but they're not useful
because you're deluding yourself.
You're like removing yourself from a shared reality.
So there's like they're actually, there's a quote.
This ties in really well with a quote from the book that I
marked down that I want to read really quick because I I thought
this was pretty insightful when it comes to why so many
perspectives feel true even though they are not necessarily
like capital T. True.
So you said people communicate for social and emotional
reasons. Socially, they want to bond.
Judgments, gossip, ethics, and opinions are all great for
signaling and connecting. Emotionally, they want
validation. They want others to acknowledge
and agree that their viewpoint is justified.
When you can see someone's point of view, it tells them that
you're standing on their side. That's why people rarely share
objective, unbiased facts. Actual facts are boring as dirt.
Nobody bonds over facts. They have more incentive to
share their thoughts, which are never necessarily true.
Which I love that because it's, you're right, like 99.9% of
everything we talk about is useful not true beliefs.
And we're just we're gauging and verifying whether do you have
the same useful not true belief as I do.
Oh great. Now it became more useful
because we both have it now and we can share it together, right.
And so I think there's like an interesting game theory
situation where if you have a, a not true belief that nobody else
has, you know, like I'm, I don't know, I'm the Queen of England,
it immediately become, it's immediately rendered unuseful
because it's not shared. Nobody else sees me as the Queen
of England. So it's, it's now a belief
that's hurting me. I, I think this, this explains
like social contagion and peer pressure, right?
Because it's like there's a, there is an incentive to share
the useful, not true things that other people around you believe.
Because then you get to benefit from not just from the social
validation, but like you get the benefit from their company,
their resources, their friendship, their loyalty,
everything. I'm on your side.
And it was, it was fun imagining that.
Very literally too. When you say that you can see
something from other points, a person's point of view, it tells
them you're standing on their side.
Yeah, it's nice to think of that.
Like very literally, like, yeah, we are standing shoulder to
shoulder. I'm seeing that the same way you
are seeing that. It's kind of a nice metaphor.
We have an English like that. That.
Yeah, I, I see it your way. I'm standing on your side and.
You well, and you have you have that that quip as well about the
guy who asked calls out to the woman on the other side of the
river. Oh, yeah, That was a joke.
I didn't make that up. I heard that joke somewhere.
There's like a yeah, traveler is walking through a strange land
and he comes to a river and he calls to the woman on the other
side. He says, excuse me, how do I get
to the other side of the river? And she looks back and she goes,
you are on the other side of the river.
And. And I just love that.
It's like, yeah, I'm in New Zealand right now.
Sometimes I comment on people's accent and they go we don't have
an. Accent.
You do? Yeah, it's.
Wonderful to remember well. You have an accent even at the
top of the show. I was like, well, you know, you
live on the other side of the world and you're like, no, you
live on the other side of the world.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, there there was a my
favorite Ted talk I did was just this tiny little 3 minute talk
where I talked about how you can see so many things from the
other point of view. So one of them is addresses in
Japan. We grew up in a country where
the streets have names, and blocks are just the unnamed bits
of land in between named streets.
In most of Japan, it's the opposite.
The blocks have numbers or names, and the streets are
thought of as just unnamed spaces in so in between.
So if you ask somebody what's the name of the street, they'll
go what? And same thing if somebody, if a
Japanese person came to America and they said, what's the name
of this block? You're like, well, this is Oak
St. This is Elm St.
No, no, no. What's that block?
What? But then you realize that so
many things can be seen from an opposite point of view,
including where we are in New Zealand right now.
There was a map, I think, actually, I think it was in the
Sydney airport. No, maybe it was in the Auckland
airport, where it was the the upside down world map where New
Zealand and Australia and Argentina are at the top.
And down below you have Canada and Russia.
And it is equally valid. We live in a sphere.
Yeah. It's a beautiful reminder.
It's interesting noting all the way like all of these socially
organizing useful, not true beliefs.
I mean it, it, it does seem like the basis of culture, right?
Like even some things as simple as like, you know, when when you
meet somebody, you shake their hand and you say nice to meet
you, you say please, thank you. All those things.
These are simply useful, not true beliefs that we've adopted
to signal certain things to each other because it helps organize
us as a community and as a society.
And I guess just being aware of that is powerful because then
you, once you're, you have to be aware of it in order to
understand why you would ever opt out.
I guess because it's, it's, you see, when people are not aware
of the game, they either conform blindly, right?
And that's not good. Or they rebel blindly like
they're upset they don't understand why they break a
bunch of rules. There's no rhyme or reason to,
it's just chaos. But when you're aware of the
game, then you can be selective in choosing OK.
This is a social norm that I actually don't think is as
useful as other people do. And I think I'm going to go the
other way on this one and I'm going to bear the cost of that.
Yeah, I guess I've just never thought of it this way.
It's really interesting. I also find it very interesting
that you spent two years writing a book about beliefs and and
your your big conclusion is that actions matter way more.
Well, the no, it's the sorry, more succinctly put, the whole
point of beliefs is to affect your actions, right?
Right. If your beliefs are not
improving your actions and there's no point for the belief.
Like the person that says that they are a a religious believer
but then they act like an asshole and harm everybody
around them. It's like, well then what is the
point of your beliefs if they're not improving your actions?
The point of these beautiful beliefs handed down by religions
over thousands of years is that they improve our actions for the
better. Follow these 10 commandments and
you will be a good person, you will be a good neighbor, you
will be a good spouse, a good parent.
You will be net positive for the world.
If you violate these, you will be net harm for the world.
But there's some people that say that they're a believer, but
then they'll still net harm for the world.
So that the beliefs are moot except in that they affect your
actions. And did you, you talk about at
one point like actually like the basis of religion in a lot of
ways is like they weren't belief systems historically?
That came from a book called The Religious Case Against Belief by
James P Cars CARSE. He's the one.
He's a theology chair, was at the theology chair at New York
University and pointed out that religion is the doing, which is
usually goes hand in hand with the beliefs, but doesn't have to
be. So he pointed out first the
obvious, that there are beliefs that are not religions.
You know, feminism and communism, whatever are not
religions. But he said, on the other hand,
we have Zen Buddhism, which is a religion that has basically no
beliefs. So he said, first, let's be
clear that these are two separate things.
The religions are the actions, the rituals, the things you do,
and then their beliefs, which in my mind it just kind of moot.
And he said somewhat of the same thing, that the point of the
beliefs is to affect the actions coming from a theology.
How do you say that? Theological I was trying.
To get the noun version theologian.
Theologian, theologian. We're writers here.
Exactly. Anyway, coming from a
theologian, I thought that was a powerful point to make.
Is it? The beliefs are basically moot
because they're just in your head, and if they don't affect
your actions then they're completely pointless.
And it helps remind you, OK, now let's stop talking about
religion for a second. But even on like a day-to-day
personal level, what beliefs you have about yourself that get you
out of bed in the morning. What beliefs you have when you
walk into a room of strangers. What beliefs you have when going
on a first date. What beliefs you have when
sitting down to do a project that you're not excited about,
but you're supposed to be doing. You choose your beliefs that any
one of these and then none of them are necessarily true.
You just have to look at how is this going to affect my actions
for the better? And it can be a beautiful little
brainstorming exercise or daydreaming exercise.
When you catch yourself holding a belief that is steering your
actions in an uneffective, disempowering way, you could
just stop for a second and go sit on the toilet or lay down on
the couch and say, all right, how else could I think about
this? And you just plain old
brainstorming exercise. It's funny though, because for a
lot of people, or a lot of beliefs for a lot of people like
I, I do think there's some benign beliefs that I don't have
much of an emotional response. So like, for instance, I don't
know, thinking about some sort of like numerical business
decision of like, am I going to spend my time doing X or am I
going to spend my time doing Y? What are what's, what are the
costs? What are the benefits?
Open up a spreadsheet, figure it out, right?
It's a very unemotional task of like what, what do I believe is
the most useful thing to pursue over the next year or so, right?
But then there's some things that they get very emotional and
I think those are the things that are like very much tied to
our identity. So like I, I imagine for a lot
of people and I, I actually experienced this when I was
young too, like questioning my own religion was emotionally
very uncomfortable the first time I did it.
And the first time I questioned whether I was the piece of shit
in my relationship, that was also extremely uncomfortable.
First time I questioned my own political views was very
uncomfortable. So I think I'm, I'm curious what
you would say to like the emotional, kind of the
instinctual emotional resistance that happens around certain
subjects. Like how do you fight through
that? Don't get over it, get under it.
OK? I like leaning into whatever I
notice that I'm prejudice against.
If I notice that I've got a irrational aversion to
something, it makes me want to lean into it to try to figure
out why. And maybe if I lean into it to
find out why, I'll be justified and find out, Oh yeah, that's
that is not for me, and here's why.
But maybe I'll find that it was just some leftover bullshit.
You know, I'm not a fan of authenticity, meaning I think
authenticity is overrated or bullshit.
That authenticity is what we call our instinctive reaction to
something, which is usually just coming from some fucking shit
from a movie You saw when I was when you were 11 or something,
your parents told you in passing, which you maybe even
misunderstood. And now that is still sitting in
you that you think, Oh well, this bad, this good.
And but then because it was our first thought, we call it
authenticity when it's not. It just means that's the shit
that you haven't spent an extra 2 minutes to think through.
I don't I don't glorify authenticity at all.
I think the one of my other favorite like ideas in the
useful not true was that your first thought is an obstacle.
The whole point is to get past it.
Interesting. Don't glorify the instinct.
Acknowledge it. Say, OK, well my first thought
was this. Now what else?
How else could I think about this?
And maybe you'll come back 5 minutes later, say, actually,
yeah, I'm sticking with the first.
I've thought about three or four other ways I could think of
this, and the first one, now that I've spent a minute and
thought it through, this one still works for me.
But don't glorify your impulse and call it authenticity.
It's in that's really interesting.
I haven't heard that critique before, but I like it.
One of the themes that's been coming up on the podcast the
past year that I've been thinking a lot about is, for
lack of a better term, I've heard it.
It's starting to be called Therapy Culture.
And basically there's a great piece written by a Substacker
named Freddie de Boer. And he, I really like the way he
delineated it. And he basically said that there
are a lot of concepts that are extremely useful in a one-on-one
confidential therapeutic context, something like an
authentic reaction to something, right?
Like if you're talking to your therapist about some childhood
trauma, then an authentic emotional reaction is valuable.
He said that the problem is, is that a lot of the concepts and
practices that are very valuable and in a, in a private
one-on-one therapy situation are now being glorified culturally
and people are being socially validated for them.
So these sorts of kind of trigger response, emotional
reactions are now being like, oh, she's so authentic, like
good for her, you know, or like, oh, you're, you're being so
vulnerable right now when really you're just acting like a child
and you know, you're, you're throwing a temper tantrum and
crying and freaking out about something.
And people are like, oh, so vulnerable, so strong.
And I thought, you know, it's something that there's been this
growing emerging culture of kind of glorifying authenticity,
vulnerability, trauma, a lot of these things.
And it's concerned me for a while now.
And I've had a number of guests on who have kind of criticized
aspects of it or around it or pieces of it.
But I thought, I thought this piece like really nailed it that
it's that a lot of these things. The the context.
When the context shifts, the value is completely different
and you actually. Right, you're taking this value
out of context. Yeah, and it and it actually
backfires, right, because what you're starting to see now is so
again, in a private one-on-one situation like let's say you're
having a fight with your your spouse, vulnerability is really
important. You need to be able to like,
share your emotions and explain what you're afraid of or what
you're upset about, right? Like that's an important thing.
But then now that's being socially rewarded in the town
square. And So what you encourage is
just a bunch of people to fucking dump their feelings
constantly and be upset all the time.
And that's actually not healthy because now you're like socially
validating people feeling upset. And so it encourages people to
feel upset more often and they get upset over slider and slider
things and they're being vulnerable.
So we're good for you. You were supposed to applaud
them, right? And you know, so you can see how
that turns into a, a downward spiral of mental health.
So anyway, I, I just, I thought that was super insightful.
And, and I like, I like your critique of authenticity because
it is, it is important to know what you feel and think.
Like I think maybe a better definition of authenticity is,
is having an accurate understanding of your own
thoughts and feelings, right? Because a lot of us mask our own
thoughts and feelings. And that's what that gives us,
that gives the social experience of inauthent, inauthenticity.
It's like, oh, he's he's very fake.
Like when when we meet somebody who feels quote UN quote fake,
it's because they feel one thing that they say something else,
they think one thing, they say the opposite, right?
So I think like the proper form of authenticity is, is simply
just being aligned in thoughts, feelings, actions.
The bad version of authenticity is just like, well, those are my
feelings and fuck you if you don't, if you don't like them,
right? Which it is so easy to see the
remedy, which is to just think of it flipped around from the
other person's point of view. I flew here from Wellington
today. If the pilot was in a bad mood
today, would I want him to authentically crash the plane
because he's just not feeling it today?
Man, he imagined he. Imagined he came on the
intercom. He's like, I didn't sleep well
and my wife just left me and you know, you're like, get me off
the plane. Just want to be real with y'all
you know. Yeah, I want my pilot to lie to
me. Yeah, I.
Mean same with the with the surgeon, you know, you're having
important surgery and the doctor just like you know what?
Sick of this bullshit mid surgery.
You know, yeah, I don't want to finish today.
You know, just somebody else sew him up.
I'm just being vulnerable. Just being real here, being
authentic. So one of my favorite examples
is a great customer service. You do not want authenticity
from the the nice, what do you call it, concierge at a hotel or
whatever. You might have come in and puked
on their floor and whatever and be, you know, drenched from the
rain. You come in and the inside, they
might be thinking, fuck my life. But out front they could say,
oh, Sir, you know, please let me help you in some way.
You know, here's a towel, you know, it's muting your ID the
the perverse imp inside of you that of course has your thing.
But yeah, you made a great point that it's important to know your
feelings, especially in therapy and in personal relationships
and all that. But to go spewing them out like
a nudist is not the right strategy to get what you want.
Yeah. In life, you have to think about
it from the other's person's point of view.
Would you want to walk around your city if other people were
being nudists? Yeah, Well, you were.
Yeah. Look at my shit, you know, look
at it. You you don't want that.
And so why would you go do that to others?
Yeah, great, great metaphor. Wonderful metaphor, I think.
Speaking of my shit, yeah, I'll be right back.
That is Derek, authentic as always.
A few moments later, audience. For the last 15 minutes I have
been practicing the subtle art of not taking a piss.
All right. So we talked earlier about kind
of seen that there's this game being played that that there's
all these useful, not true beliefs that we're buying into
and other people are buying into.
And in a lot of ways they're competing beliefs.
And a lot of them we kind of inherit from our parents and our
communities, our schools, our country, our culture.
I have personally experienced this and I and I've talked to a
number of people who have experienced this as well.
It's like once you kind of have this realization that nothing is
necessarily capital T true, it's easy to slip into a nihilism.
It's like, well, if nothing is true, then nothing's important
and then nothing's worth doing. I'm curious, have you slipped
into that hole at all? And if not, why not?
And what would what would be your advice to somebody who does
find themselves slipping into that hole?
I might not have much to add here because I'm just a
naturally. Happy person you're.
You're so cheery it's upsetting. Sorry.
You know, son, you, you laugh more than me though I've noticed
this that both on the podcast but even audience say like even
offline Mark laughs this much just in like our just random
pitter patter conversation. You laugh more than me.
And you are always as cheery. Yeah.
No matter what is happening. Yeah.
So I have to laugh the darkness away.
OK. The only the only way I could
survive. With the Paga Pagalachi the the
clown that goes to the there anyway.
So I find it so joyous and liberating to say that nothing
has any meaning because that means that it is all free for
you to reinvent and adopt whatever perspective you want on
things. And anytime somebody passes
their morality shit on you and says that's bad, this is what
you're doing is wrong and that's bad and this is what you should
do. Don't know that's not true, that
you just. There are no concrete absolute
moral values. And I think this is proven by
the fact that there is always an exception.
Anything you can think of, there's either an exception for
certain situations, or there's another culture on the other
side of the earth operating under a different philosophy
that is also thriving and doing just fine without adopting your
approach to life. And I've found that fascinating
recently, getting to know cultures in the Middle East.
And I've been to China once this year, and I'm going back again
in nine days. And I think it's really
interesting getting to know other thriving cultures that
disagree with the one I grew up in, because then to me, that's
just disproving all of these truisms.
It's almost like life itself becomes a creative exercise,
like it's a form of artistry. Just living and choosing what
you believe is like a an artistic expression.
Yeah, I mean, let's go back to the music thing.
If somebody said, OK, yeah, you can do whatever you want with
the chords, whatever, but it has to be in four, four time.
I mean, that's just you just have to be in four, four time,
be like really like, OK, well, maybe 3-4, but that's it.
It's either 3-4 or four, four. You're like, I don't know, let's
try this. Let's let's challenge that
notion. Yeah.
My immediate reaction would be to write something in like 9-8
or something. Something off the wall, yeah.
And you can take that approach to so many aspects of life where
somebody says, no, it is important, you must be loyal to
your blah, blah, blah. You must live your fullest
achievement even. OK, we were talking about
business. There was an angle, I didn't
interrupt you before, but when you were talking about making
money, I was going to say that. Behavioral economics and
psychology address the topic of feelings that in the in
psychology and in behavioral economics, feelings matter where
they can say. For example, in the book The
Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, he pointed out after
many, many studies that people who are made more aware of all
of the options they could have chosen may objectively make a
better choice, but they will feel worse about it.
Whereas if somebody is given only 30 seconds to make a choice
and only get shown three options and they're told that their
choice is irreversible, well, and the choice is irreversible,
they might not make a technically as good decision as
somebody who deeply dove into all 97 options, but they will
feel better about their choice. And what I really like about
psychology and behavioral economics is acknowledging that
feelings matter. So then we get into business and
entrepreneurship, and people would say things to me like,
yeah, but you could have made a lot more money with CD Baby if
you would have done such and such.
And I'd say, but I didn't want to like, but it would have made
more like just they're like, objectively, it's just the
better choice. You made a stupid choice by
choosing to do such and such that you didn't.
I said, but this choice made me happier and I was optimizing for
my own personal happiness. I was not optimizing for the
dollars. And I think we don't bring that
into the equation of even with tech, there is some some things
that I do tech wise with my server, with my laptop, with my,
you know, the technology that surrounds me that somebody could
say that's stupid, why would you?
I'll give you a real example. All of my video editing I do on
the command line with something called FFM PEG which you have to
use like dozens of little flags and optimizations.
My God, Only you, Derek, only you and the.
Funny thing is I own Final Cut Pro.
I could just click, click, click and make it happen.
But I'm like, but I want to figure it out using FFM peg and
somebody could objectively say you idiot is going to take you
an hour to do it this way. It would take a minute to do it
this way. I'm like, but this makes me
happier and that matters. It's funny.
So one thing that Will Smith used to say all the time is he
used to say everything is feelings.
All that matters is feelings. And it was funny because when I
first started working with him, that kind of irked me.
And it because it, it just kind of goes against a lot of my
assumptions and beliefs. And finally, after I spent
enough time with him to kind of be comfortable challenging him
on things, I challenged him on it.
I was like, you know, I don't think that's true.
And he was like, of course it's true.
And I was like, well, and I brought up business.
I was like, well, what about business, right?
You know, there's started giving him different business examples.
And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But why are you in business? And I was like, well, to make
money. He's like, yeah, why do you want
to make money? He's like, 'cause it makes you
feel good. He said it's all about feelings.
I was like, all right, I think. I think you got me.
Yeah, and I'd say the same thing with tech or just the various
decisions we make in life about what kind of home you want to
have. You know, you could have a
bigger house. There's always, you're always
optimizing for something and AI think it's very important to be
clear about what you're optimizing for because I think a
lot of times we optimize for things and not we don't realize
it. We just assume the biggest house
is going to make us the happiest.
We don't think about whether that's true or not.
We think we think making more money is going to make us
happier. We don't think if that's true or
not. And so I it, I do think it is
useful to get clear about what, what is your metric like?
What are you? What's the yardstick you're
measuring progress by? Even if you don't get clear on
that follow your follow that, that compass inside of you
that's drawing you a certain way, even if you haven't taken
the time yet to spell out exactly why.
You know, like just when people look over my shoulder when I'm
using my computer, it's all just this like black terminal screen
that I'm typing into. Like, what are you doing?
Like, I don't know, I just like this better.
And maybe you could lay me down on a shrink's couch and try to
figure out why I want it this way.
Or maybe I should could get clear about exactly what my
measure is for why I'm choosing this technology.
But I just feel myself drawn this way, even though everybody
else says no, no, no, this is the way.
Like clouds, for example, everybody uses cloud technology.
I'm like, I just don't want to. And I'd haven't taken the time
to describe why, but I do honor my preference.
So maybe it's a little bit about self-confidence and honoring
your preference even if other people are going the other way
to. Just, you know, equipped that
I've, I've, I've said before is that money is kind of like
oxygen. When you don't have any, it
solves everything And, and then when you have a lot, it solves
nothing. And I think so many people spend
a lot of their lives optimizing for money.
So it's, and when you're optimizing for money, like by
definition, you have to discount your own feelings.
You have to suffer, you have to like do things you don't don't
necessarily want to do because you're broke.
You got to pay rent, like all that stuff.
And but the whole point of making money is to not have to
optimize for money anymore. Like that is the reward of
making money is that you don't have to optimize for money.
Like I, I cancelled a big book contract this year and gave a
bunch of money back. And it was funny.
I was talking to my agent and she was like, Are you sure you
want to do? Like she kept checking in.
She's like, you're triple sure you want to do this.
And I told her I was like, the whole point of all the work I've
done the last 20 years is to be able to hand a big check back to
somebody because I don't want to do something I don't want to do,
right? Like it's, that's the whole
point of getting here. If I had, if I'm not, if I'm not
able to do that, then all of this was for nothing.
I love that Nicholas Nassim Taleb said somewhere in one of
his books that the money you refuse tastes sweeter than the
money you accept. Yes, and I thought that was a
nice way to put it, too. That's.
Very true. You know who who astounds me and
frustrates me is Jordan Peterson.
Yeah. Because in some ways where some
I said sometimes he says things that make me go, whoa, that's
brilliant. And then he'll conclude the
point with saying, and that's just the way it is.
Yeah, because, you know, Moses did this and that and therefore
this then and God says this and that's that.
And he kind of, he ends things faster than I would have.
He opens up things I never thought to open up, but then he
closes them too early. That's an interesting.
Way to describe them because I have a similar kind of love hate
with his books and his material like I I have I found them so
enriching over the years and I've met him a couple times and
I've had he's been lovely in person and have had good
conversations with him. But yeah, there's a frustration
there. Like there's something a little
bit paradoxical about him where he, he expands your world 'cause
he's so well read and he has so like such a deep understanding
of psychology and philosophy and literature and religion.
And he'll draw all these connections that you've never
considered before and you're just like, whoa, like Dostoevsky
and the Bible and and young and, and lobsters and like, you're
just communism. Yeah, you're just like, whoa,
this is incredible. And then, yeah.
And it and then it ends in this like very pithy absolute that if
you don't agree with or you don't follow this like you're
evil and you're. Deranged.
You need to, yeah, get your shit straight.
You're part of the problem and, and bucko and, and and then he
loses me and I'm like, I was with you like the young and the
lobsters and the Dostoevsky. I was like, I was fucking right
there with you, dude. And, and it's some of the the
moral absolutism that comes with it.
I frustrates me at times. But yet I'll bet you can also
understand it because, you know, you grew up religious and you
understand the benefits of let's all agree on the values here.
It's like, let's all align. It's like Iceland is a very
peaceful place because it's very homogeneous.
So if we all can just align and agree on this Canon, this this
value system, then the world is a great harmonious place.
I I am definitely contrarian, especially living in LA.
I, I am definitely contrarian in that I, I unabashedly see him as
a net positive simply because I think there is, there are a lot
of people who grew up in environments that I grew up in,
like they grew up in very religious conservative
environments and they never had an intellectual to look up to
like somebody really smart. Like, that was actually my first
thought when I stumbled across Jordan.
Like I readers started emailing me about him, I think probably
around like 20/15/2016. And the first time I, I started
watching his videos probably around then.
And that was the first thing that struck me is I said, this
is the first time I've encountered a very religious,
very conservative person who is incredibly intellectually
brilliant. And as as a millennial who grew
up in the 2000s, you know, with George W Bush and all the
evangelical shit, like I never encountered that before.
It was like all the intellectuals were on the left
and all the intellectuals were atheist.
And, and so I can totally see why if you're a young person
growing up in that part of the world with that culture and that
background and that religion, he is like a fucking lifeline for
you. And so I appreciate that about
him. But yeah, he, I, he sometimes
loses me with some of the the religious absolutes and the
moral absolutes for sure. But yet I don't always disagree.
I can see where he's coming from even when he's like absolute.
And that's, I mean, one of the ones that bothered me the most.
So when he said so and so and so and all these important things
are all these interesting things he was saying and something but
but you know, but if a woman doesn't want to have children, I
mean. She just lost the whole point of
humanity. I mean, why do you even exist
except to have children? That's what women are for.
Women are here to have children. That's that.
If you disagree with that, you're, you've lost touch with
your entire biological. I'm like not.
Necessarily true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is, a might be. Useful for you to believe that.
Might be useful for you bucko. I love that he says that.
He actually does. He does.
It's it's, I think you made that up.
That was a great ad. Lib No, no, no, he, he he'll get
on these like it's always when he's on like one of these like
angry kind of moralistic tirades and he'll always finish it with
like that. Well, that's good for you,
bucko. And it's just I love it.
It sounds like, you know, it reminds me of like my uncle's in
Texas. It's a.
Hey, before we close off the subject, I didn't interject
earlier about nihilism. There is a beautiful book called
I believe it's called Nothing and Everything by a pseudonym
author because by Val N Tyne. I don't know, the author wanted
to stay anonymous. It's near the top of my book
list. If you go to my website like
SIVE dot Rs slash book, I sort the books with my highest
recommendations at the top. So Nothing and Everything is a
joyous book about nihilism. It's about the joy of nihilism,
about world where everything is permitted.
Nothing has inherent meaning. You are free to assign meaning
where you want it to be and not where you don't.
It is such a beautiful book. I just, it was one of those ones
that I had to stop underlining because it was just every
sentence. Yes, yes, yes.
So I highly recommend. It well, it's funny because the
nihilism thing, I've definitely struggled with that on and off
over the years. And actually part of my second
book, everything is Fucked, was like inspired by my struggle
with that. And the conclusion I landed on
is, is that, you know, if there's no reason to do
anything, there's also no reason to not do anything.
There's no reason to not love who you want to love or make
whatever you want to make or pursue the goals that you want
to pursue. Like it, it is a, it is a
liberation if you choose to look at it that way.
And meaning, and I think ultimately this is what like the
existentialist we're getting at is that ultimately meaning is
constructed. It's not found.
It's not inherent. Meaning is constructed through
action and through action that feels useful.
That is ultimately like what imbues our life with a sense of
meaning and, and drive satisfaction.
So that like that's where I landed.
And it was funny because when I was touring for that book, a
number of readers came up to me and they said that they're like,
you know, there's a name for this.
And I said no. And they said it's called
optimistic nihilism. They said there it's like a very
obscure kind of, I think there's a community on Reddit or
something, but they're like, it's a very obscure kind of
small sub niche of a sub niche. But yeah, it's a thing.
Optimistic nihilism of it's if nothing means anything, then you
could. You're free to be whoever you
want and create the life that you want.
Count me in as member #4 to that group.
I have listened to a lot of your episodes.
Not all of them, but I know that you talk about relationship
things way more than I do. You think about them more than I
do and I am being way vulnerable right now to decide to talk
about this. On wait, everybody applaud
Derek's vulnerability. To talk about this on the
podcast, before we even talked about it privacy privately, as
soon as I started to mention this privately, you were just
like. Save it, save it, save it.
Because a lot of people feel the same way you do, which is I
don't want a relationship. And that took a while to admit
because it's just this thing that we all must do.
I felt like from the age of 14 until two years ago, felt like a
lot of my life's energy, maybe most of my life's energy, but
most of my daily energy was spent either finding or minding
a relationship. All those years, if I wasn't in
one, I was looking for one. If I was in one, I was spending
so much of my life energy, like managing it, trying to
compromise and trying to make somebody else happy and spent so
many years of my life doing that.
And I've got an unfair advantage in that I have a son already,
he's 12 years old, and he and I have the best damn relationship.
It's amazing. And this biological reason to
have a relationship, it's like, even if we're to say, well, OK,
if nothing else, I mean, if you want to have kid, well, then
you're going to have to. I've already got that.
And I can't think of any reason why I, not you, not anybody else
should have a relationship. And I'll add the one other
unfair advantage is that I've got a little fame.
So I can go to a place like London or any major city and
show up and e-mail the 400 people I know in that place.
And or cherry pick 10 interesting people of the 400 I
know in this place and say, let's meet not with romantic
attentions, but just I can't imagine that I would be that
lonely in the future because that would be the other thing.
Before I had any fame at all, I did very deliberately get into a
bad relationship because I thought if I don't, I'll be
lonely. That was when I like after I
sold my company and I knew that I was leaving America forever.
I was like, I need to get a girlfriend now because if I
don't, I'm going to be out there as a digital nomad and I'm going
to be lonely. So I just went and like grabbed
the first willing girl like you. You're hot.
You seem into it. Let's let's do this.
And it was a bad mistake because it was coming from the bad
place. I was only getting into that
relationship because I was worried that I would be lonely.
Which is why a lot of people get into relationships.
Right. And even somebody just two days
ago I was talking about this with one other person.
This is kind of a new thing to me that I'm processing like
literally this week. If even if you would have just
called me privately this week and said what's on your mind?
I mean, it said this thing. I'm I'm confused by my not
wanting a relationship in the same way that like if I was not
eating food and like 2 weeks had passed and I had no desire to
eat any food, I think I'm supposed to be eating food
right? Should I make myself eat food?
I'm like I'm supposed to be wanting a life partner right?
Should I be making myself get a life partner even though I don't
want one? I'm not sure how to think about
this. What do you think, Mark?
Well, it, it's interesting, I think on an episode with Drew
maybe three or four months ago, we were, he dug up a stat that
found that for the first time since they've started measuring
it, a majority of single people are not looking for a
relationship. They're not dating, they're not
actively dating. So they're not necessarily
saying I won't date anybody, but they're not, they're not
looking, they're not trying. They're not meeting people.
They're, they're just like being single.
And anecdotally I have noticed quite a it it.
It's usually middle-aged women, but I've noticed a lot of single
parents kind of land in the same.
Boat and it's because you have a really fulfilling relationship
with your kid. Yep, and it's it's and like you
said that that biological imperatives already taken care
of and you, you probably get to this get to this place where
like you feel happy and stable and you're confident in
yourself. And dating is hard.
It's awkward. It's weird.
There's a lot of like, you know, awkward conversations.
And I don't know, like, I think the older you get, the less
patience you have for just dealing with people or social
situations that you don't really want to be around.
So I have, I have run into it quite a bit and I actually think
that the data showing that most single people are not actively
dating. My guess is that it's just
because the population is aging and and older people just date
less often like they're not as I think most 20 year old single
people are probably actively dating.
I would guess 90% plus are trying to get a date or have
been on a date the last year. I imagine once you get up into
the 40s, fifties, 60s that drops off quite a bit.
I should have mentioned earlier I was in a relationship for two
years. Yep, I broke up with her two
years ago. She was a wonderful woman in
every other way, but I could just tell that like our ultimate
life goals were just. Way far apart.
Yeah, it was like this. Sorry if you're watching the
camera, it's like, it's like we, we had this kind of intersection
of like 2 lines heading in opposite directions that did
intersect for a little while. Yeah.
And it was good, but I could just tell like.
They kept going. Stick it out.
This is We're just going to get farther and further apart.
So I did the difficult and painful thing of breaking up the
relationship and it's been the happiest 2 years of my life.
Oh my God, that's like. But the last two years, Oh my
God, I've been like so happy like this, all this.
Maybe that's how I started this story.
Like this life energy that I used to put into finding or
minding is all, all the things. Now I'm doing my work instead of
like taking care of a miserable person, you know?
And I'm like making things instead of being out trying to
find somebody. It's like I've, it's been the
best two years of my life. I'm like, this is obviously
something's working here. I feel great.
But again, like the somebody who, if any of you have ever
fasted for like 10 days, One thing I've found in common, I
did it once. I fasted for 10 days and I told
somebody I did that and he goes, oh, he said I fasted for two
weeks. He said, are you still at the
point? Like you wonder why you ever
used to eat? I went yes, because that's what
it feels like when after you get past the two or three day hump,
it like the first two or three days are hard.
After the third day it's easy to just you wonder why you ever
used to eat. And so you have to kind of like
make yourself eat when you don't want to.
So I've I've wondered why their relationship was.
It'll be interesting once once the once your kid grows up and
goes off on his own. I'll be interesting to see if
this shifts at all. I also just understand like
where you're like middle age makes sense to me.
Like I understand why young people are obsessed with dating
because you've got your whole life in front of you and you
want to find your person. And it's like a huge part of
forging your identity and figuring out your your status.
And like all these, all these things go and you're also just
really fucking horny. So like there's all this stuff
going on when you're young. That makes sense.
And I also understand why older people, like elderly people
would want to date mostly just for companionship.
It can be very, life is simple and it can be very lonely if you
don't have somebody. So I, that makes sense to me
too. Middle-aged people, especially
middle-aged people who are single parents, it totally makes
sense to me that they just check out because you're still in the
prime of your life. You've got all sorts of projects
going on. You've got all these trips you
want to take, You've got, you know, you want to write another
book, you want to go over here, you want to move to this
country. Like all this stuff's going on
and you, you, you're still caretaking the, the child, which
requires a lot of your emotional energy and, and you're also
probably, if that's going well, you're probably getting a lot of
your emotional needs met from your relationship with your
child. You're feeling very fulfilled in
a lot of intimacy and companionship.
And, you know, you're having a good time with somebody you
love. And so I can see how that itch
just isn't there. And you don't, you know, your
needs are being met through other means.
So, yeah, none of this, none of this totally surprises me.
I I my take on this. And this is true of both
children and partners. I think both are overrated for
in terms of happiness and, and a lot of people get really upset
when I say this about romantic partners.
But like, you can be a perfectly happy person being single.
A romantic relationship is one method and and probably a very
useful method to get getting a lot of your your needs met
emotionally. But it's not not the only
method. And I think similarly with
children, children are a very immediate way to fulfill a sense
of purpose and meaning and you know, have a long term goal and
vision and also get a lot of your emotional needs met.
But again, they're not the only way.
So it's like a lack of a child or a lack of a romantic partner.
It doesn't mean you're, you can't still satiate those
emotional needs and desires. It just means you have to find
them somewhere else. And that can be more difficult
or complicated depending on. Or it could be a good thing.
It's like the someone who always wanted kids and couldn't get
kids, and because of that, they're out volunteering at, you
know, the Children's Hospital, and they have all this energy to
give to many kids because they don't have one kid.
Absolutely. I think that's almost how I'm
feeling about my life the last two years.
It's like because I'm not putting my energy into making
one person happy, I get to put my energy out.
I, I, so, you know, my wife and I are at a point now where it's
the, it's clear we're not going to have kids.
And I've felt the exact same thing the last year or two.
Like I really had this really it really sunk in for me maybe like
a year and a half ago where I I realized I'm like, I'm going to
have so much like such a surplus of time and energy and freedom
that for the next 18 years that most of my peers are not going
to have. So let's fucking use this.
Well, like, let's really take advantage of it.
You like give back, build something amazing, do something
amazing. So that that's actually been
very motivating for me. I've actually found a lot of
it's like reignited a lot of my ambition just having that
realization. But in in staying faithful to
your book useful. Not true.
Here we are jamming about how great it can be to not have a
relationship, not have kids, Bucko bucko.
Let's, let's, let's flip, let's take, let's take the Jordan
Peterson perspective. Because I do think there is a
legitimate argument here, which is that the more free and
autonomous we become in modern society, the easier it is to opt
out of starting a family. And the more people that opt out
of starting families, whether it's through marriage, kids,
whatever the fertility rate drops you, that you get a more
fragmented, atomized community. You know, there's, there's a lot
of 2nd, 3rd order effects that are negative of this, of this
liberation that you and I are beaming about at the moment.
And so I hold both of those things as true simultaneously.
Like it's. Doesn't it feel like, Can you
imagine if there was some statistical reason why a certain
percentage of us should be in jail and somebody would tell
you, no, Mark, you really should sit in jail for a number of
years because it's good, It's for the greater good.
And you feel like, I get your argument, but I just don't want
to be sitting in jail. You know, it's like somebody's
saying, like, well, Mark, you know, the biological data.
You're like, I get your argument, but I just don't want
kids. Yeah.
And I was thinking about how some people say that they knew
from an early age that they were gay.
And I think, you know, when I, my whole life, looking back,
I've never wanted a life partner.
All of my visions for my ideal life were always just like me in
the world. It was never me partnered with
one person. I always just kind of wanted to
be me out in the world. And some people feel very
differently. Most of my friends, I know their
life a vision for their ultimate life.
Their ideal life is to be partnered with one person.
And I imagine you know me and my spouse and we have this we have
that's my dream life. That's what I want Great, then
they should keep pursuing that. But I think I'm admitting that
my dream life never included that it's it's weird feeling
reluctant to honor that is I still somehow feel it's wrong.
But maybe in the same way that if you're in Silicon Valley and
you're in Y Combinator and everybody says, well, you need a
Co founder, but you can't be a solo founder.
You know, statistically we found out that that does not work.
We'll we'll fund you if you have a Co founder.
But I just don't want a Co founder.
You need a Co founder. Why am I such a bad person for
not wanting a Co founder? I feel a bit like that.
Really. Yeah.
Where do you think that comes from?
It's funny that I think this is the first time since I've known
you for 12 years. I think it's the first time I've
seen you express anxiety around social judgement or or second
guess yourself based on like social norms because it seems
so. Right there next to biology, you
know, And that's what I said. It's like, OK, I already got a
kid, but it feels like the next closest thing to like, well,
that's just true. It's like you got to have a life
partner. Yeah, that's just what you do.
Everybody's looking for. It's like, I mean, we hear it in
every bit of fiction, every bit of, you know, Hollywood and
novels or whatever. It's just like, that's what you
do. It's almost like the the little
picture of the sperm and the egg.
Well, that's what they're here for.
They're just looking. That's what we're, you know, the
soul mates and all of that, I think.
But yeah, don't feel it. Yeah, it's interesting, I think
statistically. If you look at it, women check
out like what you're feeling. You see actually see much more
among women. Like they just kind of check out
a dating. They're like, I'm good, don't
need anybody. Men tend to kind of compulsively
remarry or like always feel need.
But it's funny because you never hear like there's no there's way
less judgement towards men. Like nobody looks at a single 60
year old man and it's like, well, what's wrong with him?
You know? Whereas like a single woman will
will definitely get that comment.
See, I don't think of it from the outside at all.
That's the way when you say this is the first time I've heard
you, you know, So it's not socially driven at all.
No, it's not OK. It's.
Only my my my understanding. Of Derek sivers remained
remains. Intact.
No, it's only coming from. It's like everything I've ever
read. About happiness, health, you
know, they say that's like, the greatest killer of the elderly
is loneliness or whatever. Yeah, I'm coming from that
place. I'm thinking like, shouldn't I
be? That's why I made the comparison
with food. Like, sure, shouldn't I be
concerned about my lack of desire for this thing?
But there's plenty of ways to get companionship and.
Right and. And solve loneliness without
having a romantic partner. I mean, famous.
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
I mean again, again, it's it's. And again, every time I post
this, I get backlash. But it's true.
I mean, if you look at the research, if you look at the
data, it's like people with romantic partners are
statistically not any happier than people without them.
It's just true. It's just, it's a fact.
Whereas if you look at people with no friends versus people
with a lot of friends, people with a lot of friends are much
happier than people with no friends.
Speaking of, yeah, Drew. Drew.
Drew, you are the reason I am here.
Drew because I live in Wellington, which is a only a
one hour flight away. But when Coldplay heard that
Mark Manson was going to be in town, they had to fuck my shit
up. They came in and booked all of
their. Stuff.
Right. This week when Mark was here,
because they just wanted to be in the same city as him.
So there were no flights at all yesterday.
And the only flight I could get up get was like a 6:00 AM flight
that I had to get up at 3:30 this morning.
And it was $1000 flight for a silly little one hour just to
come see Mark. And when he said like, hey, I'm
going to be in Auckland and this is my only free day, I thought,
oh, cool. And then I looked at the flights
and went and, and then I was listening to Drew's mentioning
on there just a few episodes ago where he talked about like
flying for a friend's anniversary.
Anniversary dinner. Yeah.
And and he he was. Giving his arguments.
Why I went, yeah, All right, Mark.
So I was like, I'm going to spend the 1000 bucks and wake up
at 4:00 AM to come up to see you today.
So that was because of Drew. I appreciate it.
We all appreciate it. And yeah, fuck Coldplay.
I, I can't tell you. I can't tell you.
So this is this is. Like I'm doing my speaking.
Tour Auckland's my Last Stuff and I can't tell you how many
New Zealanders have emailed me and they're like, well, I want
to come, but Coldplay's playing the same night.
And I'm just. Like God damn it, Yeah.
It's not even like it's The Rolling Stones.
Coldplay. Who cares about cold?
Who cares about, apparently Auckland?
In fact, I'm babysitting. Two rats all week.
Because they're owners, our friends of mine in New Zealand,
they've had, they're having me babysit their ass this week to
go see Coldplay because they're, they flew up to Auckland for the
whole week to see Coldplay three times.
We're, we're a little starved for entertainment here in New
Zealand. We little Pacific islands.
We need to talk New Zealand. We, we.
Need to have a heart to heart here we need to get vulnerable
here, you need, You need bigger, you need.
Better, better, better. Heroes.
Better stars? Anything anything else you would
like to cover in? Our last few minutes here in the
last. I'm really.
Glad that you are. Ceasing this podcast format,
even though it has been a proven success for you, it is
objectively successful for you. Yes, it is.
It has been a hit. And I'll I'll say I think we
probably said it in the first episode, but the first one was
really funny where it was like on a Wednesday, you texted me
saying I'm going to be starting this new podcast.
Do you think in a couple weeks you might want to come on it?
I said, well, in two days I'm leaving for Israel, so let's do
it. Tomorrow's my only free day.
And you know, by text, he went ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, fuck it,
let's do it. See you tomorrow.
And so we jumped in and did the very first one with one day's
notice. I think you even said, like, my
producer's going to shit a brick, but fuck it, let's do
this. And then, yeah, then walking in
today, you told me that you were going to not cease the podcast,
but cease this format to do something that I think is way
more creative, way more you, way more innovative, and all that
stuff we said earlier about like, it's just less done in the
world. And I think it's going to be
more helpful to your audience because of that.
I think it's going to be more interesting, more educational,
more helpful, more useful. And I'm really proud and glad
that you had the balls to see something that was successful.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
And I. I figured you, you would of of
all the people I know in my life, I figured you would
understand immediately. It's the the music comparison,
you know, like the. That really hit me hard.
This idea of Bob Dylan was such a huge success as the the
troubadour with the acoustic guitar man.
And that's what everybody loves about him.
And then he went and headlined at the Newport Folk Festival
full of other folkies, and that's where he chose to go
electric. And I loved it was like, there's
a recording of somebody out in the audience yelling Judas,
like, how dare you betrayed us. Now you're, you know, you're and
that's what you have to do artistically to keep yourself
pushing forward or maybe even just as a smart person to keep
yourself interested and challenge yourself.
So, yeah, audience, I hope you take this role model, take it as
yet another, you know, David Bowie, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan
and Mark Manson did it. You can do it.
Oh my God, that's a lot to live up to.
You know, trying to make a closing.
We're trying to come to an ending here.
You know, that's what we're doing.
You're killing it. You're killing it.
No, you're you're selling it much better than than.
I would so I appreciate that, Derek.
It's been a pleasure as always. Perfect bookends to this this
period of my creative life and to the audience.
There will be a more formal announcement probably in the
next week or two about what we're doing.
I'm extremely excited. It's going to be very different,
and I think you guys are actually going to like it a lot
better as well. In the meantime, where can
people find you? Go to my website.
By the way, this useful not true book.
We've been talking about I it's not on Amazon and I won't put it
on Amazon for a year. This is my little way of
thinking about what would make me happy.
I set up my own little store where I get to sell things for
the price that I think is fair, not what Amazon tells me to sell
them for. So useful.
Not true is only at servers.com. But the main thing that I always
want to tell the audience is that the reason I do these
podcasts is not to sell another fucking $10 book.
Who cares? But I really love the people
that I meet that find me because of a show like this.
And unlike most people, unlike seemingly almost everybody, I
really enjoy my e-mail inbox. So I still have an open e-mail
inbox, and I spend about 60 to 90 minutes a day answering
emails from strangers. And I really like it.
Maybe because I'm here on this little Pacific island.
It's like, kind of cool to hear from people from Estonia and
Kenya that heard your show and emailed me.
So yeah, anybody listening to this, go to my website SIVE dot
Rs and send me an e-mail. Introduce yourself, say hello,
ask me anything Amazing. Thank you, Derek.
That's it. It's a wrap The Subtle Art of
Not Giving a Fuck podcast. Is produced by.
Drew Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura.
Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer.
Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.