22 Habits To Follow For A Happy Life - Kevin Kelly

1. 0:00 – 0:20

   Intro

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Your new book feels like it was purpose-written for me, massive fan of aphorisms, massive fan of pithy, short life advice. For the people that haven't read it, I notice a trend throughout the entire book, which is one of optimism and hope.

   2. KKKevin Kelly0:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:18

      And at the

2. 0:20 – 5:05

   Why Should We Be Optimistic About the World?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:20

      moment, I notice on the internet a, uh, current, um, rhythm of serious cynicism, people believing that the world can't improve, that the people who hope that it can are the ones that are genuinely the problem. What's the case for optimism? Why should people be optimistic at all?

   2. KKKevin Kelly0:38

      I think there's, um, three reasons w- w- uh, why you should be optimistic as you possibly can, understanding that it's somewhat a temperament, but actually I think it is a skill. And, um, the first reason is, is that, um, if you read any history at all, you soon... A- and, and look at the evidence and the actual science, you have to conclude that progress is real and that the conditions that generated that progress are still working, at work in the world, and that this will statistically probability continue for a while. That's one reason. The second reason is that, um, we know from the wor- work of child psychologists that people who are optimistic thrive better. That... And that... And they, th- they, they understand, they, the psychologists understand that one of the ways you teach children is co-learned optimism, to be more optimistic is to have them come to understand that setbacks are only temporary. They're not... They're inevitable, but they're only temporary. And then the third reason is, is that, um, uh, it's the optimists who actually are creating all the cool things that we need and that there is making our lives better. All the, um... Optimist is someone who envisions a world or something that they wanna have and can believe, believes that it's possible, and that, that belief in that envisioning help make it come about, because the really good things that we want are so complicated, they're not gonna happen accidentally, inadvertently. You actually have to imagine them and have to believe that they're gonna happen. And that requires optimism, and that's why basically it's the optimists who are shaping our future.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:26

      How much do you think that people can nudge their disposition?

   4. KKKevin Kelly2:29

      One of the easiest ways is to change your time horizon. If you look out beyond just next year or the year after, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, it becomes much easier to be optimistic because that, that slow growth, that slow compounding of progress can overwhelm even fairly serious setbacks and downturns and disasters even. And so, um, which are hard to kind of accept or even to, to confront with the short term, but if you take a longer term view, a long horizon, then, um, you have the ability to kind of see that they can be overcome, and that goes back then that the setbacks were just temporary.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:18

      I suppose this stops you from confusing noise for signal-

   6. KKKevin Kelly3:22

      Yep.

   7. CWChris Williamson3:22

      ... that you have little ups, little downs, but you're trending in a direction over a broad enough time horizon, the trend is obvious.

   8. KKKevin Kelly3:29

      R- right. And this also has to do with just the supreme power of compounding interests, compounding things. So even if you are only increasing or improving or creating a, a few percent more than you destroy, if you compound that over time, it becomes a very, very large consistent force. And then I guess the fourth thing I would say is, um, I am optimistic, and I think others should be too, not because of, um, disregarding or dismissing our problems. W- w- we have to be real. Th- there are problems, and there will be new, even new problems that will be more powerful. I'm optimistic not because the problems I think are smaller than we're aware of, but because our capacity to solve the problems is increasing even faster. So we're not being Pollyanna and dismissing the, the problems when you're optimistic. You're just saying, no, our, our... We're, we're trusting the future or the future generations and our own skill for solving problems continues to increase.

   9. CWChris Williamson4:33

      That's an amazing case for it. I'm really trying to rail against this trend, this sort of a fashion of cynicism on the-

   10. KKKevin Kelly4:41

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson4:41

       ... internet at the moment, and I really, really want... I've called it toxic positivity-

   12. KKKevin Kelly4:45

       Sure. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson4:45

       ... uh, because I needed to come up with something. And um-

   14. KKKevin Kelly4:49

       Well, I call it ra- radical optimism. And, um, yeah, radical optimism is my term for it.

   15. CWChris Williamson4:56

       Toxic also. (laughs)

   16. KKKevin Kelly4:56

       Or mili- Actually, uh, my friend Louis has militant optimism, which I thought is even cooler.

   17. CWChris Williamson5:01

       That is cool. Yeah. Right. Okay. First one, don't be the

3. 5:05 – 11:48

   ‘Don’t Be the Best, Be the Only’

   1. CWChris Williamson5:05

      best, be the only.

   2. KKKevin Kelly5:06

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson5:06

      What's that mean?

   4. KKKevin Kelly5:09

      This is sort of at the core, uh, of, of the book and maybe my own philosophy. Um, it suggests that achieving the best is kind of what we're taught to do, is to be the best in things. But the best, by definition, is a very narrow, (laughs) like very narrow niche. There can really only be one, and you're kind of limiting, um, the numbers an- and your chances of actually achieving that. And also because it's a de- basically it's someone else's definition of success, it also, um, excludes most likely you and your own particular set of abilities and capabilities. And so, um, if you, uh, head towards becoming the only, that's a much wide open area that is potentially full of a billion different onlys, all of them pursuing something different. And, and, in a certain sense, what you are getting to do is to invent a new definition for success.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:08

      There's a, there's a famous Naval quote where he says, "Become the best at what you do. Keep defining, redefining what you do until this is the outcome."

   6. KKKevin Kelly6:17

      Exactly. Right. So, so, you're, you're kind of coming up with your own definition of success and aiming at that. And, and, and by the way, um, it most likely should not include a billion dollars (laughs) , right? Because, um, you actually don't want a billion dollars. I mean, literally. This is my other piece of advice, not in the book, if, whatever you do, try your hardest not to have a billion dollars-

   7. CWChris Williamson6:44

      (laughs)

   8. KKKevin Kelly6:44

      ... because it's gonna ruin your life. And, um, a couple million, fine, but not a billion.

   9. CWChris Williamson6:50

      Why?

   10. KKKevin Kelly6:51

       Oh, my gosh. It's imprisoning. It's a burden. It's terrible for your kids. It's, um, it becomes, it overtakes your life. Uh, it becomes never-present. You can't actually spend it, um, b- as fast as you'll, you'll earn it money back. And, um, and then you're, the only thing you can do with it i- is give it away, and that's now another, a whole nother job, and f- full of all its own complications. And it bec- takes over your life. And so you're now kind of a slave to, to the billion.

   11. CWChris Williamson7:23

       I have a friend who owns a very big sportswear company. His net worth is three times Drake's net worth. So the, one of the most famous rappers on the planet.

   12. KKKevin Kelly7:32

       I don't know what Drake's net worth is. Okay, that's new.

   13. CWChris Williamson7:34

       It's, uh, it's like over two... I think it's, he's worth two, two and a bit bill, right?

   14. KKKevin Kelly7:37

       Okay.

   15. CWChris Williamson7:38

       Um, I went to a place called Nando's in the UK with him, which is a famous chicken chain that exists. We sat down for dinner on an evening time, five o'clock, and he was sat playing on his phone, and his EA and his EA's PA was sat a few tables across, and they were working away on their laptops. And I remember thinking as I was sat with him, imagine the problems that Drake would have encountered if he'd tried to come for dinner at Nando's with me. He wouldn't have been able to get within-

   16. KKKevin Kelly8:09

       No.

   17. CWChris Williamson8:09

       ... two miles of this location-

   18. KKKevin Kelly8:11

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson8:11

       ... without being absolutely mobbed. And yet, the guy that sat opposite me is sat there with no security. He's sat there, no one hassling him, no one really even paying attention to him. And what it got me thinking about was the price that people pay for the level of wealth that they have, and that there are differing prices that people can pay. Maybe a billion full stop, regardless of your level of scrutiny, is something that you shouldn't try and aim for. But there's, within that, you think about Drake, he would be mobbed by, by paparazzi and press, and people would be coming up to him, and he wouldn't be able to get any peace, and he'd need a million security guards, and he'd have to speak to the restaurant beforehand, and there'd be crowd control. And this guy that's sat opposite me gets to just, uh, play Sudoku on his phone or do whatever he's doing beforehand.

   20. KKKevin Kelly8:55

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson8:55

       So, the price that you pay for the wealth you have is something that I'd never considered before.

   22. KKKevin Kelly8:58

       Well, yeah, I mean, uh, w- w- there's a little bit of conflation between wealth and fame. So, it's not Drake's wealth, it's his fame. And fame is, is u- some of you definitely do not want to, to aim for it all. Some people are famous inadvertently, like, you know, like Obama. He can't really help that. But aiming for it is, is, is crazy because it is imprisoning and completely debili- di- debilitating for the very reasons you say. So, um, so that's something that you think you might want but you really don't. Um, and, and my advice on that is read a book about any famous person, really famous person, you'll see what the consequences of that is. Um, it only begins in where you're describing. It extends even further. Um, but wealth i- i- is, is equally, not equally, but there's another kind of tax that you pay for it. And that's maybe the best way to put it, is that there's definitely a tax for that wealth, and it will be paid out in other things. All this to say that when you're defining your success, it should certainly include other things than money, because that's just simply not the most important thing. And, um, it's, uh, you know, your success a- a- and having been around the people who have a billion dollars, it's really funny because a billion, they're asking the same questions that all of us are asking, which is, "What do I do when I grow up?" Right? No matter how old you are. And the billion dollars doesn't give them the answer to that. Okay? It actually contributes to the problem, because like, where do I go from here? And so, um, um, that definition of success, and, and, and that's, for me, the joy of seeing people who are pursuing their own definition. And it might be that they, um, they have total control of their time, which I think is, uh, one of the highest forms of wealth, rather than much money is the most abundant thing. Money is, is abundant, but the scarcest thing is our own time. And having control of that is my definition of true wealth.

   23. CWChris Williamson11:01

       In your opinion, then, should people take most of the opportunities that they can to trade wealth for time?

   24. KKKevin Kelly11:07

       Yes, absolutely. In fact, that's what really rich people try and do, although not very successfully, but yes. And, and, and it's much easier (laughs) , you know, I would say, you know, one of my bits of advice is that, you know, the rich have a lot of money, the wealthy have control of their time, and it's much easier to be wealthy than rich. Okay? So, I like to boast when I'm with, among my, my billionaire friends that I'm the wealthiest there, because I have total control of my time (laughs) . I don't have to worry about my entourage, the EAs, the personal assistants, whatever it is. It's like, no, it's, I, I, I have my time.

4. 11:48 – 15:09

   Dealing with Bad Days is the Secret to Moving Forward

   1. CWChris Williamson11:48

      What you do on your bad days matters more than what you do on your good days.

   2. KKKevin Kelly11:53

      For sure. And, um, that is, uh, going back to the kind of basic understanding we have now of habits, and that, um, what you, um, want to do is, is have something that will get you through the bad days, because everybody will have them. And if they stop you or impede you, um...... that's something you want to overcome. You want to be able to just kind of, like, absorb them to- to- to- to understand that, "Okay, today was a bad day. I didn't get much done," or, you know, "Whatever I was working on failed," or, "I was rejected," whatever it is. But, "Tomorrow, I get to ch- try again and do... I'm gonna do again. I'm gonna make... I'm gonna make some more. I'm gonna try another idea." And, um, so you're... how you deal with the bad days is really the, um, the secret to kind of moving forward.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:48

      Tim Ferriss once said, uh, he wanted to design his life to be able to crush the average Tuesday.

   4. KKKevin Kelly12:54

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson12:55

      And I just thought it was such a lovely way to put it. And I- I spoke to a friend, Rob Dyrdek, uh, recently, and he said he wants his average Tue- he's optimizing for the normal Tuesday. He just wants-

   6. KKKevin Kelly13:06

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson13:06

      ... the normal Tuesday to be as enjoyable as possible.

   8. KKKevin Kelly13:09

      That's... Okay. Uh, let me think about that. That- that's- that's an interesting way of, um... Right. So the average Tuesday is your best day? May- I don't know if you're- you say optimize. So, um-

   9. CWChris Williamson13:21

      No. He- he wa- he wants it to be that an average Tuesday has as much enjoyment in it as possible.

   10. KKKevin Kelly13:25

       Right. Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson13:25

       Doesn't need to be spectacular.

   12. KKKevin Kelly13:27

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson13:27

       Just needs to be normal.

   14. KKKevin Kelly13:28

       As good as it gets is your average Tuesday. Um, yeah. That would be, um... Or, or, yeah. I'm- I'm just... You know, you've got me now trying to think about how I make this into-

   15. CWChris Williamson13:40

       (laughs)

   16. KKKevin Kelly13:41

       ... an audio book or podcast.

   17. CWChris Williamson13:42

       (laughs) The aphorist, the aphorist is coming out.

   18. KKKevin Kelly13:43

       The- the- right. Yeah. So, so... But- but the- the impulse, I think, is- is correct. And that is, um, you know, your life basically is (laughs) what you make on your average Tuesday, in a certain sense. That is-

   19. CWChris Williamson13:54

       Yes. There's way more average Tuesdays than there are peak experiences.

   20. KKKevin Kelly13:57

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson13:58

       So the, um... I love the idea of a good bad day as well.

   22. KKKevin Kelly14:02

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson14:02

       That you get out of bed and, "Oh, there's been a- some sort of nightmare at work," or, "There's a flood. The- the toilet's backed up-"

   24. KKKevin Kelly14:08

       Right, right.

   25. CWChris Williamson14:08

       "... and everything goes out the window." And yet, when you look back at the end of the day, you still consider it a success, or you- you are fulfilled, or you feel-

   26. KKKevin Kelly14:16

       Right, right, right, right.

   27. CWChris Williamson14:17

       ... peaceful.

   28. KKKevin Kelly14:17

       Yeah. So there's something... Yeah. Making the- your- your worst day still a- an okay day, or there, you know... Something that you can feel good about. Yeah. You're sort of... Uh, that's interesting, is you're sort of trying to elevate... Not your- elevate your highest day, but you want to elevate your worst day so that they're not so bad.

   29. CWChris Williamson14:33

       Correct. Bringing that-

   30. KKKevin Kelly14:35

       Um-
5. 15:09 – 18:34

   How Your Weirdness Will Bring You Success

   1. CWChris Williamson15:09

      you weird as a kid-

   2. KKKevin Kelly15:10

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson15:10

      ... will make you successful as an adult. Why?

   4. KKKevin Kelly15:13

      I have seen so many people like this. Oh, um, I think you forgot the last part. If you don't lose it. So- so the idea is- is- is- is that a lot of people are kind of weird as a kid, and they kind of put that behind them. But you want to keep that thing. You want, you want to- to nourish it in some way and cherish it. And it's not just the childlikeness. It's the fact that, um, there's something in you that's inherently different than others. And it's that difference th- that we're trying to accentuate and emphasize and grow and cultivate, because the differences is what makes the wealth and innovation and all these other things possible, and the reason why we're not being duplicated by robots. The more- the more special and unique and weird you are, the less likely you're gonna be replaced by AI. So, um, so that kind of weirdness in them is- is often a- a suggestion, a reflection of your inherent makeup and dispositions and tendencies and abilities. And (clears throat) we tend to get them beat out of us as we go through school, uh, looking for a job, and trying to be the best in something. Um, and so, if you can retain some of that or return to it, I think you have a higher chance of being the only rather than being the best.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:45

      I love that. I think it's a more pure view into your- or a clearer view of your passions before they become molested or perverted by other incentives, by money, by status, by prestige, by sex-

   6. KKKevin Kelly16:57

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson16:57

      ... all those things.

   8. KKKevin Kelly16:58

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson16:58

      I remember reading this amazing story about one of the world's most successful color pickers. So this lady would choose color wheels for the best fashion houses in the world, the best-

   10. KKKevin Kelly17:08

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson17:08

       ... interior design companies in the world. There was an interview that was done with her and she was asked, "How is it that you're so good? You've been the best-"

   12. KKKevin Kelly17:17

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson17:17

       "... in your field at this. What's your training been like?"

   14. KKKevin Kelly17:19

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson17:19

       "Talk me through your process." And she said, "Well, uh, to be honest, I- I'm not formally trained in this, but when I was nine years old, my parents bought me the biggest Crayola crayon set that was available-"

   16. KKKevin Kelly17:30

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson17:30

       "... and I used every single one of them down to the nub." And I thought-

   18. KKKevin Kelly17:35

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:35

       ... "That is somebody who was weird in childhood-"

   20. KKKevin Kelly17:37

       (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson17:37

       "... and didn't lose it when they got to adulthood."

   22. KKKevin Kelly17:39

       Exactly. And there's tons and tons of stories. Uh, I- I- I encounter people like that all the time. Um, and- and- and, you know, a lot of people... I mean, ba- basically, you- you... Ideally, you'll have a business card and your occupation should be pretty unique to yourself. And that is happening, uh, um, all the time right now today. That's the, to me, the- the beauty of technology and why I'm a big booster of it, is that it gives us more and more options. It permits more and more people to find their genius and share it in ways that you could not do before the invention of, you know, the symphony or- or cinema or, um, laser. Uh, all these enable...... um, new ways of expressing, and somebody somewhere is born with that right combination, if we can get them matched up.

6. 18:34 – 21:35

   A Great Way to Understand Yourself

   1. KKKevin Kelly18:34

   2. CWChris Williamson18:34

      A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.

   3. KKKevin Kelly18:40

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a little bit of, um, if you find it irritating ... it's a signal that this is resonating with you in a certain way. And it doesn't mean that you are like that. It just means that you have something in you that's particularly attuned to this, and that you should investigate it to be sure that you're not like it. But even if you are not like it, it, that is indicating that something about yourself that you haven't really kind of explored yet. And, and, and I think my basic premise, I know this from the quantified self-movement which we started, is that we're opaque to ourselves. We're kind of like the last to know about (laughs) ourselves in many ways. Both collectively as humans, we don't know how our brains work and why we do things, but even individually, we have, um, we're blocked in some ways from our, accessing our true understanding of ourselves or even our memories, our motivations. And we need a lot of discipline as well as outside help to understand ourselves. And this is another tool in that toolkit of trying to come to understanding about ourselves.

   4. CWChris Williamson19:59

      There is a ... when you see somebody else that is being irritating, it activates inside of you, it triggers something inside of you, which resonates with, with, uh, uh part of your own makeup.

   5. KKKevin Kelly20:15

      Right.

   6. CWChris Williamson20:15

      Yeah. I, um, I, I totally, totally agree. I think that it's so interesting to consider how self-decept- self-deceptive we are.

   7. KKKevin Kelly20:22

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson20:22

      You know, evolutionarily, it makes total sense.

   9. KKKevin Kelly20:25

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson20:25

       If you need to kid everybody else that you're not a complete freak that talks to themselves in the shower-

   11. KKKevin Kelly20:31

       Right, right.

   12. CWChris Williamson20:31

       ... that does all of the myriad weird idiosyncrasy stuff that we do-

   13. KKKevin Kelly20:35

       Right, right, right.

   14. CWChris Williamson20:36

       ... the best way to convince them that you're not mental is to not believe that you're mental yourself, which means that you are the easiest person to fool by yourself and the last person to know.

   15. KKKevin Kelly20:46

       Right. And, and also, there is also another evolutionary advantage, which is you really don't want the ego to be able to mess around too much in, in your fundamental operating system.

   16. CWChris Williamson21:00

       Abs- oh, the base, the base code should not be tinkered with, no.

   17. KKKevin Kelly21:03

       R- r- r- right. And s- and so you don't really wanna have easy access to that, because you'll be messing around with it otherwise. And so there is a kind of a deliberate distancing that we do just to, to, to op- keep operating.

   18. CWChris Williamson21:16

       Protect the vital systems.

   19. KKKevin Kelly21:17

       Exactly. Right.

   20. CWChris Williamson21:19

       Yeah. Well, I mean, imagine, to take it to an extreme, imagine if you had to consciously think every time you wanted to breathe, or every time you wanted-

   21. KKKevin Kelly21:24

       Right.

   22. CWChris Williamson21:24

       ... to digest food. You know-

   23. KKKevin Kelly21:26

       Right.

   24. CWChris Williamson21:26

       ... it's just a, a difference of degree to roll that up toward your view of your own status or what you find attractive or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

   25. KKKevin Kelly21:33

       Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

7. 21:35 – 24:22

   Why You Should Ignore Websites That Have ‘Truth’ in the URL

   1. KKKevin Kelly21:35

   2. CWChris Williamson21:35

      You can ignore any website with the word truth-

   3. KKKevin Kelly21:39

      (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson21:39

      ... (laughs) in its URL.

   5. KKKevin Kelly21:41

      Yeah. Uh, and then the email with, with something similar, with, with a, with a, uh, really good bargain. Um, yeah, it's, it's ... most of my knowledge has been, um, channeling the ancients and the Stoics and the Bible. This is not one of them. (laughs) This is a much more contemporary one based on my own experience and what I've seen in the world. So, um, I could be wrong about that, but generally, that's a good heuristic and rule of thumb.

   6. CWChris Williamson22:11

      What do you think about the, you can ignore any science that's got the word science in the title heuristic?

   7. KKKevin Kelly22:16

      Huh. I haven't heard that one. Um-

   8. CWChris Williamson22:19

      Social science.

   9. KKKevin Kelly22:20

      Like Christian Science? (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson22:23

       Yes. Yeah.

   11. KKKevin Kelly22:25

       Social science, uh, yeah. Um, I don't th- I wouldn't say you could ignore it. But, um, yeah, that, there is a parallel. I had not thought about that. Um, what it, what it means is that, um, you need a lot more evidence. So like any kind of even, whether the social science, but even in medicine, you, we can't really make policy based on just one or two studies. We need, you need hundreds of studies be- and that's because the body and physiology is so complex that even, unlike physics where one or two experiments can tell you a lot, in these arenas, you need hundreds of experiments.

   12. CWChris Williamson23:06

       Muddier, more multivariate.

   13. KKKevin Kelly23:09

       Right. Just over time, all kinds of, uh, variables alluded. And so by the way, this is why I'm very, very reluctant to make policy now based on social media, because we haven't done the hundreds of experiments. There's one or two experiments about the consequences of social media, and it's just like, it's like having one or two medical studies. You, you just should not be making policy based on just the handful that have been done, mostly in the US and not even around the world. So, um, so I'm a big advocate of more and more constant testing and knowledge and, um, investigation, um, and, and, and, and, and persistent, doing it again. Un- unlike the FDA where they do it once and then they approve it and then never test it again. That's also not really, um, modern. And so, uh, so right now, we just ... and AI will be, it's a whole nother thing, because we've done almost zero, and it's like a year old. Who knows anything? So trying to make policy based on whatever might have come up is just completely ridiculous. We just don't know enough yet.

8. 24:22 – 30:56

   Ask Stupid Questions

   1. CWChris Williamson24:22

      Don't be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid, because 90% of the time, everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.

   2. KKKevin Kelly24:31

      Right. So, so I was a kid.... who sat in class up in the front row, and I asked all the stupid questions. And, um, people would come up to me all the time saying, "Thank you for asking that question. I was too embarrassed to ask it." So, um, I... For some reason I wasn't embarrassed to ask a stupid question. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson24:57

      Why do you think that's the case? How can people become less embarrassed to be stupid?

   4. KKKevin Kelly25:03

      I don't really know the answer to that one. Um, I've never lacked self-confidence, and that's another question people have, is where does it come from or where do you get it? And I don't know. Um, I- I think it may have so- something (laughs) to do with a lack of empathy, meaning that I kind of didn't care what other people thought. Like-

   5. CWChris Williamson25:31

      Full stop. Yeah. (laughs)

   6. KKKevin Kelly25:32

      ... my wife and others, she really does care. She's thinking about other people, and I was not thinking about other people. It was like, I wasn't asking the question for their sake. I genuinely had the stupid question. That was my question. (laughs) And so it wasn't as if I'm thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna ask a question because... For the benefit of others." No, no, no. It was like-

   7. CWChris Williamson25:53

      This isn't altruistic. This is completely selfish.

   8. KKKevin Kelly25:56

      No. No. (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson25:56

      Yeah.

   10. KKKevin Kelly25:56

       I was just a stupid guy who was naive enough to, to, to say, "I don't know what you're talking about."

   11. CWChris Williamson26:02

       Nailed it. So a, a, a good parallel to what I've done on the show, I ask, you know, thousands of questions a year to people-

   12. KKKevin Kelly26:11

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson26:11

       ... on this podcast. The questions that get the most, uh, praise or thanks in the comments are when I'll say, "What's that word mean?" Th- someone, someone used the word, uh, uh, bivalve the other day.

   14. KKKevin Kelly26:26

       Uh-huh.

   15. CWChris Williamson26:26

       And, uh, "What's that?" I go, "It's like an oyster." "Oh, thank you." Um, those are the s- the most super... I ƒ- I, I thought that I didn't know what a bivalve. I was the only one that wasn't bivalve-pilled-

   16. KKKevin Kelly26:38

       (laughs)

   17. CWChris Williamson26:38

       ... on this podcast. And it turns out, it turns out that other people are as well. So yeah, I, you know, it... This goes all the way up. It's outside of school, it's outside of everything.

   18. KKKevin Kelly26:45

       Right. Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson26:46

       If-

   20. KKKevin Kelly26:46

       And, and, and by the way, uh, you know, I, I'm a born editor rather than writer, and I edited magazines in Wire. And this is something that I was doing that I would do when editing, is I am representing the reader at that point. But mostly, again, it's for, for me. And that it was... If I did not truly understand something, it was like, "You gotta explain it to me 'cause I don't-"

   21. CWChris Williamson27:07

       "What do you mean by that?"

   22. KKKevin Kelly27:08

       "What do you mean by that? Ex- I- Because I don't understand it." And you k- and so... But there was also a balance, by the way, because there's also a tendency in journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, to have to explain everything over and over again, aiming to the kind of 11-year-old.

   23. CWChris Williamson27:25

       Mm-hmm.

   24. KKKevin Kelly27:26

       Where for a while, in the '90s, if you use the word DNA, you had to explain, you had to say, "DNA, the thing that, you know..." Whatever. It was like-

   25. CWChris Williamson27:35

       Yeah.

   26. KKKevin Kelly27:35

       ... "I know what DNA is, I don't need to hear that again."

   27. CWChris Williamson27:38

       I suppose, here's an interesting insight there, as new fields open up, the conceptual inertia hasn't propagated sufficiently quickly, which means that you end up with much more clunky articles for a short period of time until the, whatever, um, cultural Overton window-

   28. KKKevin Kelly27:55

       Right, right.

   29. CWChris Williamson27:55

       ... has caught up-

   30. KKKevin Kelly27:56

       Right.
9. 30:56 – 39:20

   How to Prototype Your Life

   1. CWChris Williamson30:56

      Prototype your life. Try stuff-

   2. KKKevin Kelly30:58

      No.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:58

      ... instead of making grand plans.

   4. KKKevin Kelly31:00

      So, this is really the subtitle of my book, Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. It just took me way, way too long to kind of get there. There's a very in, um, what's the word I want? Literal meaning of prototyping, where, you know, I- I do, I make a lot of stuff. I can't show you, but I make ... I've been a maker all my life. I'm making things still, and it took me a long time to get to understand that you can only make a really great thing by prototyping it along the way. This, even this, I've now taken it to heart, and even this book I- I prototyped and made little versions of it, bound books. These happen to have doodles that the publisher rejected, but (laughs) -

   5. CWChris Williamson31:39

      (laughs)

   6. KKKevin Kelly31:40

      But, um, excuse me. Um, so I- I think, um, that's the literal sense of actually, you know, making ... When I'm making a, writing a book, I'm going to literally write a first draft all the way through to the end that will kind of be thrown away. The builder, people call build one to throw away. You, and then that idea, like making a chair all the way and then just to kind of discard it to make the better one, that was just so, that was just so hard for me to kind of accept as a- as a- an efficient way to do it or as- as- as ... Because making one thing anyway to the end was such a- such a challenge and so hard that, you know, just doing it to throw away seemed crazy. But that is really what I discovered the only way you can make something really great. And so, um, uh, this idea th- expands to beyond just a project, is to, if you're trying to start a business or something, rather than quitting your job and hi- getting a lot of money and making a five-year plan, you prototype it by trying something l- for, uh, three weeks, or just see how far you can do with, uh, with 10 products or 10 items that you're trying to sell or make. Or you do what the Airbnb guys did when they were prototyping Airbnbs. You know, they had some air mattresses and they were going door to door taking pictures of people who were having the air mattress in their house, and it was a prototyping stage. So there's, it's low commitment, high leverage learning, um, experiment, where you're iterating your way to a greater success. And that's, I think, the approach that works in life as well. Um, I can't tell you the number of people that I've met who went through school, did a graduate degree, and wanted to become a lawyer. So they're, so they're in law school and then they graduate. Within five weeks of working at a law firm, they realize they hate it. They never once, like, did an internship or- or volunteered at a lawyer just to hang around to see what it was. You wanna prototype. You just don't wanna go that way. That's commitment.

   7. CWChris Williamson33:59

      Stress test your assumptions.

   8. KKKevin Kelly34:01

      Stress test. Yes. The whole way. Your assumptions, try out something, do a version of it that's a mock-up. When we did our kitchen remodel, I did a full scale model of the, um, remodel in cardboard, from refrigerator cardboard with duct tape. And then you can learn incredible amount of seeing the real size thing. It's like, "Oh, this shouldn't be here. This should be over here. This should be a little bit higher." And, um, that's the best approach, I think, to both projects and life.

   9. CWChris Williamson34:33

      I've got one of my favorite ones I came up with a- a number of years ago, which was a- a note to myself, which is, "Perfectionism is procrastination masquerading as quality control."

   10. KKKevin Kelly34:44

       That's probably true for some people.

   11. CWChris Williamson34:47

       I think a lot of people, uh, optimize for perfecting rather than shipping at a pace required-

   12. KKKevin Kelly34:54

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson34:54

       ... to work out what works-

   14. KKKevin Kelly34:56

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson34:56

       ... because they never have to face real world rejection-

   16. KKKevin Kelly34:59

       Right, right.

   17. CWChris Williamson34:59

       ... failure by keeping everything behind the scenes.

   18. KKKevin Kelly35:02

       Right. And- and that's also something that I've learned, again, from blogging and being at Wired was, um, this idea of sharing your work really early before it's done in order to get feedback. Because (laughs) once it's done, it's really hard to change. And so there's this idea of, uh, in ... that I do now of writing out loud. I call it writing out loud, writing publicly. In verses, I mean, I'm, again, I'm always impressed by the fantastic musical Hamilton, the way that they workshopped that for a decade, just trying and trying it live and f- getting the feedback and changing it. And so that is, th- that's when, that's the best time to get feedback is before you're done.

   19. CWChris Williamson35:40

       Here's the other thing as well. Involving somebody in the process of a creative work gets them to be more bought in than you can imagine. So I'm doing some live shows, uh, solo live shows towards the end of this year. I'm gonna do some work in progress shows between now and then. I need to get in front of a room of 20 to 50 people before I stand at Leicester Square Theater-

   20. KKKevin Kelly35:59

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson35:59

       ... on a Sunday night, sold out in London. Um, and I'm gonna have probably a laptop or an iPad attached to my hand. You know, it's gonna be messy. There won't be music. It'll be blah, blah. The money will go to charity for the people that come along. But I would wager that the people who get to say to their friends, "I went to go and see that-"

   22. KKKevin Kelly36:15

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson36:15

       "... as work in progress show, you know?"

   24. KKKevin Kelly36:17

       Correct.

   25. CWChris Williamson36:17

       "And it was actually really interesting 'cause I got to observe it out loud," and blah, blah, blah.

   26. KKKevin Kelly36:21

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson36:21

       Uh, you know, we used to do this with, um, with club nights too. So I ran nightclubs for a very long time. Before we released the brand, what we would do is we would involve the most influential guys and girls that go out and party in town in the process. What ... You know, for room two music upstairs, do we wanna go sort of more tech house or do we wanna go more tropical house?

   28. KKKevin Kelly36:41

       Right.

   29. CWChris Williamson36:41

       We didn't really care about their feedback. We wouldn't take their feedback on board. We knew what we wanted to do with regards to this event.

   30. KKKevin Kelly36:47

       Right, right.
10. 39:20 – 41:04

    ‘Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional’

    1. KKKevin Kelly39:20

    2. CWChris Williamson39:20

       Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

    3. KKKevin Kelly39:23

       Yeah. S- we under- ... You know, humans... I think animals feel pain. We don't think that they suffer very much, um, in the way that we do. So it's sort of, uh... Yeah. W- we feel pain, that's inevitable, but we turn it into suffering by... What's the word? By being victimized by it. And so if we decide that, um, this is pain and we will try and deal with the pain, we don't have to suffer. And I think the difference is, um... Here's what it is. I think pain is outside, suffering is internal. Pain is a... is an external thing, and suffering is more of an identity, and you don't want that pain to become your identity. You want it to be something that is a trait, something that you are... something that surrounds you rather than something that's integral to you. One of the ways you learn optimism and teach optimism to kids, and optimism is a skill you can learn, is to understand that, um, s- as a kid, set- setbacks are only temporary. They're not your identity. You're not saying, "Oh, I am an unlucky person." And suffering has a little bit of that sense of, uh, an acceptance of a fate, of an identity rather than, um, the pain which is external and can be overcome.

    4. CWChris Williamson41:03

       You can't reason

11. 41:04 – 44:53

    How to Reason with People Better

    1. CWChris Williamson41:04

       someone out of a notion that they didn't-

    2. KKKevin Kelly41:06

       Right.

    3. CWChris Williamson41:06

       ... reason themselves into.

    4. KKKevin Kelly41:08

       So I have ano- I have another aphorism that I'm working on that I haven't actually published yet, and so I don't have the words down, but, um, most arguments are not about the argument (laughs) . They're usually, they're usually, uh, just, they're usually about something else at an emotional level, something else at an identity level, something else at a subs- subconscious level. And so that's where a lot of our views come from. Most of the vi- or views are inherited, they're given to us. We kind of accumulate them without even being aware of it, um, and so trying to get out of that through a logical process is just simply usually not gonna work. And that's why I say one of the best ways to change someone's mind is to listen to them very carefully and try to understand why they believe what they're believing, and you actually get more... You- you get further along in helping them change their mind that way than actually by arguing with them.

    5. CWChris Williamson42:07

       Yeah. It's, uh... It also probably saves you an awful lot of time-

    6. KKKevin Kelly42:11

       Right.

    7. CWChris Williamson42:12

       ... from trying to... Uh, drowning yourself whilst trying to save somebody else who refuses to swim in- in-

    8. KKKevin Kelly42:19

       Right.

    9. CWChris Williamson42:19

       ... whatever argument they're doing.

    10. KKKevin Kelly42:20

        Right.

    11. CWChris Williamson42:21

        I have a friend who's got a... Gwinda's Theory of Bespoke Bullshit. Many don't have an opinion until they're asked for it, at which point they cobble together a viewpoint-

    12. KKKevin Kelly42:30

        Yeah.

    13. CWChris Williamson42:30

        ... from whim and half-remembered hearsay before deciding that this two-minute-old makeshift opinion will be their new hill to die on.

    14. KKKevin Kelly42:37

        (laughs) Right. Well, somewhere else I give advice that, um, you have... you can get more respect for your opinions if you're able to be able to state the other side as well as the other side could.... and that you really shouldn't, um, be offering your opinions unless you are prepared to kind of be able to explain it to that, to that level of understanding the other side. And so that's, uh, again, that's a very high bar and, and it should be a high bar for, for pontificating on, say, controversial things-

    15. CWChris Williamson43:13

        (laughs)

    16. KKKevin Kelly43:13

        ... is that you should be able to state the other side to the satisfaction of the other. At w- eh, at Long Now, we ran a debate series, and that was one of the conditions of the debate, was one side would state their, um, premise or their idea and the other side had to restate it to the satisfaction of the first one before you can move on. And that's, by the way, that's a, that's a pretty big hurdle for a lot of people.

    17. CWChris Williamson43:41

        Well, this is the thing about being convinced by anything. Y- you don't really get to choose what you're convinced by. Uh, there are degrees of self-deception that people can go through and sort of willful self-deception-

    18. KKKevin Kelly43:51

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson43:51

        ... as well, I, I suppose. But if you were convinced by the thing that the other side is convinced by, you would also be convinced by it.

    20. KKKevin Kelly43:58

        Right.

    21. CWChris Williamson43:59

        So it is very important and i- i- it's such a good tool, steel manning is such a good tool to, uh, turn down the volume of antagonism-

    22. KKKevin Kelly44:08

        Right.

    23. CWChris Williamson44:08

        ... and adversarialness, uh, that occurs. I'm currently writing a book at the moment and everything that we're doing in it is to give theory of mind from one group to another group.

    24. KKKevin Kelly44:16

        Right.

    25. CWChris Williamson44:17

        Like, uh, have you ever considered what it's like to be this person?

    26. KKKevin Kelly44:20

        Right.

    27. CWChris Williamson44:20

        Have you ever considered what it's like to be the other person?

    28. KKKevin Kelly44:23

        Right.

    29. CWChris Williamson44:23

        He- I- as soon as you do, you just realize, "Oh, God. Yeah, maybe, maybe it's not overblown. Maybe, maybe they genuinely do have a case here. Maybe they do genuinely suffer in ways that I couldn't foresee."

    30. KKKevin Kelly44:35

        Yeah. A- absolutely. Um, and, and usually it's not a lack of information (laughs) or, or information itself that, that is changing people's minds. And so, um, yeah, so you, so you don't have to attend every argument that you're invited to.

12. 44:53 – 47:51

    What’s Really Behind Conspiracy Theories

    1. CWChris Williamson44:53

       Trust me, there is no them.

    2. KKKevin Kelly44:55

       Yeah. That one's a little hard to explain, but that's borne out of my own experience in working with my kids too. Um, there's no them because most people are not... Because of incompetency rather than anything else, right? I mean, they're just... The, the, the, them, that you would imagine d- requires a degree of competency and collaboration and whatnot, um, to work. And that's why para- you know, b- b- being paranoid is not really useful, because the universe isn't really conspiring. There's just not capable of it. Um, and so, uh, that them doesn't... I want to be sure to indicate that there is, there are systems that have a prejudice. There is systematic racism in the world. So there is a, there is a, a system that will be biased, but there's still not a them there, because e- because the people involved in that system are not even willing and not necessarily collaborating and they're not being deliberate. So there are indi- so the individuals are not the them. There can be certainly a system that is biased, but when you meet someone, it's not the them and there's no real, there's no real ability to conspire against you in the way you might imagine.

    3. CWChris Williamson46:30

       I've come upon the exact same thing. I've just given it a different name. So Andrew Schultz, comedian from New York, very funny guy, uh, he taught me this lesson and I renamed it Schultz's Razor. So, "It's not coordination, it's cowardice." Schultz taught me a great lesson during our episode, and this is him. Quote, "A lot of the time we believe that there is a grand plan at work to try and push a narrative or hurt people from a particular group. From the outside, it looked like a coordinated assault, collusion orchestrated by some malign overlord conspiracy, but on the ground it doesn't look anything like that. It's just individuals trying to save their own skin and not get fired. They've got an expensive house they can barely pay the mortgage on and a wife who wants a new car and private school for their kids. It is much easier to just adhere to whatever ideology will keep them in the job rather than go against it. Sure, it might mean that they push an unhinged story about children or ban somebody for saying something innocuous from a platform, but this doesn't mean that they've been indoctrinated into some grand plan. The incentives encourage execs, influential actors, and the people in power to behave in particular aligned ways, but their coordination is not consciously conducted, it's just the path of least resistance for each person."

    4. KKKevin Kelly47:37

       Yeah. I agree that that's a very good description of it. Um, so, while that's true, and then I would reduce it to, there's no them. (laughs)

    5. CWChris Williamson47:48

       There's no them. I should have just said there's no them. That would have been quicker.

13. 47:51 – 49:04

    Importance of Attending to the Small Things

    1. CWChris Williamson47:51

    2. KKKevin Kelly47:51

       (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson47:51

       Uh, "Tend to the small things. More people are defeated-"

    4. KKKevin Kelly47:54

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson47:54

       "... by blisters than mountains."

    6. KKKevin Kelly47:57

       And by the way, there's again, two literal things of this. I do these walk and talks where we invite people and we walk. And, um, there are people who are very fit, who are very healthy, um, and they could climb a mountain, but they're just brought low by a little tiny blister because they bought new shoes. Don't ever buy new shoes for a long hike. And so, um, so yeah, the small things metaphorically, um, can bring down. So you, you do want to make sure that you pay your taxes, right? And you do want to make sure that your bank accounts are balanced and all that kind of stuff in order to, to do the really great things that you are called to do.

    7. CWChris Williamson48:42

       I often think about the, um, very normal everyday things that the most excellent people have to do.

    8. KKKevin Kelly48:49

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson48:49

       And, um, I, this really sort of points the finger at it quite nicely. There's another one here, and this, I think...... might be the one that resonated with me the most, despite the fact that it's the least applicable to me.

    10. KKKevin Kelly49:03

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson49:03

        "You

14. 49:04 – 52:16

    What Kevin Learned About Leadership from Steve Jobs

    1. CWChris Williamson49:04

       lead by letting others know-"

    2. KKKevin Kelly49:06

       Uh-huh.

    3. CWChris Williamson49:06

       "... what you expect of them, which may exceed what they expect of themselves. Provide them a reputation that they can step up to." I thought that was very, very interesting.

    4. KKKevin Kelly49:15

       Yeah. I- I- I think I got that a little bit from, um, Steve Jobs and his attitude of- of leadership, of really... And- and I had a, I had a track coach that was the same thing, is like, he led by leading me to believe in my capabilities beyond what I believed myself. And he kind of pointed to this things, and believed that I would get there. And I did get there, um, even though that I didn't see that. So he kind of led me into stepping up myself, and- and I see that in great leaders and people who work with them getting their best. And there was this belief, and the person seemed unreasonable at the time, who demanded a certain level of excellence and performance that the employees at the time didn't really think was possible. But this person knew, could see in them that they were capable and led them by expecting it from him.

    5. CWChris Williamson50:25

       Mm-hmm. How can people become better, uh, either as recipients or as broadcasters of finding that balance between tyranny-

    6. KKKevin Kelly50:34

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson50:34

       ... and inspiration?

    8. KKKevin Kelly50:36

       It is... You're right, it is a balance because by the way, Steve Jobs was a really mean guy who certainly went overboard with this in his demands. Um, I think you... I think you have to look at the people that you are guiding, whether they remain healthy. If they are, if they are truly... If their marriages are suffering, if their children are complaining about them, if other things in a life are not working, then- then you're probably pressing too hard. The... If you're really... The- this works and enlarges the wholeness of a person at its best. If it's not doing that, then it's probably too much. So I think we... This was the Amish, the story of the Amish, who when... Are still deciding about new technology in which to accept it, and they will let the early adopter Amish, there are early adopter Amish, adopt new things. But they were saying, "We're watching you and your family and how you treat people and what you're doing with your day, as an evaluation of whether we, you should continue to use this stuff." And so that idea of, um, you know, Steve Jobs' weakness was probably not in paying attention to that whole person. Just looking at their performance at work and forgetting the fact that this would be having an impact on the rest of them, and if they were paying attention to that, he could see whether or not this was a positive for them or a net negative.

    9. CWChris Williamson52:14

       "Right now, no matter your age,

15. 52:16 – 55:24

    Celebrate the Present

    1. CWChris Williamson52:16

       these are your golden years."

    2. KKKevin Kelly52:17

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson52:17

       "The good stuff will yield golden memories, and the bad stuff will yield golden lessons."

    4. KKKevin Kelly52:22

       Yeah. These are your golden years. It's not when you're 70. It's like right now, you are living in your golden years. This is it. And, um, that is... Going back to your kind of like, your best bad day, these are your best bad years, (laughs) in a certain sense. It's like, yeah, no, you wa- you wanna celebrate this year because this is, like, as good as it's gonna get, which will be true for next year too. But, um, this idea of kind of celebrating the present as- as the best. And, um, I have a friend who... Well, his name is Hugh Howey. He's now, uh, this week, last week, his new story was put onto Amazon Prime, The Silo Stories. Um-

    5. CWChris Williamson53:13

       Oh, one of my friends has told me that I need to watch that. Was it-

    6. KKKevin Kelly53:15

       Yeah. So it's w- it was written by Hugh, and he started off writing, he was a bookstore clerk. And he started writing little chapters that were all put on Amazon, and he- he made, he succeeded beyond his dream. But the thing was- was optioned, and, um, taken through many, many steps. And it was like each time it would go through, and then it would, he'd fail, and then that, someone else would pick it up. And then there'd be, you know, casting and it would collapse there. And there was this thing, and- and he was saying what he learned to do was that each time it moved a step ahead, he would celebrate as if that's as far as it was gonna go.

    7. CWChris Williamson53:51

       Mm-hmm.

    8. KKKevin Kelly53:53

       Like, it was optioned. "Okay, we're gonna have a celebration, 'cause it's probably not gonna go any beyond that." And so at every moment, he's celebrating the thing as if that was the victory.

    9. CWChris Williamson54:02

       Yeah.

    10. KKKevin Kelly54:02

        But you do this sense of these intermediate victories become... You accept them as that, "Well, it may not go any further than that, so we're gonna celebrate this." And I think you can then do the same thing with your years. It's like, you may not have additional years, so why not celebrate this as the best year of your life?

    11. CWChris Williamson54:20

        I think a lot of people presume that if they give themselves an out in some regard, if they celebrate too much, that it's going to kill their drive.

    12. KKKevin Kelly54:28

        Mm-hmm.

    13. CWChris Williamson54:29

        But if you look at the relative balance between how much people over celebrate and how much people over, uh, whip themselves, flagellate themselves-

    14. KKKevin Kelly54:38

        (laughs) .

    15. CWChris Williamson54:38

        ... because they're not, uh, the Puritan work ethic. Uh, it's way more on the other side. There's a, a related, uh, concept that I learned about called deferred happiness syndrome.

    16. KKKevin Kelly54:47

        Oh, mm-hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson54:47

        "The common feeling that your life has not begun, that your present reality is a mere prelude-"

    18. KKKevin Kelly54:52

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CWChris Williamson54:52

        "... to some idyllic future."

    20. KKKevin Kelly54:53

        Right.

    21. CWChris Williamson54:54

        "This idyll is a mirage that will fade as you approach, revealing that the prelude you rushed through was in fact the one to your death."

    22. KKKevin Kelly55:01

        Yeah, I, I think you're right. There's no prelude, right? This is it. And, um, that, that's another piece of advice that I wrote recently that's not in the book, which is, um, don't save the best china and the best wine for some date that's never gonna happen. You- you use them as much as possible now, because this is, this is the time to celebrate.

    23. CWChris Williamson55:21

        Scratch the Rolex. Yeah, I agree.

    24. KKKevin Kelly55:23

        Right.

    25. CWChris Williamson55:23

        Um,

16. 55:24 – 1:00:00

    Why You Can Never Be Too Kind

    1. CWChris Williamson55:24

       "Whenever you have a choice between being right or being kind, be kind. No exceptions. Don't confuse kindness with weakness."

    2. KKKevin Kelly55:32

       Yeah. Yeah, so you can't be too kind. That's, that's true, and that's, um... It's related to another piece of advice I have about attending as many funerals as you can and listen to what people say. Um, my observation was, having done this recently, is almost nobody talks about the achievements of the departed. They talk about what they were like, how they made them feel, whether they were kind or funny or helpful. And so those are the qualities that we remember, and that means, in a certain sense, they may become the most important qualities that we have. And, um, kindness is always at the forefront, and it's a kind of empathy and a kind of, um, uh... It's an acceptance of the general... I think it's, it's, it's being realistic about the actual state of humans, which is that we tend to be, at our heart, kindhearted, helpful, and selfless, given all things being equal. And what we're taught in school, that we're selfish as a premise, is wrong. And if you accept the fact that kindness is, uh, always accorded, and people will be kind to you in return, which is really weird. But there is this weird paradox, which is that the more you give, the more you get. And that's true for everybody, and mathematically, that does not add up, but that is the foundation of the universe. And when you're kind, it's the probably the most selfish thing you can do.

    3. CWChris Williamson57:12

       Correct.

    4. KKKevin Kelly57:13

       People are gonna treat you their best. So weirdly, paradoxically, the selfish thing you can do is to be kind.

    5. CWChris Williamson57:21

       What would be a scenario where you need to make a choice between being right or being kind?

    6. KKKevin Kelly57:26

       Oh. (laughs) All the time. Um, particularly, like ... I don't know. If, if there's, uh, um... You told someone ... you tried to help someone. They didn't do what you suggested, and, um, it didn't work out. Being right would be reminding them about that, that you were right. Being kind would be not to mention it. (laughs) Um, that's just one kind of trivial example, but, um, there is, uh, uh, all the time ... I, I see this in marriages all the time, where you can be, like, yeah, I can be right, um, this is, this is the thing to do, but the kindness would suggest, um, you do it. So, so my wife and I have this thing where we can all rotate in them always being right. And so this idea is like, "You're always right. I'm gonna ... It's right." And that's kindness and not rightness, b- because we're not saying whether they're really right. We're saying, "We're treating you as if you're right." So that's ... That works. That, that ... It works very, very powerfully, because, because basically it is in alignment with the general drift of the universe of humanness, which is that we are basically kind.

    7. CWChris Williamson58:50

       The other thing it does is it accounts for our irrationality. You know, we're not utility optimizers.

    8. KKKevin Kelly58:55

       Right.

    9. CWChris Williamson58:56

       If we were, then you would always want the most right answer at all times.

    10. KKKevin Kelly59:00

        That's right.

    11. CWChris Williamson59:01

        But you're not. You're emotional.

    12. KKKevin Kelly59:02

        Right.

    13. CWChris Williamson59:02

        And, and you're going to take things not based on the facts, but based on the way that you feel. There's another, uh, really great quote that I love that says, "Karma is just you repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve."

    14. KKKevin Kelly59:16

        (laughs) Well, C.S. Lewis talked about his definition of heaven and hell. He said heaven and hell are basically taking, take you as you are right now, and what you're becoming, and just make it infinite, right? So wherever you are. So if you're kind of a person who's been cheating people and is just kind of out for themselves. And it's like, okay, you just keep extending that infinitely. That's hell. If you're a person doing your better and going a little bit better, that's heaven. So it's, it's your current trajectory, just multiplied by infinity.

    15. CWChris Williamson59:58

        Kevin Kelly, ladies and gentlemen.

17. 1:00:00 – 1:01:17

    Where to Find Kevin

    1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

       Kevin, I really appreciate you. I think this work is fantastic. Uh, as, like I say, the fledgling aphorist in me is, uh, really, really impressed by this. Excellent advice for living. Everybody should go and check that out. Uh, is there anything else, anywhere else that you want to direct people?

    2. KKKevin Kelly1:00:13

       Um, not really. I, I, I appreciate the attention. Um, people can find me at my website, which is my initials, kk.org. I'm on the socials as well, where I publish my art every day. Um, I do have a recommendo newsletter, which we've done for six years. It's free every Sunday, and it's, it's ... The recommended stuff is one page. Um, and you'll ... So people can sign up for that, but mostly, um, take a look at the book. And by the way, the one thing I've learned about doing this recently is that, um, if you have kids, generally the kids won't pay any attention to the advice you give, but you can point them to a book, the other expert, and they'll pay attention to that. So, um, it really works great in that respect.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:59

       Kevin, thank you very much for your day.

    4. KKKevin Kelly1:01:00

       Thank you. I really appreciate it. It was fun.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:01:03

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:01:17