#862 - Visakan Veerasamy - An Ode To People Who Take Things Seriously
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What time people welcome back to the show? My yesterday is VISA vassy. He's writer and an entrepreneur. It's perhaps the biggest competitive advantage no one ever talks about because it's so obvious.

But what does that mean to be a serious person? And if it's such a help, why is IT so hard to find? Expect to learn why being seriously so important, how to deal with being too harsh on yourself and holding high standards for everybody else, how to get Better at being disliked, the relationship between seriousness and earned lessons, ways to deal with procrastination effectively and much more.

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Why is being serious .

so important? Why is being serious so important? Well, you know, we have a limited life, right? We have limited resources and we get to live IT however we want. I just think IT is really tragic if we don't make the most of IT basically right. And you know it's it's funny.

IT depends on who you talk to because there are people who kind of get very like you get very hung up on the kind of thing I just said and you can kind of go too far with IT, and then you get really stiff and and grimace about all, I gotta make as much money as possible. Oh, I got ta acquire as much status as possible. And in my mind, that actually isn't. So when I described this, my I say, uh, that is slightly unserious. It's it's kind of a fixation on A A particular model of trying to make some number go up.

So if you if you read my essay, the conclusion is that seriousness is love and curiosity expressed honestly over a long period time and that I just think really it's like life is a feast and you really want to a sample everything you can and find the thing that yours and really you know really enjoy IT uh yeah and it's actually, you know, the way I would answer that question other than that is having lived through the opposite, which is you know being around unserious people going to school other institutions where there's like an unserious energy, where people are kind of you know just not taking things seriously and they might have their reasons maybe the jobs is not that important to them and they wanted focus on something else just fine. But what I found is that when I reflect on my life and think about when at the moments when i've really had a great time, it's invariably when i'm serious about about what i'm doing, which involves in a playful ness on and i'm surrounded by other people who are also serious. And that just produces something, you know, that that genetic, quite rather, the excEllence that is, once you've tasted IT, is such a, such a, nothing else compares.

And so I kind of, I I talk about things like that in part to you like, uh, my friend Kevin quote has is caught this like like tapping the tuning fault you what else reason is right? So if like in the sea of people, you have a distribution of different kinds of seriousness, you want to find the kind of people who provide with you. And now, you know.

so I was that, yes, I was at a bachelor party, a stag do in the U. K. About two years ago.

And uh, we were playing shuff board and though we'd been going from maybe six hours or so, so people kind of gravitated into whatever that Normal social groups was. Some of us had priors. Some of us had known people from before, but a lot of the people in each of the groups were.

You and I looked over at the other table of people, and they were the the guys were sort of like flicking the little pox, and there was sort of being playful and messing about, enormous, really keeping score. Meanwhile, on the table that I was on, we were whispers ing tactics to each other. We we talking about where he's really weak when he he has to come short.

So blab. Now I do what at a bachelor party. But we separated ourselves that we had literally trios the group by seriousness. And I realized in that moment that i'd like to be around people that take things seriously.

And IT doesn't mean I really appreciate you saying this isn't sort of um solum tedious rigid study use this term dynamic persistence so that a sense of humor being critical to that because it's difficult to persist for a long period of time if you if you take yourself too seriously so you become riggin, you become stiff and the opposite of being dynamic. And yeah, I just I saw that thing. I saw that situation occur in front of us.

And I saw a group of people that were they they had resonated with the people that weren't taking things seriously. And I realized I was on the serious people table. No Better, no worse. But just i'd i'd found my tribe. So that speaks very nice.

It's so fascinating to me how easily people tend to trios themselves that way like this. No, you like top down. It's just naturally, people gravity towards people who are similar and away from people who are not. And and I used to play in a band when I was a teenager. And it's so funny that, like ten, fifteen years later, we find out that all this person has A D H D.

This person is bipolar, this person like, it's all these people who will miss fits and male just in some way that what all is drawn to each other that and is not like we signed up for who has you know this this issue we didn't know. We just knew that we were all very passionate about what we did, and we just all found each other is so magical. actually. Think about IT.

I love the idea of this. I also think I I became quite frustrated. One of the reasons I really wanted to speak to you was reading your blog post was kind of like it's an.

Allowance for people who are serious to not feel embarrassed in a seriousness, you know, because there is the person who doesn't seem to be taking things too seriously, who doesn't seem to be having that much care or attention, that kind of likes a dico, that chill man's, you know, just work and give relax a little bit, dude. That person often comes across as sort of more fun, more cool than more vibe, right? The vibes of vibes.

And i've always found myself as somebody who prefers to be on the serious table, as opposed to the non serious table. And seeing that as a virtue and not in a virtue, is in like some superiority complex of some guy in a stuffing library somewhere. Genuinely just, this is a previous position you have in some weird personality trait, probably orderly, some form of ordering ss conscientious ously a couple of other industries maybe um but beyond that it's an amalgam map of you pay care and attention to the things that you do and you think that there is utility and effort and there is utility in in trying yeah .

what do you describing finds me of an anecdote from one of a Michael b Jordan's class mates and he was saying he was such a weird kid you know he'd come to school with his hit shots and stuff like that and is just so striking to me that being serious when you're starting out is really difficult socially because again, it's like, I think the the the general sentiment in most of the world is like, who do you think you are you know, to take this instance, you like why you and you know like another joke.

I like to ourself imagine being shakespeare english teacher, like this annoying kid coming up with his own phrases and words and and stuff like that. And and I also have sympathy for people who you like. Look about the teacher, for example, who is just trying a teacher class.

But this a student is like, now I am gonna my own thing. exactly. And at the same time, I think about all the kids everywhere who had that Spark of something. But IT was snuffed. Bt, because the social environment just didn't allow IT.

It's tempting to think that, oh, you know, I have IT and i've made IT so far therefore i'm special which yet in some sense yes but we always think undesired ate the degree to which a kind watch uh, a supportive context that just really, you know you watch the right movie at the right time of your life and I just hit something for you and someone else just random walking didn't get that and it's like it's like virtuous cycles of do things get Better or not and yeah, this is a lot to get into about how society is structured in a way that kinder. You know it's like I I can only see both sides of this, like it's both good and bad. It's it's a kind of sorting algorithm in a week, like in the long run.

The people who are most serious and kind of this is quote from this old french poet, right? The body there, something like the great man in order to exist, has to overcome the resistance of, like millions of people from his friends, his school, his society. So by the time you get there, he is got this immense strength, or however, on a freeman, you know, immense persistence, immense capability of like managing his psyche to get there.

And in a way, because we live in a world where there's so much information, so many people doing so many things and you know um I used to work in in startups and like you would hear from someone that the startup is going to be the next expected and two years later, they are gone. And so since this this competing uh, demands on your attention, it's very Normal and reasonable, in fact, to kind of dismiss most things. So most people assume that most people are not serious. You in this firm.

even the ones who say that they are being serious .

exactly because everyone is serious. So the only way to demonstrate that is over time and you just you keep shipping another podcast up, you keep writing, you keep showing up year after year after year. And I found that um there's something magical about like the seven year mark, sometimes just less than things like three to five.

But like once you ve been around like seven years ish, people's memories are not that long. And so once you've been around that long IT seems like you are there all along like forever. And so it's it's just interesting, I guess, yes, I .

explained to me the line between this, uh, people that lap seriously and people that are serious ous and the fact that what everyone is trying to do in some former is get all of the benefits of seriousness are being taken legitimately while while not necessarily having to pay the Price of seriousness, which is consistency and hard work in all the rest of IT and also being able to seem chill and cool and like the vibes of vive. What's the line between this sort of public world of seriousness and how I can cause cynics and and and criticism a among the the general population?

Oh, that's a good question, I think. And you know, the messy thing is that nobody has IT all figured out at the start, right? I love to look up, you know, any anybody who's like, very successful now, I love to look up there earlier, like you can see, like obama's earlier speeches, uh, like Jason mars first concert, they look nervous.

They don't look like, know what they do, you know? So in the earliest stages, I think if anybody has any like intellectual honesty, they're gonna like, well, I think I got a shot, but i'm not completely sure, but i'm gonna try right and and you so there will be self doubt. And if someone tells them you're not serious, they might be like, am I am not not I think I am.

I'm not sure, all right, like this. There's that cluster of people. And then okay, there's also the cluster of I I imagine ky is probably an extreme and of radically certain of themselves.

And you know that group probably split into those that don't question burn and lose that make IT. And then that's like out of survival buyers you get uh um you hear from a lot of those who do make IT. Um i'm just from your question you are asking .

about that closing. So basically, the way way that I see is that the fact that so many people, people want to be seen as serious and so you are and that you don't really have a way to expert working out whether or not somebody is legitimate in their claims of serious and beyond just waiting, which is the attack opposite of expendable that causes cynical m to occur as A A defense mechanism against the fraud and go shit and and the trouble you say with cynical m as the defense mechanism, as you can get so good at IT that you inadvertently also defend yourself against anything good ever happening for you too tasks feels successfully .

yeah um I think it's especially difficult when you're starting out, which is why I attentive think about and focus on teenagers and like people in the early to end this a lot because that's such A I do think as you get older, if you've been somewhat rigorous, you have like some hygd principles in how you examine things and who you talk to them.

Over time, you cultivate a social graph, a social network's of people in your life if if you have other people around you um who are serious about figuring out who's for real and who's not IT gets easier than a little bit. You might still make some errors here there. But like you after a while, you know I think Steve jobs is a quote about how and he's talking about the company and running a team, like when you hire a people and you put them in the context of other a people become self policing in all new, welcoming other eight people.

And like pushing, and like not necessary pushing away, but like they keep out the b people I guess um but yeah so if you are not rigorous about your information environment and who you allow to take up your time and energy and attention, cynical m becomes the natural response because you keep seeing failures and you keep seeing you know evidence of people bull shooting you and you know if you look out into the world is always people bull shooting right? Like I I haven't I say I want to right I haven't written yet. It's got shit watch and it's like it's funny er is like this like the instance, the social media algorithms to use high arsa emotions.

And so there are people who, whether coordinated or not, end up so the energy I give us, imagine there's a group of people in your city who go around looking for like the worst public toilets they can find. And then they look for the ship, andy, they scoop up the shit and they presented to you and he say, he, hey here, look at the ship. Smell, taste, I don't know, and you'll be like that disgusting.

What's wrong with you? right? But we do the equivalent with like information and content and be like, yes, these people fighting yes, this and is like, no in a city of millions of people is going to be someone fighting somewhere. And if you can scroll to some fees, where is like fight combination tions and it's just, oh my god, in five minutes of schooling you would think that the whole world is that like full of people's fighting.

But if you go out into a restaurant, everyone is is sitting on having lunch and you know and it's so that's that um with regards to cynisca think it's very much a function of how will you create your your information and I think yeah this is this is unfortunate, a tendency for people, especially like intellectual types who want things to be objective and they're like, I remember thinking this way as well. I need to know all the bad tics, I need to know the truth, I need to know the so like you know that somewhere the the shit true, you don't need to then be in denial of that. But you also don't need to like go around sniffing, you know I mean, you don't need to, like, immerse yourself in that.

So my, my recommendation is always to, like, do an audit of what you have been consuming, what you have been reading to, your talking to. How does that make you feel? I do. Does IT inspire you to its action.

Does that inspire you to, you know, make things Better if IT doesn't, if is making you feel more helpless, more angry, more all those things, then like, what's what's the point, you know? And even just knowing that you can experience different realities by modifying what you allow in, I think that's like a huge like as a way of overcoming s cynical m and you know like our uh to be to be fair, like as a species we are new to having smartform only been fifteen years and IT takes time for like the collective to develop like antibodies and proper protocols is fine. You can read up about like when the telephone was invented, people didn't know how to use IT, and they are just call random at any hour of the day.

They wouldn't say hello, they to start talking and they would like they would have to write into magazines to complain about, like, you know, people crank call us in all that and IT ook a while for like healthy norms to develop. And I think we are still in the in the process of figuring out how to have health, chaotic information, environment, diets. But the the scary thing is that you know like A I and all these things are coming up. And so by the time we adopt, whatever is happening now, like new stuff is gonna happening faster. So it's it's it's a chAllenge .

given that longevity and doing things for a long period of time is so important to being serious that serious business is smear across time. What would be your advice to people who don't want to get seriously burned out, the people listening who go, wow, I feel seen by this. I have care and attention.

I bothered by details. I want to do things well. I want to leave the world Better than I found IT.

But I find IT a little bit exhAusting sometimes being around people who answer serious, who don't support me in my seriousness. And, uh, I I don't want to, I don't want to feel too rigid and sort of study. I need to be dynamically persistent in that way. What how can people be more sort of psychological, flexible, robust, managing their own motivation? You know it's .

coming up for me. StrAngely enough, I know you've done podcasts with a the renaissance ization guy. Um is retail? Is retail? Yes, great. yes. And I said I used to have a problem with my.

I lifting patterns where I would try to go as hard as I could and I will you go pretty wealth like three months, four months. And then I wouldn't realize IT, but I am getting kind of burn out in some way. And then I would either experience a minor injury or, thankfully, nothing serious, but like a minor injury, or I said, losing my appetite. And then, you know, I and then eventually i'd take like a week or two weeks entirely off, and then my habit will fall off the rails.

And then everything is went back and like I had like years and years of cycles of this until I watched um is miss the mike and he was talking about d loading, right and I think this is such A I can't believe I never encounter that concept until I mean, I guess I may have encountered IT in passing somewhere, but I didn't take IT very serious. Ly, but when I saw my speak about this, I got this kind, not his stuff, and I gave you a shut. And IT totally works.

It's like, so the idea is basically keep doing the raps or maybe maybe you are raps, maybe you will wait, but like, you know still show up, but like at a at a lesser intensity and that kind of keeps you in the game, but not both of the world kind of, uh, pushing itself too hot. And I feel like this a parallel here with, like seriousness in general. All just, you know any kind of project management like athletes need their downtime, right? Like rest is a part of the recovery process. And so if you're serious once about doing anything for a long period of time, you should consider how that break from the main thing keeps you like be allows you to return to the game from a with a healthy perspective.

And i'm thinking also now, uh, David or gilli, who was an excEllent copywriter, excEllent manager, a great guy, he should his book fantastic and he would he would work really, really hard for, I think, months on end and then he would switch off completely and go like into, I don't know where he would go like, uh, this goal in vacation, I guess and he would um just let his mind lay fellow and I think that the court he gave us like he would receive telegrams from his subconscious and the telegrams from his subconscious would inspire him and give him a new perspective and and that kind of think another person i'm thinking of now is a polar sure who is the designer of the city bank logo. SHE runs his great design consultants y and she's like, you know, I can't design anything if i'm not in a state of plea. So what he does is SHE sketches while she's in taxi cabs.

And yes, yeah, I think there are very few things that a interesting that don't involve some amount of playfulness, some amount of you need to step away from the thing so you can see the big picture and not get lost in the weeds of the thing. So yeah, like you know, i'm kind of going in circles a little bit because I don't want to be too prescriptive. Like if you say, oh, take seven days on and two days off, like now that is not necessary.

Maybe maybe that's correct for your thing, but like you have to be sensitive to your own rhymes. And now i'm thinking of Christopher Alexander, who's like a he he used, he was a famous like architecture thought leader, I guess you could see. And one of his courts that I keep coming back to is like this idea, improving patterns by tinkering with things and then seeing how you feel about IT.

And it's really the feeling that dictate tes the action. And that's no, you can't outsource this. You know you can't outsource you your judgment and you can out your feeling like these are things that is just like all the way to the top right.

Even if you are like be once or Taylor swift and you have a whole team of people managing your Operation, you still at the top have to judge, do I want to have this bio techniques? Do I want to have this part of the show? whatever? Like people offer you ideas, but you have to decide by your feeling. What's right. Wrong is not escaping that.

And the same for rest and the same for if you've been doing things for some time and it's not working out, like you have to sit back and feel IT and it's it's so funny to talk about IT because I think people who hear IT like, oh, yes, of course, but you know it's you really it's it's it's non trivial. It's kind of tRicky because I guess because you can get lost in the weeks so easily, so you kind of want to a practice having time away from the thing. And like A I think netlik has like in the the software department or something, they had they had distinct like got chaos monkeys where they would basically program things to break Randy so that they would be like, oh no, if this breaks, we've ta do that thing and IT IT chAllenge them to make things more robust.

And yes, I mean, and life is like that, right? And like whatever you doing, things that are gonna surprise you and blindside you. And so so okay, if you are person, try to be serious and overwhelmed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to avoid that. And then also, I suppose you can add into IT, how do how do these people deal with the inevitable set of friction that they feel with people around them? Because if you somebody that is serious about things, you're going na become very disliked because you throw everybody else into quite harsh contrast.

Yeah, that's very difficult. So this is why my first book title, friendly, ambitious. Because there are three variables. And so a lot successful people tend to be ambitious nurse. And if they're not friendly and when I see friendly, you know it's like sensitive to other people.

This is this is tough because the people who are really at the abyss, lute cutting age most exceptional, they tend to be uncompromising. They tend to be you know just very intense characters who they see that as the point of view is correct because they they have put in so much work into IT. And so it's like they don't suffer fools, right? And yeah it's like how much do you suffer fools is basic.

The question, how do you do IT in a way that is, well, each person has to decide for themselves based on their values, how kind they want to be to people who can do nothing for them. Or, you know, I even interrupting the process and I am kind of, you know, I remember when I was a kid and I felt like a idiot, and I felt like a, you know, no one was looking out for me and I had no metals or no whatever, and I really just needed someone to kind of show me around and help me out. So i'm kind of bias towards when I see someone struggling or I see someone lashing out or being whatever I try to, you know, like, can I at least, if I can I at least say something that they might consider little on and like, oh yeah, you know, I think the guy was unreasonably nice to me.

But you know, I I don't know if I, I, I ve gone back and forth with regards to, like, how much should I like lecture people on that they should be nice to other people. You know, I I think this is one of those things where you may have some predisposition, and I can vary a little bit slightly. And like, you know, i'm reminded of when the google go founders were looking for funding, right? And like I think one of the investors said something like, oh, these guys are so arrogant and they are so um just not socially nice, right?

They're are not kissing the ring and they're not they just kind of saying, oh yeah, we want to organza world's information and it's gonna great and I am perthes ing what this is. I I don't think this is is going to be great. It's like just spoke in very clinical terms about precisely what they were gonna, which is like I would say it's to tell for, like you know, the rocket scientists and the the the people that are really serious about technical things and they want to make progress on things like the they are thing oriented people rather than people oriented people.

So they don't you know they like they often they're like neural division or to stick something like that. And so you know and I think, okay, here's what I think you don't nobody needs to do everything by themselves, you know and it's it's a it's a false iron to insist that your cutting h scientists should also be a very smooth um like political Operator and it's not realistic to expect someone to be both, although like really exceptional people up. But realistically, most people are gonna like specialize at the thing they're good at.

But like the the the cool thing is life is a multiplying a game, right? Like with people in I kind of indoctrinated by school to think that you got to do stand tests, you ve got to get good rates at everything. And you know, like that kind of like super generalist perspective, where else you know there's a lot of things where actually you just need a friend. You just need like one friend who can cover you for that. You you just need like a handler or a manager.

And you know also like like my wife shei would say my wife is smarter than me in terms of like reading people and in terms of there is a bunch of ways in which my wife is smile than me but he doesn't like talking to people that much but like so SHE married me and so he gets to benefit from like my social butterfly um instincts of inclinations and I get to benefit from her being you know kind of like analytical about budgets and schedules. And so like there's a code from rocky which is like, you know we each have gaps, but together we have no gaps. So yeah, I think the good news is we can treat IT like so we can make friends.

So you you so you have to make at least one friend and ideally every like anti social, you know, they not trying to be antisocial. But the kind of person who isn't very good with people should have one person in the corner who's like the they are representative or the advocate or someone someone who can look out for them and kind of translate the perspective to other people. Uh, again, it's like the year to one point of this is the highest. Like when you don't have anyone, that's when it's really tough. But I think even just knowing that is possible that if you can find someone who's like a nut whisperer and I I consider myself basically that like i'm i'm kind of a not whisper i'm nutty in general but i'm not like all the way intends to the point where i'm.

Tinkering with stuff, then you're able you're able to translate for the ones who are too far down the artist later to be able to communicate you like the gateway drug to the .

civilization basic. That is true actually. So yeah, I described this as like being like the bridge between walls, right I I am a fan of like timeout from like the north ethology and yeah we we need bridge people to bridge people well so you you said .

before about um you had this sort of sense that you was a kid was yearning for role models to somebody to give you an encouraging world in your area. Um I think I was very similar. I came up with this idea of the reverse role model because you ve heard of food deserts in america.

I think I was in the equivalent of a role model desert and the U. K. Classic working classroom. Not many people like the person I wanted to be like.

And um I realized that I think most success from life doesn't necessarily come from expendable success, but from avoiding tragedy and failure. Like if you multiple by zero, you completely out of the game. So at at least, there is much more downside to be had the potential upside.

So what I found was people who are very much like the sort of person I didn't want to be. So I don't want his relationship with gambling, and I don't want the way that he cheats on his wife all the time. And I don't want the fact that this person never really seems to be able to speak their mind.

And it's so and so forth. And the wave markers in the ground, you sort of place these different way markers of stuff that you don't want to be like. And I think that's reassuring to anybody that feels like they haven't yet found a role model or an encouraging word in your ear. Because if you haven't had a single one of those, the likelihood is that you haven't just been sort of moving through some really boring gray middle one, what you ve been exposed to with the opposite end of the belt v lots of people like the person you don't want to be like. And he was just I thought that was an interesting and nice uh, way for me to a rationalize a alchemise the situation that i'd been and it's for the people who don't have that many role models around them i'm sort of pair for yeah I respect that .

so much you know to decide to do that kind of alchemy is is a profound I am curious like did you did you read anything you would you point at anything that kind of set you off on that? Or do you feel like I was .

really just within IT was intuition I think mostly um that I just I didn't fit in. I didn't I didn't resonate with the people around me in the way that they resonated with the people around them. And you know you find little glimpses every so often if someone that you can sort of get on with a much of this is your problem, right? Much of this is a you thing, but you don't really fully know how to present yourself in the most legible way.

Yeah, how is IT the best for me to be understood by people? It's not compromising. It's not changing yourself. It's not being a shaped shifting like sort of social crime, but it's putting your best easy to understand foot forward you know you don't need to talk to people about your rampant flatulence or rect out this function on the first date.

You save that for further deadline and um yeah sort of social morays and Graces and how you sort of slowly acclimatized people to you um is a skill it's a real skill and it's a scale specifically for people who are serious and who care about things and ah who want to have deep in interesting relationships that they terrified that if they bring that up to early on, people are going to think that they some sort of a nerd or or they're not fun, they're not playful, they're na be a buzz kill. I don't bring VISA like she's just gone to talk about feelings again, you know I mean, like that you don't want to be that guy, especially when you're Young. And I I really think that the point you made before about how when you're first starting out, you have no legitimacy.

why? Why on earth do you person at the same level as everybody else, R E zero, novice, beginner, starter, think that you have the right to be able to be this serious about anything? Why on a so fucking patronizing in a way that you believe it's solipsistic, it's egotistical, it's not assist to think that you deserve this level of like rigger. But then when you look back like you, you need to have some of that that Spark needs to be there or you're never going to take IT sufficiently seriously to actually be able to come become good to IT.

Yeah I actually yeah I thought about this a lot. And I I encountered IT myself back then, and even now sometimes, and I find what myself, what I find myself often saying is that, you know, so that they are assumptions buried in culture that people just internalized from the upbringing, from wider society, whatever.

And the idea of deserving is very is very tRicky stuff you know is is a like, you know I think this is implicit sense that and so it's like status, hierarchy and concepts of like a royalty even like like he goes back all the way to like our founding, like our earliest miss mythology. And you know, like if if you go back and you know you can actually look at like disney movies and even superhero movies or whatever, and it's like, oh, you have to be a prince or princess to be able to have agency, right? And like and that's like this start from its impact is like you're the chosen one, you are the divine, whatever everyone else is, just you meant to be a present, basically.

And like this, this intuition still remain in modernity, right? And the way I I put IT is like a i'm not special that I get to be serious. Anyone can do IT it's is there for the taking, right? And it's just I guess um maybe they might have been some validity to those old theistic CS in ancient times but you know and like one one N L G I would use is like IT used to be that if you wanted to have your own T V show or a podcast, whatever you basically had to go through the gatekeepers of traditional media.

And back then producing video is a very expensive thing to do. And so IT was a highly resort intensive. And like whoever had the cameras back then, like, you know, their whole Operations, like they you would need to justify things to them.

You would need, oh, i'm gonna a show is going to make this much money and gone to grow this much audience or whatever. And now we have like youtube and iphone, so whatever, like even end like the cheapest form. You anyone can record anything and upload IT for basically free anytime.

But that has been true for like a decade at least. And yet people still think that we will always use our old intuitions yes. And so like the present reality that we live in culturally is always like thirty to fifty years behind.

Oh, maybe even more think you may, as you say, you know this medieval surf m environment where well, you're going to work for the barren and the barren and is not going to let you do this thing. You had this odd, you need to have agency bestowed on you. But you're right. See the terms. Ms, freed this up.

There was a time where you, as a parent, if your son is trying to let me wear fancy, you would be protecting him by telling him, don't do that. The barren has a temper. He doesn't like to see anyone other than royals dress up.

He's gone to kill you. And so they are protecting you by saying those things. But like that's no longer true but you know I just it's like that story of like the five monkeys like beating each other because they used to get executed. So yeah like culture evolves very slowly relative.

Like I had A I had a great conversation with this guy that researched the history of humans discovering their own ability to destroy themselves so a history of existence al risk um and he's got this great term that is apparently in the literature called conceptual inertia. And let's say that we we have A A cop onic and revolution. We go to learn that the universe is perhaps constructed in a different way to the one that we believe.

And first of people will deny that it's true, and you will continue to continue to push with evidence and data and so on. And so fourth, observation. And then after a while, maybe some of the elites will begin to accept that is true, that maybe some of the Normal people will begin to accept that is true, but they still don't behave as if IT is.

And that conceptual initiate, the the architect es, the stories that we tell ourselves. It's the way that we see the world and this just legs behind this lumbering behemoth that we need to fucking drag along. And the other thing just just kind of round out that the social element, because I do I I do get the sense that a really important seriousness uh element that um the social incentives will align for you to go back to the mean with anything, whatever IT is that you do.

Even if it's aggression, you will be socialized to be less aggressive if it's funny. Ss, like if you you're too much of a comedian or if I do come on, we're trying to be say to it's a fuck funeral that to be seriously um but and I always wanted, especially because I was very sort of lonely as a kid. I was wanted to work out how to make people like me.

I wanted to be accepted. I want you to have friends. I want you to have a support system. And IT took, probably until about a year ago, for me to realize that.

I always thought that people wanted to be around charismatic individuals, other people around them, to be charismatic, to have some sort of no gravitation sense, some sort of poll. And then I reflected on the friends that I like to spend my time around. And IT wasn't the people who were the most interesting.

IT was the people who made me feel like I was the most interesting. So I came up with this idea of, uh, inverse charisma, which is what you want to be trying to cultivate, is not necessarily a sense of everybody going god. And so glad this is coming gna tell us all these amazing stories is going to be like regaled with the dance.

Now he's going to do the limbo thing again, we do. And that what we want is this is going to come. Thought, like I, he always brings the best out of me. I always feel good when i'm around him and none of the feel good when you're around. This person has got anything really to do with them other than that love, that kindness, that curiosities meet across time.

And uh yeah I think it's just for the fellow uh carisma unconfused out there, the people who are maybe down that you full of confidence and charm and wet and wise y uh IT kind doesn't matter. You can actually be one of the best liked people in the room to whatever regard you care about, simply by being interested in the other people are not necessarily by just being interesting. Yeah.

I think I think this a kind of selection bias effect or a garishness effect. I I call the version of this the time square problem. Well, like people like imagine thinking that the only thing in new york is time square, which is like all the ads and all the gary flights and everything, which is you know it's it's interesting to check out but like similarly like you know, some people think of the only people on youtube but like mr.

Beast and and whoever is like is when there's like so much interestingness just like those streets down three streets are down. Like you can I follow this like publish um some get some guide running a really old printing press kind of thing is fascinating and it's yeah it's it's it's like that kind of uh it's not exactly the same thing. But like his love for his craft really shines and everyone in his domain loves to be around that. This is so nice to see someone lovingly tending to the thing that they care about and he doesn't need to be showing your flash, your love. That's just, you know, if if you filled that out, suddenly you look at the rest of the landscape and it's like, oh, is so much interesting less everywhere.

Talk to me about the relationship between seriousness and honesty ness.

Hm, well, I feel like, honestly is at the heart of, like you can really be serious and not be earnest. St, right? I guess, I guess you can, you can choose how much of IT you want to show.

I'm not i'm not entirely sure why i've used two different phrases in two different essay, but it's just um IT just felt natural to me I guess a so I I think my my honest ness essay says there's nothing is er than being earnest st. So I got around to talking about honesty by talking about agents. And I guess I like the illiterate.

That's probably how in the up doing that because you could also say there's nothing ideer than seriousness, but it's nice to have a but so because the interesting thing about um you know so some people want to be you know they don't want to go with the social hurt, right? They don't want to just say what I run us is saying. They don't want to think what I run us is thinking and so they beginning of that and then they think, well, I should contradict what is being sek, which can be know a little bit of a public service.

And I think that was more of a public service in the past when we didn't have like twitter and comments like you in in your social friend group, if five, if you are a group of six guys and five guys always saying the same thing, the six guy who says the other thing is providing the group with like a useful service, right in a sense. But if it's something like, you know, you say you upload something online and some like, inevitably, you know some guy is gonna present the critical like contrary perspective. So each additional contrary perspective doesn't add very much.

And again, is one of those things where, like, people are not yet good at acting in large groups, they still no snow flake feel s responsible for the avlon ch rate. Um but the cool thing is, and no, I didn't fish at that. Um if you are going to a try to be edge by reacting to what the consensus is always gonna a be lagging behind the consensus. So the consensus is the then you analyze IT, you compute your response and you always going to follow the consensus. And in fact, so like if you're like a rigid heterodoxies, like you're being the opposite of what autotote y you mather you you can like map IT out almost mathematically people you you're still following the hurt.

You're just yeah, a black sheep is still a sheep.

right? yeah. And on the other hand, the interesting thing is if you follow if you go in words, right, you follow your own heart, you follow your own interestingness. You do what you deeply care about because each individual is socialized like kind of on the outside place of socialization.

Begin like the the way to talk about this is like a Young children when they first start writing poetry, they write excEllent poetry because they haven't learned how ordinary people speak. And so they have all these very fresh users of freezing that seems surprising and almost like authorial like very cool things until they get to like I don't know, like study for them and they start caring about their appeals. And so yes, yeah kids like toddlers like three to seven, they are excEllent freak.

no. And I think um several artists have courts that's like the chAllenges to remain like and not let the world whatever difficult but yeah so if you if you got in words and express what's really true for you and what you feel you know like what you'd like daydream about what what you dream about literally. So like that stuff and you express that you end up being more and contrary, you end up being away from the heart, right?

Like so like I think this is other thing where people who make predictions within a group, they tend to like they are playing the Prices, right, sort of you know, they all kind of calibrate their guesses in relation to everybody else's guesses. And so it's like a bell cup of what all the people guess. And sometimes the answer is way out in the field, fall away from the belgrave.

It's like thousand times more, ten thousand times more than, uh, what in whatever direction. And the person who figured that out is the person who wasn't listening to everybody else. And the way yes, so the personnel isn't listening will from time to time be more radically edge than the person who's trying to be edge. It's a kind of a trip you think about IT for a while and it's like wall, you know yeah just falling your own rythm gets you somewhere else.

You have this great line in that S A where you say, as a general principle, if your position on things can be picked very easily, predictably, it's probably worth being suspicious of IT because you're basically running a simple script. And if nothing else, maybe consider that you might soon be easily replaced by a ChatGPT bot coming to your tweet, the time line near you. I talked to earlier about how honestly gets suppressed. Sometimes a person who has lost the ability to focus on what they actually want can become superficially motivated by the social activity of attacking other people for the imperfection in their references. It's a fairly holo form of nourishment, but hungry people without any good food will eat anything they get.

Yeah, man, I sound Better .

and right there it's .

it's a beauty. Yeah so I should get you the right to speak my audio books um yeah it's that's true. You know it's it's what what is that say about that? It's really well when I hear that you know I find myself feeling some empathy for you know people who don't know how to be Better than a hate you know, it's like nobody were you know like some people say they want to be haters.

But, you know, I kind of believe that if you could know how, if you could figure out how to be adult for your use synchronous personal flavor and style essence like, you wouldn't wanna go around disturbing, like, annoying people for engaging like, again, we live one short life and like, you want to look back and like, oh yeah, I really know pretty well yeah, the some context in wish that true. But like if you're doing IT like compulsively, you wake up in the morning, you throw your feet and you look for someone to be mean to, like, uh, you can do Better. You can do Better than that. That's my thing.

Yeah, what's your room? You start. That S A with this really lovely quote from ted hues saying, that's how we measure out our real respect for people by the degree of feeling that they can register.

What's think of this actually ties back to what we're talking about earlier about, uh, when I was bringing up Christopher example and stuff like you have to feel like feeling is feeling is the highest band with thing that a person is capable of.

I think like this that is you know I I love this this is book called the user illusion by tor norry trend is is a danish physicist it's not a very popular but because this was written in danish originally but he has all these brilliant bits about consciousness and um one of think he says is that the band wife of feeling is more than the band wife of knowledge or I am parceling I don't know what exactly right now and the benefit knowledge is more than the best benefit communication. So we view more than we know, and we know more than we can say, right? Like and thinking is somewhere and no to say aspect.

So what that if you sit with that, you really feel that what do you realized is that you feel more than you can see, you feel more than you like what you think about something and what you feel about something, the feeling is much more nuances. The feeling is much more and think about you know um into right like the one the west I think about intuition is that is like you have a felt understanding of all of the ecology of relationships of things around you. One of my favorite stories is uh I think you want to come bills books.

He talks about a fireman who goes to a fire, and like a senior fireman, and like all the fireman, I trying to walk on the fire, and he is just standing there. And he's like, something's not right. We gotta get out.

Like, it's we we gotta get out and then he gets everyone out. And like a second later, the whole house collapses. He didn't think was going on. He felt IT. And what he felt was IT turns out that he felt that the fire is not going away.

The way that should this is not enough smoke for this level of p there must be, uh, in turns out that the fire was in the basement, so it's way hotter than what they were used to and like. But that something he felt he didn't think IT right. And I feel that similar to that kind of intuition, and that kind of intuition requires domain familiarity and expertise.

So it's not the lack dyal. I feel like, you know, the world should be more like. So I feel like, you know, having an ice cream, if you want to have an ice, am go hit. But like, you know, it's like I feel that that person is bad vives. Like, you know, OK, those things are kind of IT varies from context, the context.

But what i'm getting at is there is so like going back to the tech hues court, the amount of feeling that we are able to experience and like surf the waves off, because like our education systems and civilization at the whole right to minimize um inconvenience to people, because we are all smooth together and very cramped environment. Civilization is I call IT, you know like a iterative party training, right? Like the most fundamental level, please don't shit in the street, don't shut in front of your friends.

Like shit in the toilet, right, and shit on. Like try to do IT at appropriate times, you know. So like party training is good, like you want people IT.

Maybe if you live a liberating the child, you can shit wherever you want. Whatever you want doesn't want anybody else. But like it's a public health issue if people are shooting everywhere.

So people need to be party train, right? And what that means is you need to be like emotionally review. You need to regulate your feelings.

You think you want to go out, you got to hold and go somewhere else. But okay, so that's that's party training and then you go on to i'm angry. No, you shouldn't be angry like you're saying you get socialized to be less aggressive, right?

You need to we need to find ways to express our feelings in healthy ways and in good containers that don't hurt other people and is like excessively or unnecessary whatever. But so from civilization point of view, that's a little bit more complicated and complex than I can manage. So what if this is tells people to suppress themselves and IT IT forces this through culture and institutions and everything else.

And so you have all these people who are suppressed all the time, and they feel like IT, and they don't really know why, and then they take drugs and then they all all those things. But um IT is possible once you awakened to this reality, to realize that you have the capacity to reregulate yourself in a way that is optimal for you, right? So that the thing is, civilization mechanisms are optimal for civilization, and we all enjoy the benefits of civilization. So, you know, I am not like N D civilization or and capital or N D whatever is that we inherit the circumstances that we're in, it's on us to take IT in double give the exit.

No, i've got the idea, in my mind, of being overcivilized. Yeah, there is a degree of being over civilized and done to .

civilized the now imagine how to a barbarian civilizes and insult like you people need contracts to make to like, do things together, like you don't trust each other, you put people in boxes in jail like this is you know it's a different value system.

right? It's certainly something that i've had to get over.

Um did therapy twice a week for around about the last year or so uh in that you're basically inviting somebody into a very intimate part of your home and that pointing all of the weird stuff you've got ten like why is that single Spike on the floor over there? And what's that this used train set about? And what's this and that thing? And I know you see, you keep on walking over to the sink.

Backward is opposed to forward, whatever, whatever. And one of the things I realize is that I have a people pleasing tendency. I see other people's emotions as my, that there well being emotionally is on me, and that it's it's partly my problem. One of the issues that you come across with that is, is very difficult to advocate for your own needs or your own wants or to learn to forcibly say no because you know that invariably this is going to cause some sort of imposition or discomfort to somebody else and if your concern is ever making anybody else ever feel uncomfortable, it's very unlikely that if you will subjugate your own desires in place of their well being even if you're in the right, even if you as a person, that is, you should advocate for you. Um so that's been a sort of a really interesting way of literally trying to uncivilized yue in some regards, I guess.

And the cause of people, lisa, is that people can tell or like your declaring, people can tell if you are like stiff in a way that's like, oh, you, I need to put your needs first. And then so conciousness all consciously, if you've thought about these things, they know that they can't entirely trust you to take care of your needs. And so then they don't, they're not please, right? Then they don't trust you and then it's like, oh, you want to make them feel Better and they like, I don't trust you.

You know like you did you say in the seriousness I say it's like this sort of odd uh round about um uncomfortable truth of life that the more you don't care about what other people think about you, the more they seem to like you.

It's crazy. It's such you know i'm writing about all this from a new angle now where I talk about like uh a blessin spiral upwards and a regardless spiral downwards and like it's so tragic because the more blessed are the and it's it's so harsh actually. You know, it's like every time you cross the dressed, suddenly everything is just Better.

And I think people know this instinctively, which is what part of what drives the desire for like a wealth and like social climbing is that you know that at the next level some things are less bad. And like you know I remember once my wife and I um I think was during cove IT oh something with that discount, unlike the fans city hotel in town. And so we decided to go, and IT was wonderful.

And then we had breakfast the next morning with all these people who are very obviously wealthier than us, like a whole tax basket or two tax bracket tier. And I IT was such a lovely environment. Everyone, like people, are playing with the children, everyone speaking politely.

I found myself getting kind of angry like men. Rich people have a good and not just that they have consumer um you know surplus or consumer surplus, not that they have spending power, right, is not that they have fancy things is that in the nice neighborhood it's peaceful. It's no i'm sure this problems that i'm not aware of like this more pressure you like this small like they seem to have a lot of like family squabs about inherited ance and stuff. So like every context has its own upside and downsides. But in that moment else, like, well, like I am underestimating how much I would actually appreciate, like having the access to those kinds of species.

which is, uh, but think about how much less stress that would be on you you know this this sort of public, this old power strap, which is only, yes, poverty is very expensive. If if you're constantly having to get credit lines extended, if you're having to work two jobs, which means you can improve your education or your qualifications to get a Better paying job, your kind of stuck and then you, some people get to escape velocity in one regard another.

And some people know the Ellen of the world, the basis is of the world, have this kind of like infinite money glitch, or at least IT seems like that here to everybody else. And then think what sort of quality of life comes along with that. And yeah, it's it's a weird it's a weird thought to consider are the advantages that Richard da spiral and that that sort of a ascendency spiral as well.

Yeah, yeah it's just such a and you know, it's almost too much to think about sometimes I think I think again, like everyone is living in the immediacy of the reality, right? So it's like you have what you're to do this for next week. You know, once you know you got to ship the stink for work, you're got to deal with changing the oil on the something, you know, this all these nativity things and it's chAllenging to step back and really see the big picture and have like a long view of what do I really want my life circumstances to be and you know it's a yeah it's a lot. It's what's your advice for .

people to sort of continue struggling cheerfully when things aren't going quite .

as they hoped? human. I have been in that state for the past couple of years ish. It's unna because you know when I was, it's like a so I I have struggled differently, a different stages of my life and currently is the best stage.

You know like i'm when I was a teenager I was struggling with, you know my family didn't believe me when I said I want to be like a an author and like my friends you know, not not like, didn't like that. I, I, I strugling to get people to take me seriously. Like those struggles were in some ways harder, but in some ways also, I guess, more freeing.

So this goes back to every stage is different and has its present coins. Uh, but so in my current stage, like I i've written two books that i'm happy with and my readers love them. But like instead of directing my energy towards like doing marketing for them and selling more books and whatever I feel like, I gotto move on to the next project, and like, do the third day.

And that has been a struggle for me because, I mean, I guess any, any interesting work creatively is gonna struggle, because you trying to build something that doesn't already exist. And so you have to find new perspectives, and you have to, you you you wanted say something. And IT hasn't quite been set before and you don't know how people are gonna receive IT and you know a lot.

And I have woken up very often. I got what my doing with my life, and I my, what I might, how I gonna do this thing. Why is progress so so like this? All these unpleasant thoughts. And I have to IT takes effort to contextualize things for myself, but I have to actively remind myself and I go for a walk or something and like, VISA do know you living your dream, your your teenage sales to dream like if I could talk to my seventeen yourself and be like, oh yeah, you know, I don't have a job.

I just right and I talk to people I just do what about I like, I just, you know you like what? How is that possible? Like how you succeed IT like you have made IT men i'm like, yeah, I just feel like, you know, I this is called from Steve jobs again where he says, when you haven't succeeded yet, when you when you like a nobody, right? You is fun to fantasize about all the rich and all the things that about dreams, like grand dreams.

But once you have some means, once you have some money, you have some authorities, some influence, whatever, now the chance of your dreams coming true is not zero, is not one, neither is like in between. And you have responsibility for to make that happen. And it's a bladen, some responsibility. I feel and like, you know, I always feel survivors guilt as a creative.

You know, why me? Why not? I know that there are people who are surely more time than more interesting to you, but you extra, I was, so they haven't had time to, right, right? And I always feel like I gotta make IT for that guy, you know, because he this maybe my I feel like it's a little bit similar to to your people, please think stuff maybe i'm not sure.

But like, anyway, you are asking about, how do I help people who want to struggle creatively or struggle cheerfully, right? Ha, that's later to this. But adding, mark manson has a quote about, like, whatever you do, you going to have to eat IT have, think shit so much in this go. Whatever you gona do, you are gna have to eat IT. So find the flavor of shit sandwich .

that you like thing yourself toward the pains rather than .

the pleasure yeah like what pain can you endure and like what? So imagine you struggle at a thing for the rest of your life and on your death bit. You know, IT, maybe you had, like some minor success, but I never really fully paid off.

But you imagine yourself, so imagine you could, like, this is a great, great exercise, by the way, I thought experiment of im, visualize your old self and visualized your Young self. And I just have a conversation with them. So I imagine like a ninety one hundred year old VISA, and I I imagine a few different versions of them.

But like one one of them is like VISA. I've been working my butt off fifty, sixty years writing every day, and I have not achieved any great success. And then, but like, unlike, but did you did you love IT? Yeah, I love you.

I love. I love writing. I love playing with words. I made friends of other authors, and we discussed things that were interesting and and you know, IT was a good life. Like, I can I can visualize that if you told me something.

Like, well, imagine VISA, you know, being a software engineer and like, never really like I, I, I, I know I could do if I want to do, I don't want to do, you know. So fine, this struggle that you enjoy for its own sick and you don't mind not succeeding IT. And then you can like you have the the energy to keep going.

And I guess defined for yourself small Victories that are Victories to you, even if it's not Victories to other people. And I found IT i've i've been writing for a long time. There were things that I rule, like ten years ago, or like many years ago, where nobody in my life then came about my right thing, but I thought I was good.

And then now, ten plus years later, when I do have an audience, I can share that all stuff with my audience. And they like, world, this is really good. And like, yeah, I know, right? So it's like if you are a success to yourself and no one else sees IT, but you have to see IT, right? If like, that's a quote for think from less Brown.

Like if no one else will see IT for you, you have to see IT for yourself like you have to be honest about what you think is good work. What you think is this was worth doing. I think this is worth doing.

I think this is worth struggling IT and if no one else sees IT, i'm just I will see IT for myself and then you try and find one other person who can see IT and then another person and then another person right? And then um in that kind of mindset, I think um you can try to be cheerful about IT. That's all these other like project management nativity stuff. So like don't attempt extremely large projects that might like sink your ship if you feel you know like I think ng sets something like right a hundred like a outlines of S S. Or draft something like, so you can if if you can, like the status thing I see from time to time is like an author who spent or like a start founder or an author who spent several years of their life and a lot of their money and their resources and whatever, working on a project that turned that they had, like this White whale idea.

I when my novel is done, and yeah, and you do this really big thing, and then you talk to people about IT for the first time and they're not interested, and then there's just so depressing and so just happening, what you wants to do and this part of like being cheerful and whatever you want to do, a little sketches, little outlines at all drafts, and then share them with people and then like, see how they respond. And if you just talk to people every couple of days, even just a regular conversation, you may know this. At some point you make someone laugh, or at some point like their eyes like that. And those are the moments that you want to like, collect and and pay attention to and like you do more of that.

I love the idea of sort of the chAllenges that the person who's not yet successful, but not a total nub uh, is encountering and the fact that sympathy for successful people is very unpopular. But, uh, there is certain ly a new skills set that everybody needs to learn. Like, just imagine that you get toward where you want to be, not even where you want to be.

Just imagine you get word where you want to be. What fears are going to come into your life that you don't have right now. But what about the fear of losing something? You ve got something to fucking lose now. The climbing higher simply gives you further to fall. You've got the owner on you to continue doing the thing, because if you don't, you've actually risked something now is supposed to before.

You know, if you haven't made any, if no one reads your blog, if nobody cares about your t shirt designs, if no one supporting your sports team or your buying your products or whatever, what does that matter if you quit? IT doesn't can. It's all on you.

It's just a passion project. But that's not the case anymore. You ve got this beautiful idea of the scarcity spirit. Uh, IT really sort of spoke to me.

You say this particular goal looks to me like a scarcity spread, a gabbi anxious, being terrified of coming across as ungrateful, out of touch and selfish, terrified of losing or ring the opportunity that fortune has granted us. It's a sort of emotional flashback of some sort, not something I expect i'll have to sit with a meditator on as I revisit this. A small part of me, shiny, raises his hand like a kid in a classroom and says, it's okay. If you lose everything, i'll still .

be your friend .

yeah dude, fucking unbelievable that sense of support from yourself from the past. I'm proud of you for doing what .

you did yeah that's I have my moments yeah you know it's a when I right you know when I hear this right? IT doesn't feel like me know I can recover ze that is me but it's my it's kind of a peak state me like when I think I know everything right it's a day to day. I don't feel like my best self.

I don't feel like my best write herself but got to keep doing stuff and then IT just comes by in flow um Elizabeth gilbert has a great tech talk about this where he talks about the the myth of the genius, of the creative genius like in a sense, where is like he goes back to because he was a successful author of IT, pray, love and SHE describe how when she's a strugling author, people will like how you going to feel never making anything worthwhile. I want to never going to make IT and then immediately after you made IT, immediately people are like, all are too afraid you're never going to match up to their success she's like, what the fuck man you like yeah really so yeah and so he looked up like the history of how people thought about these things. And like, I think, in the roman times.

So like antiquity, people like, okay, people get possessed by genius from time to time. So if you do good work, it's not you. You don't get the, you don't get full credit. And if you do bad, well, you don't get a full blame.

You know, it's like the creative sometimes just creativity happens and we are we are vessels for that, right? And but yeah, if regards to discuss this spread is really anyway, I I think maybe maybe I like indoctrinated myself a little bit with like video games, motivational stuff and like but I I feel that to be true. You know like I really just want to have my own back.

I really just I think it's a quote from mountain where he says, you know, you can try to be clever and fancy with all your words and stuff, but on your death bit you're gonna really confront, you know, the bar like barrace troops about yourself. Like did you live up to what you wanted? Do you forgive yourself for whatever do you? And like those very basic things.

And I I think about that a lot. I like, how can I be a Better friend to myself so that I can be a Better friend to other people? And so it's funny.

It's unna that I am so quick. The goal from that first sense of the next is like, you know, like self love or self care, therefore, that I can help people, right? Yeah.

subducting of desires. I must put other people first. Who am I to ask for the attention? Even from myself, my attention should be paid on to other people.

No, I do. I'm i'm balls deep in in the chAllenge at the moment. Speak in the tactical stuff, can talk mark manson quotes all day.

You spent a good bit time looking at program inside. what? What is the T L D R thirty thousand foot view as somebody that needs to write lots of words and do things self powered every year. What's the T L D R of procris since?

Yeah so, you know, funny. I spent like your reading everything I could about IT analyzing IT psychoanalyzing myself in everything these days. I don't even use the term n anymore.

I don't I don't you know it's uh, I think one of the most major things I ve learned is that you you really have to focus on the outcomes that you want and not the outcomes that you don't want. And even describing things in terms of procrastination, somehow I feel IT tends to like reinforced the procrastination, you know. So I don't know this is like a silly radical view.

I can try and to answer the question directly but like my my meta of view is that um you don't even need to use that tub you know like think about what you want, ask yourself what's in the way of getting to do what you want and and the problem is you know very often procrastination is like trying to protect you. You know, it's trying to protect you from doing something that you don't actually want you like. My wife and I have been procrastinating on renovating our house for years and years, and I eventually realized all I do want to to live in this neighbor. Od, and I have not being honest with myself about that and like, but my subconscious protects me from making a costly financial decision, like a very costly financial decision, by just putting IT off like, no, no, let's let's keep looking less whatever.

And the moment I realized that, oh, I actually want to be in a Better net hood, then like it's so easy to fall into, i'm gonna see an agent, i'm gonna to look at houses and like everything is just flows from there, so that I think a lot of times procrastination is, you know, maybe you don't you don't actually want to do the thing and I think people struggle is like, well, but I need to pay the bill so I have to have a job, so I have to, which is fat, right? I I most people go through that, but I think a lot of things bills down to the like the story you're telling yourself about why you need to do what you're doing. Uh, I I have been helping some friends with these issues recently.

And one pattern I keep noticing is people have like this task master inside their head that's like beating them up and over again like you should be doing the thing why you're not doing IT like you're so lazy you so 我在 and is IT doesn't get to the truth of why you should I should not be doing IT what you are what you care about what you afraid of um and yeah so when I talking to my friend， he he was trying to spend less time on twitter and i'm like, why why why he said, oh, I spend so much time twitter and instagram m and whatever and I don't get any work done and so I should spend less time on those things and like I don't I don't think that's actually true. You know like somewhere out there that someone else who spends twice as much time on the social S U. But they're happy because they are achieving their goals.

So like why do are you know why is that that you're focusing on lowering the thing that you think you don't want instead of increasing the thing that you actually do? what? And then we we like we talked about that for like almost an hour and we got around to, well, he wants to be like doing some research stuff, but he hasn't you know made a study plan.

He hasn't. And his initial plan was i'm going to read this whole textbook in a week. That's not possible. It's a dense textbook so you got to publish the thing. So you know, it's so interesting when you laid IT all out IT turns out that this guy has the thing he wants to do has like and you know if you split him into two people, imagine that that's like the the client and the worker, right? Like the client is on the right, like, split him to two people, one person asking the other person to do the job, right?

Like the manager and the worker the manager is giving this really big, you know, requests like unreasonable time lines, not not unclear what needs to be done, what needs to be shipped, whatever, just get work done. And the worker is like furnished, you know like i'm just to often watch the video games or whatever because there's the the gradient of work to be done is just so out of weak that they are not going to do. 所以 有 you have to respect that。

There's some part of you within you that will not except shooting management, right? So people are shooting bosses of themselves. And you know I guess that some funny theory tree here where people might might be like, oh yeah, you know, like bad, what please, environments are horrible, my boss shops, my this, whatever and like, how are you managing your own home, your own head, your own whatever and people inherit the talk from their parents, from their teachers, from the whatever.

And it's like, you ve got to work harder. You ve got to do more. You, you got to like in this very is nebulous wake.

And so I always ask people and ask my friends, uh, what are you really trying to accomplish? why? What is the most like sensible, reasonable, interesting, exciting way to do IT?

Um and like if you find if you really want the thing and the path to getting there make sense and you can see your progress to is the thing and video games do this really well, just have video games are so fund to play. You have some mission, you have some objective. And like, you know, you know how much X, P you gonna get from each monster you kill, you get the goal, you get the skilled points, is very clear.

The game has done the hard work of project managing your tasks for you. So you going there and you have a good manager in the game in shiny and color, but like you can do the same in your own life with your own projects. You know, those are practicing guitar, whatever.

Like how much are you practicing? What specific thing to do? What progress? What is the reward? Like, what song do you want to be able to play? And when you make that progress, progress feels good. And what's interesting is that I think people don't even feel that they deserve the right to feel good making progress on their work. That's the real painful thing that they feel that work should be miserable and difficult.

Pure work ethic.

yes. And that's what really and they have that which is like, imagine a boss saying, oh, you're all gonna have to grind, grind every weekend, every night and the in place is like, yeah sure and then they just the hearts not in IT and then so then you get this conflict, this this um just this time this the person becomes an integrated to get split selves and you have this phrases like a revenge bit time procrastination where basically like you you you know and think it's your prefrontal cortex this is making all the plants is like the manager is a shy guy it's you in love the rings the king feared and and then this the the warm tung whispering poison in this year is like a lot of people's prefer the context is warm tongue is like, you know, you you you got ta do more days.

You gotta this not okay kind of thing and it's when you see that as that and then you like and I have this whole log with guns is a friend who sees what's best in you and encourages you to grasp your sort of of uh agency and do what you actually want to do and um yeah so when people's like and when you get tired like you you you prefer the connect shutdown said the boss leaves the office and then what people to grow off like, we've been granted on this thing. That doesn't mean any sense that less you know like we need to have fun too. So we're going to and at that point, you feel like you you burn out your tired and you feel you have no choice but the like, go along with the thing and next thing you know you're an abandon three, and then and then you feel bad about that. And then you feel bad about that and then you justify, I should be harsher on myself. And then .

the solution, the only solution is to grip things more tired. Yeah, I I wrote this, I say, yesterday and actually spoke IT at a live show last night. So this this might be interesting to you.

I wrote, I think taibi people have a type b problem, and type b people have a taibi problem. Insecure over achiever s need to learn how to chill out and relax, and lazy people need to learn how to work harder or and be disciplined. Giving me subscribed to me. I'm going to guess that you're probably type I some version of a walking anxiety disorder honest for productivity as Andrew walking son says.

yes, I have a tweet like that and gool for my prickley friends and prickles for my gooey friends and this A H A whole bank of things like that which is like, yeah, everybody over extends the more that they are good at. And again, it's like coping mechanisms, right? And it's like a in like D N D and video games, this this concept of a glass cannon, which is like a character who can do a lot of damage, but like dies very easily.

And you think, oh, why is he like that and it's like, oh, he's because he dies very easily. He has learned to do a lot of damage and so he takes pride in that and that his identity becomes time up in that. And you know, it's that, yeah uh yeah it's it's a lot.

And I, you know, if so, you ask for a til r and I went this long. But I say at the heart of everything, you have to really step back and observe the patterns non judge mentally right like you because and you know you to ask us like I I recommend really abstract questions like how might this look if it's easy? How might IT look if it's done skillfully and beautifully without anger without you know like um one of my favorite um in the book easy way to quit smoking by alan ka.

They insist that you keep smoking as read the book and is like that. Why would they do that? right? It's because. Part of the the cycle of addiction and this is true for all addiction.

So and procrastination can be a kind of addiction um part of what happens with the smoker who wants kind wants to quit, but the struggling to and he tries to quit but he's like half hearted about IT and then eventually he lights up again and then he feels guilty and shame that he did that and that is a higher also emotion. He gets stressed and once to smoke more. So there's that loop and then that's like the meta loop that keeps the loop going harder.

And when the books says I want you to keep smoking, you like, am I being pumped, right? Because you assume that you're supposed to not and that just creates extension that makes IT difficult to message the process. So same with like budgeting software or even diet in this the good one say, uh, don't change your spending, just track IT don't change your like food habits this the first month, just track IT just see what you're doing and like don't judge, just observe and like when people are able to comfortably just observe what is happening.

They are all this like breathing room that opens up and you like, maybe I should not have to play with your games until three years in the morning and so yeah and I I had a issue with like schedules as a child, like with school timetables and stuff like, I found IT really like stressful and traumatic and the idea of even using opening up google calendar and put i'm gona do this work today, this work at this point, whatever. I hate that that and because I felt like I was always dishonest. And when I put whatever, I would get excited and fill in with lots of stuff, and then I would miss IT, and then I feel bad.

And then the cycle continues. And what someone suggested that really work for me, I was only scheduled the fund stuff, which again, IT sounds immoral IT sounds like, oh, guess, and it's a IT violence, the pet annal thing, right? What do you mean? Schedule the fun stuff.

But if you say i'm going to to play one hour of video games every evening, you no longer feel this anxious grab. I might not get to play tomorrow, so I Better play three hours tonight and then you don't sleep, and then you know, your sleep gets fuck. And then everything spires was and was.

So if you begin the premise that to of to do your best work, you have to be emotionally well, morale has to be good again, that people do don't want to admit until they get so bad that is horrific, and then they don't even get to enjoy, then the only arrest they get is that they fall sick. And then is like, what kind of religion or recreation is that like you just lying and bit you don't get the go and see things. You don't get to hang out with your friends, right? So you schedule the good stuff and then you will get, you know like nobody wants to be on a beach vacation for like years.

You know like people fear that I like set the beach for a year. No, you wouldn't like three weeks. Make maybe two or three months is about as long as anyone would really enjoy a beach vacation.

Most people, I guess, uh, before you start to go, uh, you know what? What am I doing? Seem ful like, you know, this this on, like, if you were tasked with eating as much chocolate cake as you could, you would probably eat, I don't know, somewhere between half cake or one cake or something, whatever your number is, but you would eat.

So the people who went task to have pleasure, they tend to contain IT reasonably. But when they've been suppressed away from pleasure, that's when they eat three cakes, and then they feel like horrible, and they wanted throw up. And then and then next morning they like, i'm never gonna eat cakes.

I get like, you know, it's it's, it's your your extremes and is just K, O, is just bad so you, anna, dampen that extreme. Your your stuff you wanna like, schedule the fun and the pleasure. And I remember so clearly when I was working, and I like twenty five, and I felt I don't have the right to have fun. I have always do work. I don't have the right to.

One of the sad days of my life was, I think, twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen, the new year's day, my wife was like, in both me and my wife at home, and I was anxiously trying to get work done because I had gotten myself into such a spiral of self loading and whatever, that i'm not doing enough work that my poor wife was sitting in the living room by herself while I was working. And I can't even tell you what I was looking on. I don't remember, you know, is how so I was like, never again, you know, like, like, prioritize what's important to you.

You are a human being who deserves love and space and and it's not even even even if you don't think you deserve IT like that's what good performance requires. And I hope you get to the point where you feel that you deserve IT. But you know even and so I like lebron James slept like travel was a night and like fricking god of mighty took a day off on sunday so you know schedule icks and like, yeah and cultures like history cultures have like the sub ff and you supposed respect this because that's how you decompress .

yeah what is wild I think about sometimes mean my friend's reinvent shit that was literally with us from the beginning of time. Know you know what I really enjoy doing, really enjoy taking like one two days a weekend. Just not you like not working quite a honey go hey guy, that's called the weekend like log baked into your calendar.

Look, these are, dude, appreciate the hell out of you. I love your work. I love your writing. Why should people go? They wants to keep up to date with .

all of the stuff that you're doing, the most interesting stuff that's happening for me right now is on my substate。 So if you go to have we don't substance com OK. Most people like my twitter, but I feel like my action is moving.

The subset follow both, I guess are you can just google me V I S A K N V. You get my personal website that has links to my youtube channel. Everything else.

good. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Having me this.