← The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
The Human Upgrade: Biohacking for Longevity & Performance
Arthur Brooks | Why Your Life Has No Meaning : 1438
00:57:31
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- [00:00]
Dave Asprey
I spent about 2 1/2 million dollars reversing my age and losing the weight. Losing the first £50 wasn't that hard. The other £50 took 10 years of understanding biology.
- [00:09]
Arthur Brooks
These are the people who don't entirely understand that psychology is biology. The reason that self improvement is not very successful is because it's a series of epiphanies that then burn off. The reason is because it doesn't install in the brain in the right way.
- [00:22]
Dave Asprey
You can take your methylene blue and you can get in a cold plunge, which is suffering, which is probably good for you. But that's not what it's all about.
- [00:30]
Arthur Brooks
You need to deal with what and how to questions in your. Yeah, but if you don't have the why questions, then your life is going to run in circles. The answer is not the ashram necessarily, or Italy or the beach. It's the right side of your brain.
- [00:43]
Dave Asprey
You're listening to the Human upgrade with Dave Asprey. Staring at screens all day is wrecking your vision and your brain. You might just think it's aging, but it's not. It's a broken eye brain connection and it gets worse every hour you spend looking at a screen. If you plan to live to 180 and beyond, you need to protect your dominant sense. Now here's the good news. You can train your visual system just like you train your body or your brain. Screen Fit is a science backed method built by Dr. Bryce Applebaum that rebuilds how your brain and eyes work together. No eye drops, no appointments, no gimmicks. Just 15 minutes a day to sharpen focus, reduce fatigue and protect your vision for the long haul. I saw real results in just a week. If you strive for peak performance or plan to live a very long time like I do, you want clear vision to match? Go to screenfit.com Dave or use code Dave to get $200 off and try it for yourself. You'll see what I mean.
- [01:48]
Arthur Brooks
Literally.
- [01:51]
Dave Asprey
Imagine waking up with tons of energy fluid joints and absolutely no pain in your body. What if you knew it was as simple as making a few easy food swaps? Oxalates. They're defense chemicals and plant foods and they slowly wreck your health when you eat them. They steal your minerals and form razor sharp crystals in your body. And those can cause joint pain, muscle stiffness, fatigue, even kidney stones. And they stress your mitochondria. In multiple studies, most people eat way more oxalates than their body can handle. And they have no idea because you've been told all These things are good for you when they're not. So I'm running low ox 30 this January for 30 days. I'll send you one short email every morning. You'll learn how to lower your oxalate load step by step without giving up real food or adding stress to your body. You know exactly what to eat, what to swap and how to support your body as it clears oxalates. By the end of the month, you might feel like a different person, lighter, clearer and more energized and maybe with better skin. If you want in, it's a gift. Just tap the link in my bio and sign up@daveasprey.com this is going to be an incredible episode because we're talking about biology and psychology and the meaning of life with none other than Arthur Brooks, who's a well known author. He's a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. And we're going to go deep on happiness and where it comes from, how you get it. And we'll talk about neurology, psychology, biology and how they all come together so you can maybe have the kind of life you want. Arthur, welcome back on the show.
- [03:24]
Arthur Brooks
Thanks, Dave. Great to be back.
- [03:25]
Dave Asprey
Arthur, you wrote a book with Oprah on happiness.
- [03:28]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. That's the last time we talked. We were talking about that book, right? Yeah.
- [03:31]
Dave Asprey
So I think you've changed a lot of lives with it. But what made you want to write another book?
- [03:36]
Arthur Brooks
There's always another book. As you know, life is a long string of books.
- [03:40]
Dave Asprey
You're at 15 books, right? Yeah, I'm only at nine.
- [03:43]
Arthur Brooks
I mean, you're doing great. And the whole idea, when you're in the world of ideas is that the book is 75,000 words that collects all your ideas and becomes the 10th pill in a two to three year span. That's why we write the books. It's not about the book sales. I mean, I have a column that on a Good Week has 500,000 readers, which is a runaway blockbuster bestseller for books. And so it's not about the numbers really, it's about how it organizes you and your thinking. That's what books are really all about.
- [04:13]
Dave Asprey
The two best ways to really understand something are to teach it and to write it 100%.
- [04:19]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. And the way that to incorporate any sort of a new idea into your life, the reason that self improvement is not very successful is because it's a series of epiphanies that then burn off. And so you see something on the Internet, somebody famous as a thing like, ah, yeah, that's exactly right. And then you don't live it. And then a week later, it's gone. The reason is because it doesn't install in the brain in the right way. And the whole idea for a good idea that will change your life is you have to understand the underlying science. Yes. Number two, you need to change your habits, which is a lot of the activity, your. The limbic system of your brain. And number three, then you need to teach it. That's what it comes down to. So if anybody who's watching, you know, the human upgrade, which everybody here watches it every week or listens to it every week, it's a really important thing to do. Good for your life. If you really want these ideas to stick with you, you need to understand the science that you and your guests are talking about. Commit to changing your habits and explain this. Recreate the episode for your family and your friends, and then it will become part of your life. And so that's a lot of what I teach. Wow.
- [05:20]
Dave Asprey
And that's how communities happen. And that's why I do the show, too. It creates a big ripple effect.
- [05:25]
Arthur Brooks
Totally. I mean, there's a lot of your fans are. They're talking about your stuff all the time, and they're trying to share it because that's how it becomes installed permanently in their brains.
- [05:32]
Dave Asprey
As long as it's worthy, it's a big responsibility. I'm at about almost 600 million downloads of the show.
- [05:39]
Arthur Brooks
Wait, really?
- [05:40]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. That's something like two or three hundred human lifetimes. So if I'm not making good content, I'm kind of a mass murderer. Do you ever think about that with your column? Like, the number of human minutes that you spend?
- [05:50]
Arthur Brooks
I haven't. Although we calculate all sorts of metrics around how much penetration it's getting, how many people are consuming this information in different ways. And for me, what's really important is actually trying to see how sticky it is by getting feedback and communicating with people about how it's changing their lives. And that's changed how I do my work, what I talk about, how I talk about it, et cetera, and thinking deeply about how people are learning the material, absorbing it. That's the reason that what I really want, I think what we should all want in the improvement community, the human performance community, is to make teachers of it, not to make students of it. Wow. Yeah.
- [06:27]
Dave Asprey
So good. And it's such a shared mission. That is exactly the thing. And I remember once a vegan asked me, I was giving a talk at Google's headquarters And he said, I want to be a food activist. What's your advice? And my advice was, shut up and eat. He goes, what do you mean? And I said, well, if your stuff works, and maybe it will for you, then you need to be so healthy and so happy that people ask you. Right. But you can't just go out and force it down their throat because you want to. And that's the difference between teaching and activism. Yeah.
- [07:00]
Arthur Brooks
You know, activism is a huge problem because activism is about coercing other people.
- [07:05]
Dave Asprey
It's bullying.
- [07:06]
Arthur Brooks
It's a problem. And so that's. You know, I've worked in a lot of missionary communities and different religions. As a matter of fact, the most effective missionaries are the ones who are creating an apostolate with the example of their lives. That's what I do. Why am I going to trust Dave Asprey? Because you weighed 300 pounds and now you're 6% body fat. And because you were unhealthy and now you're healthy. Because you're a walking laboratory. It's the same thing. I know Brian Johnson. You probably do, too. He's a fantastic guy. And people say, oh, what a waste of money that it's like, no, I'm the laboratory, you're not the laboratory. And if it works for me, you might want to try it. That's what it's really all about. As opposed to activism, which is haranguing people and trying to coerce them into doing something whether you're doing it or not.
- [07:46]
Dave Asprey
I spent about two and a half million dollars. Reverse my age and losing the weight and all that stuff. I didn't want to. It was just. I didn't have a choice. Yeah, right.
- [07:53]
Arthur Brooks
So if two and a half million dollars.
- [07:54]
Dave Asprey
Yeah.
- [07:55]
Arthur Brooks
Losing. Going for. Because what, you're 160 pounds.
- [07:59]
Dave Asprey
Oh, no.
- [07:59]
Arthur Brooks
175.
- [08:00]
Dave Asprey
I'm 198.
- [08:01]
Arthur Brooks
Okay. Actually. Because you're taller than me. Yeah, right, right. And you've got good muscle mass, so. Yeah, yeah.
- [08:07]
Dave Asprey
And it, you know, losing the first £50 wasn't that hard. The other £50 took 10 years of understanding biology. And the rest of it was mostly on longevity stuff because I've been in that field for 25 years, but I haven't done that in one year because I'm not that rich. I don't know that I want to spend eight hours a day on longevity practice. I've gone through phases of just measuring everything, but at a certain point, you're learning your instrumentation. So I've monitored my sleep for 19 years I don't look at my Oura ring score very often because I already know it. It's there if I want it, but it's a shift that comes from awareness. And then if you're aware of your state more so than you were before, then you can be done with the data. Right, because you've now changed your habits because you've figured out, oh, alcohol really does screw me up and things like that.
- [08:53]
Arthur Brooks
No, that's exactly right. And so you've gotten very good at understanding your own body. And a lot of what I'm trying to do is to get people to understand their own soul in a different way, their own consciousness in a different way with that. And that's, that's a different species of problem. But you can approach it in much the same way. And that's really what this new work is about.
- [09:09]
Dave Asprey
What is consciousness?
- [09:10]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So consciousness is, is not anything that we understand very well. It is so hard to understand that it's hard to define. As a matter of fact, even, even David Chalmers struggles to def the Australian philosopher about what it is. But it's the whole idea. Consciousness is awareness of yourself so that your dog doesn't have anything like your consciousness. It doesn't know it's alive and it doesn't know it's going to die. And the very fact that you understand your existence is the essence of consciousness. And that's very mysterious because in all of our knowledge of neuroscience, we've never been able to isolate the consciousness center. What part of the brain is actually in charge of self awareness?
- [09:50]
Dave Asprey
Do you think it's a, is conscious a brain thing or a body thing?
- [09:52]
Arthur Brooks
Well, that's the point. Or is it an external thing? You know, and this is a really big question too, it's actually very possible that, that there is a shared consciousness that Dave and Arthur have right now that's external to both of us. Then gets into a lot of Vedic wisdom or even Christian thinking that talks about what is the nature of the soul and where is the, the origin and where does the soul reside?
- [10:15]
Dave Asprey
That best describes reality from everything I know from shamanic realms and neurofeedback states. Yeah, consciousness is not resident in the body and the world.
- [10:26]
Arthur Brooks
The one thing that we do know, however, is that the experiences of consciousness are largely a right hemispheric phenomenon. And by that this gets to the work of Ian McGilchrist, who's really the most forward thinking as far as I'm concerned, neuroscientist in the world. Also psychiatrist at Oxford. So he's a real Brit, wears a lot of tweed. And he has brought back the whole concept of hemispheric lateralization, which everybody needs to understand, because this is like when you were a kid, you thought that some people were left brain people and some right brain people. That went completely out of style because it was mostly wrong. Yeah.
- [11:01]
Dave Asprey
It's not real.
- [11:02]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. But Ian McGilchrist has brought back with all of the best FMRI studies the nature of hemispheric lateralization, which shows that the right side of your brain is all the mystery and meaning and why questions. And the left side of your brain is all the what and how to and technical tasks. And that's really, really important because if you know something, you really deeply know something, but you can't articulate it, which is the nature of consciousness means it's in the right hemisphere of the brain.
- [11:28]
Dave Asprey
And it's possible with probably psychedelics, breath work, somatic awareness practices, or meditation, prayer.
- [11:35]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [11:36]
Dave Asprey
In my case, neurofeedback was the biggest. But there's many, many experiences. But you can strengthen the. There's a certain word for this. It's not strengthening coherence. It's strengthen entanglement between the two sides of the brain so that you can access them both equally.
- [11:50]
Arthur Brooks
That's right. You need to deal with what and how to questions in your life. But if you don't have the why questions, then your life is going to run in circles and you're going to be depressed and anxious. In point of fact, the depression, anxiety epidemics, the psychogenic epidemics that we have of mood disorders in this country are largely due to the fact that we are not using the right hemispheres of our brain. Why? Because the way that we use and misuse technology and the nature of our culture and economy are rewarding everything on the left side of the brain and neglecting everything on the right side of the brain. Okay. Life is all about. You know, I have a lot of students who would more or less argue that if it's not a question, you can Google it's not a question worth asking.
- [12:29]
Dave Asprey
Wow.
- [12:30]
Arthur Brooks
And the truth of the matter is that, all right, hemisphere questions are ungoogleable. That AI can't deal with them because they're ineffable, effectively.
- [12:39]
Dave Asprey
My favorite word on Earth.
- [12:41]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [12:41]
Dave Asprey
The word that means there isn't a word for it.
- [12:43]
Arthur Brooks
And the reason for that, by the way, is because in about 97% of humans, the two language centers of the brain are in the left hemisphere, the Broca's area. And wernicke's area of the brain, which is how you understand and how you articulate, are on the left side of the brain. In other words, if you've got language for it, it's not ineffable. So you need something that's ineffable, that stimulates your desire to go out and figure something out, which then communicates the two hemispheres of the brain. And this is the point of depression and anxiety. If you don't have any meaning, you'll just be doing stuff. And in a world of distraction, of screens, of workaholism, of busyness, it's all left brain. It's all left brain. And that's a big problem. So your work on consciousness, all the work that we're so interested in unconsciousness, is all about opening up the right hemisphere of the brain. Because you don't have to say it like, somebody's got to tell me the meaning of my life. No, no. You need to open the right hemisphere through the right set of experiences, and then you will understand. Understand the meaning of your life, whether you can articulate it or not.
- [13:46]
Dave Asprey
I love this. All of the things that I write about. I do my best to write a book that hasn't been written because he's the author. It's easy that way. And when I'm tuning into that, the easiest way by far, or if I'm doing healing work on someone, if you have the skill to stop thinking, which is basically suppressing the thinking doing part, then there's a knowing. It's an inner knowing. And then. Oh, that's interesting. And then you can think about it, but most people don't stop thinking. So then they never know.
- [14:18]
Arthur Brooks
Right, right. Where do that comes from? Well, that's the essence of how people experience meditation, when they get much better at it, or prayer. That's the experience that some people have with hallucinogens. Not everybody, but a lot of people actually get that where there's a lot of knowing without the kind of overt articulation that they get really, really used to. And that's the kind of thing that you can do in a pretty straightforward way by putting your devices away for a couple of days.
- [14:43]
Dave Asprey
A couple days, yeah. Can I do that?
- [14:45]
Arthur Brooks
I know that's exactly right. I mean, it's like. But you have, and so have I. But most people listening to us and watching us haven't in a really, really long time. And so to the extent that you look at your devices, you rip yourself back over to the left hemisphere of your brain. Again and again and again. And if you actually use it because you become so unbelievably allergic to boredom. Boredom is super important for opening up the right hemisphere. Right.
- [15:07]
Dave Asprey
Especially in kids.
- [15:08]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly.
- [15:10]
Dave Asprey
Right.
- [15:10]
Arthur Brooks
And there's some people who don't remember the before times, who have never been bored.
- [15:14]
Dave Asprey
You know, I don't experience boredom anymore. Even if I have no device, I can sit there for hours. I'm just. I don't get bored.
- [15:21]
Arthur Brooks
What do you do on flights?
- [15:22]
Dave Asprey
What do I do on flights?
- [15:23]
Arthur Brooks
You're going to Europe tonight. What are you going to do on the flights?
- [15:25]
Dave Asprey
I'm going to put on my true dark glasses. I'm going to take the right compounds. I'm going to go to sleep, most likely. Otherwise, you know, it's not uncommon for me to listen to an audiobook. Right, right. Which is a thinking task.
- [15:38]
Arthur Brooks
Right.
- [15:39]
Dave Asprey
And. Or just listen to music. But I don't really watch movies very often at all.
- [15:42]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, that's a huge waste of your time for the most part.
- [15:45]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. Movies or listening to audiobooks.
- [15:47]
Arthur Brooks
No, no, audiobooks are different because you're actually creating the movie. Yeah, yeah. But when it's capturing all of your senses, it's way, way, way too much of a left hemisphere experience.
- [15:55]
Dave Asprey
Totally agreed. And there's really interesting data on this. It turns out that listening to or reading fiction for 20 minutes a day has really beneficial effects.
- [16:05]
Arthur Brooks
Has that been good for you?
- [16:06]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, because it makes you imagine. You have to construct the image that matches what you're hearing. But if I'm just listening to a personal development book or a science book, I guess I am still imagining because I draw pictures for everything in my head. But the fiction thing I think is really important. As long as it's good fiction.
- [16:25]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. That was the point that Dostoevsky made. That's the reason that Dostoevsky, who is probably the most important existentialist philosopher, certainly the greatest of the Russian existentialists, he wrote novels. So did Tolstoy. They wrote novels even though they were philosophers because they thought that that was the right vehic, that the story was the right vehicle. Ayn Rand did that.
- [16:43]
Dave Asprey
I was about to say Ayn Rand. Ben, you read my mind.
- [16:47]
Arthur Brooks
But for my money, the Russian existentialists are the way to go. And there's a huge resurgence in interest among young people today who are discovering Dostoevsky. We're reading Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment and Brothers K. Cool. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, in the Tolstoy novel. I mean, the great Tolstoy Anna Karenina and Warren Peace, et cetera. And they're like, well, I don't know. Where's this been all my life? Because there's a need for meaning.
- [17:11]
Dave Asprey
Yeah.
- [17:11]
Arthur Brooks
And that's a vehicle that. What that does is stories will ease this, will ease open the door to the right hemisphere of your brain. Wow.
- [17:20]
Dave Asprey
Okay. I love this so much. I remember when I was a kid, which isn't that long ago, everyone across
- [17:28]
Arthur Brooks
the US Feel the same way.
- [17:29]
Dave Asprey
I know, right? I think everyone. We stop aging at 35 in our heads.
- [17:33]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you actually literally did.
- [17:35]
Dave Asprey
That's a fair point. I've reversed it pretty. Pretty well.
- [17:38]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, you can actually. It's funny because I'm. What am I, seven years older than you are? And I'm healthier and feel better than when I was 30.
- [17:46]
Dave Asprey
You look ripped.
- [17:47]
Arthur Brooks
I mean, you're doing something right. Yeah, you know, it's just. It's an hour a day in the gym and 200 grams of protein a day.
- [17:52]
Dave Asprey
The protein thing is so important.
- [17:53]
Arthur Brooks
Keeping calories under control. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. Looking at micro and macronutrients and just doing the basic stuff. I mean, we don't have to go crazy on this, but. And have protocols in your life is what it comes down to. Yeah.
- [18:03]
Dave Asprey
Just two rib eyes a day and keep the doctor away.
- [18:06]
Arthur Brooks
How about the apple? Screw apples.
- [18:09]
Dave Asprey
Steve Jobs. No, the thing that happened a long time ago is all kids everywhere read the same book. So we read 1984. We read Fahrenheit 451, and there was like a curriculum.
- [18:19]
Arthur Brooks
Brave New World.
- [18:19]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, Brave New World. You know, and a bunch of other, you know, Ray Bradbury. And this was just everyone.
- [18:25]
Arthur Brooks
There was the canon. Yeah, it was a canon of childhood.
- [18:28]
Dave Asprey
It was. And then this kind of woke movement happened, and they kind of blew that up. And it feels like it kind of shattered some of our shared values. Values in society.
- [18:35]
Arthur Brooks
Well, part of it is actually technological as opposed to just ideological. So, for example, when you and I were kids, there were certain shows we all watched.
- [18:43]
Dave Asprey
Yes, Right.
- [18:44]
Arthur Brooks
And there aren't certain shows that everybody watches.
- [18:46]
Dave Asprey
Knight Rider's dead.
- [18:49]
Arthur Brooks
That one was expendable culturally.
- [18:51]
Dave Asprey
But.
- [18:51]
Arthur Brooks
But there was a.
- [18:52]
Dave Asprey
They watched. Right.
- [18:53]
Arthur Brooks
But these were the shared cultural, you know, events that people. You know, people would come and say, did you see Seinfeld last night? As re. As recently as the 1990s. And that's not happening anymore because of the multiplicity of options which comes from our ability to design our own entertainment alternatives. They're Very, very personal. In other words, we've gotten to the point where you don't have to have scale to make money anymore. And that's true all across the information system.
- [19:22]
Dave Asprey
There is one biological system that supports your brain. Sexual health, muscles, kidneys, joints, skin, hair, literally every cell in your body.
- [19:33]
Arthur Brooks
Body.
- [19:33]
Dave Asprey
It's your vascular system. Every nutrient, every molecule of oxygen, every hormone. None of it matters if your body can't deliver it where it needs to go. When you improve your vascular system, you're supporting the foundation. Everything else depends on. That's why I've been personally using Kalroy Health Sciences products for years. Their approach is all about supporting your body's delivery system. So everything else you're doing lining works better. Their flagship products are Arterasil HP and Vasconox hp. Arterosil supports your endothelial glycocalyx. That's the delicate, slippery lining that keeps your blood vessels functioning the way they should. Vasconox HP supports nitric oxide levels and open label. Published research shows it lasts up to 24 hours with a single daily dose. As always with Kalroy, the products are backed by legit research and do what they say they will do. Get your vascular system right and everything else you do will work better. Go to calroy.comdave for exclusive discounts on Arterasil HP, Vasconox HP and all Kalroyd products. I just read a study saying that young people only listen to 6% of the music as new music because they have access to all the best music from every genre and every generation sorted for them. So there's more young kids today who know Pink Floyd than probably there were 20 years ago.
- [21:03]
Arthur Brooks
Probably. Right. There's certainly more young people today who know Beethoven than in 1820. Yeah. Oh, that's for sure. Because, you know, Beethoven was in his heyday, Beethoven was the greatest composer in Central Europe in 1820. Absolutely. But nobody had a CD player or, you know, there was no way to replicate the music. Buy some sheet music, A version of one of his symphonies? No way. This is the greatest of times. And yet everybody's depressed and anxious.
- [21:34]
Dave Asprey
So there's got to be more we can do for our happiness and our consciousness than setting our phone down for a couple days on a weekend.
- [21:40]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, no, there's a lot. And the first thing is, once again, is understand the science. Number two, change your habits. And three, become the teacher. So if we want to and to understand the science, the science is very clear. The mental health crisis. I mean, there are a lot of different reasons for it. But the main driver that we can see is the sense that life feels meaningless. That's what this new book is about. It's called the Meaning of youf Life. Because this is what we see very, very Clearly. The number one predictor of depression anxiety for people under 30 today is the answer to the question, does your life feel meaningless? If you say yes, it skyrockets this probability of actually experiencing depression anxiety. So that's why my research goes into what is meaning and where do you find it. And the answer is not the ashram necessarily, or Italy or the beach. It's the right side of your brain. This is why I'm talking about this. And that's why this hemispheric collateralization is so important. And all of the techniques for actually finding meaning in your life and healing yourself of these incredible maladies, they have to do with. In my book is the six ways to open up the right hemisphere of your brain, which is the most meaning filled, numinous experiences that you can have. That used to be, by the way, ordinary life. I mean, I'll tell you what Granddad Asprey never said to Grandma Asprey. He never came home and said, honey, I had a panic attack behind the mule today. No, I think because it wasn't a thing.
- [23:04]
Dave Asprey
He was saying, honey, I just discovered how to purify plutonium.
- [23:08]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, well, you're. You're. Yeah, but it was. But the whole, you know, the whole point is that. That there was not. The phenomena that we're experiencing every day are blowing up the HPA axis and creating all these weird maladies. And so what we need to do is to live like Granddad in a very real way, which is extraordinary. Not ordinary anymore. But he was consistently living numinous experiences that were opening, that were using his brain the way it was intended. Wow. And so that's what this book is about. The six ways to open up the right hemisphere of your brain.
- [23:37]
Dave Asprey
Okay, let's go through those.
- [23:38]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah. Number one, where'd you go to college?
- [23:43]
Dave Asprey
I went to UC Santa Barbara and then to Wharton. Okay, good.
- [23:46]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. That's where you did your MBA at Wharton, right? Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back to uc.
- [23:50]
Dave Asprey
No offense.
- [23:51]
Arthur Brooks
Okay. No, I'm it man. I'm it man. Yeah, I know. It's like. So let's go back to UC Santa Barbara. What'd you major in?
- [23:58]
Dave Asprey
Computer science.
- [23:58]
Arthur Brooks
Did you have fun?
- [24:00]
Dave Asprey
No, I hated it.
- [24:01]
Arthur Brooks
Okay. Did you have friends?
- [24:03]
Dave Asprey
Not really. I was still pretty Asperger's at The time I had, like one, one good friend also after me. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [24:10]
Arthur Brooks
Computer science fan. I know. Yeah. I had to heal all that. Yeah. One of the things, when you ask anybody who's over 40 about their experience in college, what did you do after you came home from that party late Saturday night with your friends? We talked. Yeah, we talked. Did you Google anything? No, there's no Google. We talked about deep, pretentious things. One of the most important ways that we can exercise our brains appropriately is to talk about questions to consider. Deep questions that don't have. Think about it this way. Questions that if you put them into AI, the answers would make you laugh out loud. Right.
- [24:46]
Dave Asprey
So good.
- [24:47]
Arthur Brooks
What would I give my life for? Ask AI and it would give you a whole bunch of. It would give you nonsense for your own experience. Things that you can't Google because they're so deep in the mystery of your own consciousness. Those kinds of questions, those kinds of conversations. The right way to start your pilgrimage toward the meaning of your life is by answering questions that don't have answers. They only have understanding. Wow. I've got two that I actually give to my students. Number one, why are you alive? What's your answer, Dave? Why are you alive?
- [25:20]
Dave Asprey
Why am I alive? Because I decided, against my better judgment, and probably because I must be masochistic, that I wanted to be reincarnated yet again to go fix some shit.
- [25:31]
Arthur Brooks
In other words, you're alive to serve others.
- [25:33]
Dave Asprey
There you go.
- [25:34]
Arthur Brooks
You're alive because you want to lift others up. That's what it comes down to.
- [25:37]
Dave Asprey
That is true.
- [25:38]
Arthur Brooks
For what would you give your life?
- [25:40]
Dave Asprey
For what would I give my life right now?
- [25:42]
Arthur Brooks
Happily?
- [25:43]
Dave Asprey
Freedom.
- [25:43]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Tell me more about that. What does that mean?
- [25:45]
Dave Asprey
Well, when people tell you that you can't do things that are inalienable rights, the answer is, yes, I can.
- [25:50]
Arthur Brooks
You die for it.
- [25:51]
Dave Asprey
Watch me. Yeah, absolutely.
- [25:52]
Arthur Brooks
Die for it.
- [25:53]
Dave Asprey
But I'm also not afraid of death because I've done too much work for that. Yeah.
- [25:57]
Arthur Brooks
So these are very, very deep questions that most young people really struggle with a lot. And the reason is because they never posed these right in hemisphere questions.
- [26:04]
Dave Asprey
What are your answers?
- [26:05]
Arthur Brooks
My questions are I was. God made me to serve others. There you go. God made me to serve others. For what would I give my life? I would give my life for my faith and my family. I would give my life for my country. I would give my life for. For the betterment of society as I. As I. As I could see it, if I had the opportunity, if I had The. The great privilege to be able to do so. Honoring.
- [26:23]
Dave Asprey
Wow. Very well put. And, you know, that's a. That's a good list. And I'd certainly. Yeah. For family. Absolutely. Like, those are things that I almost. For your kids. I wouldn't even think about that as not being obvious, but I think for a lot of people, it's that those aren't obvious.
- [26:37]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. And that's because they haven't posed these deep questions. The number one thing to do is it sounds easy, but it's not. It's not just putting away the devices. And by the way, no joke, you gotta detox to be able to do this. Because if you're looking at your phone or picking up your phone every 13 minutes all the way through an exercise like this, you're gonna be cutting off the cycles and you're gonna be bumping. You're gonna. Just running to the left hemisphere of your brain again and again and again and again. You're not gonna have the time to actually expand on these things, but that's the first thing to do. And so one of the first things that I recommend to people is that I have a retreat, because I send people on retreat all the time without devices for several. You've done it a lot. So have I. I go on a spiritual retreat every December. And it's a hugely important experience because you need to actually detox. You need to get bored in the right way such that these questions become possible and they're not possible under ordinary circumstances.
- [27:28]
Dave Asprey
It seems like you need to do that, but you also need to be in a community with other people where you can have those deep conversations.
- [27:33]
Arthur Brooks
Helps. Helps a lot. It helps a lot. And, you know, the best way to do it, by the way, is to have a partner who's actually in the.
- [27:39]
Dave Asprey
On.
- [27:39]
Arthur Brooks
On the road to the right hemisphere. You know, that's just one of the most important things my wife and I, we do every Sunday afternoon is we read sacred scripture and we talk about, you know, what it actually means. And we're not Googling it. You know, we're opening up maybe a commentary here and there. We're talking about actually what. It's how it's speaking to us. And it's something we've been doing. We've been doing. We've been married for a long time. Been married for 34 years.
- [27:59]
Dave Asprey
Congratulations.
- [28:00]
Arthur Brooks
Well, that's the antenna to the divine, which is to say the fusing of our right hemispheres. That is this joint metacognition that actually can occur, which is the Second path, metacognition.
- [28:12]
Dave Asprey
Tell me more.
- [28:13]
Arthur Brooks
Well, metacognition is thinking about thinking. Metacognition is actually using your prefrontal cortex to understand your limbic system is what it comes in joint. Metacognition is one where you're really wiring your batteries together in an important way. And that's the essence of deep love. And that's really the second mysterious experience that people actually use to open up their right hemisphere is romantic love, which, of course is in very short supply today.
- [28:38]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, it sure is.
- [28:40]
Arthur Brooks
People say, oh, yeah, and everybody's hooking up. If only. I mean, that's actually not what you see in the data on young people today.
- [28:45]
Dave Asprey
They're not hooking up at all.
- [28:46]
Arthur Brooks
That's the problem. And the reason is we have a love crisis. We have a love depression because we're stuck in the left hemisphere. You've got. 80% of men are consuming pornography every week. My God, this is destroying the ability of couples to come together.
- [29:00]
Dave Asprey
Is it at least good porn or.
- [29:01]
Arthur Brooks
No, there ain't none. No such thing, man. Evil laugh was great. It doesn't exist because what it's doing is it's stripping human love of its numinousness. And all it's leaving is the technology. The worst thing you can do, you can't. That's just. It's like the first thing that all young men, and by the way, 30% of young women look at porn every week, too. The first thing for young people to do is to go on. No porn. The first thing to do to repair your brain is to go on that. This stuff is like meth. It.
- [29:38]
Dave Asprey
It is. I've had that conversation with my kids, especially my son. He's 16 now.
- [29:44]
Arthur Brooks
Danger. Danger.
- [29:45]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. And we explained. This is the mechanism, this is the science, this is the why. Right. And it's not good for you. And to the best of my understanding, it's not part of his habit stack. And I hope it stays that way.
- [29:58]
Arthur Brooks
But yeah, well, the more that. The best way to teach that, of course, is by example. Oh, yeah. And as dads, I mean, my kids are older. I've got four grandsons now. And the best way to teach kids is living in a particular way because be the person you want them to become. Right. Okay, what do I want my son to be? Okay, I want him to be upright. I want him to be morally impeccable. I want him to be honest to his word. I want him to be compassionate. I want him to be loyal. Okay, well, I just actually gave myself a list of characteristics to live up to.
- [30:28]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, exactly.
- [30:29]
Arthur Brooks
Because he's looking at you all the time. Yeah, dad, dad, dad says don't, you know, yell out the car curse words in traffic, but he just did that. Right. Like if you want your kids to practice your religion, have them see you on your knees is what it comes down to, you know, a force greater than you. So, but so, so romantic love is the second. Is the second numinous force is so mysterious. And the neuroscience of falling in love is so interesting actually. You know, all the weird things that actually happen in the universe, human brain and I mean friendship really, really, really good. But, but romantic love has these, has these unusual characteristics that we actually see.
- [31:08]
Dave Asprey
Right. For the last couple years I dated a relationship coach and we've done a lot of relationship coaching together. It was actually great because at least we could talk about stuff. We're not dating now, just different long term goals. But it was, it was really cool to be able to go deep on people's relationships with them and understand exactly what you're saying about romantic love. It's.
- [31:28]
Arthur Brooks
I do this all the time. It's the number one topic, my happiness science class at Harvard that they want to talk about. They'd keep me on that topic the whole semester. Wow. That's what they want. They want to talk about what are the secrets to relationships that last. The next book that I write probably in 2028 or something will be called Falling in Love and Staying in Love.
- [31:47]
Dave Asprey
Wow, that's going to be a big book.
- [31:49]
Arthur Brooks
I hope so.
- [31:50]
Dave Asprey
Give me the 32nd synopsis of that book.
- [31:53]
Arthur Brooks
The 32nd synopsis of that book is it really has. Has to do with the fusion of two brains. Yes. I mean that's what romantic love, that's the goal of romantic love and that's emerging neurochemically. That's effectively what's happening. And so, I mean the image that comes to mind of course is in the Bible they talk about man shall leave his mother and father and they shall become one flesh. It's really. The flesh that we're talking about is one brain. Yeah. I mean you're thinking about it, sex or something. It's not what they're talking about. It's really, it's one brain. And the reason is because what you see, culture, couples that are really close, that they're a lot of their. If you do EKGs on couples that are really close, they have, it's called brain to brain coupling. That's the reason that they can finish each other's sentences and the longer that they're together. And that's the important phenomenon. And so neurochemically, you're trying to get into that particular position. And when you can't, that's the reason that people who were in love now hate each other. Because it was a completely unsuccessful attempt. And it's embittering to actually make a go of it, to fuse and then to not fuse. And we're getting much, much better. The research is getting clearer and clearer about how the synchronization doesn't work. Right. And then the kind of personalities that ruin it again and again and again.
- [33:07]
Dave Asprey
Interesting.
- [33:07]
Arthur Brooks
So I wind up giving a lot of advice to young women because they tend. If they want to fall in love, which of course, everybody does. That's a natural human tendency. Because we want meaning. Right. Of course, is that they tend to be easy prey for. Are what's called dark triad.
- [33:21]
Dave Asprey
Yep. Narcissists.
- [33:22]
Arthur Brooks
Narcissists, Machiavellians who have psychopathic tendencies. That's a. That's the trifecta to be above average on those three personality characteristics. And that's four. That's a 1 in 14. 1 in 14 people, but especially men. 7% of the population fall into the dark triad.
- [33:38]
Dave Asprey
I had about 4 to 5% for narcissists and sociopaths. But you're adding Machiavellians, which is Machiavellian.
- [33:43]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. And so it's. And if you had Scott Barry Kaufman on the show twice. Great. And he's. He's the father of the dark triad. He's great at that. Yeah. He really knows the dark triad really, really well. And what happens is dark triads, they act as if they're going through the neurochemical cascade of falling in love that your brain's refusing. But they're not hired a couple of those too. They're hard to spot.
- [34:05]
Dave Asprey
Man, that was a lesson in discernment.
- [34:07]
Arthur Brooks
Well, except that you get better at it. You do, for sure. Women get better at it.
- [34:11]
Podcast Announcer
It.
- [34:11]
Arthur Brooks
You know, and so, you know, when I talk about it, I'll say, you want to think. You want to. Who a dark triad is. It's your first husband. And I say to guys, don't be somebody's first husband. Right. I mean, but the whole point is that there's a tendency to fall in love really easily with this because people want love and they want. The fusion is the way that that works. And men are more. They're more resistant to that fusion because of the biological imperatives. I mean, men are, you know, sorting on they're trying to get actually as much variety as they can, sexual variety as they can, et cetera, but not if they're conscious.
- [34:43]
Dave Asprey
Right.
- [34:44]
Arthur Brooks
So if you're in a left brain pornography informed understanding of mating and sex, then you'll tend to be more all about variety and you're more likely to behave as a dark dryad.
- [34:56]
Dave Asprey
Interesting.
- [34:57]
Arthur Brooks
And if you're actually in the business of actually trying to get to fusion, then you can actually live in your mating in your space of moral aspiration, not animal implies pulse. And that's the way all. That's what all guys should be going for.
- [35:08]
Dave Asprey
So I live in Austin.
- [35:10]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [35:10]
Dave Asprey
Which is a pretty.
- [35:11]
Arthur Brooks
All right now.
- [35:12]
Dave Asprey
Exactly. And I know quite a few very happy, successful couples. Right. Where there is some variety.
- [35:19]
Arthur Brooks
Right.
- [35:19]
Dave Asprey
Where they occasionally invite a friend in.
- [35:21]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, that's very unusual. Yeah, that's actually. That's an almost complete aberration from the norm.
- [35:26]
Dave Asprey
And this isn't poly. That's what I'm talking about.
- [35:28]
Arthur Brooks
No, you're talking about what they call ethical non monogamy or something like that.
- [35:31]
Dave Asprey
Not even like dating other people. Those like, like they'll ask of to the bed.
- [35:34]
Arthur Brooks
That's very, very unusual.
- [35:36]
Dave Asprey
But both partners, very unusual.
- [35:38]
Arthur Brooks
And in most cases of that. And again, I'm not speaking for anybody and you know, no judgment here, but in most cases that's something that the idea comes from the male partner and the female partner to keep the male partner is will actually accept.
- [35:52]
Dave Asprey
She's doing it against her will, you're saying?
- [35:53]
Arthur Brooks
Not against her will, but not certainly it's not her will. It's not against her will, but it's not her.
- [35:59]
Dave Asprey
It wasn't her idea.
- [36:00]
Arthur Brooks
Well, she has, has her. Her biggest priority is keeping her partner. And so it's a cost benefit analysis. Okay. But it's not ideal. It's a very, very unusual phenomenon. That's what we say for most couples. Human beings are made for pair bond mating.
- [36:16]
Dave Asprey
I, I agree. Most of the couples I know who are like that have done huge amounts of personal development work around feeling safe with each other and having like a deep commitment. And then it's like, okay, now we'll play. But if they're not secure, it always
- [36:28]
Arthur Brooks
builds up every single day. And I always. I would wonder, I mean, if I were to dig as deep as I possibly could, I'd want to talk to her alone.
- [36:34]
Dave Asprey
Interesting.
- [36:36]
Arthur Brooks
In other words, you know he wants that and you love him. Right. Would you prefer that he didn't want that?
- [36:42]
Dave Asprey
Oh yeah.
- [36:42]
Arthur Brooks
And I bet it would almost Always be. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah. And so what we as men ideally can do better is curb this animal impulse to get into the space of moral aspiration. Because in that space of moral aspiration we're more likely to get. Right. Brain feed confusion. We're more likely to have a divine experience with. With the pair bond mate.
- [37:04]
Dave Asprey
Got it.
- [37:05]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [37:08]
Dave Asprey
And I suppose that brings in conversion compersion is feeling happiness or pleasure from your partner getting what they want.
- [37:16]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah.
- [37:17]
Dave Asprey
Which. That's like a throuple poly kind of word. But the couples I've spoken with in all this relationship coaching, the ones who've, you know, the. They've both done all kinds of meditation and stuff and there's like. I genuinely at my core feel joy from seeing my partner in pleasure.
- [37:32]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. It's entirely possible. And again, you know, there's all. There's more and more written about this, but what I find most compelling is at the norm, you know, at the sort of the me at the norm. That's crazy pants. Yeah, yeah. No, there's just. It's the kind of thing where for most couples. Like what? No, no, no. Yeah, yeah.
- [37:49]
Dave Asprey
For most couples.
- [37:49]
Arthur Brooks
Absolutely. Part of it. I can't be. You can't have the depth of intimacy, you know that. You can't have the sort of the secret society that is every strong couple in the same way.
- [38:00]
Dave Asprey
Right, yeah.
- [38:01]
Arthur Brooks
Somebody's got a security clearance who shouldn't have it.
- [38:03]
Dave Asprey
Well said. So good.
- [38:05]
Arthur Brooks
Well, that's number two. We're only number two.
- [38:09]
Dave Asprey
Let's go to the next one.
- [38:09]
Arthur Brooks
What's the number three? The next one is called transcendence, which for most people is a religious experience, but not entirely. Yeah, transcendence is getting small and making the universe large. Now, you know a lot about this, right? This is the essence of trying to experience consciousness in a deeper way. You are impelled by your animal impulses to be the center of everything, to be the star of your psychodrama. Me, me, me, me, me. Dave's breakfast and Dave's money and Dave's experiences. And Dave's got to check in early for, you know, get his flight and it's just so boring. I mean, it's like the Arthur show. I just hate it.
- [38:46]
Dave Asprey
It.
- [38:47]
Arthur Brooks
I just get it. But in the space of moral aspiration, there's a universe that's greater in which we can stand in awe. That's transcendence. And for most people, the way that they get that is through religious experiences. Some people is through, you know, it's like our friend Ryan Holiday. He does this through studying the Stoics and living according to their precepts. Other people do it with a Brahma Muhurta, you know, they'll get up before dawn without devices in the Creator's time.
- [39:12]
Dave Asprey
I've gone through phases of that.
- [39:14]
Arthur Brooks
Some people do this with music, A lot of people do this with meditation. But the whole point. Point is you need to transcend yourself. You need to get small. Some people do this by studying astronomy, Right? Yeah. There's like, wow, I'm a speck on a speck on a speck. Yeah. And they get this smallness. And another way to do this is by serving other people in a very serious way. So transcending yourself laterally is another way to do this. But this is a huge right brain experience is when you're small and something else is bigger than you. And a big problem with sort of the activist propaganda that we see today is, you know, we, like in our universities are always saying, you need more self care. And then we introduce this idea of radical self care, which apparently means you need to actually neglect others to the. To. You need to exclude others so that you can pay more attention to yourself. Wow. It's exactly the opposite of what you need to do. Completely toxic. And the whole activist culture of microaggressions and safe spaces is all antithetical to transcendental attendance.
- [40:17]
Dave Asprey
I've often said that. Greta Grundelberg. What's her name?
- [40:20]
Arthur Brooks
Greta Thunberg. You just lost all your Swedish viewers yet.
- [40:26]
Dave Asprey
The bra there.
- [40:27]
Arthur Brooks
I bet you actually the Swedes are super cool. I was about. You got a long time. A thousand more, isn't it?
- [40:31]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. 17 years married to a Swede. They're very cool.
- [40:34]
Arthur Brooks
Really?
- [40:35]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. Very, very cool culture.
- [40:38]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [40:38]
Dave Asprey
But, yeah, Greta is just angry. Very angry. And people focus on the self. Yeah. People spreading anger, especially without solutions. Solutions.
- [40:46]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. I mean, focus on the self will always make you angry. It'll make you bitter. Wow. It's just not that you. If you can't be better when you're not, when you're focusing on the other. That's what William James, the great, you know, the father of psychology. Yeah. He. At Harvard, we say, my colleague, William James, you know, the. He talked about the I self and the me self.
- [41:07]
Dave Asprey
Oh, interesting.
- [41:07]
Arthur Brooks
And so looking in the mirror is the me self. So you can understand yourself. And that's the essence of, you know, consciousness is a funny thing. Right. Because you're looking out, but you're also looking in. And the Problem is there's too much looking in, not enough looking out. And so rebalancing it. Less me self, more I self. That's the essence of transcendence. Wow. To stand in. And the best way to do that is to stand in awe. You've had Dachar Keltner on the show, right?
- [41:29]
Dave Asprey
I know.
- [41:30]
Arthur Brooks
He teaches at Berkeley.
- [41:31]
Dave Asprey
He's a great will A.J. you got that?
- [41:33]
Arthur Brooks
He's one of the great psychologists of our time, and he has a book called Awe A W E. Yeah. Yeah. You'd love him. You'd love him. He's great.
- [41:41]
Dave Asprey
We use gratitude and or awe as a gateway to forgiveness. When I'm in the 40 years of Zen stuff, you have to have one of those two states. You can't listen and go, yeah, right.
- [41:51]
Arthur Brooks
There's something has to be more amazing and bigger than you. Yeah. And to say I'm so small, like ketamine.
- [41:57]
Dave Asprey
What do you say?
- [42:00]
Arthur Brooks
I'm so small. You know, and so that's super important. That transcendence is unbelievably important.
- [42:07]
Dave Asprey
The reason I mentioned ketamine there is. It's dissociative. So you just realize you're not your body.
- [42:11]
Arthur Brooks
I know, Right.
- [42:12]
Dave Asprey
And it's realizing you're not your body, and then where do you go?
- [42:15]
Arthur Brooks
Right.
- [42:16]
Dave Asprey
And it's. It's that switch that gets flipped. That means you can then go in with metacognition and just reprogramming your threat responses so you don't get triggered by whatever was triggering you before.
- [42:25]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. That's what I teach my students, is that this association with your. With your limbic system. So I am not my feelings. Yeah, is what my students will say. I am not my feelings. But I am a person who has feelings which are nothing more than an alarm system. Because my reptilian brain is telling me that there are threats and opportunities and the response to that are positive and negative emotions. That's all emotions are. That's all they are.
- [42:48]
Dave Asprey
It's like the check engine light comes on in your car. You're not going to die.
- [42:51]
Arthur Brooks
That's right. Well, it shouldn't be pleasant. The check engine light comes on. It's like, that's not great. That means a bad thing is happening. But that's very valuable information. But there's only four negative emotions. Fear and anger, disgust and sadness. Those are the four negative emotions. So the four kinds of alarms that we have because the threats are losing something, being attacked by something, or being poisoned by something. And that's why we have fear and Anger and we have disgust and we have sadness is what it comes down to. But we're. You're not. I mean, Dave is not a bundle of sadness. You're not sadness. You're a man who feels sadness for appropriate reasons and is working metacognitively to not feel sadness for inappropriate reasons.
- [43:32]
Dave Asprey
There you go.
- [43:33]
Arthur Brooks
Governing individual is what it comes down to. And you need to dissociate this. And there are different ways to do it. Some people think ketamine's great. Certainly a prayer life or a meditation practice is super important for that.
- [43:43]
Dave Asprey
Tantric sex is good for that, too.
- [43:45]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. So they say journaling is unbelievable for that. Journaling. Because you can't write with your limbic system. You can only write with your prefrontal cortex. Yeah. Your C suite suite, the executive center of your brain. That's super important. So all of these things go into the experience of transcendence. But transcendence, per se, is something that nobody who's got a strong and open Right. Hemispheric experience is going to be without. That's what I get down to.
- [44:09]
Dave Asprey
The recognizing that you're smaller than something. As you were saying that, I started this biohacking movement that is so far bigger than me. I'm always just in awe, just going, going.
- [44:20]
Arthur Brooks
I know.
- [44:21]
Dave Asprey
I can't believe this is happening.
- [44:22]
Arthur Brooks
My wife started buying your stuff. Okay. Yeah. Coffee, for example. And this kind of thing just because. And it was really good. And the whole thing. And that's how I. I mean, I'd heard about you. I became a lot more acquainted with you. Because as soon as my wife started buying this cool coffee, I said, I gotta understand this guy's the science behind. With this guy.
- [44:38]
Dave Asprey
There's some science in there.
- [44:39]
Arthur Brooks
Of course there is. Of course there's. You didn't make that up. No.
- [44:43]
Dave Asprey
Well, I'll give you some of the new danger coffee.
- [44:45]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. That's your. That's your big venture now, right?
- [44:47]
Dave Asprey
Yeah.
- [44:48]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah.
- [44:48]
Dave Asprey
One of them, anyway.
- [44:49]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, I know you've got a lot. You've got a lot. So the next one is finding your calling, which is really important. So for you and me, that's a big deal.
- [44:57]
Dave Asprey
Especially for younger people, though.
- [44:59]
Arthur Brooks
Totally.
- [44:59]
Dave Asprey
Okay. How do you find your calling? You write a book on that?
- [45:02]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. No, that's a really big thing that I've been thinking about and talking about and talking to my students an awful lot about. That's doing what you're meant to do. Is doing what you feel that you're meant to do. And that requires you have to do a lot of work is what it comes down to. We never even talk about that in schools. We don't talk about that. I mean, the first time you ever hear about that is your graduation speech.
- [45:22]
Dave Asprey
It's true.
- [45:23]
Arthur Brooks
Where the former governor of your state says it's up to you to save the world. Or some guy who, like Scott Galloway has got this really funny line where he says that the guy who comes to your graduation, he says, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. And it turns out that he started an aluminum smelting company and made $3 billion. And he's telling young people to go have fun. Really? No, no, no. Wrong. Right. And that has nothing to do with meaning either. It has everything to do with actually your calling has everything to do with trying to get the experiences in your work and understanding enough about yourself, your career pattern, your interests, the passions that you actually have. It's funny because our whole education system is at odds with that. You know, I sound my own kids. I mean, my oldest son was a valedictorian of this high school, went to Princeton, now econ. I mean, classic. My second son comes along and it's like, nightmare student. Nightmare student, right. And so his path to finding his calling, he worked on a farm, then joined the Marine Corps. He was a scout sniper in the Marine Corps. That's like this T shirt. By the way, Banshee is the call sign for the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines Scout Sniper Platoon. Their motto is suffer patiently. Patiently suffer.
- [46:36]
Dave Asprey
Wow.
- [46:37]
Arthur Brooks
Right. It's a very consciousness oriented thing. And. And that was how he found his calling. But the whole point is that we as parents have to have the fortitude to allow our kids to do stuff. And to the extent that we over parent and we have a cult of safetyism and safety, it's so dumb. It's so dumb. It's so deleterious for our children.
- [47:00]
Dave Asprey
That's why it's called Danger Coffee. Because who knows what you might do right in the middle of the pandemic. It's very own safety. I'm like, no, I choose dangerous. I'm so done with safety.
- [47:10]
Arthur Brooks
Totally. Give me a dangerous life. Give me a dangerous life. And by the way, that's not just about driving fast and taking drugs. On the contrary, that's the least of it. I mean, it's like the biggest problem with college today is it's not dangerous intellectually, it's conformist, it's boring. Most of the places where they go because they don't hear Anything that's really challenging ideologically, you should feel ideologically imperiled every single day. Day. Yeah, that's what it should be. You should be hearing something super weird that makes you uncomfortable every single day or you should ask for your money back.
- [47:43]
Dave Asprey
I, I can think of a couple times in colleges, massive cognitive dissonance that just rocked my reality, right? Like I, I took a religion and violence class taught by a rabbinical scholar. My assumption was that religious people were just idiots, right? And I said as much and he laughed and he said, no, they're very logical. We were studying Hamas and cults and Jim Jones. He said, they're logical. He said, if you believe what they believe, then their assumptions on reality, but actually what they're doing is rational. It's like, oh my God, mind blown. They're not idiots.
- [48:11]
Arthur Brooks
I know. And that's forbidden information. Whether you agree or not, that isn't the point. And so this is the whole idea of finding, calling is actually putting yourself in this precarious position of experiencing things that are uncomfortable and weird. And so, so this is an easy case to make for you because you're a walk in laboratory, right? I mean, you're experimenting on yourself. Life should be an experiment.
- [48:37]
Dave Asprey
I've almost died three times.
- [48:38]
Arthur Brooks
Well, that's maybe a little too far.
- [48:39]
Dave Asprey
I mean, it wasn't on purpose, but
- [48:43]
Arthur Brooks
every young person, and there's a lot of people who are under 30 who are watching and listening to us right now. What are your experiments this year? Your lab, man. And if you're not actually running experiments in your lab, you're wasting lab time. You're wasting valuable lab time time. And that means I'm going to try something, a job I've never done before. I'm going to go out with somebody and hang out with somebody I think I have nothing in common with. I'm going to actually. Somebody that I have a bad relationship with. I'm going to patch it up. I'm going to do things that I don't like that are really uncomfortable and I'm going to see how they feel. And I'm going to keep records, by the way. I'm going to keep data. There you go. That's what it means to actually find your calling.
- [49:20]
Dave Asprey
I started that around 25. I said I'm to do everything I'm afraid of.
- [49:23]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, there you go. Right?
- [49:24]
Dave Asprey
And literally just went down the list. And it was hard, but it was completely worth doing and totally liberating. The lesson for all those is, well, you're not going to Die.
- [49:33]
Arthur Brooks
You felt like you were.
- [49:34]
Dave Asprey
And that's a lot of just. Yeah, liberating is the right word for it.
- [49:38]
Arthur Brooks
It's unbelievable. And you know, my favorite philosopher is Ralph Waldo Emerson. It's kind of like Ayn Rand, but not creepy.
- [49:44]
Dave Asprey
Right.
- [49:44]
Arthur Brooks
And I mean he was, the guy was so, he says total Americana. I mean it's Bent Massachusetts in the 19th century. And he was a Unitarian minister, but he's like a total free thinker. Total free thinker. It's like, yeah, it's like interesting idea. Bring it on. He was the ultimate free thinker. And you know, and so the one thing for everybody who's looking for the calling to read is his famous essay self reliance, wrote in 1841. Self reliance. Just read it today. Everybody who hasn't read it today. It's like a tall glass of cool water on a summer's day day. It's so good. That's how you find calling is you experiment and you have an open mind.
- [50:22]
Dave Asprey
It seems like you have a kind of cognitive thinking approach to finding your calling.
- [50:27]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, well, there's experience in it, but you have to put yourself logically in the situation where you can have experiences. Right.
- [50:35]
Dave Asprey
You definitely have to have the experiences. For me, I had a calling early on that I didn't really think that much about where I just wanted to build the Internet.
- [50:44]
Arthur Brooks
He's a computer guy.
- [50:45]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, I played a role in that. But the reason for it was that this was creating just massive freedom of information. Like now anything you want, you can just find it. It's so magical.
- [50:55]
Arthur Brooks
And there were no downsides that we saw at this point.
- [50:58]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, I know, I was very naive.
- [51:00]
Arthur Brooks
Well, it's an incredibly left brain experience because what it is is a simulation of life. The Internet is a simulation. Right now people are having a simulated experience of sitting in a conversation with David or Arthur. Right. And it's okay. But you have to understand what's simulation and what isn't. And you have to get outside the simulation. Super important. That's what they call touching grass.
- [51:23]
Dave Asprey
You got it. And as I worked on my consciousness, I was like, I can't do this anymore. There's no soul in it. And then I had hooked electrodes up to my head and did some neurofeedback. And I didn't think about it. It just came through me who our mission was. And I wrote it down as an intention about being.
- [51:41]
Arthur Brooks
That was a right brain experience that you had. That's the point.
- [51:43]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, it was absolutely right brained. And I used, you know, Feedback to put myself in the right brain state. And. And I wrote something along the lines of, like, I'm one of the most powerful voices improving the health of humanity. And, dude, I think.
- [51:57]
Arthur Brooks
I think it worked. Yeah, right. Congratulations. I mean, but you don't get that information by going as far left as you can.
- [52:03]
Dave Asprey
No, this was far right. I was in a very altered state when it came to demand.
- [52:07]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
- [52:08]
Dave Asprey
I feel like it came through me almost for sure.
- [52:09]
Arthur Brooks
You know, the way that I did that is I walked the Camino de Santiago, which is that ancient walk across northern Spain without devices, holding hands with my wife, praying day after day. And you beat yourself into this state of submission because you're truly tired and it's hot and you're walking hundreds of miles, and you know, and by the end, and not your truth. There is no such thing as your truth. The truth finds you. You don't find the truth. The truth finds you. And the reason is because you have a right brain experience.
- [52:42]
Dave Asprey
Yeah. You're making me think. Before I did that, I spent three months trekking through Nepal and Tibet and studying with masters in monasteries.
- [52:50]
Arthur Brooks
You opened the aperture in a big way. Wow. Yeah. That's really, really important. Pilgrimages are in every religion for a reason.
- [52:56]
Dave Asprey
Without cell phone.
- [52:57]
Arthur Brooks
Totally. I mean, you can wreck a pilgrimage image by looking at the Internet while you're doing it.
- [53:02]
Dave Asprey
So true.
- [53:02]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So. So do we have time for two more?
- [53:05]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, we have time for two more.
- [53:06]
Arthur Brooks
Okay, let's do it. Okay. This, the penultimate, the second, the last one is beauty. Now, the modern life is bereft of beauty. I mean, it's just. I'm sorry. I mean, it's really. I mean, I'm an old musician. I've made my living as a classical musician all the way through my 20s. So I say this with appropriate humility.
- [53:22]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, yeah.
- [53:23]
Arthur Brooks
And. But the truth is that a lot of good research suggests that music is objectively less beautiful. It might be more interesting.
- [53:32]
Dave Asprey
Yeah, it is.
- [53:32]
Arthur Brooks
Right? I mean, it's less. And it's not just because we're old guys.
- [53:36]
Dave Asprey
Right.
- [53:36]
Arthur Brooks
But it's objectively less so when you're looking at a screen, it's objectively less beautiful and rich than when you're looking at real life. Yeah. And so the simulation is always a pale comparison to the real thing. If your experience of nature is seen through your computer screen or especially through your cell phone, that's a big problem. And so getting into experiences of beauty is incredible. Right. Brain experience. You can't really understand. So are you synesthetic? You're probably synesthetic.
- [54:05]
Dave Asprey
I don't think so. If I am, I'm not aware of it. But I only think in images. I don't think in words.
- [54:13]
Arthur Brooks
Well, so there's synesthesia in that. And so what's effectively happening is that your language centers are actually getting mixed up with data from the occipital lobe of your brain. I'm hugely synesthetic, so I see color in sound. See color. And most classical musicians are synesthetic. I mean, it's a common thing is the way that that works. These are right brain experiences. These are ineffable experiences. And there's three kinds of beauty that will open up your right brain. Number one is artistic beauty, which there's not enough of. Number two is natural beauty. The average child under 10 spends between four and seven minutes a day in nature and between four and seven hours in front of screen. My God, that's exactly upside down.
- [54:54]
Dave Asprey
Not my kids. That's why I raise them on a regenerative farm.
- [54:58]
Arthur Brooks
And the third is moral beauty is called, you know, the Mother Teresa effect, where people would, you know, people saw, you know, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote the biography of Mother Teresa and it was made into a documentary film called Something Beautiful for God. And all these atheists were just. Couldn't take their eyes off it. And the reasons they were transfixed, because they were experiencing something. Wow. Neurobiological biologically that they couldn't explain. But now we can. So these are the three kinds of things we need to expose ourselves through systematically.
- [55:27]
Dave Asprey
I feel like there's another kind, maybe because I'm a deep nerd. Like there's systems, beauty. I remember I was at Burning man one time and it was the first time I ever saw a drone show. Like before they were anywhere. And I just saw this and this wave of like the number of millions of hours of human innovation that went into to just the possibility of this
- [55:48]
Arthur Brooks
for something that doesn't, you know, that, that that's a form of moral beauty. So. Yeah. My father's a mathematician. Okay. And it was the same thing that we would talk about. He would just get like choked up when he would see a. When he see a proof.
- [55:58]
Dave Asprey
My grandmother was like that.
- [55:59]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. And I really get that. I really get. Because what that is, that's the pinnacle of human excellence.
- [56:04]
Dave Asprey
There you go.
- [56:04]
Arthur Brooks
That's exactly what it is. Excellence is so magnetic.
- [56:07]
Dave Asprey
Yeah.
- [56:08]
Arthur Brooks
Excellence moves us. And you can say, well, excellence. It's excellence in what? Excellence in, you know, programming And a bunch of drones, man. That's the ultimate left brain thing. The experience of that. Human excellence is a right brain experience. Yes, that's super important.
- [56:21]
Dave Asprey
Even reading a fucking amazing book that's just full of wisdom with no wasted words. That's, to me, another form of that moral.
- [56:30]
Arthur Brooks
And it's so funny because I used to go to. I lived in Barcelona for a long time. I've lived there off and on for 35 years. I used to go to the bullfights with my father in law.
- [56:39]
Dave Asprey
Oh, amazing.
- [56:39]
Arthur Brooks
Because my wife's Spanish. And so he was, he was a real aficionado and he was an expert. He's like my grand, my, my father in law was Hemingway, basically, except him. And, and, but the real deal. Without drinking Spaniard.
- [56:53]
Dave Asprey
Without all the drinking.
- [56:54]
Arthur Brooks
Without all the drinking and the womanizing. Anyway, so it's, you know, he would go to the bull fights and he would cry at the bull fights. He didn't cry all the time. He was like a big crier, not a weeper. Yeah, but he'd go to the bull fights and it would be like this thing would happen and he would start to weep. You know, it's like. Because that was this, this experience of human excellence, which is that moral beauty that we see that can do. And last but not least, here's the, here's the most important one, probably suffering. I love this suffering. And you know what? We don't know how to suffer. You know, you go to campus counseling, you say, ah, you know, feeling sad and anxious, like, oh, we gotta fix that, we gotta fix that. That's a problem. That's a, that's a pathology. Wrong. That's evidence of human life. Yeah.
- [57:34]
Dave Asprey
Life is suffering.
- [57:35]
Arthur Brooks
Life is suffering. And that's the first noble love. That's dukkha. That's the first noble truth of Buddhism. Of course, course. But more importantly, look, if you got rid of your negative emotion, you'd be dead in a week.
- [57:45]
Dave Asprey
Amen. Yeah.
- [57:46]
Arthur Brooks
If you got rid of your negative experiences, it means axiomatically that you're dead. Because life, I mean, you're going to have. We're having a great time right now, but you're going to go to the airport and something that's going to annoy you.
- [57:58]
Dave Asprey
No, it's not.
- [58:00]
Arthur Brooks
That's life. That's life. And if we don't learn and grow to the extent that we can put into context and learn and grow from suffering, that is how we open up the sense of meaning. Meaning only comes from the teacher of suffering. Nobody Says, yeah, I figured out the meaning of my life that week at the beach in Ibiza. Said, no one ever.
- [58:21]
Dave Asprey
I talk about surrender as a really important aspect. There's forgiveness, compassion, and surrender are kind of the three ingredients to enlightenment and surrender. If you fully surrender to suffering, it passes in 20 minutes. And if you don't fully surrender to it, it goes on and on and on, and you spread it to others.
- [58:41]
Arthur Brooks
Right. So here's the Buddhist formula for the physics of what you just said. Suffering equals pain multiplied by resistance. That's the formula. Pain times resistance. So what everybody's trying to do today to lower their suffering is by lowering the pain. What they should be trying to do is to lower the resistance. That's what it comes down to. Because when you lower the resistance to pain, then you understand what the pain means, and that lowers the experience of suffering to the point that it's not only bearable, it's generative.
- [59:12]
Dave Asprey
That's why I said, when I go to the airport, I won't get annoyed. Yeah. Because I'm not going to resist it at all.
- [59:19]
Arthur Brooks
Yeah. And so this is the key thing. If I could wave a wand for people under 30 today, the number one thing that I would talk about is a greater sacredness to their suffering.
- [59:30]
Dave Asprey
Oh, so good.
- [59:32]
Arthur Brooks
That's consciousness very largely resides in our approach to the sufferings of everyday life. And I make my students. These are MBA students at HBS Peer Institution where you got your mba. They say, my suffering is sacred. And they have this little mantra at the beginning of the day. I'm really grateful for all the pleasant things that are going to happen to me this day, but I'm also grateful for the things that are going to be trouble for me this day, because that's my teacher.
- [59:57]
Dave Asprey
That is the most important thing that you've said in this entire interview. You. That's profound and true.
- [60:06]
Arthur Brooks
And that's the meaning of life, man. That's the meaning of life. And we get one pass. And we can struggle because we can't find the meaning, or we can use it as a pilgrimage to find the meaning and bring it to other people. Those are the two choices. That's why I wrote the book. Wow. The meaning of your life. Finding purpose in an age of emptiness.
- [60:23]
Dave Asprey
All right, thank you for coming on the show again. What a profound conversation. Just such a pleasure, guys. I think you need to read this book. This is what it's really all about. And you can take your methylene blue and you can get in a cold plunge, which is suffering, which is probably good for you, but that's not what it's all about. If you make your vessel more powerful, you can do everything that you just learned in this and you can do it with excellence, which creates beauty for others.
- [60:50]
Arthur Brooks
So do it that way.
- [60:51]
Dave Asprey
Thank you my friend. See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.
- [61:01]
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