“I Had 90 Minutes To Live” | Sebastian Junger’s Near-Death Experience (PT. 2)

Summary

The Daily Stoic Podcast

Episode: “I Had 90 Minutes To Live” | Sebastian Junger’s Near-Death Experience (PT. 2)

Date: November 29, 2025
Host: Ryan Holiday
Guest: Sebastian Junger

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast features a profound and intimate conversation between Ryan Holiday and author/journalist Sebastian Junger. Building on Junger’s recent book, In My Time of Dying, their discussion delves into his near-death experience, the importance of gratitude, the meaning of civic responsibility, and parenting in modern society through the lens of Stoicism. They explore how "memento mori"—the awareness of mortality—shapes what matters, and discuss what it means to live responsibly as an individual within a community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Value of Ordinary Moments & Practicing Gratitude

• Cherishing the Everyday:
  • Ryan reflects on a simple evening with his family and recognizes it as the true reward in life, not the milestones we often chase.
  • Quote: “The extraordinariness of ordinary is if you can get there, you can get through a lot.” – Ryan Holiday [07:20]
• Gratitude as a Practice:
  • Sebastian asserts that happiness is not a prerequisite for gratitude; in fact, practicing gratitude leads to happiness, regardless of circumstances.
  • Quote: “You don’t feel grateful because your life is happy. You get a happy life because you practice gratitude.” – Sebastian Junger [08:09]
• Finding Beauty in the Mundane:
  • The hosts describe seeing poetry and magic even in ugly or frustrating moments (like being stuck in traffic).
  • Quote: “Being able to see the poetry and the beauty in the mundane or even the ugly, that’s the happy life.” – Stephen Hanselman [08:45]

2. Memento Mori: Near-Death and Its Lessons

• Junger’s Near-Death Experience:
  • He recounts the critical day: suffering undiagnosed abdominal pain, nearly fatally bleeding from a ruptured aneurysm while in a remote cabin.
  • The choice to spend time with his wife instead of going for a run ultimately saved his life; if he had gone running, he would have died alone in the woods.
  • Quote: “The choice to stay with my wife was what saved my life.” – Sebastian Junger [15:40]
  • He emphasizes the importance of making daily choices as if they could be your last.
• The Role of Connection:
  • Junger highlights that “we exist to be connected to the people we love,” and that true contentment comes from connection and community, not individual achievement or accumulation.
  • Quote: “Basically, we exist to be connected to the people we love. That’s what we are here for.” – Sebastian Junger [17:52]

3. Civic Responsibility & Meaningful Participation in Society

• Three Pillars of Citizenship:
  • Junger identifies three non-heroic acts essential to a functioning society:
    1. Donate blood
    2. Serve jury duty
    3. Vote
  • He stresses that while not glamorous, these actions are the backbone of societal health and fairness.
  • Quote: “If you don’t donate blood, you’ll get blood if you ever need blood, but you kind of won’t deserve it, right? ...And serve jury duty... And the final one is vote. And you don’t have to vote, but if you don’t vote, you kind of deserve what you get.” – Sebastian Junger [04:00 & 21:00]
• The Crisis of Moral Obligation:
  • Modern society gives the illusion that individuals owe nothing to their community; Junger sees this as a “real poverty” in contemporary culture.
  • Quote: “There isn’t a common understanding of the moral obligation that comes from being so incredibly fortunate that we live in this society, in this nation, in this democracy.” – Sebastian Junger [23:50]
• Freedom Paired with Responsibility:
  • Referencing Viktor Frankl’s idea, they discuss the need for cultural symbols and stories that balance freedom with responsibility.
  • Quote: “There should be a Statue of Responsibility... Freedom is not freedom from responsibility—it’s that it makes the responsibility more meaningful because you are choosing to do it.” – Stephen Hanselman [24:17]

4. The Allure and Loss of Collective Purpose

• Why People Miss Catastrophe:
  • Junger explains why people have nostalgia for times of crisis (like the London Blitz or Siege of Sarajevo): crises bring a feeling of belonging and moral clarity that’s often missing in peacetime affluence.
  • Quote: “It creates a kind of collectivism which replicates our evolutionary past in very satisfying ways, but also gives us the opportunity to act with...a kind of moral bounty.” – Sebastian Junger [27:44]
• Modern Paradox:
  • Affluent societies rarely require the “best version” of ourselves—the kind called upon in hardship—and thus people feel alienated or empty.

5. Leadership, Community, and Self-Sacrifice

• The Role of Self-Sacrificing Leaders:
  • Junger investigates why underdog groups prevail—self-sacrificing leadership is crucial. He contrasts this with self-serving leaders, who undermine group cohesion.
  • Quote: “One of the most important attributes [of facing adversity] is self-sacrificing leadership. Leaders who are prepared to die for the people they lead.” – Sebastian Junger [31:30]
• Modern Leadership Gaps:
  • The hosts lament the lack of courageous, self-sacrificing political leaders in contemporary America, especially under the pressures of party and status quo.

6. Parenting, Capitalism, and Modern Conveniences

• Parenting Without the Gadgets:
  • Junger is critical of the commercialization of childhood and parenting, arguing that products like strollers and cribs often serve to separate parents and children unnecessarily.
  • Quote: “What does capitalism do when confronted with this completely self-sufficient core human bond [of parent and child]? ...You separate the parent and the child at different stages of development.” – Sebastian Junger [45:23]
  • He and his family co-sleep and rarely buy child-rearing products; he extols physical closeness for building resilient bonds.
• Instinct vs. Industry:
  • Junger points out cross-cultural practices (like co-sleeping and carrying children) that bond families, suggesting many Western parenting “essentials” are inventions meant to create markets.
  • Quote: “Every mammal on the planet sleeps with its young. Every single mammal except Americans.” – Sebastian Junger [47:02]
  • They discuss the importance of fathers being involved in early childcare and how recent generations have regained this privilege.

7. Personal Codes and Sources of Meaning

• Choosing and Living Principles:
  • Identify and commit to your own personal and professional standards to derive a sense of meaning—even if you don’t have a formal “code.”
  • Name what you owe your community and what you’d defend or sacrifice for—this brings purpose and clarity.
  • Quote: “Try to answer these two questions... What would I die for? And what do I owe my community?” – Sebastian Junger [43:29]
  • This act of defining principles or values is key to transforming feelings of emptiness into a meaningful life.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You don’t feel grateful because your life is happy. You get a happy life because you practice gratitude.”
  – Sebastian Junger [08:09]

• “We exist to be connected to the people we love. That’s what we are here for.”
  – Sebastian Junger [17:52]

• “If you don’t donate blood, you’ll get blood if you ever need blood, but you kind of won’t deserve it... And serve jury duty... And the final one is vote.”
  – Sebastian Junger [04:00 & 21:00]

• “There isn’t a common understanding of the moral obligation that comes from being so incredibly fortunate that we live in this society...”
  – Sebastian Junger [23:50]

• “There should be a Statue of Responsibility... Freedom is not freedom from responsibility—it’s that it makes the responsibility more meaningful because you are choosing to do it.”
  – Stephen Hanselman [24:17]

• “One of the most important attributes [of facing adversity] is self-sacrificing leadership. Leaders who are prepared to die for the people they lead.”
  – Sebastian Junger [31:30]

• “Every mammal on the planet sleeps with its young. Every single mammal except Americans.”
  – Sebastian Junger [47:02]

• “Try to answer these two questions... What would I die for? And what do I owe my community?”
  – Sebastian Junger [43:29]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [04:00 – 05:00]
  Junger: Three pillars of being a meaningful part of society
• [07:20 – 08:18]
  Ordinary moments and gratitude discussion
• [15:40 – 17:52]
  Junger’s aneurysm story: the choice that saved his life
• [21:00 – 24:17]
  The “moral poverty” of modern society and discussion of responsibility
• [27:44 – 28:24]
  Why people miss collective hardship; crisis, connection, and meaning
• [31:30 – 32:14]
  Self-sacrificing leadership and group resilience
• [45:23 – 51:58]
  Parenting, the commercialization of childhood, and regaining instinctual bonds

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Tone & Language

The conversation is candid, reflective, and open-hearted, marked by Junger's plain-spoken wisdom and Holiday’s confessional, down-to-earth style. The mood oscillates between philosophical musing and practical, personal advice. Both humility and urgency come through as core themes; there’s reverence for the simple, for service, and for the real work of asking what matters most.

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Listen if You Want To…

• Contemplate mortality and what matters most in daily life.
• Understand what it truly means to be a member of society.
• Reflect on the responsibilities that come with freedom and good fortune.
• Hear raw, practical wisdom on parenting and resisting needless modern convenience.
• Discover how practicing ordinary virtues can lead to lasting happiness and meaning.

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Summary prepared by The Daily Stoic Podcast Summarizer.

Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Stephen Hanselman]

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[Ryan Holiday]

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[Sebastian Junger]

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[Stephen Hanselman]

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[Sebastian Junger]

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[Sebastian Junger]

I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.

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[Sebastian Junger]

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[Sebastian Junger]

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[Sebastian Junger]

Forget that.

[T-Mobile Representative]

Aunt Liz will be jealous.

[Sebastian Junger]

Sounds like my family drama. Oh I got it.

[T-Mobile Representative]

I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with hey where are you going?

[Stephen Hanselman]

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[Stephen Hanselman]

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient stoics, something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then here on the weekend, we.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual.

[Ryan Holiday]

Lives and the challenging issues of our time.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead. Nate Brin.

[Ryan Holiday]

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I am down with my family near the beach, and when I am down here, there's something I always try to do, which is give blood. It was one of my New Year's resolutions a couple years ago, and it's something I've been consistently doing. And so when I read Sebastian Younger's book In My Time of Dying, he actually said something just about this. Let me play this little clip for you.

[Sebastian Junger]

There's three ways to be a meaningful part of the society. None of them are heroic. But if no one does these things, there is no society. First of all, you need to donate blood. Because if you don't donate blood, you'll get blood if you ever need blood, but you kind of won't deserve it, right? Like, you'll get it, but you kind of don't deserve it. And serve jury duty. Because if you're ever accused of a crime, whether you're guilty or not, you have the right to a jury trial and you'll get one, but you kind of won't deserve it if you never served, right? And the final one is vote. And you don't have to vote, but if you don't vote, you kind of deserve what you get.

[Ryan Holiday]

I think about that all the time. And I was so excited for him to be able to come on the podcast. He's been remote, I think, twice. We recorded twice remotely during the pandemic. I've really enjoyed our conversations. He actually gave me one of my favorite books, this book, Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford, on one of the remote episodes. He's a fascinating guy. In this episode, Sebastian tells some stories about times he thought he was going to be executed. We talk about Memento Mori.

[Stephen Hanselman]

We talk about, as I played you.

[Ryan Holiday]

This little clip, how to be a meaningful member of society. And we also talk some parenting lessons, as I said in the intro to part one. Sebastian Younger is a number one New York Times bestselling author. He wrote, famously, the Perfect Storm. He wrote Fire Death in Belmont, War, Tribe Freedom, and In My Time of Dying. He has won a Peabody and a National Magazine Award. He's been nominated for an Academy Award. He won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. He's just had an incredible life as an artist, a thinker, an activist, and a journalist. And you can follow him on Instagram bastionyoungerofficial on Twitter SebastianYounger. You can grab signed copies of Sebastian's books, Tribe Freedom and In My Time.

[Guest/Family Member]

Of Dying at the Painted Porch.

[Ryan Holiday]

I was really excited to do this in person. I thought it was great. I think you are really going to like it. And if you didn't catch part one of the podcast, make sure you go back and listen to that. I will also link to our other earlier episodes because they were two of my favorites that we have ever got to do. In the meantime, let's get into it.

[Stephen Hanselman]

We were out for our walk two nights ago. It's golden hour. My son's riding his bike. We have this new puppy. I'm walking the puppy. He swings around on his bike and he starts asking me.

[Guest/Family Member]

He's eight.

[Stephen Hanselman]

There's a weird question he starts asking me about how, like, getting the rights to things to make movies about them works. He goes, does Godzilla have a license? And I go, what are you. What? I was like, like a driver's license? He was like, no. Like, how do people get the rights? Like, how can you make a movie about Godzilla? And it was. I think he was more thinking about video games. But anyways, I was telling him and I was like, hey, you know, like, you know that book I have with the red cover? Like, you know, it got optioned for a movie. And I was, like, walking him through and we're talking. He's interested in what I do for a change. And you know, we're on the way back and again the light's perfect. And I was just like, this is it, man. You did it. Like you got every. This is the fucking dream. Like enjoy this thing because it's going to go away. Because you're going to go away. It's going to go away because they get older, it's going to go away because they move out. It's going to go away. Right. And so you can wait for the reward, as you said, of like, I can't wait for their college graduation or some big moment or you can go, no, this is the reward for all that stuff. This is it. And by the way, yesterday was too. You gotta be able to just. The extraordinariness of ordinary is if you can get there, you can get through a lot.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. I have a friend who had a very, very serious surgery, open heart surgery, and was really struggling to recover from it. Cause it's just a nasty piece of business. And he said, yeah, you know, a friend of his told him he should be grateful. He said, I'm struggling with being grateful. And I said, you know, with or without surgery, I'm guessing that it's impossible to have a happy life that doesn't involve the practice of gratitude. Yeah. Right. And furthermore, I would say that you don't feel grateful because your life is happy. You get a happy life because you practice gratitude.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. In all circumstances. Right. It's not. Gratitude isn't a function of having a great life and nothing's wrong. And now I'm grateful. That's how you get there, is by practicing gratitude.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah. It's like, it's easy to feel gratitude and love and revel in the beauty of life when you're looking at the Grand Canyon. But most of life is not looking at the fucking Grand Canyon. Most of life is like I'm spending the night in this motel room because my car broke down on this trip. And then actually though, you walk out to the parking lot to get something from the car and you're struck by the sunlight and the what? And you go, this is the Grand Canyon. This is magic.

[Ryan Holiday]

This is all Grand Canyon.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Why are we here? Why are we here? How are we here? This is insane. And being able to see the poetry and the beauty in the mundane or even the ugly, that's the happy life.

[Sebastian Junger]

Well, I live in New York City in the Lower east side. And there's a particularly ugly stretch of asphalt in New York called the Cross Bronx Expressway. And when you're stuck in traffic on the Cross Bronx, it is a form of hell.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Sebastian Junger]

I mean, I'm sorry. Particularly on a summer day and your AC's broken. It's just hell, Right. And after I almost died, even that I would be able to turn it into a sort of, like, beauty moment. Right? And yet I had two thoughts in the sort of apocryphal sort of like, stuck in the cr. In traffic on the Cross Bronx on a summer day. Right? And one is like, relax. You're trafficked, too.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah, right, Right.

[Sebastian Junger]

This isn't a conspiracy to keep you from getting to your whatever on time. You're trafficked for the guy behind you.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

So stop acting like it's being done to you. Right. You're part of it. And secondly, you almost died two years ago, Right? And you're complaining that you're alive in traffic. Like, grow up. Like, what kind of baby are you? Are you kidding? Like, how self indulgent are you? Grow up. Mature.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastrop County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Thought, this isn't going to work.

[Ryan Holiday]

Stopped, parked. It walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us. Not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Here in the piney forests, through the.

[Ryan Holiday]

Fields and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven it across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids, who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course. Because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota Adventure Detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com trucks adventure-detours we.

[Guest/Family Member]

Just took Our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that. But I do control how I respond.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right?

[Guest/Family Member]

That's stoicism. But it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best selling author. And she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, acronym, functionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence. My wife introduced me to Dr. Becky's books. I love them. I've recommended them a million times. I've had her on the podcast and as it happens, Dr. Becky is hosting two live Q& A events for Good Inside members. I am one of them. She signed me up for it about.

[Ryan Holiday]

A year and a half ago.

[Guest/Family Member]

I've loved it ever since. On December 1st, you can join Dr. Becky for her how not to Raise Assholes event, which is about avoiding entitlement and raising kind, empathetic kids. And on December 15, she's hosting her how not to Lose it over the Holidays event, which I'm sure we could all use. As I said, I'm a big fan of Dr. Becky. She's been a great influence for me as a parent and just as a human being. And daily, Stoic listeners can join for 15% off with code STOIC15. You just gotta head over to goodinside.com to catch the events.

[Stephen Hanselman]

I sometimes think, you know, you're in Traffic on the 405 or the 110 in LA, and it's the worst. And then I go, but every time I see it in a movie, like a drone shot, or I see it from an airplane at night, yeah, I go, this is gorgeous. All the light, like a Christmas tree, right? And I was like, why am I seeing it as ugly when in another context I see it as pretty? You know, it's like when I see a nature documentary and I see the water buffalo or whatever, like traveling. They're all running into the stream together and up the stream and they're all part of this enormous river of movement and animals. I go, they're doing what they do, man, this is. And then I'm in traffic and I'm like, modernity sucks. Humans are awful. And it's like, it's the same thing. We are a migratory species doing what we do. We've just intermediated it with these other things. But it is the same thing.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. And also, let's not forget to be grateful for our circumstances. Right. So think about the person in the car. If your AC hasn't broken, you're in climate controlled perfection in your own little bubble. You have music, you're comfortable. You might even have some food and water with you. Like all the basic human needs and then some are being provided to you and you're unhappy. Like, tell that to the Apache, you know what I mean? Totally. Right. And so that's where modern society has deprived us of just sort of a basic valuing of the things that have always made humans feel safe and content and like they're having a meaningful moment. And you know, again, not to keep circling back to it, but you know, the sort of smartphones and social media rip us away from that appreciation of what's actually happening.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah. I was thinking, you know, you described the scene. You're. It's a summer day or spring day and. And then you don't know that you're dying, but you're dying. Cause it happened over a period of time.

[Guest/Family Member]

Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

That you're slowly basically bleeding to death internally, quickly.

[Sebastian Junger]

Well, I had 90 minutes.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah, but I'm saying it was happening before you knew it was happening, right?

[Sebastian Junger]

Yes, I just knew. I had a great pain in my abdomen and I couldn't stand up.

[Stephen Hanselman]

I just mean in the way that it's true for all of us. The bell was tolling. You just didn't know. You couldn't hear it.

[Sebastian Junger]

I did not know it. No.

[Stephen Hanselman]

But you make this choice, which is like, I'm gonna spend the afternoon with my wife as opposed to, I'm going to zone out on social media, I'm going to drive to this. Like, I think at the end of the day you want to ask yourself, hey, if this is one of the last choices that I'm making, is this a choice I'm proud of or not?

[Sebastian Junger]

Well, the choice to stay with my wife was what saved my life.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

Like, so that afternoon I was going to go running. I've been a lifelong runner and we were living in a remote house in the woods in Massachusetts, and I would run on these game trails behind the house that go for miles. And had I gone running, aneurysm would have ruptured and I would have died trying to crawl home. Yeah, right. But instead we had a little bit of babysitting and I said to my wife, like, look, let's just take a little time. This is during COVID We had a six month old and A three year old and some teenage girls from up the road. It was a rural area and we knew the family and they sort of offered themselves for a few hours. Like, great, we pay a thousand dollars an hour. Like, how long do you want to stay?

[Stephen Hanselman]

Right, sure, sure, sure.

[Sebastian Junger]

And we went off into this cabin that I'd built that is completely off the grid. There's no cell phone service anywhere near this home. So we're very unconnected. And the cabin is completely off the grid. Deep in the woods, there's no electricity or anything. It's all oil lamp and et cetera. And that's where we were where in mid sentence, I suddenly felt this pain in my abdomen. The aneurysm had ruptured and I was losing a pint of blood into abdomen every 10 or 15 minutes. Right. And we live an hour from the hospital.

[Stephen Hanselman]

It's a math problem basically. How much blood, how much distance is he gonna make it?

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, I had 90 minutes. I, you know, you can lose about six pints of blood before you die.

[Guest/Family Member]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

And I lived an hour from the hospital, right. And I didn't know I was dying, but you know, I couldn't walk. I mean, my blood pressure had tanked, I couldn't stand up. I started to go blind, you know, and there's no cell phone service, they can't get the ambulance. And I got to the hospital within, the doctors say probably within 10 minutes of cardiac arrest and death. I mean, it was really, really close. And Those are the 10 kinds of 10 minutes that determine our lives. But had I just been my motivated, athletic self and gone out for another run in the afternoon, it would have.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Killed me when, I mean, even if the math hadn't worked, you still made the right choice, but you made the right choice because you chose the thing that you would want to spend your last minutes doing.

[Sebastian Junger]

Exactly. That's right. That's right. And connect. You know, basically we exist to be connected to the people we love. Like that's what we are here for. We're social primates. That's why we survive. That sort of love, connection and community affiliation is why we exist. And the more you get to that, the better your life is and the less you have, the more miserable you are. You know, I mean, it's like pretty simple.

[Stephen Hanselman]

And the terrible irony of the thing we choose most of the time, time, the thing we prioritize most of the time is the opposite of that thing or it's taking us away from that thing. Like you, you ask, like I think about this As a parent, it's like you read these stories, you watch succession or whatever. It's like having insane amounts of money destroys the family to almost to a rule. Right? And then you ask people, like, what their fantasy is. Like, I hope my company sells for a billion dollars. Like, you're praying for the thing that you know is going to tear the thing you also say is your most important thing apart.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Or I think about this just much more practically as a writer. Like, how many people become successful as a. And then lose the ability, the time that is to do the thing that they love doing. Right? Because now they're so busy and. Yeah, that can't be the good life. Can't be success that takes you away from the things that are good.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right, Right. And you have to understand what truly is good, you know? And if you don't have that right, you'll be like much of modern society, which is discontent and alienated and anxious.

[Stephen Hanselman]

My favorite part of the book is the thing at the end, the note about giving blood. Because I'd read this article about this, like, people that give their kidneys up. Like, you know, where you donate a kidney to a stranger. And I was like.

[Ryan Holiday]

I was talking to my wife, I.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Was like, I want to do that. That sounds like, what an amazing thing to do. And she was like, you're not going.

[Ryan Holiday]

To give your kidney.

[Stephen Hanselman]

What are you talking about? Like, she was like, you have kids. She's like, you've never even donated blood. Why don't you start there? And I was like, that.

[Ryan Holiday]

You're totally right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Cause I think sometimes we have these fantasies of, like, I hope if I ever see someone drowning someday I'll. I'll jump in and save them. Or I want to become a philanthropist and donate money to save people in a hospital. Or I want to be a soldier and win the Medal of Honor. I want to save someone's life. And then actually there's all these very accessible, easy ways that you could literally be a superhero and we don't fucking do it. So I've donated every time I can for the. This was like two years where I've done it every thing since. And it's like, it's just one of those things not to brag. I'm just saying it's like, oh, yeah, I was indulging in this fantasy of this future difficult thing that I might do. And meanwhile, there's people that die from lack of blood transfusions every day. And you could fix that by going online and typing in your zip code.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. I mean, my life was saved by a great medical team and by my own sort of basic health and vitality and strong heart and 10 units of blood from 10 people that I'll never know who donated blood. And that got me donating blood. And sometimes people ask me because of my book tribe, like, how can, you know, we live in this big modern society. It's very hard to feel like you're needed, like you're necessary. How can you contribute? Clearly, society will just keep rumbling on without us. So how do you feel? Meaningful, right? And it's actually pretty. You know, in some ways, it's surprisingly easy. I say there's three ways to be a meaningful part of the society, and none of them are heroic. But if no one does these things, there is no society. Right. I said, first of all, you need to donate blood, because if you don't donate blood, you'll get blood if you ever need blood. But you kind of won't deserve it. Right. Like, you'll get it, but you kind of don't deserve it. And serve jury duty because if you're ever accused of a crime, whether you're guilty or not, you have the right to a jury trial and you'll get one. But you kind of won't deserve it if you never served.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yes.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right, sure. And the final one is vote yes. And you don't have to vote, but if you don't vote, you kind of deserve what you get.

[Stephen Hanselman]

It's early voting here in Texas for this little town, and a friend of mine is up for city council. She's running for reelection, but she lost her first election by two votes. Two votes. And I just think, oh, if my wife and I had been like, that's one person going, eh, yeah, two votes.

[Sebastian Junger]

That's right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

And, yeah, voting is one, I would say organ donor, another one. It's a box you check on your driver's license.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yes, absolutely.

[Stephen Hanselman]

But, yeah, there are all these basic civic contributions that I think the whole country is founded on people feeling obligated to do, and you're in really bad shape when that the. Not just the obligation fades away, but even the understanding of why it is an obligation. Right. You lose something when you can't even remember why you have the tradition in the first place.

[Sebastian Junger]

And, you know, I mean, people say, okay, well, the only thing, you know, the thing you have to do is pay your taxes.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah, right.

[Sebastian Junger]

I'm like, no, you don't have to pay your taxes. You can go to jail, but you don't have to pay them. It's still your choice. Yes. Right. And one of the things that makes this society different from the sort of like typical small scale organic hunter gatherer society or sort of rudimentary agricultural society is the idea that the individual doesn't owe anything. Yes, Right. That's an insane idea. For most of human history, where you live, you're Apache, and you don't think you owe something to the Apache, you know, you're an ancient Roman, you're whatever. I mean, pick your flavor, right. And for most of human history, your survival depended on being an integral part of a small group that you owed possibly your life to. Right. And they owed you their lives. And that's how it all worked. Right. And now there's this weird illusion that sort of legally the individual doesn't owe the society anything. I mean, that's what sort of, you know, our laws as a democracy prevent the government saying, no, no, no, you know, after we got rid of the draft, no, no, no, you don't owe anything. Right. It's all voluntary, including your taxes, frankly. Right. It's all voluntary. But what did not step in is the moral obligation. And that to me is the real poverty of this society is that there isn't a common understanding of the moral obligation that comes from being so incredibly fortunate that we live in this society, in this nation, in this democracy, that you aren't dying to contribute. Where is that sort of moral obligation? It's disappeared, and I don't understand it. And it makes people's lives poorer.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Viktor Frankl talked about this. I wrote a piece about it for the Economist a couple years ago. He says it's fantastic that there is the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, but he said that on the west coast, ideally, I think you should put it on angel island, because that was our Ellis island on the West Coast.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

There should be a Statue of Responsibility. So you have freedom and responsibility.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. Beautiful.

[Stephen Hanselman]

And the idea that freedom is the freedom from responsibility is not true. It's that it makes the responsibility more meaningful because you are choosing to do it. You don't have to, but you are choosing to do it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

You are assuming the duty. That's what that has to be. And yeah, I think people, Hyman Rickover, her father in the nuclear Navy, he would say, when people say I'm not responsible, they usually mean I'm not legally mandated. And he says, but when you say you're not responsible, you're right, because you are irresponsible.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, that's right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

You are saying, I'm an irresponsible person. When you go, you can't make me. I don't have to. Says who? And it's like, says who is not being a shitty person. Says who? Right. Like all. There's this scene, I talk about it in my book, Right Thing right now, where Ralph Ellison is speaking at Harvard to give some talk. And he's sort of wandering around after the dinner. He's had a little drink. He's just. And he wanders through this hall, and he ends up in this building. And I forget which building is. But he ends up with this building in Harvard. He looks up and he sees all these names written in it. And he realizes that these are the names of Harvard students who died in the Civil War to a man, the Union.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right?

[Stephen Hanselman]

And he realizes that these white men, who he didn't know, died so that he would one day be free. And he says the debt of that hits him with this beauty and horror at the same time that we're all indebted. And I think, to talk about walking around, looking at beauty, you walk around and you go, somebody built this road. Somebody invented this system. And they did it through painful trial and error. Somebody invented these norms. They modeled this behavior. They gave up their time. They made this. And you live in the bounty of that creation. It's not perfect, but you were given an incredible gift. And this is true all over the world, some of us more fortunate than others. But the whole world is the product of the things that other people invested in for us. And you can't pay that debt back, but you have to pay it forward.

[Sebastian Junger]

And you know, what's interesting is that people intuitively get that when there's a crisis. Yes, Right. So, you know, Hurricane Sandy hit New York 10 years ago or so, and there was, you know, a lot of older people stuck on the 16th floor of a building without any power because power went out from 34th street down. Right. And so there are these cadres of people that were literally carrying drinking water up 16 flights of stairs. Now, that's a workout to bring water to these people until the lights came back on a week later. Right. And, you know, every once in a while, someone falls onto the subway tracks with a train coming. Invariably someone else jumps in there to save them. Right. And so there is that. That moral duty is an instinct in all of us. Yes. Right. And I think one of the things that people miss about catastrophes and crises, and there is a. There's some, like. There's actual literature on this, like the people that Missed the blitz in London. Yeah, I was in Sarajevo during The Civil War, 1993, during the siege of Sarajevo. People missed the siege of Sarajevo. Can you imagine?

[Stephen Hanselman]

They. They have nostalgia for it.

[Sebastian Junger]

They have nostalgia for it, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, a fifth of the city was killed or wounded. Right. And the rest of them starved for four years and they had nostalgia for it. Right. And I think what's going on is that a. It creates a kind of collectivism which replicates our evolutionary past in very satisfying ways, but also gives us the opportunity to act with sort of like in a kind of. Sort of moral. With a kind of moral bounty. Yeah, right. And we want to be the best version of ourselves. And the tragedy of the modern world in affluent Western society is that the best version of ourselves is almost never needed. Yes, that's the problem.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Well, and I think there's a special place in hell reserved for the people who in those moments of collectivism or the opportunity for it, decide that actually the political power or attention isn't undermining it. You know what I mean? Like, look, Covid was an overreaction in some ways. There was a lot of things that were wrong. Obviously there's so many ways that we should have done it better. But like the lieutenant governor of Texas goes, it only affects old people. We shouldn't do anything. It's like, what is wrong with you? Like how. What is wrong with you that you would think that and also think that that's a thing to say, you know, and. And like there is just that, that that's a part of human nature too. There's the kind of the higher self and the lower self. There's the self that says, how do I run away? And then there's a part of it that says, how do I run towards it? And I think you need cultural norms and stories and also individuals with a conscience that want to be the people that go towards.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. Well, you know, there have been many studies of hunter gatherer cultures and there's a certain amount of data from rock paintings tens of thousands of years old from Africa and all over the world. And some of them show executions of individuals. And the theory is that deserters. Well, yeah, I mean, there's so two ways of betraying your community. Right. One is being an abusive leader. Right. And another is by being a, you know, sort of a thief. Right. So not a freeloader. A freeloader. Right. And those are the two things that typically in hunter gathered society, which is a marginal business, are penalized even with Capital punishment. And there's one sort of famous rock painting from Africa. I think it's 10 men with bows and arrows standing around one body that has 10 arrows sticking out of them.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Them.

[Sebastian Junger]

And it's not a battlefield. They clearly took out an abusive leader. And that was the thing that in a small tight knit group where you can't afford to have is one person with a big narcissistic personality who's using his position of authority to benefit himself. I say he because it invariably is male. That's when people get thrown off of cliffs.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah, yeah. It's like I don't believe that line where it's at. Every billionaire is a policy failure, but some of them are, you know. And you have to create a culture that is okay, calling it a spade. A spade. You know what I mean? And there's an enforcement mechanism that says, hey, you got that by plunder, you know, you got that by exploitation. And you might be able to keep it, but you don't get to keep your place in society, you know.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. Yeah. I wrote a book, Freedom, which I see over there next to you on.

[Stephen Hanselman]

The table and I just couldn't find tribe. I love tribe also.

[Sebastian Junger]

Oh, great, thank you, thank you. Yeah. So Freedom is an exploration of, of why underdog groups prevail. What are the commonalities between successful underdog groups? And I looked at the labor movement 100 years ago in the United States and various insurgencies and the Apache who lasted. I mean the Apache. There were bands of Apache that remained free until almost the 1890s. And so the ultimate sort of very mobile underdog group. Right. And so I sort of looked at the common attributes of these successful with groups. And one of the most important attributes is self sacrificing leadership. Yeah, right. Leaders who are prepared to die for the people they lead. Yes, right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Leonidas.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, yeah. I mean many, many. Right. Leaders throughout history and, and, and the, the groups that had self serving leaders. Yeah, right. Who were using the group to benefit themselves and weren't willing to suffer.

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Stephen Hanselman]

I'm writing a lot about or reading a lot about Vietnam now because I'm doing this book and this little line jumped out at me. I'm forgetting whose book it was. But he points out that one South Vietnamese general died in the entire war. I mean multiple American high ranking officers did. But like the people who we were ostensibly defending their country, it wasn't a real country, right? It was this thing we it was a colonial remnant that we were propping up. And our inability to see over and over again that we wanted a South Vietnam more than South Vietnam wanted a South Vietnam, or certainly that the leaders of South Vietnam wanted more. And you just go, yeah. If you don't have a cause that people are actually willing to choose over themselves, you almost certainly don't have a cause worth winning. In this case, nuclear weapons is not sufficient to overcome that deficit.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. I looked at the Easter Rising in Ireland in 1916 and you know, initially it failed. I mean, militarily it was suppressed. But then as it played out a few years later, it ultimately was successful. But the leader of the Easter Rising on the streets of Dublin was a guy whose name I forget, very brave guy who commanded the sort of Dublin battalion against the Brits. And his aides kept sort of dragging him out of the line of fire on the streets because he was trying to get a look around to see what to do tactically. And they kept dragging him out of the line of fire saying, sir, we need you alive. You can't get yourself killed. Where are those leaders in America right now? What? I mean, the political leaders who would do the equivalent act of bravery and sort of rejection of their own sort of personal interests when it's actually in.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Their financial self interest to do it. Like. Like you would lose your Congress seat, but then you would become a lobbyist or a lawyer where you would actually make more money and be more admired. You are worried about being tweeted at.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. Like, well, it's. And it's.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

And this has been going on long. Yes. Before the Internet. Right. So. But it's power. It's like they want. They want power. And really the only reason to want power is. I mean, really the only moral reason to want is so that.

[Stephen Hanselman]

But I don't even think it's power because at some level, if they had power, they would like. Well, I think it's fascinating about the political moment we're in where it's like these people desperately don't want to lose their job in Congress or the Senate as they are actively surrendering the prerogative, the power that congressmen and senators have, which is to pass laws they don't do. I think it's even morbid. I think they're just afraid of something other than the status quo. They currently have a job. They know where they go to work. They know people address them as. As congressman or congresswoman, and they are afraid on what's on the other side. So if they take a stand, they go, hey, I'm gonna vote against this thing or I'm gonna speak out against this. I will have to figure out what I'm gonna do next. Cause they're not actually worried about like physical safety for the most part. It's actually something more relatable from like, people go, why don't these people risk their job? And do, you know, do. And it's like, well, have you ever risked your job for anything in your fucking life, even though you hate said job? And so that's. That's a very human thing of just like I am. I won't do my obligation because I'm worried about losing the status quo.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. Well, also, I think it's extremely hard and extremely painful to experience peer condemnation yeah.

[Stephen Hanselman]

To be sent out of the tribe. That's what they're afraid of.

[Sebastian Junger]

So you have the irony of Mitch McConnell. So, full disclosure, I'm a Democrat. I did not vote for Donald Trump, et cetera. Right? And I think the country keeps waiting for the Republican Congress to. I'm saying this as a Democrat, waiting for the Republican Congress to sort of create some boundaries for Donald Trump to keep whatever the Democratic order safe. But. So you have the irony of Mitch McConnell saying that Donald Trump is unfit, morally and intellectually unfit to be president, and then he voted for him and.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Prevented him from being made unfit, ineligible for office. As if there is a. Adam Kinzinger sat in that chair a couple months ago, and he said, the problem is everyone thinks there's a super Congress, right? And he's like, we're Congress. Like, Mitch McConnell's, like, acting like there's some other speaker of the majority leader who's gonna do the. Make the hard decision. It's like, it's you. It's your responsibility, but even if you.

[Sebastian Junger]

Don'T step up to that, which you should. Right? But even if you don't. What I was really wondering about this about Mitch, like, what went into the decision to voluntarily say, I am gonna vote for him. Like, what went into that. And I'm guessing what went into it is he's spent his entire life in a conservative social environment, right? And saying, I'm not gonna vote for him. Even if he thinks Trump doesn't deserve the presidency, again, saying, I'm not gonna vote for him puts him outside of the social world that he's been in his whole life. And that's psychologically unbearable.

[Ryan Holiday]

Totally.

[Stephen Hanselman]

And I think the proof of that is now that he's not running for reelection and he's out of it. He voted against the most egregious of the nominees, so he already knows he's retiring from the tribe. So now he's voting what he actually thinks. And it's like, hey, you know when you should have done that? When we were paying you to do that?

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Stephen Hanselman]

You know, we were paying you to not do what the mob wants. We were paying you to represent their interests, to faithfully execute certain laws. I think going back, there's something. I'm jealous of it, but it's not. It's a jealousy we can all address when someone's like, there is an immense. There's a responsibility, but there's an immense luxury in having a profession where you swear an oath or you have a set of standards or ethics that are clear like a doctor or a lawyer. I remember I read someone in there, like, I'm a pilot. So, like, I can say, I can't go out tonight because I'm flying tomorrow. Like, the clarity of, like, I can't drink the night before I fly. It's against my, my ethics and the standards of my profession. So professions that have that there's a clarity to it. Not everyone respects it, but there's a clarity to it. And I do think you can give that to yourself, like, as a writer, you decide, hey, there are obviously some, but we're not all part of an association. There's not a union for most of us. But the decision to go, like, I respect this thing enough not to cheat it. And the meaning that you get from deciding to apprentice yourself and belong to a kind of a guild is, I think, something a lot of people are missing because they go, I'm just an insurance salesman or I'm just a whatever. And then because you've said what you do isn't meaningful and you don't apply constraints and restraints to it, it doesn't feel meaningful and your life feels empty and sad.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. And you know, they're the sort of warrior societies of many hunter gatherer groups are very powerful examples of that. And, you know, the central ethos of it is you join a warrior society, your life is ours. Right. Like, you owe your life to this group. I, I looked at, in, in my book Freedom, I looked at a, you know, speaking of warrior societies, I looked at a, a gang in Chicago in the 1960s. It was a black gang in a very poor part of Chicago, very violent part of Chicago. And they were formed, they were formed to give themselves protection against other gangs that were around them. Right? And they were called the Vice Lords. They were called the Vice Lords not because they indulged in vices, which of course they did. Why wouldn't they? Right? The idea was that once we have, once you're part of this group, we have you like a vice, like you were part. And they meant that in a good way. Like you were part of something completely solid. And there was one rule, There was only one standard for being in the Vice Lords. Right? And the standard was if another Vice Lord is in danger, you run towards him and help. And if you don't, you're not a Vice Lord.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

This very, very simple standard, right? You don't matter. What matters is everyone else. And if we all act that way, we're all safer. Right. In this super dangerous environment that they were In. And the punishment for cowardice. Basically, the punishment for cowardice. You know, the British army was executing people for cowardice through World War I. So, you know, this is a sort of common practice. Many of the Native American tribes did as well with their own warriors who were. Who were cowards. They didn't even commit murder to punish cowardice. They just. Okay, you think you're okay on your own?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. Enjoy.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah. And they put them in a car and they drive them into the center of the territory of the rival gang, and they just say, get out.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

You think you're all right on your own? All right, go for it.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Right.

[Sebastian Junger]

It's all yours. Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

You need that. And if your life feels empty or sad, I would urge you to sort of sit down and like, list out your value, like, come up with some values or principles, some professional standards that you're going to observe and watch how quickly your life meaning descends from that. The person who says, here's what I'll do, here's what I won't do, here's what I believe. Here's what's important to me. Me. And it's more important to me, by the way, than money or fame or. I don't care if people criticize me for that thing. There's an incredible power and freedom and empowerment in doing that. And I think that's how we create meaning and purpose in life.

[Sebastian Junger]

Well, try to answer these two questions, and they're hard questions to answer. What would I die for? And what do I owe my community? And my community? It could be the nation, it could be. Be your neighborhood, whatever you want it to be. But what do you owe that you don't have to give? Yeah, but you feel you, you morally, you owe it, and you will give it voluntarily. What is it that you owe? Yeah, right. And what would you die for? I would, you know, without a second thought. I die for my family, to protect my family. But what else is. Are there more things, you know, and that. And that's a really, you know, I mean, for most of human history, individuals would die for their community because without the community, they died anyway. Right. We now live in a safe enough, affluent enough society that we don't need our community to survive. So that amazing sense of belonging that comes with the knowledge that you would die for this group to defend this group of people that has disappeared from most people's lives. Yeah.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Like, what's an idea? If they put you in front of something and said, we need you to disavow this, would you go No, I won't. Here I stand. I can do no other. Just the incredible meaning and comfort that you get in something like that, even in very scary, destabilizing situations.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right? That's right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Last question. Very different direction. But last time we talked, you told me you think strollers and cribs and all these things are a giant scam and that you basically don't have any kid gear, that you're like. And I'm just curious how that's holding up for you and if you still.

[Sebastian Junger]

Think that, oh, no, we don't have anything. No, I mean, neither did the concept, Right. I mean, strollers and all that stuff, you know, are really only work when there's pavement, you know, and an even surface to roll along and, and really any healthy adult, and some adults aren't healthy, and that's, you know, a different conversation. But any healthy adult should be able to carry a six month old or really even a six year old, right? I mean, they're not that heavy, right?

[Stephen Hanselman]

You can put them on your shoulders.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yeah, totally. Right. So. And the way I sort of think about it is that the innermost core human bond is parent child. Yeah. It's not even parent to parent, although that's very, very powerful, but it's parent, child, mother child, father child, particularly mother child. Right. Because nursing and all that. And birth, of course. And so what does. And I'm all for capitalism, right? Capitalism has brought enormous good to the world, along with a few complications, but enormous good. Right. And so I'm all for it, but what does capitalism do? Capitalism needs to monetize things, right? So what does capitalism do when confronted with this completely self sufficient core human bond? How do you capitalize, how do you monetize the mother infant bond, the parent child bond? How do you monetize it doesn't need anything, right. And so the way you do it is you separate the parent and the child at different stages of development. Separate the parent and the child. You know, you don't need to nurse. You can give them milk formula, right? You don't. We can. Here's a bottle, here's milk for me. You actually don't need. You know, when I was growing up in the 60s, when I was a kid, you know, the idea was that breast milk was actually bad for you.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah, right.

[Sebastian Junger]

Insane, right?

[Stephen Hanselman]

To be fair, some people can't, like some, some couples have trouble or women have trouble. Of course the invention makes sense. But yeah, the, the idea of like, how do we stop you from doing the thing that most people should probably be doing.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. I'm all for medical solutions, solutions to medical problems. You know, of course, I'm not saying. But the message was, oh no, this is actually undesirable to breastfeed. You don't want to do this.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Margarine is better than butter. You know, how do we create the more complicated solution to a problem that you didn't really have?

[Sebastian Junger]

That's right. And then likewise, you know, the sort of holding. I mean, we're social primates. Every mammal on the planet sleeps with its young. Every single mammal except Americans. Yeah, right. And what, but what do you do if you don't sleep? They're very, very vulnerable. And of course they don't know that they're safe just because they're in a little crib in a different room. They have no idea that they're safe. All they know is that their safety comes from the proximity of an adult. Right. So they cry, so you have to sleep, train them and et cetera. So basically, as you separate the parent and the child, the industry can come in and sell you the gear. The gear that takes the place of the parent. Right. The parent's arms, the family bed, the stroller. I mean, you know, I wore a, I think it's called a Bjorn, like a child carrier. Wonderful. I mean one of the great things about it is that the two little beating heart, I mean my heart and the child's heart, you know, they self regulate. Right. I mean, you start to sort of beat and sync.

[Stephen Hanselman]

I think about how lucky we are generationally that men are allowed to do that. Yeah. Like basically every other generation of men up until relatively recently didn't do that. I mean, putting aside, I don't know exactly how native people said it, but modern western civilization, they were like, you're not involved.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

And then thus depriving you of things.

[Sebastian Junger]

Like that and depriving the child. Yeah, of course. I mean, you know, so a three month old can't see very far. You put them in a stroller.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

I mean, first of all, they're light as a feather. Like why wouldn't you carry them? But you put them in a stroller, they can't see more than a foot, which is the distance from the eyeball to the nipple. Right. And so they don't even know where they are. Right. And it's like, why would you pay more money to not do something that's common to all mammals?

[Stephen Hanselman]

Yeah.

[Sebastian Junger]

And clearly good for everybody. Like why would you pay more money to go to that show? Like, sorry. And you know now it's like, oh, so you need a video monitor because they're in another room. Like what society is wealthy enough to have, for every child to have its.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Own room, how big does your teepee have to be?

[Sebastian Junger]

Exactly Right. And so when people. I get a lot of pushback from people about this, particularly liberal people who are sort of. I feel like in this weird new. We were talking about this as a new era of liberal thought is that it's sort of anti evolution and sort of anti nature. And so I get a lot of pushback from my sort of liberal friends about co sleeping and all this stuff that we did that we do. And I said, listen, if you went backpacking with your kids in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana to just pick a name out of a hat, right. With your 6 year old and your 4 year old, I don't think you'd have them in a separate tent. They'd be in your tent, they'd be right next to you. Because they would be scared and you would be worried. Right.

[Stephen Hanselman]

You wouldn't do it and then set up a baby monitor so you could watch what's happening in that tent.

[Sebastian Junger]

No. Right. So why do it in your apartment? I mean, I understand there's reasons not to if you so choose, but don't tell me it's unhealthy. Right, sorry, it's not unhealthy. And you would do exactly the same thing if you're in the wilderness, which is essentially a primeval human environment filled with dangers and it's dark and et cetera. And I'm a longtime runner and there was a movement about 10 years ago, sort of barefoot running, which was a really interesting way of thinking about the human body. And basically the argument was, look, if you take your shoes off and run barefoot across some pavement, you will land on your midfoot, you will not land on your heel. Your body just won't do it. It hurts too much. So that clearly is the natural running gait. And so when you wear shoes that are highly cushioned that allow you to land on the heel, you're actually allowing your body to do something that's bad for it. Yes, well, likewise with all the technology we have. So, yes, short. I mean, that was a long answer to your very simple question.

[Stephen Hanselman]

No, I think it's fascinating.

[Sebastian Junger]

We don't have any of that stuff. We never had a stroller. We never had nothing. And you know, we sleep with the girls and they have little bunk beds that they use occasionally when they're feeling adventurous and they'll slowly migrate over there, I suppose. And it's all very animal and human and connected and physical and lovely.

[Stephen Hanselman]

No, it's beautiful. And look, someday soon enough they'll sleep somewhere else. And you would kill for that to happen again.

[Sebastian Junger]

And you know, when my wife and I get out of bed early, I mean, they go to bed with us at, you know, 9:30 or 10 or whatever. 9 o'.

[Ryan Holiday]

Clock.

[Sebastian Junger]

Right. So they don't get up early because they're sleep, they're sleeping normal human hours. My wife and I sort of creep out of bed at 6am so we sleep on the floor and a pad on the floor, like big, huge pad on the floor. That's where we all sleep. And so my wife and I'll creep out of bed at 6 in the morning. And the girls, because they, they, you know, they just in their sleep, they press up against anything that's human, which means it's either me or my wife. Right. And so when we creep out of bed in their sleep, they sort of migrate towards each other.

[Stephen Hanselman]

That's so cute. Yeah, sure.

[Sebastian Junger]

And they wake up, you know, they're.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Getting a bond too.

[Sebastian Junger]

Yes. In each other's arms. I mean literally they're like, like holding each other. These are sisters. Right? So I mean, tell me, tell me there's something unhealthy there. Like, give me a break.

[Stephen Hanselman]

No, it's beautiful. You want to go check out some books?

[Sebastian Junger]

I'd love to, yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on itunes, that would.

[Stephen Hanselman]

Mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.

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