Kind: captions
Language: en
If you're feeling anxiety,
there's actually a a place from which
you can just feel it, right? And and be
actually indifferent to it or anything
else you could be feeling. I mean, first
you can notice that anxiety isn't even
that unpleasant. I mean, it's so close
to excitement in its actual physiology
that really the difference between
excitement and anxiety is more
or less just the the framing. It's just
the story you're telling yourself. you
know, if you felt these these tingles uh
and this, you know, slightly adrenalized
response right before, you know, you're
about to go on a roller coaster, that's
part of why you're going on the roller
coaster. You like that experience,
right? But the fact that you feel that
way when you're about to have an
interview or you're about to, you know,
walk out on stage, that's intolerable,
right? So just dropping back and and
realizing the the power of the framing
it has immense utility because then you
can realize that the the halflife of
negative emotions is incredibly short.
[Music]
Hey everybody, welcome to Impact Theory.
Our goal with this show and company is
to introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you actually execute on
your dreams. All right, today's guest is
a neuroscientist, philosopher, and a
fivetime New York Times best-selling
author. His book, The End of Faith, won
the 2005 pen award for non-fiction and
spent an astonishing 33 weeks on the New
York Times bestseller list. He has a
degree in philosophy from Stanford, a
PhD in neuroscience, and he's practiced
meditation for more than 30 years, a
combination that gives him a very unique
perspective that has made him one of the
most sought-after thinkers on the
planet. He's given multiple TED talks
with millions of views, and his written
works have been translated into more
than 20 different languages.
Additionally, he's written for some of
the most prestigious publications
around, including the New York Times,
the Los Angeles Times, and the Annals of
Neurology, to name but a few. A clear
and rational voice almost without peer
on some of today's most difficult
subjects. When he speaks, thousands of
people show up in real life and millions
listen online. and his ideas have been
discussed by some of the most visible
and wellrespected outlets in the world,
including Time, the New York Times,
Scientific American, Nature, and
countless others. He's also the host of
the Webbby award-winning podcast Making
Sense, which was named by Apple as one
of the iTunes best. So, please help me
in welcoming the man who has spent
roughly two years in aggregated silent
contemplation. One of the four horsemen
of the non-apocalypse,
Sam Harris.
What's up, man? How you doing?
Welcome.
Yeah, thank you.
Absolute pleasure to have you.
Yeah, pleasure to be here.
I am really excited to dive into some of
these subjects which I think you have
just such a fascinating take on. And the
thing that I've drawn the most wisdom
from with you is what and and these are
very much my words. How to live a good
life. And that's where I want to start.
And it'd be really interesting to hear
your definition of like what kind of
life and way of thinking should we be
aiming for.
Yeah. It's a hard question because I my
notion of human well-being is really
open-ended. I don't think we understand
what the horizon is. uh if in fact there
is one for kind of ultimate flourishing
of conscious minds. We have a pretty
good sense of what we don't want and our
right not to want. We don't want to be
terrorized and u depressed and finding
ourselves constantly in conflict with
strangers, finding our aims frustrated.
So the the generic situation we want to
find ourselves in more and more is to
effortlessly cooperate with creative and
happy strangers, right? I mean that
there's 7 billion of us. We we need
institutions and laws and norms uh and
ways of thinking that take the friction
out of pleasurable and nonp paranoid
interaction with strangers. I mean it's
not just about having, you know, five or
so close friends who's got who have your
back, right? I mean, you like clearly
we're all on the same team on some basic
level. And if we can't figure out how to
build a civilization where everyone
thrives to some degree, we'll have the
world we currently have until it becomes
unsustainable. Because we're in a
situation now where
I think it's reasonable to worry that
our default state of partisanship and
tribalism and u rational fear of the
incompatible aims of you know other
groups and other people uh is
unsustainable in the presence of more
and more destructive technology. I just
think I think we have to get our act
together psychologically and socially in
a way that we haven't yet. And when you
think about that coming down to the
personal level, um do you think about
people as having a a northstar or a
purpose that they should be pursuing?
And to contextualize that, I'll say, um
because I always found myself wanting to
ask people that, I ended up answering
the question for myself. And so for me,
the purpose of my life from my
perspective is to um see how much of my
potential I can actuate. So how how many
skills can I acquire that have meaning
and utility to me that allow me to serve
not only myself but others? And so that
sense of pushing myself to always get
better, to always improve, to show up
every day um and not think about whether
I get something, cross some finish line,
generate a certain amount of wealth or
anything like that, but just do I
sincerely approach the idea of bettering
myself in a very specific direction
based on what I want to accomplish in my
life or not. And if I do that sincerely,
then I say that the day or the life has
been a victory. And if I don't do that,
then to me, I'm pointed in the wrong
direction. Do you have any sort of
guiding light like that that say you
would try to pass on to your children or
that you yourself have for you?
Well, I think that's a good one and I
share it, but I can imagine
uh other versions of having a an aim
which don't really totally overlap with
that. I mean, you know, it would be, you
know, someone could decide, for
instance, that they have a talent that
is highly marketable and what they want
to do is make as much money as possible
so that they can give a lot of it away
to help people. I mean, money money is
is just energy, right? just, you know,
if you are making billions of dollars
and you're giving billions of dollars
away to good causes, well, that, you
know, on an effective altruism metric,
that's that's much better than you going
to Africa yourself and handing out food,
you know, in a famine, right? You want
to be bankrolling thousands of people to
do that, right? Uh, and if you have a
skill, you know, if you're a great
singer or whatever, and and uh it may be
some a skill that you didn't spend a lot
of time to acquire, right? So you you
don't have this whole mastery story that
you have and that actually resonates
with me. Um so that that would be a good
life you know provided you can extract
the psychological satisfaction from it
because most of what we experience in
philanthropy is uh when it when it's
telescopic in this way when you're just
signing a check you're not necessarily
connected to the good you're doing and I
can imagine uh someone doing immense
good in the world by signing very large
checks but not actually internalizing
the gratification of that on some level
we have to be aware of the possibility
of rowing in two boats simultaneously.
There's what the effects are in the
world of how we're living. So, you know,
we we want to have a good impact on
others, but we actually want our
conscious states of psychological pain
and pleasure to be mapped in some
rational way to the kinds of effects
we're having. Right? So, you don't want
to be a callous person who's just
leaving devastated and unhappy people in
your wake and taking pleasure in that. I
mean, that you're you're a psychopath if
that's that's how you're tuned. Um, but
you also don't want to be a person who's
doing a lot of good in the world, but
not able to internalize the felt sense
of your connectedness to others because
you're, you know, you're too neurotic or
you're too distracted or you're just
not, you know, connecting with others.
So, it's really interesting and I don't
think I've ever heard anybody else talk
about that notion of making sure that
you're mapping what you're doing to sort
of be outwardly altruistic to actually
map to your own um internal state of
well-being, if you will. And hearing the
discussions that you've been around
Islam and how beliefs and ideas can be
really dangerous made me ask a question
of how um and basically I'll I'll
quickly summarize. So you've got people
that they have a book and the book has
ideas and things that they are meant to
believe and then act in accordance with
and because of where they grew up or you
know what their parents and the society
around them taught them, they
internalize those beliefs. And if we
could through um communicating our ideas
well to them, get them to see um
something that caused more well-being
for other people that that would be a
better way to move their belief system.
So, one, do you believe that a belief
system is malleable in that there's some
element of well, you could choose this
set of ideology or you could choose
this? Um, and I don't know if you would
say that one of those is is more true
than the other, but certainly one may
take us closer to well-being than the
other. Um, and if you think that belief
systems are by their very nature
malleable things, what would sort of be
the belief system in just like a couple
tenants that you could hand to somebody
that you think would help them maximize
their own well-being as well as serve a
greater good? Speaking generically, I
think
having our beliefs map on to reality to
some degree is obviously good because if
if they're not, you're just bumping into
hard objects. You know what? Like if
your map is completely wrong, you are
bound to suffer, right? So we have to be
in a situation where
radical ignorance can't be bliss, right?
So that's that's one principle. Now
there could be a looseness of fit. There
could be situations where being re
strictly right about what's true
may be nonoptimal, right? There may be
it may be useful to have a a slightly
delusional self-serving bias, right? To
think you're coming off better than you
are. Like it may give you more
enthusiasm for your life or more
confidence. But anything that's too out
of register is just delusion, right? and
other people notice and other people
treat you like somebody who's just not
tracking you in a reality. Uh and so
that's one principle. So I think we want
our beliefs to be true in some basic
sense and therefore we want to be open
to new evidence and better arguments
perpetually right because if you're if
you close yourself off if you say well
listen I'm done I'm done thinking about
reality and I know what's true then
again when more data comes in you know
when something surprising when when one
of your intuitions proves to be faulty
if you can't error correct again you're
just going to fall out of alignment with
what's going on in the world and what
with what other people think is true as
well. So the really the only mechanism
we have to do that is human
conversation, right? We we have to be
open to having other people point out
errors in our thinking. And we have, you
know, in and in the conversation we have
with ourselves, we have to do likewise.
We have to be continually open to the
possibility that we might be wrong. And
in fact, we're very likely to be wrong a
lot of the time. And so then you know
then hence the virtue of getting
educated and surrounding yourself with
smart people and reading good books and
just exposing yourself to the kinds of
lessons that other people have learned
over you know thousands of years and are
learning in real time right now and you
can live vicariously through. You don't
have to make all the errors that
everyone has made around you. You don't
have to. It's like you can look at Lance
Armstrong and say, "Okay, well, it's
probably not not a good idea to lie, you
know, relentlessly about something and
then try to punish the people who caught
you in your lies and then get caught and
have to wind up on Oprah apologizing,
right? I mean, that's, you know, you can
you can internalize that lesson and
understand something about the the
ethics and reputational costs of lying."
Uh so
given that given the conversation and an
openness to the intrusions of other
people's thinking is really the the best
game in town for understanding what
reality is and how to navigate within
it. Then you can see how
nonoptimal
and you know ultimately dangerous
dogmatism is. Now dogmatism is just
holding to an idea no matter what else
comes into view. Right? So there's
nothing you can say to challenge this
that I'm I'm so you know I'll talk to
you about all this stuff but over here
there's something that I care about some
proposition you know some assertion that
something is true that I care about so
much. I'm so emotionally attached to it
that not only is it non-negotiable if
you continue to push over here I'm going
to get angrier and angrier, right? I'm
going to I'm going to threaten you with
violence. Right? That is the default
state of organized religion. Right?
Historically, and you know, certain
religions now have kind of relax their
intolerance to a degree where the the
violence isn't explicit, but that is the
not only is that the default of
faith-based religion, they have a a way
of thinking about dogmat. I mean,
dogmatism is a good word in the context
of religion. I mean Christian dogma is
not is not a derogatory term. They call
it dogma for a reason, right? Certainly
cath the Catholics do. So
the this this notion that you can
believe something strongly without
evidence or certainly without good
evidence or without evidence that can
survive pressure from outside. So the
the idea that wanting evidence is a
perversion of your circumstance. Right?
So like you know you really if you if
you buy this thing in the bag that you
that I haven't shown you you are that
that redounds to your credit right uh
it's just it's one it's not true because
the experiential core of these religions
I mean the experiences like
unconditional love say those can be
experienced I mean it's not that
everything in our religious literature
is untrue but there's nothing that has
to be believed on insufficient evidence
to be explored. And so I what I
recommend here is that we really adopt a
scientific attitude everywhere. We don't
partition our thinking about reality
where we say well here's the stuff over
here where super important but we can't
think about it too rigorously right to
in fact to think about it too rigorously
is to corrupt it. And then over here
we've got you know science and
technology and you know engineers
calculating whether a bridge is going to
you know withstand the weight of the
traffic on it. And there we can think
rigorously. sort of you know don't tell
me about rigor with respect to meaning
and you know what what's worth living
for and what's worth dying for and you
know what what is love and compassion
and well-being like that's all that has
to be just we have to be hostage to a
conversation that our ancestors were
having 2,000 years ago and we have to
imagine that certain of our books were
dictated by the creator of the universe
to organize all that but over here let's
get let's get it all dialed in because
we really care about how our smartphones
work right it makes it makes no sense
It's trying to trying to resolve that
tension is something I've spent a lot of
time on.
Yeah, it's it's interesting to me that
that tension exists and it makes me come
back to okay, why doesn't that tension
exist in my own life? And the organizing
principle that I use and I think a lot
about like what would somebody pass on
to their children? Now, I've decided not
to have kids so I will never get to
answer this, but I spend a lot of time
thinking about what are the organizing
principles. You've referred to ideas as
sort of the operating system of the mind
and I that seems very apt to me. So what
are the organizing principles that I
would give somebody to think in a
certain way? And one of the things I'm
obsessed with and I think I explain this
so poorly. I don't see it light people's
eyes up and I'd love to figure out how
to say it well which is this skills have
utility. Now what I mean by that is
learning architecture is interesting
because it allows you to build a
structure that could protect somebody.
allows you to build a structure that to
really make it basic. Um, like the one I
forget exactly what country it's in, but
the seed vault, right? Like you
understand architecture well enough and
how to ventilate things and all the
things that seeds would need to like
live for a very long time so that we
could replant if we had to. Learning
those skills had a purpose and that
purpose allows for something to happen.
And so let's take Brazilian jiu-jitsu,
which I know that you do jiu-jitsu.
Everything that you learn in jiu-jitsu
has a real world implication. And that
real world implication is one, if you
got into a fight, you'd probably be more
likely to be able to successfully defend
yourself. And that in and of itself is
is so profound as to be worth the time.
Now there's obviously all kinds of other
benefits as well. But once people
understand, oh, okay, these skills have
utility, then I need to be fish about
increasing my skill set because it has
this real world application. So the
problem that I get into where people are
dogmatic about anything, whether it's
religion or like I wrote this belief
system, okay, it was the 25 things that
I had to do to my mind in order to go
from being a good employee, which I
always lovingly refer to as sort of a
slaveike mentality. I kept my head down,
did as little work as possible, and
avoided punishment at all costs. That's
where I started. That's what my parents
taught me to do.
And to get out of that and to become an
entrepreneur, there were these very
simple write downable things that I had
to choose to believe and act in
accordance with. And if you came to me
and said, "Hey, Tom, by the way, number
14 on your list doesn't make sense and
it doesn't make sense for this reason. I
think you misunderstood something about
your own journey." I'd be like, "That's
so rad because now you're giving me
something that has more utility than the
thing that I've used
thus far."
One, why why do you think that breaks
down? What is it that people value more
than that? Is there some internal thing?
And then what process can people use to
become more aware of what's guiding
their decision-m? Because I think a lot
of people I don't know if it's just at a
feeling level, it's like a limbic thing
or what. Well, I think it's a framing
problem because
most of what people care about can be
thought of as a skill, right? I mean,
well-being is a is a skill. Not
suffering unnecessarily is a skill.
Regulating
noticing your emotional life and
regulating negative emotion is a skill.
So, you know, I have a meditation app
and you know, meditation is a skill.
It's a it's a very useful one. And I'm
spending a lot of time teaching you
what's now referred to as mindfulness
meditation.
And the moment you begin practicing
mindfulness, which is just just learning
to pay close attention to the nature of
your experience, you're not adding
anything to your experience. You're just
noticing what it's like to be you moment
to moment, but in a way that is not
reactive. You're not grasping at what's
pleasant or pushing what's unpleasant
away. You're just I mean, to make this
concrete, let's say you have a fear of
public speaking, right? So you you about
to go down out on stage and you feel
anxiety.
the the usual the default state of
someone who doesn't want to have that
experience is just trying to figure is
is one to you know in advance worry
about that experience I mean the anxiety
is kindled just by the mere thought of
what you have to do then once you feel
the butterflies you are at war with them
right you you contract your mind
contracts around it your conversation
with yourself is is an unhappy one it's
like why the [ __ ] am I this person who
just can't like I see people do this all
the time they're they're relaxed I'm
unhappy you know, when am I? And you're
you're you're talking to yourself.
You're not noticing it because you're
the thoughts just come up from behind
you as fast as as as they can. And they
seem to be you, right? You're identified
with each thought that emerges in
consciousness. And most people live
their lives as though there's no
alternative. We're not given a rule book
for how to operate a human mind, right?
And there's no place in a normal
education where where we're uh where
it's even indicated that there's an
alternative here. And so we get we kind
of stumble out into adulthood
more or less assuming that we have we'll
always have the minds we have and that
really there's you know we the only
thing we can do to really upgrade our
firmware is to just add new content. You
know we can read books we can we can
develop uh interests but there's nothing
at the sort of root level of our
emotional and cognitive life that can
change. And so mindfulness is a way of
kind of dropping a little bit lower and
and realizing. So in this case, if
you're feeling anxiety,
there's actually a a place from which
you can just feel it, right? And and be
actually indifferent to it or anything
else you could be feeling. I mean, just
just notice that there's even an
unpleasant sensation. I mean, first you
can notice that anxiety isn't even that
unpleasant. I mean, it's so close to
excitement in its actual physiology that
really the difference between excitement
and anxiety is more or less just the the
framing. It's just the story you're
telling yourself. You know, if you felt
these these tingles uh and this, you
know, slightly adrenalized response
right before, you know, you're about to
go on a roller coaster, that's part of
why you're going on the roller coaster.
You like that experience, right? But the
fact that you feel that way when you're
about to have an interview or you're
about to, you know, walk out on stage,
that's intolerable, right? So just
dropping back and and realizing the the
power of the framing is is again, this
is a skill that is a fairly esoteric
one, but now, you know, many people are
are learning it, you know, the secrets
out. Um, and it has immense utility
because then you can realize that the
the half-life of negative emotions is
incredibly short. I mean, one, you could
you can actually be psychologically free
even in their presence, right? Your your
your freedom and your well-being isn't
even predicated on getting rid of the
physiology, right? Like it can it can
still be there. But if you're not
continually thinking about all the
reasons why you should be anxious, the
physiology dissipates very very quickly.
And that's true for anger. It's true for
anything that that is uh classically
negative. And
uh so to come back to your question, you
know, many of the things that people
think they want out of life, they either
think are or or many or many of the the
the ways they're keeping score about how
good their lives are or aren't. They're
not seen as these are either, you know,
this experience is being delivered to
them either based on the skills they
have or the skills they've never thought
to acquire, right? And uh yeah, so
that's that's one thing I would add to
the the picture of the the usefulness of
skills.
I want to talk about the emotional
control that you bring up. I think
that's super powerful. When my wife and
I were first married, my problem was I
have a very slow fuse or a very long
fuse. And so it takes a lot to get me
angry. And that was actually a big
complaint of hers. She'd be really
annoyed. Something would happen, someone
would cut in front of us in line and I
wouldn't freak out. And she wanted me to
freak out. and she wanted me to like
just bask in how unjust it was. And she
would really lament that and it just
seemed so strange to me. But then when I
got mad, I would stay mad.
And there were times I would stay mad 8
10 12 hours. And I was working so much
at the beginning of our relationship.
The only time that we really had
together as husband and wife would be
for part of a Saturday. And I would
inevitably she would say something. It
would upset me. I would get pissed and I
would stay pissed the entire time. But
then, as you said, once you stop
reinforcing it, which I would do,
unfortunately, I'd be reinforcing,
reinforcing it, reinforcing it. Then
something would happen. It would change
my neurochemistry. I'd forget like, why
was I so mad? Every single time I was
like, why did I just waste that time
being mad? So, I end up writing myself
this letter. And I gave it to my wife
and I said, read that to me the next
time I get pissed off. And in the
letter, I said, hey, me, it's me. I have
no hidden agenda here as to why I want
you to calm down. Other than the fact
that you know that if you end up being
pissed for several hours, you're you're
going to regret it every single time.
And
right now, I want you to laugh out loud.
And for however long it takes, just
laugh out loud. You know, studies show
that you can't laugh out loud and remain
pissed. And so, I gave it to her. I got
pissed. She read it. She only had to
read it once. It was so profoundly
transformational to see that just by
laughing out loud, I couldn't stay
angry.
That it really helped me get control of
my emotions. So that I knew I can do uh
what I'll call a state shift. I don't
think I've ever heard you use that kind
of language, but if I'm angry, I'm
choosing to stay angry.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I hadn't found meditation
at that point. So, I had to sort of
brute force my way to that. What can
people do to learn to get control of
their emotions? M
well the first thing to realize is that
they already have control. They could
virtually anyone watching this I would
expect can do this under certain
circumstances. So the the one example I
would have you recall I'm sure this has
happened to almost everyone. You're in
some state like that. You're you're
angry. You've just gotten triggered by
something. Uh but then the phone rings,
right? And the phone it's it's you're
getting called by somebody who this is
not someone for you to process your
anger with. this is like a business call
or like you have to function right and
it actually perfectly interrupts your
state. You actually can just reset and
uh have the conversation and the
physiology is dissipating very very
quickly there. Your attention is on
something else and you're just having to
function. Now of course if somebody if
if it's a friend or your mother or
somebody who you can complain to well
then you'll you'll jump on and you'll
you'll amplify this state because you'll
you'll have a reason to talk about it.
Uh so you you can interrupt these states
and simply put your attention on
something else and and then you know and
then it dissipates.
One thing that uh I'm really curious to
know, you seem just freakishly educated
on a whole lot of topics. What is your
process for learning? How do you go
about intaking data? How do you start?
Do you pull threads? What thread do you
pull first? if you do like how do you
really begin to educate yourself on any
given topic?
Well, I don't really have uh I mean I
take in a lot of information and I
always have. So that's you know and not
in necessarily an efficient or smart
way. I mean so I don't I don't have you
know life hacks that that um optimize me
as a a uh a consumer of information. And
so like you know I know there are ways
that are recommended to read a book so
as to extract the the you know the
actionable information as as quickly as
possible from it. I have never been uh
an adopter of any of those ways. So like
you know and I mean we're still I
basically read everything at the same
speed. So like I read everything like
it's scripture. So if it's you know you
know People magazine in the waiting room
of a dentist's office I'm reading that
at the same speed that I'm reading you
know a a work of philosophy or
neuroscience. And the big change of late
I mean you know I guess this probably
happened somewhere around 10 years ago
is that once I realized that there's
functionally an infinite amount of
information to consume you is doubling
in the sciences every 3 to 5 years and
you know there are literally thousands
of good books that I will wish I had
read but I will never get around to
reading. Um I've become a very fickle
reader uh in the sense that I you know I
I cut my losses very early. the sunk
cost fallacy has completely disappeared
for me. The idea that I've, you know,
spent five hours or five days on this
thing, so I better just finish it,
right? That used to be my orientation
with respect to reading books. Now, I'll
I'll discard a book uh you know, just on
a whim because I know there's an
infinite amount of stuff I want to read.
You know, I don't go into the table of
contents and look at the structure of
the book and then go to the index and
then look at the topics and then I mean
I I just start on page one and start
reading and then when I get bored I
stop, you know, and uh so that's uh you
know do with what do with that life hack
what you will
but um I do
continually I mean I'm either listening
to audiobooks or podcasts or the news
when I'm working out or commuting. ing
or or um you know I'm just uh
you know constantly taking in
information you know fairly passively
when I'm multitasking. Uh so there's not
you know I mean the one thing that that
I don't have a lot of in my life is
music because I you know I can't write
to to music certainly not music with
lyrics. I can't podcast to music
obviously. Uh and I've decided that
there's so much that I'm interested in.
There's so much that I want to know that
basically I just hear music by accident
now. I mean, I just like if someone else
is playing music or if I walk into a
store, there's music associated with the
film, it's getting in. But um otherwise,
I'm just, you know, it's just a fire
hose of information pointed at my head
most of the time.
I get that. So despite the uh that per
chance haphazard way that you're
reading, it does seem at least from the
outside that you are striving I would
say pretty truly for excellence. Help me
reconcile. So one of the things I
struggled with with meditation was it
felt decidedly feminine. Um and in a way
that as somebody who I felt I felt that
um certainly growing up that I was far
more on the feminine end of being a guy
than anything else. And so for me, my
journey certainly to being an
entrepreneur was one of toughening up.
Um, and so anything that that made me
sort of feel that old school sort of
gentle way, um, I would push back on and
it's why I didn't meditate for a long
time. U, but I see you you're doing
Brazilian jiu-jitsu. You're somebody who
obviously cares about martial arts and
being able to fight and defend yourself.
I've heard you talk very eloquently
about um violence and clearly in your
professional life you've just even just
what you've done in the writing let
alone the lecturing you've already
achieved such massive success refuse to
believe that there wasn't a just massive
amount of energy behind that so how do
you think about meditation in that
context is this like going to war with
your mind and you're I'm going to come
out the other side having faced demons
uh and having won some sort of victory
that allows me to perform at a higher or
am I totally missing all of this and it
needs to be a letting go, a more
peaceful, relaxed sort of transient
experience.
Yeah. Well, first it's a very common
association. I totally understand it and
it's presented in many ways where yeah,
you under that framing you can just feel
the testosterone leaving your body, you
know. Uh so, uh yeah, that's not my
orientation. And it is a lot like
jiu-jitsu for the mind. And it's and
it's a lot like it. I mean, what's so
beautiful about jiu-jitsu in particular
is that you can have this massive effect
in the domain of violence
while being relaxed. It is what Aikido
off, you know, advertises itself to be,
but it's a much more, you know, at least
in my estimation, a much more effective
version of that same underlying ethic
where you can like you can control
someone
uh and
use as little violence as as necessary
and basically just use a superior
knowledge of physics and leverage and
position against them. So, it's it's a
very it can be incredibly relaxed and
yet um given what the circumstance is,
it can be a very high testosterone
experience. You know, it's not it's a
kind of quintessentially
um masculine thing to be doing. But uh
you can internalize the same sort of
structure
and that's largely what meditation is
because basically the the default state
is one of being attacked and ambushed
all the time by your thoughts and by
your reactivity and by uh you are being
taken in by assumptions and and
illusions and not know just you just
you're in a fog. and not you personally
but you know one is and um you know even
when you learn to meditate you're in
this fog most of the time I mean and so
you're so the practice is one of
continually breaking the spell you were
constantly on the mat constantly finding
yourself in a position of some
surprising disadvantage right like it's
like all of a sudden there's a rear
naked choke that's you know three
quarters applied right and you need an
answer for that and not knowing the
answer is just synonymous with death,
right? It's like you're you're just
getting, you know, you're just you'll be
as miserable for as long as as
circumstances dictate in the absence of
and and I shudder to interrupt this
because I find it so interesting tying
it to BJJ, but um I need to know why is
it or I want it said why is it that the
identification with the eye or the these
never ending thoughts, why do they
create suffering?
Well, it's just the ego is
at bottom. It is itself a kind of
contraction. I mean, when you look at
what you your this feeling of self is,
right? So, let's just talk about what
the the sense of self is. The sense of
self for most of us is not a feeling
that we're identical with our bodies. Mo
most people don't feel identical with
their physical bodies. They feel like
they're passengers inside their bodies,
right? They like like my body's down
here, like these are my hands, these are
my legs. you know, I obviously care
about these things. You know, if you
know, I you know, this these are where
my pains and pleasures are coming from,
but I'm up here in the head and I'm a
kind of passenger. I'm a witness of
this. uh and if you look I mean most
people when they try to pay attention
they try to find themselves they try to
you know they uh they try to meditate
they feel that they're a locust of
attention in the head behind their face
behind their eyes you know looking out
at the world and the world is not self
you know you're you're over there I'm
looking across space at you I'm here
behind my face and my face is a kind of
mask really I mean it's like I'm not I'm
not identical to my face I mean I it's
its states matter to to me like if I
have some weird expression on my face,
you know, like someone said like, "Can
we take a picture of you?" And you can't
figure out how to smile and you feel
uptight like you're you're reading the
state of your face as you emotions are
playing on your on your face, right? The
the signature of the emotion you're
feeling has a lot to do with what you
feel in your face. Um, and it feeds back
into your mind. If you force yourself to
smile, you you can you actually feel a
state of happiness coming in your in
your mind. Uh but people feel like
they're behind their face in their head,
right? And so that you know kind of
homunculus that that that person in the
head which we know doesn't make any
sense neurologically. There's no place
in the brain where there could be a
little you know consciousness that is
one thing that is this stable self
that's looking out through the eyes
right uh there's a flow of experience
and you know it's it is invoking you
know many regions of the brain at all
times and there is no you you are
identical to this flow of experience
this the stream of consciousness is what
you are as a matter of subjectivity
right I'm not I'm not I'm not saying
that it's not arising in the brain or
that bodies aren't real or that there's
no physical universe. I'm saying as a
matter of experience, there is just this
flow of consciousness and its contents.
And yet we seem to put this unchanging
center to it. And that is a the what
what that is. You know what the what is
giving us that feeling that there is an
unchanging center to this flow
is this sort of this contracted
identification with thought. It is a
kind of thought. It is just each moment
of you know if I'm saying something and
it doesn't make sense or it sounds like
[ __ ] the part of the part the
experience in you which says oh that's
not right. Right. That feels like you
right. I mean, you're not you're not
witnessing it as an object in
consciousness just arise and pass away.
It sort of has come up from behind and
it just feels like that's me, right? And
but that thing is always happening. The
that's me feeling is always happening.
And so you just feel like you're in your
head behind your face, right? For two
reasons. There's two sides of this coin.
So much of our of of what we're thinking
is making us miserable, right? So much
of it is unpleasant. So much of it is
causing anxiety. We got you look at your
to-do list, you got 50 things on it, you
just feel like, oh my god, there's just
the day is not long enough, right? This
is, you know, the state and that's a
good, you know, that's a, you know, a
high class problem to have, right? You
know, they're worse problems. Um, this
is the state we're in. And the obverse
of that is when we're really just
connecting with life in a joyful,
creative, beautiful way. Like when you
look out the window and it's the most
beautiful sunset ever and you are just
looking at the sunset, right? You're not
like you're fully connected with its
beauty. Uh
those are all moments where you're
losing this sense of of self. But the
difference between meditation and those
moments is that you're not really aware
of losing the sense of self in those
moments. you're not you're not really
aware of what is uh freeing about those
moments and you can't do it in other
circumstances like like you can't like
you know I need the I need the beautiful
sunset just looking at your shoe isn't
good enough for me right but with with
meditation I can actually look at your
shoe in the same way that I look at the
sunset right so that's the like what's
what's what's happening for people most
people is that they're waiting for the
world to give them a good enough reason
to just be present and to be present so
fully that they lose their sense of of
self, right? That they're no longer
behind their face, you know, just
waiting for something good to happen,
right? Or or figuring out how to change
the experience enough so that again they
can stop they're no longer at war. I
mean, we're to a greater or lesser
degree,
we're always at war. I mean, we're we're
always fighting something. You know,
there's always this like, you know,
you're always noticing something wrong.
You're feeling uncomfortable in your
body. You're reacting to something that
somebody did or you thought they did.
You're navigating a social encounter
that seems offkilter. You know, it's
awkward and like you're trying to figure
out what to say. And that was that
sounded stupid. And like you're you're
you're just being blown around. And the
moments where you really feel good are
moments where you can you there isn't a
a coming to rest right where it's not
about the past or future you know it's
not even about it's not about half a
second ago and it's not about half a
second from now and the ultimate version
of that is to just to entails the
dropping of this this sense of self
is everything you do about flourishing
for you
unfortunately not I mean I mean, you
know, I mean, wisdom would be really
being able to track what is going to
matter, you know, at the end of the day
or at the end of a life. For me,
flourishing is a matter of spending your
time pleasantly
and happily and creatively
uh and having fun but in all the ways
which
it every moment when someone asks you,
well, you know, that last hour, that
last day, that last week, that last
year, do you feel good about that? Was
that a good use of your time? that
remembering self, that retrospective
gesture, that's where people worry about
things like meaning, right? I mean,
that's like so there's two. I mean, to
use, you know, Danny Conorman's framing
here, there's the experiencing self and
there's the remembering self. And the
the remembering self is the self that
you're talking to when you say, you
know, are are you satisfied with your
life? Whether you're asking yourself or
someone's asking you and
the answers that are available in the in
those moments really determine whether
or not somebody has a kind of global
life satisfaction, whether they have
meaning. And those are that's the those
are the moments where people feel like,
you know, I need religion. I need to
know I, you know, I need to know how the
the far future is going to be. I need
like I need some story to tell myself
that is fundamentally consoling. But the
experiencing self, the the self that is
just going moment to moment
feeling pains and pleasure and uh just
dealing with dealing with this the very
short you know time horizon. Um I think
that is that's fundamentally our real
self. I mean the the remembering self is
the is a version of that. You know if
you ask me are you satisfied with your
life and I you know spend the next 30
seconds telling you about that that is
yet another you know brief chapter in my
experiencing self right and most of life
is a is a story is is you know is
getting summed over this this this
lifeline of the experiencing self and
their questions of meaning
and a kind of global story to tell
yourself about what this is all about
are are far less important than people
think. I mean, I think you want to be
playing both games intelligently. You
don't want
to be absorbed in in pleasures which
every time you think about your life
have you feeling I'm just wasting my
life. I'm just, you know, I'm a
superficial guy, you know, you know, I
got wealthy and now I just, you know, do
heroin and play golf, right? And it's
just fun, you know, like whenever you
check in with me, I I feel pretty good
because I have, you know, an unlimited
supply of heroin and golf. Uh, but it's,
you know, I can't really, you know, I'm
sort of embarrassed by it every time I
have to talk about it, right? that like
that's not the you know you you you do
want so over here you still do want
uh you want your pleasures to be
justified
by good relationships and a and a a
world that cares about your inputs and
outputs. Right? So you're like you want
you know you want what you're paying
attention to all day long to matter to
someone else and we're so deeply social.
It's not wrong to want those things. Uh
but again,
it's possible to have a a a purchase on
well-being that is deeper than any one
of those things. So that when you lose
one of those things, right? When you
find out that the the thing you thought
people would love, they actually hated,
right? You know, the television show you
wrote or the novel you wrote or
whatever, what you invested all this
time, you had a hope for this thing, but
your hopes were disappointed. How long
do you suffer over that, right? in the
absence of an this sort of superpower
that where you can actually find an
intrinsic well-being to consciousness,
it will be for as long as you know your
you know bad genes and bad life
experiences dictate, right? It's like
it's just you're at the mercy of who you
were yesterday. And so meditation
is fairly unique in that you can
actually reset independent of what's
going on. But again, it's not a reason
to become
uh totally immune to your integr the
effects you're having on the world and
what the world is telling you because
ultimately you are going to spend most
of your time asleep and dreaming you
know this in this state with you know in
conversation with yourself and in
conversation with others no matter how
much you meditate I mean I you know I
think ultimately there are people who
get you know quote fully enlightened and
completely break the spell of being
identified with with thoughts. Um, you
know, I'm not one of those people,
certainly not yet. And uh, so I
experienced this fluctuation, but the
the the flu fluctuation is so important
for my well-being that I can talk about
it without, you know, hesitation.
What do you say to people who the deep
fundamental problem in their life is
that they're lost? They have no sense of
meaning or purpose. they don't know what
direction to go into. They're sliding
towards depression because it all seems
so pointless. Um that that's something
that I encounter with people a lot. Um
people will stop me randomly and just be
like, "Help." And I'd love to knowing
that you have a very limited window of
time with that person. You know, what
would you say in like 60 or 90 seconds
that would hopefully send them on a path
that would actually be useful?
Well, I would just point out the
mechanics of it, which is what is
actually going on is that they're lost
in thought. They're they're thinking
without knowing that they're thinking
basically every moment of their waking
life, right? And that and the character
of that story in this case is depressing
or or
um you know certainly productive of
unhappiness. Now there are two there
three at least three possible antidotes
to that and they should try all of them.
Right? So like if if we're talking about
a clinical depression it's it's useful
to say that there's a physiology to this
that you know can be driven from below
in a way that's not narrowly responsive
to their thinking. Right? So it's it'll
tend to produce uh depressive thoughts
and the depressive thoughts will tend to
feed back on the state. But, you know, I
don't think all forms of depression are
just a matter of what a person's
thinking. I mean, it can be really it's
it's best viewed as a kind of disease,
you know, of physiology. And so, you
know, I'm not against anti-depressants
at all. I know many people who have, you
know, received a lot of help from them,
and I hope we get better ones in the
future. And and pharmarmacology is
definitely a piece of the of the
solution for for many people. uh and
everything else that is good to do that
people sort of lose their commitment to
doing at the worst possible time should
be done. I mean you have to sort of get
behind yourself and push to to exercise
and to socialize and to do things that
you know you you may not want to do
because those are good for you and help
you know break can can break you out of
it. But the normal
range of psychological suffering, you
know, not clinical depression, but just
feeling like, you know, life sucks and
you're a failure and there's nothing,
you know, it's like uh you're just it's
you're stuck. That is a story of telling
yourself a story. you're thinking and
you can either become more and more
mindful of that and interrupt that more
and more
uh and or and and it should be and you
can reframe this continually and tell
yourself a better story, right? you can
actually just engineer
you know you you can change the code
that you're that you're you know uh
running moment to moment and I mean just
you very simple one which I you know I
use I actually recently recorded this in
a lesson on the app you know just
gratitude just thinking this is actually
you know this particular maneuver is I
believe comes from stoic philosophy I I
didn't actually get it from stoic
philosophy but
this sort of use of negative imagination
where you think of all of the bad things
that haven't happened to you, right? So,
if you're just, you know, if you're
stuck in traffic driving to the job that
you don't like and you're you're
frustrated,
uh you can think of all the things that
could happen to you, right, that haven't
and if any one of them happened to you,
you would consider your prayers answered
if you could just be returned to this
moment, right? like you haven't been
diagnosed with cancer, right? You've got
two young kids, say, you know, you want
to live to see them grow up and you
could be the guy who today is going to
find out you've got two months to live,
right? And you have to then the next two
months is spent just unwinding your
worldly affairs, right? You're not that
guy, right? That hasn't happened to you
yet. That's just more thought thinking,
but it can have a profound effect. You
can you can reframe your experience in a
way that doesn't actually change
anything material about your
circumstance and it can let the the
light in. And there are many techniques
like that that are just a matter of
invoking useful concepts skillfully.
Tell these guys where they can find you
online.
The Making Sense podcast is something I
spend a lot of time doing. U my
meditation app is at wakingup.com.
It's called Waking Up. And otherwise,
I'm just My website's sam Harris.org.
I'm on Twitter is also sam Harris.org.
There's no dot, but um you just put in
Sam Harris and you you'll get an Eiffel.
Yes. Very true.
What's the impact that you want to have
on the world?
Well, I you know I
what I'm spending my time doing is
trying to engage honestly with
interesting and consequential ideas. I
mean that's so the net th