Modern WisdomComforting Truths About Human Nature - Alain de Botton (4K)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,096 words- 0:00 – 9:52
The Hidden Trap of Self-Esteem
- CWChris Williamson
Where do you think self-esteem comes from?
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, gosh, I wish we knew. I mean, I think the, the first thing to say is it's a bit of a mystery, if we knew how to bottle this stuff. You know, if you look at the differences between what human beings achieve, it isn't easily explained by intelligence. Everything shows that, that, um, broadly speaking, uh, you know, intelligence accounts for the smaller portion of the massive differences in achievement, and that's galling. Uh, it's, it, it, it isn't what the school system is really about. Um, and I think, you know, a lot of achievement is about imagination, and it's about breaking through obstacles to, um, dreaming of a better world, a more interesting world, et cetera. Um, self-esteem is somewhere in that story, because I think self-esteem is about saying, "It might happen with me. This thing could be, I could be in charge of this thing," whatever it is. And I think class plays a role here. Um, one of the great injuries of a working-class background is that it tends to give you a sense that other people are controlling the world, and you have to negotiate the obstacles they put in place, but you don't get to remove those obstacles. You just have to work your way around them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, typical middle-class upbringing, middle class in the UK sense, um, uh, you know, you, you, you get imbued with a feeling that human beings like you make the world, and that raises your self-esteem. Um, you know, traditionally, there's an enormous difference to, you know, if your uncle happens to be, you know, the guy in the civil service who does whatever, or, and, or y- or your, your slightly annoying second cousin, um, you know, works in the treasury or something. You know, this changes your sense of reality because you think, "Well, of course I can do something because look at those not that impressive people who I once saw around the kitchen," et cetera.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
So, a lot about self-esteem is thinking, "How do I stack up next to other people?" Um, is the world shaped by gods or, broadly speaking, by people like you and I? I know we're in a religious place, and you must be seeming godly to the audience. But, um, but the good thing is you're not, um, and I think, you know, that's one of the good things about modern technology is that it's helped to show the world that those ... It, because it's given a very granular, close-up sense-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... of people in so-called positions of power, authority, et cetera, and that's helped to kind of imaginatively, level the imaginative playing field in a way. So-
- CWChris Williamson
You, you feel closer to them?
- ABAlain de Botton
You feel closer to them. You see that, you know, they're humans too.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And that can be inspiring.
- CWChris Williamson
There was a, an incident that a friend had when recording a podcast, which, uh, I needed a name for, and we've come to call it a yogurt lid moment. So, he was sitting down to record with a very famous author, and he's idolized this guy for a very long time, and, you, you know, titan of literature, and setting down, his camera team are all setting everything up, and he's in the guest's house. And the guest says, "Would you mind if I went and got a yogurt?" And he goes off, "It's your house, your yogurt. Please con- continue." The guest walks away, goes to the fridge, and opens it up, gets a yogurt out, sits down opposite my friend. Everyone still pottering around, and my friend sat opposite this guy that he'd revered for decades, you know, just saw as this sort of untouchable demigod-
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... watched him look at the yogurt, take the lid off, put it up to his face, and then lick the lid of the yogurt. And he said, "At that moment, the veils fell from my eyes, and I saw him as the fallible human that's like..." And it's that, the yogurt lid moment, this sort of weird, uh, mortal trip.
- ABAlain de Botton
Think of the way that we're introduced to life, really. You know, we start off very small, and we're surrounded by very large people who seem to know how to do extraordinary things. You know, they can, um, throw a ball over a tree. They can, you know, they know how to speak a foreign language. They can do very complicated maths, et cetera. And we are tiny, and it takes such a long time to think, actually, these gods, these colossi are just human. So, you know, the, the, the number one sort of class differentiator is, is childhood, as it were, i- i- because we all start in this very subordinate class, which is the child-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... and we all look up to the adult. I mean, think of those times when, I don't know if you had this, but, you know, you're at school, and then it's the weekend, and you go to the shops. And suddenly you see the French teacher in the aisles of the shop, and you think, "What's that person doing there?" You know, "There's Mr. Gregory. He's, he's buying cereal." And you think, "That guy is just..." You know, it comes back to your yogurt point, point. It's, "That guy's human." And, and we're always catching up with that idea, X or Y is human.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And isn't it interesting that very basic thought is still always a bit of a surprise?
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- ABAlain de Botton
We're always on the back foot with that insight.
- CWChris Williamson
Why is that related to self-esteem? Why is self-esteem not contained within our own system?
- ABAlain de Botton
Well, Chris, because we've got this very unfortunate thing that we know ourselves from the inside, and we know other people only from what they choose to tell us. And so we've got this massive imbalance of data, and we are so weird to ourselves, and so embarrassing, and so flawed. And anyone with a modicum of self-awareness is going to have, if they're honest, should have, a slightly hard time tolerating themselves 'cause the stuff-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
... that goes on in our minds, the stuff that goes on in our minds is ... You know, if it was published, I mean, we'd all be, you know, excommunicated immediately. Um, that's not a sign necessarily that we're so degenerate. It's just a sign that we, we're having still a very hard time admitting what it is to be human at an interpersonal level.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, we're still, despite all these ways we have of sharing data-... um, it's still a sort of surprise. I mean, you know what it's like in a relationship or a close friendship when, you know, late at night you're able to go to your new pal, you're able to go, "You know, do you know, do you ever have that thing when..." And they go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing." And no one's ever mentioned it. No, you know, there's still a societal silence, and then the intimacy that grows from being able to say, "We're a bit weird." Now, the truth is, we're a bit weird, like everybody else.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
But there is still, um, an imbalance of, of knowledge, um, and, and a sense... I mean, you, you know that thing where kids say things like, "My family's so weird. Other people's families are so normal. You know, I went to, I went to Billy's family. They're... You know, I- yeah, his mum's really normal. Why, why are you so weird?" And then, of course, in time you realize, Billy's family's not normal. You just don't know them. You know, we don't know other people as well as we know ourselves, and so we tend to think, um, that those close to us are a bit more mad than anybody else.
- 9:52 – 16:43
Discovering What We’re Actually Capable Of
- CWChris Williamson
Is this, uh... Is self-esteem related to imposter syndrome? I, I think imposter syndrome was already something that I was seeing a lot of, and now I'm seeing more about increasingly, this sense that the world expects something of me that maybe I've even actually done previously, but I'm scared about whether or not I'm going to be able to deliver it.
- ABAlain de Botton
Look, I think it's... I know imposter syndrome causes people problems. But, um, I'm reassured if somebody suffers from imposter syndrome. It's a sign of honesty. It's a sign of self-awareness. Um, of course, it has its extreme versions which, you know, causes people a lot of pain. But if someone is aware that they might be a charlatan or might be pulling off a confidence trick, that's honesty. That's great. That's a, that's a starting point. You know, it's just like somebody who knows they might be evil is a good person.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
You know, evil people don't worry they might be evil.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
So it's... You know, you're, you're likely to be authentic and genuine if sometimes you think, "Am I a fake?" That's a good sign.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good starting point in the same way as identifying that you're a bad driver is a good starting point-
- ABAlain de Botton
100%. 100%.
- CWChris Williamson
... for not driving fast. But it doesn't necessarily make you better on the roads. So where do we go to? Where is becoming a better driver... Okay, my imposter syndrome... Thank you, Alain. You've told me that I'm not so up my own ass that I can't see my own flaws. Hooray. What about starting to work through that? What about starting to get a better sense of our own capacities and capabilities?
- ABAlain de Botton
Look, a lot of it is bouncing against the world and testing yourself against reality. It's very hard to know your talents until you've had a go at something. And I think we all have this sense sometimes that some things come more easily to us th- than to others. You know, I don't know how great tennis players start, but they must have a sense, "Ooh, I was able to hit that ball and that, that worked quite well." Or a great writer is able to think, "I was able to pull off quite a nice little sentence there." And that's the beginning of a kind of growing confidence. And you, you know, you need a... You need that kind of start. And, you know, I think a good life doesn't require you to do everything. It re- it requires you to do the things that-... you feel you're capable of and that you're especially good at. Um, it's no humiliation for me that I can't play tennis, for example. If somebody goes, "You know, you're terrible at this," because there's- I don't sense a talent, but I do sense talent in that tiny area of assembling words. That's the area that... You know, but maths I can't do. Um, (clears throat) you know, architecture I can't really do, et cetera. There are so many things I can't do. So, it's about finding those little sweet spots. And one of the great puzzles in life is, how do people find their vocation? How do people find their core identity, their talents? And I sometimes think of it as, it's like you're passing a metal detector over the ground and very occasionally something will let off a little beep, a beep of intensity, of interest, of heightened thoughtfulness and you think, "There's a fragment here below the ground-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... of my true self." Now, my true self was shattered or it- it came in disassembled form. It's buried, it's scattered over a vast area. And the task of life is to recreate it from hints. And I think that, you know, one of the great challenges, I mean, I think one of the big, big challenges, and it happens to every young person, is, "What should I do with my life?" It's- it's one of- it's one of the central questions of philosophy, in a way, because unless you're a very rare person, you will have to assemble a vision of your future. It's not gonna come ready-made and there won't be a voice from the sky going, "You are an accountant," or, "You are a downhill skier."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
It's gonna be something you have to assemble and you'll assemble it in bits. You'll- you'll have to recreate the- the original statue of you that was shattered a long time ago and that lies across a vast area. So, like an archeologist of the self, you have to build that up and- and you have to build it up out of those little beeps of interest.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And I think a good thing there is envy. People speak very, very low and embarrassed way about envy, you know, "You're not supposed to feel envious." I think very often when you feel a beep of envy it's because there's a fragment of your true ambition and your true self in the life of another person, and rather than going, "Oh, I must run away from it," go, "No, this is a clue." What is there that you are envious of? And often envy is a very inaccurate emotion. We envy the whole of someone when actually it tends to be a part of them that we want. And so we go, "I'm envious of that singer, actor, business person," et cetera, and you wanna go, "Hang on, hang on, it won't be the whole thing." Drill into it. What- what really is core here? You might realize it's actually not their fame, their money. It's- it's that they work with their hands or it's that they, uh, you know, um, live in a log cabin somewhere far away from other people, or whatever it is. So, the best thing to do with envy is to see it as a guide for your own ambition, not a sign of your innate jealousy and inadequacy.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
It's a clue.
- CWChris Williamson
I always think about envy as the only one of the seven deadly sins that doesn't feel good.
- ABAlain de Botton
Remind me of the other seven deadly sins? Gluttony?
- CWChris Williamson
Gluttony, sloth.
- ABAlain de Botton
Sloth doesn't feel good.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't think sloth feels good? Have you not spent a good Sunday afternoon watching some horrible TV show on the couch?
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah, but think of- but think of the self-disgust that sloth often brings, right? You know, you're lying on the sofa and you know that you're- you're, you know, you're scrolling Instagram and you know that your better self is being eroded.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And so there's guilty sloth with it, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Good sloth and guilty sloth.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 16:43 – 23:30
How Friendship Protects Us From External Criticism
- CWChris Williamson
The imposter syndrome thing, I think when it gets turned up too high, especially with low self-esteem, can turn into this sort of very loud critical inner voice, this sort of self-hatred thing. Um, I wonder whether there's better ways... Given that we're already quite critical of ourselves- Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... everybody is, how do you come to think about handling external criticism? You're an adult now. You're a big boy. Maybe this is in your professional life, maybe it's a personal comment on the way that you showed up at dinner, maybe it's... And yet, at least in my experience, there are very few people who are psychologically healthy and still able to cope with criticism about something they care about-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... in a way that doesn't really hurt. So, h- how do you think about dealing with criticism?
- CWChris Williamson
Look, I think one of the most galling things is criticism when it's warranted, when you have actually made a mistake. And, you know, one of the most awful things about being human is that you're constantly hurting others. You know, we are constantly hurting others in small ways and large, um, often through stupidity, exhaustion, narrow-mindedness, et cetera. Um, and then if we're moral people, and most of us are, it then hurts. It hurts that we have hurt someone. Um, how do we move on from that? How do we not, you know, sink into a hole? How can we live to see another day? We need to forgive ourselves for the sake of ourselves and- and those who depend on us. Um, and this is where, broadly speaking, friendship comes in. You know, we need...
- ABAlain de Botton
... trusted others, um, in whom we can confide, and we're sitting in this religious space. Confession has a long history. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... we need to be able to confess, uh, to a loving audience that can, that can say, "I know that you have done bad, but your heart is good." You know, and, and that's a complex maneuver of the mind.
- CWChris Williamson
And also something difficult to do in solitude or solo-
- ABAlain de Botton
I think we can't-
- CWChris Williamson
... which is why the other people-
- ABAlain de Botton
... we can't do it solo. We can't do it solo. I, I think this is, you know, one of the reasons why solitude is very challenging, because we simply cannot bring to ourselves the self-compassion, um, that, that we need to, to keep going.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, and, you, you know, we, we are social creatures. Um, if we began well in childhood, someone will have looked at us through the eyes of love, and to look at someone through the eyes of love is to see that though they may have done ill, they mean well. And it, it sounds simple, but it's, you know, all of, all of life is in there. And of course, then to be able to pull off that maneuver for other people. Um, I mean, you, you, you know, it's no coincidence that the great religions all circle this. They all circle this business of confession, forgiveness, charity to others. I don't mean financial charity, though, you know, that has a role, but it's really charity of spirit.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, it's obvi- it's something we desperately need, are very bad at, and yet, um, without it, society soon gums up. We can't go on.
- CWChris Williamson
And we can't provide it to ourselves-
- ABAlain de Botton
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... which is why it's so important, you need to be told that it's important for you to do it to other people because there's this odd sort of, uh, um, co-philanthropy that's occurring. I am going to pay into the pot, and you are going to pay into the pot, and everybody's going to withdraw from the pot. It's this sort of a, the, the council tax, I suppose-
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... of, uh, of human goodness.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah. That's beautiful. And, you know, many of us are lonely. I mean, this is one of the great secrets of, of life, that we don't have enough of these people. We, uh, we're surrounded by people, but how many of, how many of those are really the people who, in the middle of the night at crisis moment-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... is gonna be able to deliver that kind of, broadly we could call it reassurance, uh, a confessional ear, um, and a sense of, that we are worthy of forgiveness?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think this is a challenge that particularly men face, this having someone that is a sympathetic ear, the, the troubles of being tied up in your fragile male ego, et cetera? Uh, male friendships and, uh, male support seems to be a tough thing, tough needle to thread.
- ABAlain de Botton
It's a really tough needle to thread. I think that, um, being a man comes with all sorts of challenges, but one of them is that masculinity is presented as a kind of achievement. Um, you know how boys taunt each other in a school playground, and they'll go, "You're a girl," uh, as though there's a kind of slippery slope. The top of the slope is manhood, and then at the bottom is girlhood. And if you're not careful, you'll become a girl again, as it were. That, there's a sort of sense of when you were a baby, and that's the other taunt, baby, when you were a baby, you were in the feminine camp, and then through effort, you became a man. But that achievement is precarious, so men are always feeling the precarity of their identity. Um, and that's a very unstable, uh, uh, business. Look, I think the best men, um, are those who've been broken, um, by life and have pulled through, um, have come out the other end.
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- ABAlain de Botton
Because they've been forced by circumstances to drop the illusion of their strength and power. They- they've known that they couldn't keep that going. Um, they've hit rock bottom, and they've had to reach out and say, "I can't cope. Um, I, I am in infantile position. You know, help me." Um, that, I mean, men become rather glorious when that's happened to them, um, because that's when there's true humanity, sympathy, et cetera.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
But sometimes, men, they never get there. You know, it's, it's posture, posture, posture. It's, you know, defensive posture all the way. Um, so, and I, I can spot them a mile away, uh, the men who've been broken and come through.
- 23:30 – 31:08
Why Men Need to Be Vulnerable with Each Other
- ABAlain de Botton
- CWChris Williamson
I read an article, uh, a couple of weeks ago, uh, talking about how lots of men say, uh, there needs to be more room for men to open up about their emotions.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
We should have that in the real world. And when the rubber meets the road personally for them, a lot of the time guys still struggle to receive weakness and vulnerability from other men. So, they're saying, "I want the world to be able to accept my vulnerability whilst not really being that comfortable with accepting it from other people myself."
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, I don't think that... There's many asymmetries, and women have got it bad in some ways, and men have got it bad in others. But I think this is a particular asymmetry that men deal with more, that I think women are good at doing the nurturing thing, especially to other women.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
I think that men are bad at doing the nurturing thing generally, especially to other men. And there are already enough da- challenges of men opening up to women. Uh, oh, "How am I going to be seen?"
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"My fragile masculinity will be shattered. Maybe she'll tell her friends, or maybe it's my partner. She won't be attracted to me anymore."And, uh, yeah, I, I just think that was, I'd never seen it put that way previously, that guys want to be able to be vulnerable, and yet when they see other male vulnerability, it makes them very, very uncomfortable. They'll, uh, quote-tweet it online, mocking it, or they won't reach out in the way that's needed. And a couple of the reasons that were put forward are, well, maybe it highlights where you might be weak, too. This is somebody being, being vulnerable, and that throws into sharp contrast the fact that, hey, guess what? You've got vulnerabilities as well.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, another part of this, a little bit of an evo- evolutionary psychology explanation, that, uh, we have our coalitions, we would go out hunting, and a guy that's not that strong and stoic might not be a great coalitional partner. What if we get to the end of the hunt and he can't be bothered to turn around and go back? So, uh, and many, many other reasons. But yeah, I think that's an angle that guys, especially guys who want to be integrated, to transcend and include in Wilburian language, you know, you should take a good look in the mirror in not just being able to talk about your emotions, but in paying into the pot, right? Not just withdrawing from the taxes, but also, hey, I'm gonna be here, and I'm going to be here even to people maybe that I don't know, this random guy on the internet, as opposed to saying, "Ha ha ha, this person's wi-"
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Going, "Huh, this person was really hurting, and-"
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... fuck, if I was hurting, I, I'd probably want someone to be there for me. So, maybe I should try and do the same for them, despite not knowing them."
- ABAlain de Botton
I'm thinking of bullying, you know, it's, it's a strange word and it's an embarrassing word, but it exists. You, you know, the, the impulse to bully the weak. What is it? I mean, anyone who's been through school ev- which is everybody, knows about it, right? Which is, you see somebody who's... You know, typical target for bullying is somebody in a school whose, whose life seems softer, uh, more indulged than yours. They still seem stuck at a, in a way, at a privileged level. You know, their mother bakes them biscuits or packs their teddy bear in their school bag or whatever it is.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And you think, "Hang on a minute, I've had to be tough. I've had to grow up. I've had to... I've not been indulged, and I'm going to, I'm gonna punish in another person not just the weakness, but the privilege, the emotional privilege that I see."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
They, they get to, they get to walk around thinking that it's okay to be a bit, mm, weak and a bit soft. Well, that's not okay for me. So I, I resent this privilege, and I'm gonna make sure that their life gets a bit miserable. And that's how you end up bullying. And, uh, you know, uh, parents bully their children. I mean, it's, it's this great taboo, but they do. Um, it's a real challenge for a parent to see somebody having a life that's softer than the one they had, and there's a real impulse to say, "Hang on, you know, I, I resent you for your, your privilege. Not, not emotion- uh, not financial, emotion, emotional privilege."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
"Why, why do you get to be indulged in a way I wasn't?" It's very hard to bear that asymmetry.
- CWChris Williamson
How do people overcome that? Uh, y- let's say that you are a parent and you did grow up in a household that was perhaps not as emotionally forgiving as it should have been-
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you didn't feel quite as supported, and I imagine this, this is a really complex emotion to feel, which are my favorite ones. Uh, I grew up in a household that didn't have room for my emotions. I did a lot of self-work in order to be able to understand that, and then try and wipe that slime off me so that I can give a better life to my kids. My kids come along, they start to have this better life, and somehow in seeing the better life that I designed and tried to overcome in order to be able to make happen, resentment has now come in, and now I feel shame at my resentment, and I feel bitterness at my shame about my resentment, and anxiety about my bitterness about my shame about my resentment. And it's this infinite regress of emotions that you made happen in a positive way. Congratulations, hooray, you overcame this, you were a circuit breaker in this sort of weird, you know, serial of, uh, of string lights, and you feel bad about it.
- ABAlain de Botton
I mean, I'm laughing, right? Because this is where we're hitting kind of the tragedy of being human-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
... which is you try so hard to get it right, and you're trying to get this right, and something else goes wrong. And I mean, you know, we do need a warm, rich laughter. This is not merely the icing on the cake. It is one of the great solutions. I mean, we're, we're juggling here with the incompatibilities of, you know, raising children. Um, it's maddening. You, you avoid one problem, you set off another one. Um, I think that, um, yes. So look, I think we do so much work on ourselves, and still we're at square one. Um, there's an old Jewish saying, "Man thinks, God laughs." Um, in other words, (laughs) y- you know, we're thinking that we can master something, we can master a problem. It's so difficult. Um, but I wanna talk about, I wanna think about sadism, 'cause we're talking about bullying. Um, it's a really weird word, sadism. It's like, what, what is that? That's f- s- y- you, you think maybe it's a sex kink or it's something that really weird people... All of us carry a sadistic impulse, I wanna say, impulse. In other words, an impulse to turn our own suffering into, uh, a desire to punish or give suffering to another person.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 31:08 – 45:35
The Deeper Need Behind Status-Seeking
- CWChris Williamson
I remember you saying, "A marker of good parenting is that your children don't have any wish to be famous."
- ABAlain de Botton
Yes. Um, uh, you know, there might be a few exceptions to that rule, but I think the, an outsize desire to shine in the eyes of strangers, to be known by people you don't know is a sign of pathology, I believe. And we're sitting here, you and I.
- CWChris Williamson
In front of lots of cameras.
- ABAlain de Botton
In front, in front of lots of, lots of strangers. So something's gone wrong for us. I mean, uh, and it's so basic. I don't know enough about your childhood. I know a bit about mine. Uh, you will have felt invisible. I mean, why become a little bit more visible than everybody else if you don't carry within you a deep sense of having been invisible and unheard?
- CWChris Williamson
Is there not a natural pull for that generally that's kind of written into the source code of humans? Oh, I suppose actually yes there is, and it's everybody else. And, but the fact that you are an outlier within that suggests that you are different. Right, okay. For, I've answered my own question. Thank you.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah. So, I think there's a compensatory, uh, business going on. And I think the ability to have a so-called ordinary life is a massive achievement. It's, if you wanna put, put it this way-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... an exceptional achievement. It's, it's like, it's like comedians. You know, people who have an outsize need to make others laugh, uh, almost always children who were facing something not funny at all, that they needed to find a way through.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
They, they learnt to make jokes 'cause there was something pretty sad around, uh, that they learnt t- to manage. And it, all of these, you know, when, when dealing with those people, or if those sort of people are listening now, you know, th- the response should always be, "What, how did the way in which I grew up figure as a solution to a problem that I was facing? And therefore, could I now," at whatever age you're at, "cut myself some slack and try something else? I needed to laugh in order to be tolerated. What would it mean to be serious? I needed to be famous in order to survive."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
"What would it mean to think about obscurity? Or, indeed, I needed to be painfully modest and always underperform in order, in order not to spark jealousy. What happens if I tried something different?" You know, these are, these are the major sort of break points, turning points in a life.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
When you think, "The things I needed to do to get me through childhood are now hampering my possibilities in adulthood. Those, the situations that required that behavior are no longer in existence. What happens if I tried something different?" But in order to do that, you have to see the pattern that you would, that you were set by your childhood.
- CWChris Williamson
Marc Maron, comedian, says, "The monster I created to protect the child inside of me is difficult to manage."
- ABAlain de Botton
Beautiful. Love it.
- CWChris Williamson
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- ABAlain de Botton
It's funny you mention churches. I mean, the, the really helpful thing about religions is that they tend to tell their believers that someone really knows them and really cares about them and is looking at them. Um, and if you think about the impulse to be rich and famous and esteemed, it's really, uh, a desire that gets soaked up by religions. Um, religions are saying, "Everybody..." You know, in, in, in Christianity, "Every hair on your head is numbered." In other words, "Someone's really looking at you. Someone knows you in the way that a parent, a good parent, knows a child."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
You know, the great thing about early childhood in a good and loving family is that child is a superstar. You know, they come in, they sing a song, they, they, everyone claps, they're happy, you know, in the morning it's like the little prince has arrived, the princess is, you know, doing a pirouette, et cetera. That doesn't make a child entitled. Entitlement comes from deprivation. Um, the ability to absorb an ordinary life comes from early emotional privilege. If y- if, if the child is able to be the center of the universe in the early years, they will be able to accept, without too much psychological damage, a subsidiary position in adult life.... that the need to be always at the center and always important is a compensation. It's not a sign of health.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And therefore, a good childhood is connected up with the ability to give your child that charge of specialness so that then they can go on to do that much more important thing, which is to be ordinary-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABAlain de Botton
... to accept ordinariness, which is a massive challenge. And all of us are in the end, ultimately, ordinary, and that's okay.
- CWChris Williamson
And to not feel shame.
- ABAlain de Botton
And not feel shame.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- ABAlain de Botton
And to accept that there are limits on your power. You will need to die. You will accept your finitude.
- CWChris Williamson
I wrote a, a little essay about shame I wanted to read to you-
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- 45:35 – 50:43
How Can We Find Meaning in Art?
- ABAlain de Botton
- CWChris Williamson
You often talk about art in a lot of your books. You have, um, images of, of, of different paintings-
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of different sculptures, stuff like that. How can people become better at appreciating art? They're white belts at looking at a gallery and they want to have a better appreciation of it. They feel like there's something that they're missing, they don't understand, they don't know the story of where this painter came from or where they were at, at that point in life.
- ABAlain de Botton
Well, one thought is people tend to think in order to be a decent person who likes art, I've gotta like everything. I've gotta go into a museum and I've gotta just delight in everything. Think about it in music. M- people are much saner when it comes to music than it, when it comes to visual arts. People are really hung up on the visual arts and I always say, "Take your cue from music." You know when you like something musically and you don't care that there's loads and loads of other stuff that doesn't touch you.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
You don't mind. You like what you like. You make your own playlist. So make your own playlist of the f- of the artists that touch you and it might be 3% of the art that's produced by the world, and it might be not any of the famous names. Um, the famous names are on the whole chosen by all sorts of bizarre ways, and find your own way to things that delight you. Um, be, you know, have the courage. Also, when walking through a museum, you can't eat it all at once. I mean, these museums are bizarre. They're like, they're like archives of everything that's happened over a thousand years and you're supposed to kind of spend an afternoon and like it. Oh, it's just, we can't absorb it, we can't metabolize it and so I always think, you know, go to a museum. L- l- if you find two things that you'd like to ideally nick and put in your house-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
... let's, let's get going. Be very personal. People are really normal in the museum gift shop. You know, when they get to the museum gift shop, they're like, "Right, what postcard shall I buy?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Then they're thinking, "That's the way to love art." It's like, "What card shall I send my granny?" That's the beginning of art appreciation-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... because it's like, "What do I like? What might they like?" Go for it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
All the rest is nonsense.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't need to get caught up too much. I wonder what the difference is between music's like, I completely agree, I'm very unequivocating about the stuff that I like in music and yet when I go and if I imagine myself sitting in front of a painting, sort of furtively be looking to either side to work out, "Oh, they seem very melancholy. This must be a melancholy, I must be somber. I'll be somber, this will be, that's the way to do it."
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, I wonder what it is about the medium that makes it a little bit more difficult, a little bit more, uh, hard to define your own taste?
- ABAlain de Botton
There's a, there's an ancient Greek myth about the origins of painting. There was apparently a shepherd boy who was in love with a shepherd girl and the shepherd girl was gonna go away and, uh, that night, on their last night together, they were in a cave and there was a shadow on the cave wall of the shepherd girl and the shepherd boy took out a piece of chalk and traced the outline of the shepherd girl's form. And that's supposed to be, there are lots of paintings of this, the origin of, of art. In other words, the impulse to make art comes when something precious is gonna vanish and art could be thought of as a bucket in which you preserve something valuable.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And we need art because we can't hold it all in our own fingers. We can't absorb it all and so we outsource it to something that can stabilize it and hold it for us. That's the impulse to take a picture. You know, when you go to a beautiful place and you go, "I like it." There's always a fear of loss and you think, "I'm gonna lose it, so I must take a picture of it." Same thing goes on in art and so the art that you love is almost always the, the art that contains within it a bit of your true home, your true happiness that is in danger of slipping away.And it's gonna be different for everybody. Um, I think one of the most interesting questions is, why are you touched by the art that touches you? And it tends to be because that art captures something that the person doesn't have enough of a secure hold on and they need to preserve it. So, for example, I love calm art. You know, I love beautiful empty spaces, linearity, dignity of form, et cetera. I love it. Is my life like that? No, that's not, that's not where I live. I live in chaos, um, but I love that because that's my true home, but I'm not there often enough.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
So, it's a memento. It's saying, "Come back to this place. That's where you need to be in order to be your true self."
- CWChris Williamson
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- 50:43 – 54:28
Why Thinking Deeply Feels So Uncomfortable
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned chaos there. Do you think that humans have always been plagued by the need to keep themselves busy, or is this a as mu-... Is hustle and grind culture as much of a modern phenomena as YouTube essays would have us believe?
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, I think it's very hard to sit with yourself because there's panic about what you might discover. You know, one of the fascinating things is, why are we so easily distracted? Why can't we sit with our thoughts? The reason is, there's so much about our thoughts that is mixed up with sadness, regret, fear, et cetera, and it takes courage. It literally takes courage, which is why the best places to think are often those where there's a little bit of distraction, and a possibility for introspection. I'm thinking-
- CWChris Williamson
Have you got any, have you got any places that you do that yourself?
- ABAlain de Botton
Trains. Trains. I mean, we think we invented railways to go from, you know, London to Manchester or New York to Philadelphia. We didn't. We invented them as places to think.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
Because in a half empty carriage, what better place than to get to know, not the destination, but yourself, that you're looking out of the window and there's enough distraction from the telegraph poles going by or the birds overhead. There's enough to kind of take your imagination, you know, to, to kind of tether the more anxious sides of you, but there's also enough encouragement to keep going and keep making, you know, discoveries. It's really hard to think when thinking is all you're meant to do. I mean, if you wanna terrify somebody, put them in a blank room and give them a sheet of paper and go, "Write out who you are and what you're really concerned about." You know, that's panic inducing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
'Cause if somebody, you know, why do our best thoughts come to us in the shower? You're not supposed to be thinking in the shower. You're just, your mind is let loose from an agenda, that's when the good thought comes through.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Good thoughts are charged with anxiety. Thinking is an anxious process, and so we need to give ourselves a little bit of comfort. That's why people often like to work in a café. It's like, the reason is there's a lot of bustle around. That bustle's absorbing the nervous energy-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... and allows sometimes a good thought to come through.
- CWChris Williamson
I think much better if I have a pen in my hands, and from 18 years of full-time education, you know, just sitting in lectures and s- and class and twirling a pen through my fingers.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You're right, it blows off just that additional bit. For me, uh, my favorite place for thinking is doing the washing up.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Dishes.
- ABAlain de Botton
Because you're not supposed to be doing the thinking. And, and also, dishes are so amazing because you go from real mess to real tidiness in three and a half seconds.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
You know, it's so quick. And the problem with the modern world is that so many of the things we want to do take so long.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And, you know, the great thing about pre-industrial world is that we used to be able to achieve things within a handy time scale. You know, you ran a bakery, and in the morning you had the flour and you put it together and the yeast and then it had risen, and then you sell it, and then, you know, on and on it goes. And in, in a 24-hour cycle, you've gone through the whole thing. Nowadays, most people work in organizations, 1,000, 2,000 people, they're working on projects that will take years to come to fruition. Um, I sometimes think, why do people love sports? Again, sports take place within a concentrated time period. You know, football match is 90 minutes. Within 90 minutes, there will be an objective, a goal, a victory, defeat, et cetera. It's, it's manageable. Most of us have lives in which the pitch is 8,000 kilometers long.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
The game takes 20 years to, you know... There's, there's, there's 25 balls, there's 18 goalposts. You don't know what's going on. You lose the thread-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... of your own life and of the game that you're meant to be playing.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Which is why so many of us have crises where we think, "Hang on a minute, what am I supposed to be doing?" Because we're within complex organizations that deny us that clarity of the earlier pre-industrial world.
- 54:28 – 1:01:43
The Importance of Letting Fleeting Thoughts Breathe
- ABAlain de Botton
- CWChris Williamson
What is an existential crisis in your opinion?
- ABAlain de Botton
I mean, it's a word that, it's a word that sometimes people reach when the, they, they feel that the, the building blocks of their life have ceased to make sense, that, um, for all sorts of reasons, the place they find themselves in no longer feels like it makes sense anymore. Y- you might have a sense of, "Why am I in this relationship? Why am I in this job? Why do I live in the country I live in?" Et cetera. And existential crises are good things. We should have them. They are, they are positive things. They often happen on Sunday evening. Sunday evening is that, that moment in the week when, um, there's, there's a gap to question, "Why am I me? What, what's this assumption that I have about what I should be doing?" And to regularly submit yourself to a complete existential audit, as it were, to go-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
... "Could, could I be someone totally different? Is, is it all gone wrong?" Et cetera. Um, that's a sign that you're a questioning person. Don't get me wrong, it's terrifying. It's terrifying to feel that most of what we, what we're doing is slightly arbitrary. There is no necessity. We tell ourselves that, "Well, I have to do this and I have to be here," and, and, you know, the existential insight is, no, you don't. We're all completely free. We could be doing other things. We... There's... The necessity is one that we're putting on ourselves. But that's dizzying. I mean, that's existential vertigo where we think, "Oh, my God, I've got so much possibility that I don't know where to start."
- CWChris Williamson
And going back to the busyness, the hustle and grind, when the base level of noise is very loud, it's very hard to hear those more subtle whispers of fleeting thoughts, as, uh, my therapist talks about. Uh, pay attention to fleeting thoughts.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, but fleeting thoughts easily get drowned out if you've got a ton of really loud, fast-moving ones, like, "Oh, well, I, I need... I must get that project finished before tomorrow and I have all of these emails to do and it's very busy. I must get... The gym's gonna be haunted because th- those road works on the, on the, the, the street outside of my house."
- ABAlain de Botton
I love the idea of fleeting thoughts that, you know, 'cause what, what do we mean? We mean thoughts that are on the outer perimeter of consciousness, um, that have some clue as to what we should be doing next in all sorts of areas. They're, they're, they're carrying-
- CWChris Williamson
It's part of that metal detector again.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah. They're carrying hints, suggestions, but they're hard to reach because again, they're, they're to do with learning, and we don't like learning. Learning's really difficult because it throws into question how we are... how we've been doing things. And to be able... I mean, there should be classes on this, you know, how to land your fleeting thoughts. Plato had this idea that thinking was like an aviary in which birds are flying around all the time, and the philosophical challenge is to land those birds and be able to study them. But most of the time, they're, they're whizzing in and out. And so they're not just fleeting thoughts, they're racing thoughts, and to be able to still things enough. I sometimes think a very basic exercise is to lie down in bed and ask yourself, "What am I really feeling? What's really going on? I, I know, I know what's supposedly going on, but what am I feeling behind the feeling? What's the feeling behind the feeling?" And to be able to make that hierarchy of the surface and the depths, and to realize that there's likely to be something going on in the depths all the time-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... that's a bit different. Uh, an anxiety, a sadness, a worry, a desire for tenderness, whatever it is. Um, if you can be somebody who gives space to the fleeting thoughts, um, you're gonna become a much richer human being. And remember the old adage, "We can only go so far with other people as we've gone with ourselves." We can only be interesting to other people insofar as we've paid attention to the more neglected bits of ourselves. And one of the weirder bits of social life is, some people make you feel quite boring and other people make you feel really interesting.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Isn't that a weird thing? Why is that? The people who make you feel boring are people who haven't opened many doors in themselves.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And you pick it up instantly. And so therefore, when they go, "What was your weekend like?" You go, "Um, I don't know," because suddenly you realize, "There's nothing that I could say that's meaningful about my weekend that they would understand 'cause they haven't gone into those more interesting bits." Whereas if somebody's giving off that vibe of, "I've opened many doors in myself," we'll have so much to say to them.
- CWChris Williamson
And feel safe in doing the same.
- ABAlain de Botton
But also, you'll feel understood. I mean, l- let's, let's take podcasting. Why are some people good podcasters? Why, why can some people get stuff out of people and other people can't? And it's, it's fascinating. Um, and we've become used in the modern world to very high-quality podcasts because the people who have famous podcasts are generally those who can really do it. But why can they do it? Is it 'cause they can ask good questions? Nah, it's not that. It's because they've gone far in themselves. The, the, uh, interlocutor feels it, and then they go deep in themselves.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
So, the reason I'm babbling with you, and I could have tons to say to you, is 'cause I know, I... And I don't know intellectually, I just know in a sensory way that you've gone very far in all sorts of ways. And I think, "I could tell this guy anything," and he'd go, "Yeah." And that gives encouragement. So, that fascinating distinction, someone who makes you feel interesting-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... and someone who makes you feel boring, it's the other person that's doing the work, even though they may be hardly saying anything. It's in the eyes, it's in the twitch of the mouth, it's all there.
- CWChris Williamson
I adore that idea. I, uh, took inspiration from that video of yours and coined inverse charisma. Uh, some people are interesting, some people make us feel interesting. And a lot of the time, especially young guys, they want their stories to be electric and their aura to be magnetic and they walk into a room and for everybody to feel impressed. But when I thought about the sort of people that I liked spending my time around the most, they wasn't necessarily the ones that were the most impressive. I might walk into a room and I'd be very happy to see them, but nobody else might notice. And I would try my very best to sit next to them at dinner because I knew that that would be the most sort of fruitful ground.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever heard that story about Jennie J- Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill's mother? So she went... She was a little bit of a, a starlet-type, uh, socialite person.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And she got to go for dinner with Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone on consecutive nights separately, and she said, uh, "When I finished dinner with Disraeli, I felt like he was the smartest man in all of England." When she finished dinner with William Gladstone, she said, "I left that dinner feeling like I was the smartest woman." And some people are interesting, some people make you feel interesting.
- ABAlain de Botton
But, you know, it's really important to say this is not flattery. When someone makes you feel interesting, it's not that they're flattering you, going, "Ooh, that's amazing." It's not that. They genuinely unleash an interest which is actually in you. D'you know what I mean? It's not, it's not a con trick. People are interesting, but they need a...... an audience to release that interest. Um, it's not, it's not mere flattery. It's opening doors in the other person on the basis that you've opened doors in yourself.
- 1:01:43 – 1:13:53
Are We Trapping Our Emotions Through Intellectualisation?
- ABAlain de Botton
- CWChris Williamson
I'm interested in the temptation to intellectualize emotions, you know, you were talking before. Ask the sort of why beneath the why, and, uh, getting below the neck, as it's known, an embodiment. Okay, fantastic, we have this very developed... W- who was that, um, philosopher that talked about being a philosopher is like being a, a, a mouse with a huge, oversized ear on its back? Uh, you know, you have this one particular thing that you've grown to a monstrous size, and anybody that is smart can do the work. But doing the work is just turning feelings into theories.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I wonder, I'm interested in this temptation of how to overcome intellectualizing emotions as opposed to actually sitting and, and, and feeling them.
- ABAlain de Botton
Look, what's wrong with intellectualizing, intellectualizing gets a bad name because at some point it ceases to have an accurate relationship to reality. So, in other words, your theory has left behind, um, you know, the facts. Your map is no longer mapping the territory accurately. That's what's wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with having a map, but there's something very wrong with having a, a misguided map. And I think when, when we, when we say intellectualizing is bad, it's, it's when it, when it gives us a, a rather rigid description of the territory, which no longer sees the actual full complexity of the terrain it's aiming, it's purporting to represent.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And so, what do we need to do? We need to constantly check our maps against the territory. In other words, we need to think, "Okay, I've got this nice, neat theory. Maybe I need to blow it up, because it's liable to have grown a bit stale. I need to, you know, I need to head out- head out back into the world and assume I know nothing. Blow up my theory in order to build a better one." So it's not about abandoning th- I think, you know, humans are naturally theory makers.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
There's nothing wrong with that. There's something wrong with clinging to outdated theory.
- CWChris Williamson
If you hold it too tightly, that's an issue. I've- I've got this, uh, visual in my mind, the difference between a way marker, which is being planted to give you an idea of the terrain, and a tether to which you are attached. "Oh, I can't move from this thing anymore." This, this made sense five years ago when I first left university and that explained where I was at, and it gave the chaos in the world a sense of order. I kind of... I understood where I was going and what was happening. Oh, if that no longer has accurate explanatory depth, I need to come up with a new theory, and that's scary. Now I have to start all over again. You're telling me I have to start all over again?
- ABAlain de Botton
I think we regularly have to start all over again. And I think, you know, that old adage, Socrates was asked why he was so wise, and he was said that he was so wise 'cause he knew that he wasn't wise. In other words, ignorance, a capacity to acknowledge one's ignorance is at the root cause of sophisticated thinking, that you should be returning to a kind of basic ignorance. Remember the story of Picasso, who went to an art school, uh, in old age, and he looks at some children, uh, scribbling and doing drawings, and he said, you know, "When I was their age, I could paint like Raphael, and now I'm learning again how to paint like them."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Um, that's really a story about giving up the old map and allowing oneself to be ignorant again, and I think that's a true gift we give to ourselves when we allow ourselves to say, "You know what? I don't know very much at all." I mean, people often say to me, they must say this to you, you know, people say to me, "Oh, you must know so much about, you know, love or death," or this or that. You know, you spend all the time thinking... And I rush to tell them, "I literally don't know anything." Um, and I'm not... This is not false modesty. It's ge- a genuine sense that, um, y- you know, with every passing day, I, I know less. Um, and, uh, you know, it, it's not even wisdom. It's just comedic, really. And so... (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
With every passing day, I know less. I love that. Yeah, this... Uh, the other thing to consider there is that almost everyone's body of work is a thinly veiled autobiography.
- ABAlain de Botton
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you are looking to the person who has put the most time into this. Why do you think I put the most time into this? Because I see me as most efficient in precisely all of the different areas that I am focusing on.
- ABAlain de Botton
100%. Exactly. So someone who's, you know, providing a, a guide to goodness probably finds goodness really hard. Somebody who's really interested in wisdom is really in touch with the chaos in them and in the world. You wouldn't do it otherwise. You're right. It's, it's a compensatory activity.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
And so be it. So we should never look to, you know, our gurus to actually be... If somebody's going, "Oh, you know, I thought they'd be wise and then I, you know, I saw them cursing at the airport and so, you know, what a fool they are," you wanna go, "Of course they did that." No... You know, they're so invested in maintaining a sort of adult poise. Of course they're gonna have a fragile hold on it.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- ABAlain de Botton
They wouldn't bother otherwise. And that's okay. That's absolutely fine.
- CWChris Williamson
I think, uh... I mentioned this to you last time, but I think it's one of the reasons why, uh, your work, in particular, Oliver Burkeman, who wrote Four Thousand Weeks-
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... his very sanguine look at human nature, it's got a distinctively British quality to it.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Which I love. This sort of, uh, uh, doesn't get too big for its boots. It's kind of got a carry-on camping, uh, sort of (laughs) signature to it.
- ABAlain de Botton
I mean, look, bless the Americans, but the, the, the problem with America is that it was started by people who thought you could build Jerusalem on this Earth, that you literally could build a city on a hill here and there. Um, whereas, you know, European culture was a tragic culture which essentially saw- thought as, of human beings as inherently flawed...... the play things of the gods and unable to master the show until maybe the next life, but definitely not this one, which immediately creates a comedic modesty around the gap between your aspirations and your reality. And so growing up in Britain, I mean, Britain doesn't do many things well, but one of the things it really does well is a kind of melancholy, dark humor.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
I mean, this is the home of The Smiths. This is the home of Monty Python. This is, you know... These people are latching onto the fact that life is absurd, dark, and that the most sophisticated response is a kind of rich, somber, hilarious laughter.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 1:13:53 – 1:18:17
Relearning the Skill of Hope
- ABAlain de Botton
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned last time about the, uh, the virtue of, of pessimism, sort of melancholy, a great British tradition.
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And I wonder how you think about people learning to be a little bit more hopeful. Sort of the opposite side of that, because yes, we, we definitely do have... What, what was the thing that they said in Harry Potter? Uh, "Mischief managed."
- ABAlain de Botton
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, they said to make the, the Marauder's Map go away. Uh, melancholy managed, I feel like we've got melancholy well-managed. However, uh, the other side to fortuna dis, um, w- how can people learn to be a little bit more hopeful?
- ABAlain de Botton
Look, I love that s- very simple question: if you knew you couldn't fail, what would you want to do? It's a f- it's such a big question, but such a useful one. It has this sort of elemental simplicity to it. But, you know, if you knew you could not fail, what would you want to do? Um, because people don't even allow themselves to play. You know, if you think about what play is, play is doing something without fearing consequences. You know, "Let's just-
- CWChris Williamson
Hm.
- ABAlain de Botton
... do this as a game."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- ABAlain de Botton
Children know how to play, because they're not so scared of consequences. So, they'll just give it a shot, and a good adult life does require us to rediscover that freedom of playing, and the way in which we do it is we think, "If everything went wrong," or, you know, "if everything went wrong, it would still be okay." And, um, and what about the idea of thinking, "This could go right, there couldn't be any, you know, massive consequences"? So, rediscovering play around your ambition, um, is really important.
Episode duration: 1:29:34
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