Sheree Magaro

Transcript

This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. You know how, like, everybody these days is like a stoic? They all, like, believe in stoic philosophy. Right. Right. Right. Everyone think about stoic all the time now. Yeah. And I I think that is a very useful philosophy. And so I kinda wanted to do, like you know, if if you want a real good overview, like Ryan Holiday's books are excellent. Craig Stanlin's recent book talks about how he used stoicism to survive prison. And so I'll give a little bit of an overview, but I think there's an actual better philosophy out there if you want freedom and even a taste of happiness. And I wanna talk about that because I I think people got everybody became an atheist, and so they rejected religion, which is fine. Well well, the thing is, like, why do you think people reject religion? I'm just curious because when I was growing up, you know, I'm all Buddhist. Like, my parents, like, very Buddhist century, we go to temple and we we pray to the statue and all this thing. And then as I grow older, the idea of religions just seems weird to me. Well, I mean, there's several reasons. One is something in us wants to rebel against our parents. Mhmm. Right? So this didn't always happen, but with our generation starting with maybe the generation before me even, and then the generations after me, people just tend to do the opposite of what their parents want them to do. So if your parents want you to go to church or Buddhist temple, you tend to reject it. If your parents believe in God, you start to look for alternatives. The other thing is is that we learn more. Like, we learn that probably there wasn't a guy who parted the Red Sea, or probably there wasn't a guy who just fills up wine glasses whenever he wants. Like, I'm sure every single magician we've had on this podcast can fill wine glasses just snapping their fingers. So Especially Steve Cohen. Yeah. Steve Cohen. Not not the producer Steve Cohen, the magician Steve Cohen. Yes. People should check out that podcast because he did, like, a trick on the show against me. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And, he he literally is like a human lighted Hector. But, you know, I think we we look back at the religions and see them for what they are. They're kinda like, you know, if you have faith, then, yes, they're true stories. But the stories seem a lot like science fiction or fantasy. Right. And I'm not saying they are. I'm just saying that is the reason why a lot of people so, like, Penn from Penn and Teller has has been on the podcast. He is an atheist for these types of reasons. Like, you How did you know he was a atheist? Yeah. Yeah. No. He's he's, he really speaks about that a lot and written a book about it. And, you know, a lot of it is because, you know, these stories were just created to, oh, he did a miracle though, and then some people believed them. It's the same you know, and some people didn't. And so now more and more people are thinking like, that doesn't really make sense. So they're looking for you know, such two reasons. A third reason is I think I think you look around at like, for instance, you went to a Buddhist temple and you prayed to a statue. Right. Let me ask you a question. Did Buddha himself ever pray to a statue? No. Because Buddha prays to himself. Okay. But did any of his disciples pray to a statue? No. I nope. Any of the monks in the 1st generation after Buddha. See, so a lot of these things, like, when Jesus was was around, there was no pope. When Buddha was around, you know, Buddha himself, might have been an atheist. Meaning, he didn't really believe in you know, I thought he was he was born a Hindu, but he didn't really believe in the Hindu gods. He, you know, the the the there's very little writing that is originally comes from Buddha, but there's something called the Pali Canon, which is the supposedly the original words of Buddha. And not once does he mention the Hindu gods, and he doesn't say you have to believe in a god to reach enlightenment. He talks about, med you know, the 4 noble truths that there is suffering, that there's an end to suffering. And he talks about meditation. He talks about the 8 fold path. He talks about, you know, right speech and right action and being virtuous. And he also says, you know, he he he he Buddha was like a modern philosopher, actually, but he doesn't really talk about, you know, gods at all. That's not really part of Buddhism. It's maybe in some versions of it, but not the Buddha version of it. And Yeah. So so you start to realize like, you could start to realize, you know what? I'm praying to this temple, but there's a mixture of Buddhism and Malaysian ancient religions in here. It's not like pure Buddhism. It's not like pure Malaysian religion. And all code. But Tibetan Buddhism has all these gods and goddesses that have nothing to do with Buddhism. And Taoism and stuff. Yeah. Taoism has all these, you know, rituals and stuff. Lao Tzu, we don't know too much about Lao Tzu. We don't even know if the is a religious book. It could have been a political book. It it I think it's just a full a philosophical books. Right? Well, it could have been you know, he he was supposedly an adviser to rulers. It could have been Yeah. A guide on how to rule be an emperor. Like, we don't really know whether it was a religious book or kind of a political guide. Right. So for me, like, you know, like, I'm I'm I'm Chinese. You know? I I I know Laozu very well. Like, he's he's my buddy. You know? Yeah. You hang you hung out with him. Yeah. I hung out with him all the time. You're Jay too. Am I a human dreaming I'm a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming, human? You probably butterfly dreaming of a boat, humans. Because right now, you're living as a human. You know what I mean? Yeah. But, you know, that it's Chang Soo may well, kind of questioning whether whether our notions of reality are true at all. And that and that's part of the question here, which is why should we believe in anything? Because Chang Soo says we Chang Soo was basically making this simulation hypothesis. We might just be in a giant simulation. We might. We might. Also, back to back to Lao Tzu is, when I when I was learning about Lao Tzu, it's not about the religion side of it. It's about how he's a philosopher. He always he will always ask these questions and give wisdom rather than be like, oh, you have to you have to only pray to me or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. He didn't talk about prayer at all. I mean, the main if I were to take a philosophical point from, it's a and and summarize it in one line, it's go with the flow. Like, basically, you know, the tide of events in your life are, are like a giant ocean, and you're just a tiny particle in that ocean. And there's nothing you can do to fight the ocean. So do things that you can that go with the tide of world events. It doesn't mean be like everyone else. It just means don't and this is very similar to stoicism. It means don't fight what you can't control, and have faith that if you are are virtuous and keep calm, then correct things will happen in your life. Not necessarily good things, but, like, the things that are supposed to happen will happen in your life. I'm just curious. What makes you want to talk about Stowizan so much? Like, I I remember when you first, you know, when we first do the podcast again after after, you know, your your sickness. You you you tell me that you really want to do that. Like, what makes you or upset when you do about stoicism so much? So so so the first thing we covered was that people have left religion, but they still need something to believe in. And and that's a question too. Why do people seem need something to believe in? I think people need something to believe in because they want a sort of code that is 1000 of years old and and maybe sort of focus group by all these great people that tell them how to live a good life that maybe they could be successful. They could be happy. They could have good family. They could have success. And so they still want it's hard to kind of reinvent the wheel. Like like, I always ask I used to ask guests this. If you could go back in time 1000 years, what knowledge do you have that could help society? And chances are nothing. Like, I can't make a telephone or make a gun or make that wouldn't necessarily help society. I I can't I can't make the a computer. Like, there's nothing I know that could help the people in 1,000 AD because it's hard to come up with new things. So I think people want a philosophy that's 1000 of years old that they could say, oh, this feels true to me. And if I live this way, I might live a better life as opposed to if I'm making it up on my own. And I don't really wanna believe in the religion of my parents. Right. And so I think a generation ago, people would switch religions. Like, they'd go from a lot a lot of not many, but some Jewish people I know would go to Buddhism or some Oh. Christian people I know would go try different types of Christianity or or maybe they would even try Buddhism also. Like, people you know, western religions would try eastern religions. People at the east would but now I think people are trying more what's called secular philosophies. Philosophies that have nothing to do with a god, but have to do with maybe a code for living. Interesting. I never thought about that. Like, I like, also the other thing about religion, I felt like one thing that people doesn't really believe in religion anymore because we learn in history, people are using religion just to gain power. Yeah. So right. So so to gain power or gain wealth. But whether or not that's true, I'm not commenting on, but I think that's why a lot of people decided, I don't wanna be my religion. I don't wanna switch from one religion to another. I wanna find another philosophy that maybe people don't really know about, and I wanna live my life according to that way. So about, you know, 25 100 years ago, maybe a little less, 23 100 years ago, stoicism started. It was a Greek philosophy. I'm not gonna go through the history of stoicism again. I'm just gonna summarize it, but then I'm gonna talk about a philosophy that more resonates with me. Stoicism basically says there are some things that are not in your control, and it's important to be aware of what's in your control and what's not in your control. If there's an earthquake and your house is destroyed, there's no point in saying, an earthquake. I would be a success this earthquake ruined my life. It was horrible. It's horrible. That moment is not a very happy moment for you, and you had no control over it. So you're letting something that you had no control over determine whether you're happy that moment or not. And Right. It's not saying, oh, of course, you're gonna be ups you know, upset if an earthquake ruins all your things, but you shouldn't let it ruin your view on life because there was an earthquake that you had no control over. Natural disasters happen. You know, some things you have no control over, like, let's say, the economy. You know, I I bought a house in 2007, and then, you know, there was the great financial crisis in 2008, 2009, 2010, and I lost my house and even got a divorce. Now the economy, I could say, oh, if it wasn't for the economy, I'd be more successful. Now I'm I'm my life's over. I'm ruined. So stoicism would say, you have no control over that, over the economy. Now you but you do have control over how you react to things. So you could so instead of saying, oh, my life is ruined, you could say, well, this gives me a chance to start over, and maybe good things will happen when I when I start over with an open mind. So though those are two aspects of stoicism are very important. You have you have no control over certain things in your life, and your happiness is not determined by these external factors, whatever they are, but but your judgments of them. What whether how you react to them. You don't have to react in a miserable way all the time. You could choose to react in a way that, okay. This didn't work out, but now I'm gonna move on to the next thing. And it's always exciting for me when I move on to the next thing. And then the third leg of stoicism is that if you are virtuous, life is better than if you're not a good person. Like, if you're honest and you speak your truth and you know, I'm I'm summarizing this very simply. There's people out there who's gonna say, well, stoicism is much more than that. But these three pillars of stoicism are the most important ones. You don't have control over everything, but you do have control over your judgments and and how you react to things, and better to be virtuous than not virtuous. Like and I get why you're obsessed with STEM right now because I really think last year, especially last year, after last year, people really need it. I don't think that's good people. Like, we talked about in, a podcast in a couple episodes, ago. Like, for me, I generally don't think there's any good person out there anymore. And that's a lot of thing that you just can't control anymore and then you just get upset with it. I think it's it's like a butterfly chain effect, like, because you there's something that you can't control and then you can't judge, so you get upset. And then when you get upset, you think badly of other people. When you try to control situations that are going against you, you end up doing things that make you very unhappy. I mean, like, when I was in my twenties or whatever, I was in a relationship that was not going my way, and I thought she was cheating on me. I thought she didn't like me. So I would, you know, do all sorts of things, like read her emails, and and it was really bad. I yeah. Stalker. No. Well, we yeah. I was. I well, so I if that's how you define it, like, I really I was young. It was, like, my second relationship, and I just or 3rd. And I just I didn't have a lot of experience in these things, and I thought there was nobody could like me. And, so a stoic would say, well, I have no control over how she thinks about me, but I'm gonna be the best person I could be no matter what, and the right people will like me as a result. But what happened was I spent a long time being very unhappy and then depressed when she did leave me. I mean, I was, like, crying, and, I I was, you know, moping around all the time and always seeing, you know, what she was doing. And, you know, if I had used stoicism, I could have said, look. I have no control over how she thinks about me, but I can choose not to be sad right now, be a good person, and go out to meet other people and do things. Pee people like people who do things. So instead of being someone who just mopes around, I could've done something. And, you know, I even gave up. I at the time, I was offered a job. I I was I was I had just been thrown out of graduate school, and I was offered this job at IBM to work on Deep Blue, the chess computer that I spoke about with you know, in the podcast with Gary Kasparov. It was the computer that that it was the first computer to beat the human world champion, which was Gary at the time. And, I turned it down because I wanted to be with this girl. Maybe if I had used a little bit of stoicism, I would have said, okay. I have no control over the relationship, but I this job sounds exciting to me. It's like the dream job for me. And instead, I I turned it down. So but there's there's reasons why I think stoicism is is still not my favorite, philosophy. Well, I think, you know, there are aspects that and, again, I agree with a lot of stoicism. Like Mhmm. You know, it's it's it's the idea of don't label anything good or bad. Like, if someone breaks up with you, it's neither good or bad. If an earthquake happens, it's neither good or bad. Someone has a heart attack who's close to you, you could you know, obviously, that that can make you sad, but it's not it's just part of life. And Right. That aspect of stoicism is is important. But I think I think, actually, it doesn't it still doesn't lead to freedom, and freedom is very important to me. So Right. It's still a matter of trying to deal with hard things that are happening to you and philosophically find your joy in those hard things. And it's very similar. I mean, all these philosophies I'm about to discuss, I'm gonna really quickly summarize a bunch of philosophies. They're all kinda similar with just nuances. So so for instance, in the past 100 years, there's existentialism. And existentialism basically says there's no purpose in life. So so so a lot of people ask, why am I here? What is the meaning of life? So stoicism tries to say, you're here to be a good person, a virtuous person. By finding your meaning and how you can be the best person, you will be a happy person in life. And, again, there's lots of different types of stoicism. Some people might disagree with me. I'm just giving a very brief summary. I'm not doing a 6 semester class about stoicism. But, existentialism says, why do we exist? There's no reason why we exist, and there's no point in having any meaning at all. Jean Paul Sartre, started existentialism, but it's related to older philosophies. But existentialism still says, hey. Let's try to find even though there is no real meaning in life, let's try to find meaning and live our life accordingly. And my question is, why do you need to have meaning in life? Why is it important to find your meaning in life? Right. Well, for for me, I think, like, without meaning in life, what motivate me? I felt like meaning in life for me because I've been thinking I've been I've been wanting to ask you these questions a lot. Like, what's meaning of life? Because for me, you know, like, especially during lockdown, I you know, you just be at home all the time. You know, you didn't see other people. You didn't there's nothing to distract you to find the meaning of life. So I've been thinking about this a lot because without meaning of life, what motivate me and what fuels me going forward? Well, that that's a great question. So so the existentialists, even though they thought there might not be any specific meaning, but the pursuit of meaning is important. Jay, like, you like to find meaning in life because then it gets you motivated, and it gets you excited about things, and it makes you wake up and say, okay. Today, I'm gonna pursue something that, you know, maybe I'll leave a legacy because I'm pursuing this. You know, we we we talk about this with our guests on the podcast a lot. Like, they wanna leave a legacy. They wanna be good. Even though, you know, I've pointed this out many times, like, we don't even remember the like, do you remember the names of your great great grandparents? I don't even know them. Right. Do you know their names? No. So your grandparents' grandparents, just 4 generations ago, you don't even know their names, and they're and you're, like, directly descended from them. So what the problem I have with meaning that that that that you should pursue a meaning that you should have a meaning which involves a legacy, there's no legacy. Like, there nobody has left a legacy. We don't even know I can't if you if I asked you who's the 12th president of the United States, even if you had been in America, like, your whole life, you probably still couldn't tell me the answer. Why do you feel you need to have meaning? Well, because, like, without meaning, like Okay. So for me, my for me, without meaning, I guess I was just living to work to make money. That's it. You know, what else am I am I working towards against? You know? Why is making money give you meaning? Well, it's like so that I have a more comfortable life, especially in New York. Especially in New York. I have to make more money to cover all my rental expenses and income tax. Maybe if I if I'm living in other state that doesn't require as much income tax or other, like, let lower expenses, then my meaning of life might change. That could be. Like, if you don't you know, remember, I'm I had Jen Glantz do that list, what I would do if I had a $1,000,000, and everything on her list was something she could do now. Like, she said she wanted to have multiple homes in different cities. Well, like, for instance, a year and a half ago, I went to Amsterdam to do some comedy. And for a week or a week and a half, I Airbnb'd a home in Amsterdam. So, yes, I didn't own the home, but it's as if I owned the home. And I was right in the middle of Amsterdam. It was great. And anytime I go back there, I could presumably stay in the same home or maybe even a better home. So, like, I don't need a $1,000,000, and I have thanks to modern Airbnb, I have homes all over the place. Or some people say, oh, I wanna have, you know, I wanna own a private jet. Well, private jet costs a $100,000,000, and then you have to maintain it. But for, like, a few $1,000 in yes. That's expensive too, but it's not a 100,000,000. For a few $1,000, you could fly in a private jet, and it's not like you're gonna be flying in a private jet, like, every weekend unless you're an idiot. You just you're just gonna, you know, go on vacation a couple times and budget that in and, you know, work hard and make the money and so all these things. Or she said she would have an assistant. Well, you can get a virtual assistant in the Philippines for almost $0. Yeah. So so money is not as much a factor in freedom as people always thought. Like, it used to when I was a kid, oh, I wanna be a millionaire. And, yes, that's a good that's an interesting goal to have, and there's many ways to do it, but it's not necessarily the way to find happiness or to do all the things you wanna do. With much less money, you could do things you wanna do, and and it's important for people to recognize. I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day. And because of COVID, he had to work remotely, for the past year and a half. So instead of living in a city where he had to deal with, you know, the the grime and, the homeless and all sorts of problems, he moved to a little house on the right on the ocean. He's 10 feet from the ocean, and he's just enjoying life, and he's spending less money than he used to. So you can you could you could choose money doesn't necessarily there's no number of money that could provide meaning in your life. You could choose what kind of we're more able to choose what kind of life we wanna live, and I think people are starting to to realize that. But with existentialism, the whole idea is is that there's no one meaning, but it's good to have meaning in your life. And the pursuit of meaning is in itself A meaning. Meaning. Yes. It's it's important that the pursuit of meaning may have meaning in itself, and existentialism is about that. Well, it doesn't mean, like so, like, it shouldn't be someone gift you meaning. The meaning should come within yourself. That's a really good way to put it. You can't put your meaning necessarily on external factors. Right. It's, like, very anti existentialist to derive meaning from what society tells you to do or your community or your family or your friends or your teachers, but it is somewhat important in existentialism to not only have some meaning in life and think about what that meaning is, but that to really make sure you enjoy the pursuit of that meaning rather than just have a goal. So existentialism is not necessarily goal oriented. It's just knowing that you're on a path that, that in itself has meaning. Now Right. Let's go extreme. Nihilism. Nihilism? Nihilism. Nihilism would say there's absolutely no meaning. It's just all BS, and, there's no you know, and there's different types of nihilism. Right. There there's no such thing as like, if you're if you're a moral nihilist, you would say there's no such thing as ethics. If you're a political nihilist, you could say there's no political thing that matters. Basically, it's very similar to existentialism except it's it's, it it it it it really rejects that there's any meaning at all. So the word the word nihilism comes from the word annihilate, which means to destroy or to bring to nothing. There's there's nothing in in there's no philosophy that's correct in nihilism. Right. It's so I did a quick Google on, nihilism. And, also, if you look at the chat, our chat is very, very active right now. But, like, yeah, someone someone did I mean, I I googled the nihilism, and someone asked, can can nihilist be happy? I mean, I think they can, but it's not not for any reason. Right. And, again, people will disagree with me. I'm just giving again, I'm you know, you could take a whole year of reading about nihilism, and there's so many different philosophers. I'm just trying to explain in a few sentences or a few paragraphs what these things are. Yeah. Well, the thing is I felt like I felt like nihilism for me based on what you what you describe and your definitions. I felt like your point is kinda redundant in a sense that, like, if there's no meaning in life, why why why are you exist? Yeah. Well, nihilist, there's no reason. But because there's no reason to exist, there's also no reason to kill yourself. So you just you just do whatever you want, and, you know, there's not really nihilism sort of removes meaning. It's like existentialism, but without meaning and without virtue. Right. So, basically, nihilism is just a lazy bomb. It's just lying a lot around it. Right. Like well, not necessarily. They might still wanna make a lot of money. They might just do what they want. And because the whole thing is, like, take ethics. Like, in society, your parents told you when you were little. Don't lie to your parents Right. In particular. You don't even lie to anybody, but in particular, don't lie to your parents parents. Or do good in school or don't hit your little brother or little sister or whatever. And and but a nihilist will say this is all just artificial. There's no real universal laws that say you shouldn't hit your little sister, whereas Christianity says there is. And, even stoicism will say it's better to be virtuous than not virtuous. And even existentialism doesn't really have a lot of opinions on virtue, but it's probably easier to find meaning in life if you're a good person. If you're not limiting yourself the whole thing is if you're limiting yourself to what other people say is right like, let's say, oh, it's right to not hit your little brother. It's right to go to college. It's right to politically believe in certain things. You're every time you think that society is telling you something that's imp that's that's real, it's limiting you. It's putting boundaries around you. And so let's say your sibling is mean to you. Let's say your sibling is really cruel to you, and you're adults now, and you decide, you know what? I'm not, I'm not gonna spend time with this person anymore even though it's my brother or whatever. People might say, oh, that's a bad thing. Family is family. But an existentialist will say, who cares if family's family? Like Right. I'm gonna make my own meaning. And a nihilist will automatically say, somebody else told me this person is in my family. Like, so what? We have biological connection. That's not a real connection. I don't have to treat this person anyway. So they're similar, but nihilism doesn't pursue meaning at all, which gets me to the philosophy that I'm really I feel speaks to me. There's no right or wrong way to look at the world, but sort of the way I look at the world is a philosophy called absurdism. And it's just the idea that even having this discussion is absurd. Like, everything in life is just absurd. It's like a gigantic joke. Wait. How do you define it? Like, absurd as in, like, is ridiculous. We all try to find kind of intrinsic value and meaning in life, and there really is no meaning at all. And you could find meaning if you want, but it's not a requirement. Everything is just absurd. Anything that we think is important is just absurd. It's not even that there's no meaning. It's just almost that it's like a joke. Basically, so the the the main guy in absurdism is this guy, Albert Camus, who wrote an excellent book called the stranger, and he wrote another book called, the plague, the fall, the rebel, the myth of Sisyphus. And most of the time, people are looking for meaning in a meaningless world. This is, like, almost like a contradiction. So that's the absurdity. And so Camus basically said there's 3 ways to deal with this dilemma of, you know, the desire to find meaning whenever it's just any meaning is absurd. Like, oh, I wanna work hard so I could buy a house. That's just stupid. That's just absurd. So everything is, like, absurd. And so one way which nobody recommends is suicide, then you don't have to worry about meaning after that. Like, as Louis CK says I forget the exact joke. He basically said, you know, if I don't wanna deal with a park I I have a solution for all parking tickets. If I get a parking ticket, I'll just kill myself, then I don't have to deal with it. So, like, he kinda gets it that that's almost like an absurdist sort of joke. And then, another way to deal with absurdism is to be religious because then that force, like, you inherit the meaning of that religion. Oh, okay. Life's absurd, but I'm gonna believe in Jesus anyway because that at least give makes me feel comfortable and makes me feel okay. Or you could accept the fact that everything is absurd. And whatever happens to you, you know, accepting the absurd, this is very freeing. Like, oh, this person treated me, like, horribly. Who cares? It's it's it's absurd. So I'm just gonna accept that this happened and move forward with my life. And Totally. And but as opposed to nihilists, Camus thought it was very important. There's a reason for this. Camus thought it was very important to try to be a good person. So when given the choice, he said, between, you know, one action or he basically said, when given the choice, choose love. So always choose to be a loving person. Now and now taken to an extreme, though, if you fall in love with somebody, but maybe you're married, he would say, oh, leave your wife and go for this person you love. And that created some problems in his life. Like, his wife was very depressed, and eventually he decided that in order to be a good person and and choose virtue as well as choosing love, he needed to stop cheating on his wife and and try to keep her happy. So, you know, absurdism, you could if you want to, you could still find meaning in your life. Just recognize that it's meaningless. Well, so are you see, is is the the the the founder I'll call her the founder. Is he, like, actually happy because of that, absurdism? Because, like, you pretty much just tried to find ultimate fails in the life. What do you mean? The ultimate fails as in, like, as in, like, if you do something. Right? If you do like, let's say if I'm I'm trying to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm trying to I'm trying to understand this also because I really don't understand it. Like, it's like my brain is like is like exploding right now. It's like so, like, if I'm pursuing meaning in life, I'm trying to I'm trying to make it funny or thought about how funny it would be if if it's if it fell. Yeah. It's not necessarily funny. It's just that an awareness that anything you derive meaning from, ultimately, you're going to die, and there's no meaning in whatever you do. Right. Right. So there's no there's like, everybody's like, oh, I wanna leave a legacy for my kids. Nobody gives a s**t, and your great you like, you don't know the names of your great grandparents. In just a few generations, everyone is not gonna know who you are. So, you know, so so so, actually, the way to find meaning is to really understand that there is no one thing that it it has has meaning. There's there's it's it's almost like be a rebel. Like, be a rebel against any institution which tries to give you meaning. Now it doesn't mean you shouldn't be a doctor. It doesn't mean you don't have fun doing things, but it's just that. Like, do what you want, and it's very similar to existentialism. Ex existentialism thinks it is still important to find some meaning in your life. It's like Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Absurdism says it's important to realize that there is absolutely no meaning and accept that, and then you'll be free, and then you'll be happy. That no no thing everything that you think is important is just your brain telling you it's important, and there's nothing actually important. And it it almost sounds nihilistic, except it's important to choose love overall. Do the things where you're the most loving you could be. Right. And everything else is just background noise. So so you so you basically have to embrace the contradictions of it. Yeah. And then and then, I think some call me Superman said, like, it's like Dadaism and surrealism. I don't know what that is. There are well, okay. Dadaism is related to existentialism and, surreal we could talk about those things another time because they're all related to, like, art and the relationship between art and philosophy. So, like, Dadaism is an artistic movement and surrealism is an artistic movement, but they're all related to these things. So, but why why why makes you so obsessed with assert I can't even say it. It's so absurd. Absurdism. Absurdism. It's just like I can't even pronounce marinara sauce. Marinara sauce. Marinara sauce. Marinara sauce. Yeah. So the the the whole thing is a lot of people spend a lot of time asking, well, what is my meaning or what meaning should I have in life or what pursuits should I do? And just choose love and be indifferent to everything. Like, let's say, take me for instance. Okay? I get sometimes overly obsessed with whatever it is I'm interested in. So when I do business, I wanna be very successful at business. When I did stand up comedy, I wanted to very quickly tour all over the country and be acknowledged as a successful comedian. When I play chess even, I want my rating to go up, but just enjoy what you do and do it in a loving way. Love what you do. Love the people you do it with, but don't say, hey. It's important for me to get this goal, or it's important for me to do this. Now you could have that if you want, but just realize that when you die, it's all meaningless. It's all stupid. There's no there's no real point to anything. You don't fool yourself into thinking there's a point and try to enjoy life even though there's no point to it. Right. Well, that well, from what you said, like, it sounded really freeing just just by hearing it. It sounded very freeing. It's like, yeah, you should do whatever you do, but but in the end, you know, it's gonna be meaningless anyway. But but you do it, but you should have fun doing it. So so it's more like you are looking at the process of doing it. Like, the you you you are into the process rather than the outcome. Right. And it doesn't you don't waste a big part of your life trying to find out what your meaning is. Sure. If you wanna if you love medicine and wanna be a doctor, do it. But don't think that this is a path to joy. Just do it if you want to. And that the only path to joy is really accepting the fact that nothing matters and, again, choose love. And I really like this approach. I feel like stoicism is kind of like a guide to how to live. Like, recognize that you can't control everything, recognize the things you can't control, and you can only control your judgments. This is almost like a pathway to living through difficult situations, like an earthquake or Right. In Craig Stamlin's case, going to prison. Absurdism is related. It's close, but it's it's more like nothing was important anyway. We're all gonna die at the end of this adventure. Just do what you can to be loving and be a good person. Nothing's in your control. You can have meaning if you want, if you choose to. Just accept the fact that nothing is really required of you. And, you know, but it doesn't mean, like, just make money at all extent because there's no meaning. He still says, you know, choose love, which in some sense means be a virtuous person. And I think I think this helps you be happy. Like, anytime you put any boundary around yourself, like, oh, I have to be rated this in chess or I have people have to like me if I'm a comedian or people have to like my writing or people have to like this podcast. Like, all of that is pointless. Do a podcast if you enjoy doing podcasts. Do comedy and do the best you can if if you wanna do that. Like, I I and the reason why this resonates with me is because I feel like I've changed, quote, unquote, meaning in my life many times. So what does that mean? Does that mean I was just BS ing myself when I thought the meaning of my life was to be x or to be y or to be z? I mean, I've switched careers, like, 15 times. But the reality is that's because I I do what I like, what I enjoy, what I love doing, and it's really just absurd to think that anything I do really matters. It's like the people who say, oh, your vote matters. Oh, yeah. If you live in New York State, New York State always votes one way. Alabama always votes another way. And either state, if you live in it, your vote is kind of absurd. Now Yeah. Should you vote or not? Vote if you want to. That's what absurdism is gonna say. There's no anybody telling you you have to do this, you have to do that, they don't know you. They're just dictating your life for you, and you don't need anyone dictating your life or or meaning in your life. Wait. So the a certain is like the the the complete no. I wouldn't say complete package. It's like the the combinations of the other 3. Yeah. It's very closely relate it's very closely related, which is why it's not such a bad idea to be all these things. Maybe but I would it's closest to, like, existentialism, which says there's no meaning in life, but you should probably try to derive some meaning from it because you'll be happier if pursuing something with meaning. And you said when your meaning change, I'm just curious. I'm just I'm totally curious. When you say your meaning change, does your meaning change when you face a crisis or you went to a crisis? Like, it has like, was it a really, really down woman and then you realize, okay. Now my meaning has changed because I've been through this. You know, I think it's more like yeah. A little bit like weird bad things would happen to me, and I would just kinda give up on whatever I was pursuing before or or I would maybe fall in love with doing something else, and I would lose interest in other things. But, you know, whenever you try too hard to do what's quote, unquote right or do what you're supposed to do or do what you you know? Oh, I'm supposed to always attend funerals or weddings or, oh, I'm always I'm supposed to go to college. That's what people with my background do or all of that is again, this is like existentialism too. All of that is BS, but absurdism takes it one step further. It's, like, absurd to think the world is gonna have any value because of anything you do. There's, like, a 1000000000 different or a trillion different species on this planet. Humans are just one of them, and we think we're so important. And that is just absurd. Basically, a belief in anything beyond absurdity is irrational. Like, we don't even know if we're in a simulation or not. Like, some people believe we're in a simulation. So you just kinda have to in some sense, this is similar to Taoism. Like, Taoism says, whatever you think is real, that in itself means it's not real. Yeah. So it's almost like you are lit you you you just have to live in the moment. Live in the moment, and you could have meaning if you want. Right. But you don't have to. And, you know, existentialists will say, listen. It's part of who we are as humans that even if there's no meaning, you need to find meaning in your life and pursue something, and the pursuit of meaning is is good. Right. And nihilist will say, don't have meaning in your life. Like, that is just futile. It's BS. It's whatever. But absurdist k. If you if you wanna have meaning in your life, like, oh, I'm gonna be the best chess player in the world, I could do that. The point is it's just absurd to think that it's important. You know, there there's no inherent thing about being a human that says I have to have meaning. There's no inherent thing that says I have to, treat people a certain way. Right. It's just easier to be happier because you're not live you know, it's just easier to be happier if you're a good person. Because when you're a bad person, bad things might happen. You might go to jail, or you might have a lot of people not like you and make your life hard as a result. Right. So better to just not give a s**t and do what you enjoy, but do it with love. Right. So okay. Okay. So this this this is gonna be really fun. I don't know if you can do it with your brain fog. If each of them has to write a tweet today, what are they gonna be? So let's start with stoicism. What what's the stoicism tweet of the day is gonna be? COVID happened, but I used the time to learn new skills, to spend more time with my family, to figure out, you know, what kind of legacy I wanna leave. Because I have free time, I spent more time doing charity and doing good things. So that might be stoicism. And, again, I'm making it up some Right. Right. Right. Okay. And then the extend what is it called? Extentationalism or Existentialism might say it's a tweet. It's a tweet. So you have to limit your character too. Yeah. This is all bulls**t, but it's really important for me to become a doctor and save lives. And I'm gonna devote my life to that, and I really enjoy studying medicine and biology. Right. And then the nihilism? Nihilism's like, nothing matters. I'm just gonna do whatever I want until I die. And absurdism is like, everybody is just crazy. This is just a big joke. You know, half the people say, you know, one thing, half the people say the other thing, and they don't realize it's 5050. Who knows what's the right answer? But I don't know. I happen to like going to the movie, so I'm gonna write movie reviews all the time and find meaning in that for a little while. And then I might find meaning in something else. Yeah. That's a pretty long tweet you have there. Okay. So, absurdism might say, this tweet is a f**king joke. Don't even read it. I just felt like tweeting right now, and I'm going back to my wife because I love being with her. That's that's literally you all day. Yeah. I feel that's why I feel like I'm an absurdist more than I'm a stoic Right. More than I'm an existentialist. But the idea of even labeling myself something is absurd. Like, I'm not anything. Like, I'm not, you know, I'm one species among a trillion on planet Earth, which is one planet among maybe a quadrillion planets in the universe. The idea that there's any overriding like, the idea that anyone cares about my free will and my actions is just so ridiculous. Right. It's stupid. And I could say, oh, I want my grandchildren to know about me. Why? When you're dead, you're not going to care if your grandchildren or great grandchildren know who you are. Right. Well, it's I I think I think the the next step will be, like, sort of just really practice what what philosophy that you want to believe in. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's you you could choose what philosophy if you're absurdist, you could say, oh, okay. Today, I'm gonna believe this. Tomorrow, I'm gonna believe this. Whatever you want. And it's not saying be a bad person. It's not saying kill people because, again, choose love. Because let's say you do something bad. Let's say you commit a crime because you feel there's no meaning and it's all pointlessness. Well, you might now, unfortunately, have meaning forced on you because you're gonna have to fight a court case or Right. You know? So, like, if you if you watch TV, almost all stories happen because somebody thinks something is more important than it is. And, you know, like, take Star Wars. Alright? Star Wars is in a unit a galaxy a long, long time ago or no. Sorry. It's a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Right. So did anything Luke Skywalker do have any meaning ultimately? Like, presumably, that whole civilization is gone. It the whole civilization died anyway. Right. That that that No matter what happened between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. And it was a galaxy far, far away, so it has no effect on here. And and yet they thought they were doing something very important and meaningful. And yet we even saw even after we thought, yo, the emperor died, blah blah blah. Well, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. Yeah. He came back. It's all ridiculous. Or Right. Take, like, The Sopranos, like or or or The Godfather. I haven't watched it. Yeah. Yeah. So so take The Godfather. Like, it's a story about the mafia. Well, the mafia has this code of values that they live by. Like, you know, your your family is your is your crime family. It's it's even closer than blood, and and, you know, there's a an oath of secrecy you take and, you know, you help each other. Like, it's like a brotherhood almost, like a fraternity type of thing, but Right. You know, dedicated to making money, not necessarily through legitimate ways because the mafia doesn't believe that the laws of the land that they might be living in agree with the laws that they think should be followed. So they take the law into their own hands. But this creates all these limitations. They have to treat family a certain way. They have to treat the godfather a certain way. So there's all these, like, limitations that they put themselves to, and they swear to. And it ends up making them very unhappy people, potentially. Right. Like and they end up dying maybe through, you know, being killed no matter how loyal they were. Right. Spoiler. Spoiler. Well well, no. I'm talking about, like, like, in real life. Right. Alright. John Gotti killed his boss, Paul Castellano, and no matter what oath he said. So Right. You know, it sort of reaffirms that that it all was absurd to begin with. And even thinking you could provide this meaning to your life by swearing to this oath of being in the mafia and the godfather. Like, Al Pacino and the godfather is constantly unhappy. He is never happy except maybe in the beginning. The very first scene, maybe he's happy, and he's never happy again. You never see him smile again. And so the more meaning you put in your life, it could be the less happy you are unless you just say, hey. I'm just gonna do what I want, but I I'll choose love alongside of it, and I'll find meaning when I love something. And, otherwise, I'm not gonna judge myself. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say, oh, I really should be a doctor now, or all my friends are really successful. I should be no one's successful 200 years from now. They're all dead. Right. So So, like, even right now, I'm more successful than Steve Jobs. Right. You're You're more successful than anyone right now who is dead. You're more successful than Bruce Lee. Yeah. Than Marcus Aurelius, or you're more successful than Bruce Lee because so what? Like, does Bruce Lee right now care that everybody thinks he's the greatest martial artist? No. He's dead. Yeah. And it's not making light of it. It's just that's reality. Like, we all are fooled into thinking that these all these things are important in the very short time we live here in this tiny one species of trillions. So we think our species is special, but that that's why I think it's not. That's why I think choose yourself is so great because if you choose to love yourself to being a good person, you know, there will be a better life. You know? You just just don't don't force your ideology on other people. Right. Right. I mean, what what's absurd is everybody wants to be significant. Everyone wants to have meaning. Everyone wants that some clarity on what they should be doing in life, and the universe just doesn't give a s**t. No. So there's this contradiction. And accepting that in absurdism is freedom. And that's ultimately, I think, a more appealing philosophy to me. Now although I agree with the principles of stoicism, I agree with a lot of the principles of Taoism or or Buddhism. The fact that there's there is suffering and but, you know, there's a way beyond suffering, and you you should the easiest the simplest thing to do is, you know, right action and right speaking and, you know, be virtuous. But this is a lot of work. And if you just accept the fact that, hey, it's all meaningless, but I'm gonna try to do the right thing wherever I can, and I'm gonna pursue the things that temporarily give me meaning without thinking I'm significant in any way. That is a free like, you know, people who some people, like, really care. Like, I wanna be the best doctor ever. I wanna be the best tennis player ever. And some people are like, hey. I'm gonna practice every day because I love it, but I'm just I'm okay too. I'm I'm I just wanna be, I don't need to be the best to be happy. I need to just, you know I think I need I think I need to change my philosophy. I envy those people a lot because, like, a lot of people are like, yeah. I just I just practice. I just like doing what they do. You know? I don't wanna be the best, you know, but they ended up being really good. Yeah. And, also, just then you start to look at things a little more skeptically. Like, oh, everyone is saying it's really important that I do this or this. Well, is it? I don't know. Oh, it's really important that I convince this other person that the earth is not flat. Why? Why why do I care if he thinks the earth is flat or not? Like Right. Who cares? Oh, it's now you could say, well, some laws are very restrictive. You I wouldn't be saying this if I was unfortunate or in a in a in a bad situation. I would work hard to to help others. Well, if you do things and you choose love alongside the things you do, then you will naturally do the best you can do to help things without without being obsessed with whether it was significant or not. You'll just naturally do good things. Accept the fact that it's all absurd. It all doesn't matter, and then act accordingly. But when given the choice, choose the loving path. Right. That's a that that's such a great quote. Alright. I did some FAQ on the channel. If you wanna look some like, I just asked them, like, to ask you questions. Do I ask you, has you read the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? No. I haven't. I and I did buy it once, but I never read it. So I will read it. Thank you for the recommendation. James, the ice is James Quandahl. He's been on the podcast. Yep. And then some I think some people also say that the myth of surface is a good read as well. Oh, yeah. And I've never read it. That's supposedly Albert Camus' book about absurdism. So, I think I come to absurdism by naturally being an absurdist. Like, I've just led my life in absurd way. People always say, why are you doing this? And I know I I know I am most unhappy when I have when I think I'm doing something for a reason. Really, there's no reason why I'm doing anything other than I just wanna do it, and, you know, I'm trying not to be a bad I'm trying to be a good person too. Right. And, ABV, Andrew, asked, what elements of your substitutions to absurdism help pull you out from burnout stages? Realizing that burnout usually means I'm trying to achieve some goal, and I'm not achieving it. So I get burnt so I'm working too hard, so I get burnt out. But if, you know, if you just do what you love doing like, there was one point when I was trying so hard to make a lot of money by being a hedge fund manager. That was my business. And finally, I realized, you know what? I just don't like this. Like, I hate it. I hate all the people. I don't like it. I returned all the money. I had no source of income. I loved to write I moved to a place that was much, much cheaper. I downsized, and I went broke during this time as well. And then I just started writing, and I loved it so much. And then you know when I and I loved writing, and I loved reading, and I love writing. But you know when my writing made me unhappy was when I needed a certain number of likes on an article or a certain number I need people to tell me it was good. Like, once I attach significance to what I was doing, I became less happy. So just do what you love. You'll probably be better at it if you the less significance you put on it. And don't get sidetracked by external or manmade or societal made features. Like, oh, they really like me, or they like this, or I got a lot of page views or whatever. Like, I used to look at all instead of looking at my investments, I started looking at all my analytics. How many pages did I have? How many minutes do people spend on each article? Like, I switched the thing I was applying significance to when I just should have said, oh, that's meaningless. I'm just gonna instead of wasting any mental energy at all, I'm gonna use all of my energy just doing what I love doing. And then I probably would have been even a better writer or a better hedge fund manager or a better comedian or a better chess player. Just do it when you love doing it. Right. But I also, like, I felt like you shouldn't be regretting, like, what your past life decision is because, like, it is what makes you today. You you're absolutely right, Jay. You're absolutely right. I should not, it's absurd for me to think I should have lived Yeah. Differently back then. Like, it is what it is. It's done. Because if you didn't if you didn't, if you didn't make any decision that you made before, you wouldn't have picked me up fresh off the boat. You know? Exactly. I mean, I saw you wandering around, stealing scraps of garbage at the at the at the Chinatown. Out at the farmer's market in Chinatown, and I put you behind a podcast studio, taught you everything you know about audio visual equipment, and gave you meaning in life. And I know. That's my meaning in life. Yeah. Oh, so yeah. That's great. Any any things you want to wrap up? No. I just think don't be so obsessed with what's your meaning, what's your purpose. Don't be so obsessed with the significance of what you're doing. Find something you love and accept the fact that this is a gigantic cold and silent universe. And then your end no matter how many people we have talking about lifespan on this podcast, ultimately, we're gonna die, and you should try to enjoy every minute and try not to be harmful to other people. Like, at the end of the day, choose love. Choose love.