Transcription
If you could have what you wanted in five years, and so what you wanted would be, you'd be satisfied with that, or thrilled with it even. And things would be going well enough for you so that you weren't swamped by misery, which is really what people want. By they want to not be swamped by misery. They don't want to be happy. Okay. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Very important to know that. A very distinction. Yes. It's a very good distinction. Yes.
So then, can you imagine anything that would satisfy you? So this is like a pretend game that a kid would play, you know, like it's fantasy. It's like, okay, you get to have what you want now. But there's a condition here. You actually have to be taking care of yourself like someone you care for. Okay. So now you posit yourself as someone you care for. Now you get to have what you want. What would satisfy you? But you have to specify it. Sure. Okay.
So then we have people write just for 15 minutes with no real self-criticism. What might that like be like? And then we have them criticize it a bit because you have to make it into a strategy and then differentiate. It's like, well, what would you want for a relationship? What would you want with regard to your family, your career, your education, your care of yourself, your service to the community? Um, your mental and physical health. Um, and and again, same rules apply. You get to have what you want. Okay.
So now we had young people do this when they came to college, the on their orientation day, 90 minutes. That's all they wrote. They either wrote for 90 minutes or they wrote about what they did for the last two weeks for 90 minutes. So it was randomized. Okay. Randomized study. The kids who did the self-authoring program were 50% less likely to drop out the first year. Oh, wow. 50%. Yeah. Yeah. And even the even the college where we did it, it's a huge difference, stunning for a 90-minute intervention. Even the college that we did the intervention in wouldn't implement the program. We got zero takers on the university side, which is, you know, very telling as far as I'm concerned. But the reason I brought it up is because the alternative to being a slave, let's say, which would be the alternative to self-actualization, is charting your own. Of course.
But then this is the question I have for you. Like, you were doing that when you had these dreams of writing, but why did you identify writing with yourself and why were you motivated to pursue it? You know, 'cause that's work too, like working at Goldman Sachs. It. So this was my list. I I remember the list distinctly and I've checked them all off. Okay. No alarm clock. Never have to talk to someone I don't want to. And never have to engage in small talk. That was all I wanted. So, I'd done standup for a little bit and that was very frustrating for me because, uh, the lack of causality, meaning a joke that kills one night would bomb the next, and that threw me for a loop. Writing I could do in my underwear, my house, in my own time. So, that so to have those things is to me self-actualization and a huge, huge blessing. Right. So, that that a blessing. Yes. I don't take it for granted. The president doesn't have that.
So you know when, um, when God comes to Abraham, he comes as the voice of adventure, and what he tells Abraham is that if he follows that voice, his life will be a blessing to himself. Right. There's other aspects of the deal, but that's one of them. His life will be a blessing to him. You set out the preconditions for what your life would be like if it was a blessing. Yes. You said, "So you're very high in openness." So you didn't want any small talk. You want to get to the heart of the matter, get to the depths right away. Me, you're in agreeableness. So, I never have to talk to someone I don't want to. I like my bio rhythm. I go to bed at 2:00. I wake up at 11:00, Monday to Sunday, right? So, you're you're an evening person. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's often associated with openness. By Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. There's there's actually the p there are morning people and evening people, and they have different temperaments. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so you wanted to not to have to engage in pointless small talk, right? You said you wanted to set your own temporal rhythm, right? Right. Although, is it disciplined or is it erratic, or do you just get up at the same time but later in the day? It's organic. You just get up, and that's okay. That's the best. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's better for me psychologically if I get up at a regular time. But that is regular time. It's 11. Oh, you But that's what I asked. You get up at 11. But that Okay. So it's stable, but it's your choice, right? So I don't have a clock. My body just wakes up, right? So that means it's not, what would you say? It's not, um, undisciplined. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay.
So you wanted not to have to engage in trivial interactions. You wanted to get up on your rhythm, right? What else? Never have to talk to someone I don't want to. Right. No small talk. Yeah. Right. So that's part of the small talk thing. Why do you distinguish them then? You wanted to not have small talk, and you also wanted not to talk to anybody. You didn't want not interact. So not just talk, like if I like if I don't have to go to some event I don't want to or be trapped in a conversation. Right. So you really wanted to choose the parameters of your social. That's all you wanted. Were there other things that was it? That I mean, I said if that was my list, I've made it like in my head like being like now there's other ancillary things like don't look at the check at a restaurant. Don't care. If I I want to go on a trip once in a while I can. But I think at a certain point, this is what I want to talk to you about is at a certain point, and we we and I have discussed this off camera, you stop driving the car and you start surfing because I think when you reach a certain level of success, whatever comes next is so often so random and so cute. It's like I've talked about this with Rosanne. You know, one day the president is complaining about a song she sings. This is not the kind of thing you can plan for and expect, right? So once you reach a certain level of success, things just maintain their momentum. And I talked about this with Rogan also. He's like, "Yeah, you just wake up. You're like, okay, you know, Prince Charles is complaining about me. This is my life. I have to accept it." You have that too. You went with Jordan Peterson. Yes. Yes.
Well, so that's the the there I there's a specific reason I wanted to bring this up. So, when I was writing "We Who Wrestle with God," I was looking at character their characterizations of the divine. That was going to be the subtitle. We use perceptions instead. But it doesn't matter what what the stories do as far as I am concerned, or at least one of their functions is to figure out what principle should be superordinate. Now, you did that. You you had three parameters for your superordinate principle, and you identified that with yourself, right? That that would satisfy me. So so the go the divine in the Abrahamic encounter is the voice of adventure. And so God's covenant, his contract there, because it's put in contractual form. If you follow this voice, then the following things will happen. You'll be a blessing to yourself. Your name will become known among other people justly. Yes. Right. So that's a good author. That's that's a good offer, right? Because people want social standing, and that can be gamed, and it can be falsified, but it can also be genuine. Yes. Right. Okay. You'll do something of lasting significance. So that's cool. That would be probably for you, maybe your work on anti-totalitarianism, right? And then you'll do it in a way that will be a blessing to everyone else. It'll multiply the pie instead of Okay. And then the okay then the the association of the promised land with that is that if you follow that call, then the world turns into a field of unpredictable opportunity. Yes. And so that's also an adventure. You don't know what's going to happen. I know it is true. That's the opposite of being a slave.
No, but I'm telling to the audience like when you're young, I'm I'm telling you like this is the advice I always give them. I say this all the time. Let's suppose you got a new author, right? It's an easy example. Go into the bookstore, look at those crappy, crappy books on the shelves, and you're like, "I can't believe this is a book deal." That could be you. You could be that shitty author that your friends like, "How did this guy get a book deal?" And when you put it in terms like that, all of a sudden, what would have seemed impossible because of your schooling, like, you're not going to be an author. It's like, "Oh, wait a minute. I can do this." Or you could be a band that no one's heard of, but you pay the rent, and you create your music, and you got a dedicated fan base. That's that's heaven on earth. You don't have to be the Beatles, right? Well, you might not even want to be. Exactly. So, yeah. Look at what happened to John Lennon. Right. Right. Right.
So, when you we have this bizarre, um, Pareto distribution in American aspirations where unless you're at the very, very top, you're kind of a failure. And like, that's ridiculous. You don't have to be this hugely successful thing. There's also another way of dealing with the Pareto distribution problem, right? Which is just so everybody listening is clear, is that the bulk of the rewards go to a small minority of people in any field. Now, a small minority of people in every field do the productive work too. So let's not forget. But one of the ways that a sophisticated society deals with that is just by generating an indefinite number of games. Right. Right. Here's a cool thing. So that I've noticed about people. Imagine that you're kind of out on the Pareto distribution in one dimension. It's like, you know, so you've got specialized knowledge, but there's quite a few of you. But if you have specialized knowledge in two areas that are distinct, there's hardly any of you, right? And if there's three, it's like you're the you're that person. You're the only person playing that game. So that's a good thing for everybody who's watching and listening to know. It's like, get really good at something, and then that makes you exceptional, and you're going to be somewhat successful just because of that. But then if you add another distant skill to that and you overlap them, it's like you're pretty rare. And three, no one's like you.
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