Finding Heroic Meaning Like Stories Of Old - Tom Van Der Linden

Tom van der Linden 0:00 We know there's some part of existence that's fundamentally strange. We sometimes have the realization that something very ordinary seems fundamentally alien-like to us. That's, I think, us becoming aware of our Sisyphus-like fate. When you become Sisyphus who is conscious now, suddenly he's no longer, like, hopefully going about his life. Now he is, like, forced to justify it in some way, to make sense of it.

Chris Williamson 0:23 Dude, I love your stuff. I think that your channel is absolutely fantastic.

Tom van der Linden 0:29 Mm-hmm. Thanks. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:31 That, it's, it's one of my favorite things on the internet. For the people who don't know, it's Like Stories of Old YouTube channel.

Tom van der Linden 0:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:37 How would you describe... Let's say you meet someone at a party and they say, "Oh, you do YouTube."

Tom van der Linden 0:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 0:41 "What, what do you YouTube about?" What do you say?

Tom van der Linden 0:44 I- i- it's the worst question. It, it depends on the person, like, how familiar they are with the YouTube space. If I can see, like, they're, like, a normal person who doesn't have, like, the super high awareness about what YouTube means, (laughs) I'll just say, like, "Uh, I make short documentaries, like..." or something like that. Um, sometimes I'll just say, like, uh, "I make video essays." And they'll, of course people will ask, like, "Oh, what's a video essay?" And then it's, it, it's like an essay, but except it has video with it. (laughs) And it depends, you can, you can often quickly, like, sense, uh, if a person is, like, really interested or if it was just asking out of politeness, so, um, yeah. Depending on how they, on their attitude, I will expand more or elaborate more on... Um, I think the, the longer, more complicated answer would be, like, I'll say that it's a combination between, like, examining philosophy and doing media analysis and sort of exploring the relation between the two.

Chris Williamson 1:44 Yeah, I've had the, uh, "So what's your podcast about?" question 100 times-

Tom van der Linden 1:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:52 ... since I've been in Austin, and, uh, I, I still am yet to come up with a good succinct answer-

Tom van der Linden 1:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:59 ... that isn't five minutes long, and someone didn't want the five-minute-long answer.

Tom van der Linden 2:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 2:02 They wanted me to say, "Oh, it's about Ultimate Frisbee," or, "It's about World of Warcraft," or, "It's about porn," or something, um, like they, they just wanted, like, a one-word answer. I'm like, "I'm sorry, I can't, I can't give you that." So, t- tie together, what's, is there a common thread that does tie together all of the videos that you do, or is it just your, whatever your curiosity has in store that day?

Tom van der Linden 2:25 Um, I think what the channel name originally referred to, Like Stories of Old, is the idea that you have movies which is, relatively speaking, a new form of art. Like, it's been around for, like, just over a century. Uh, video games as well, it's even newer. And then, the idea was that even those new forms of art, they still have or still carry, like, the timeless wisdom like the stories of old, you know? So, that's kind of what I, what I set out to do, that was sort of the premise of the channel, that I wanted to kind of get a sense of the timeless within the contemporary art forms, and also that in doing so, like, explore why I'm still so, why I'm so drawn to all of these things. Like, why do certain movies become, like, my favorite movies? Like, why do they evoke, like, deep emotions within me, or why do films from filmmakers, like, far away resonate with me, like, very strongly even though I share nothing with them, like, on the surface level? And so, yeah, that's, uh, that's kind of how it came to be, and I think that's an element that keeps being, like, a cornerstone of the videos.

Chris Williamson 3:40 I think that a big part of it, at least for me and from the buddies that I've, uh, shilled your content to as well-

Tom van der Linden 3:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 3:48 ... uh, one of the

Chris Williamson 3:49 reasons that it's enjoyable is that digging into the real discomfort, sort of the very normal, very comfortable, very banal, existential, uh, anomie that is a byproduct of just being a human, and very well may have been for the last, you know, 50,000 years, but feels like a very, uh, particular, uh, distillation of that now. Um, you know, really allowing to sit with that discomfort I think is something that's very interesting. So, one of the-

Tom van der Linden 4:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:22 ... topics that you talk about a lot is, uh, heroic stories and heroism and things like that. There's one hero in every story, but everybody that watches the story kind of presumes that it's us that's supposed to play that role.

Tom van der Linden 4:39 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:39 Do you think that there is a problem in being too heavily reliant or, um, putting heroic stories up on a pedestal because of that reason?

Tom van der Linden 4:50 Um, it, it definitely can be. Um, but, um, yeah, I, I think it's understandable too, so even though I would point it out as problematic, I wouldn't say, like, it's immediately, like, a judgment of humanity because I do believe that we are naturally, like, um, egocentric. Like, we literally see the world from only our own perspective, so naturally, like, we experience ourselves as the center, like, the, the center of the universe, like, almost literally. Like, the world's, to us, like, the world revolves around, like, ourselves and our, like, our emotions, our feelings. Like, everything around us, um, is- is sort of geared towards us, and we, uh, like, like, we don't also, we don't have access to, like, other people's minds. Like, we, everything else has to be communicated to us. Um, so in that sense, it makes sense, or it's per- or it's perfectly logical that we see ourselves as a central character, as a central hero, because, of course, we also tend to see ourselves as good people generally. Like, we like to believe that we at least have good intentions, or whatever.Um, but yeah, and so heroic stories, yeah, they can definitely indulge that kind of natural self-centeredness in a way that also romanticizes it and maybe glorifies it. And especially in our, like, current day and age of, like, social media and, uh, having to present ourselves and being more concerned with the image we project, uh, towards the outside, then, yeah, I can definitely imagine... Or at least for myself, I have struggled with, like, how heroic stories have set, like, expectations for me that I, um, that led to some conflict, like, in my personal life in, uh, in various ways.

Chris Williamson 6:52 You say in one of your videos that there's a difference between heroic purpose and grandiosity, between serving others and serving ourselves-

Tom van der Linden 6:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:59 ... and you ask how we can know if we're acting to better the world or just to inflate our own ego. And-

Tom van der Linden 7:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:06 ... this line between the two i- is so hard because everything's performative now. I had this discussion, I was with, uh, Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal this weekend, and we talked about this thing, performative empathy, that people do in a way to make themselves look like somebody that's good. So, it's more important to look like somebody that's good than it is to be a person who is good or to even do good. And-

Tom van der Linden 7:33 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:34 ... that, I don't know, that sort of meta-game where it's not about doing the thing, it's about people seeing you do the thing. It's not about donating to charity, it's about taking an Instagram selfie while you give a homeless person on the street-

Tom van der Linden 7:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:47 ... $5. That plays out... And, and the problem is e- everyone knows that performative nature of sort of charity and, and stuff, right? Like, that's conspicuous consumption meets altruism. You know, it's-

Tom van der Linden 7:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 7:57 ... it's just signaling. The dangerous thing, I think (clears throat) , heroic purpose and grandiosity between serving others and serving ourselves, that seems to cross a line into something more personal, more existential, more identity-focused, and that's-

Tom van der Linden 8:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 8:14 ... a bigger concern, I think, for me.

Tom van der Linden 8:17 Um, yeah. Yeah, just to go back to th- the first point you mentioned about the performative empathy. I think there's also... It's easy to criticize that, that, "Oh, it's just the Instagrammer doing it for the likes, helping the homeless." But at the same time, if you... You can also argue or, like, maybe add, like, a little bit of nuance that if everyone does more performative stuff, then at, at the same time, it also brings that message out into the world that actually inspires people to, uh, to do some actual good. Like, the, the kind of fake-it-till-you-make-it idea that we... If we... If enough people perform, then maybe, like, collectively, we start to do better in, in actual terms. So there... It's easy to criticize, but I can see there's also a value to it that might be, uh, underappreciated if, uh, we are all, like, just hoarding on the, the one Instagrammer who s- seems to do something (laughs) performative.

Chris Williamson 9:10 Yeah. I think that it's easy to throw shade at that person, right?

Tom van der Linden 9:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:14 It's easy to say, "Look, they're obviously just doing it for the likes."

Tom van der Linden 9:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:17 But you're right, the, the cash value of the person who gives $5 to the homeless person, but puts it on Instagram, is $5 more than the person that doesn't do it at all. And-

Tom van der Linden 9:27 Yeah, exactly. Like, it's easy to criticize, but at the same time, like, I don't give, like, ludicrous amounts of money-

Chris Williamson 9:32 (laughs)

Tom van der Linden 9:32 ... to homeless people, so who am I to then judge-

Chris Williamson 9:34 I-

Tom van der Linden 9:34 ... the person for doing it and-

Chris Williamson 9:36 I agree. I agree.

Tom van der Linden 9:37 ... yeah.

Chris Williamson 9:37 I think the, the example that we were using, which was a little bit more, um, uh, like, close to the bone was-

Tom van der Linden 9:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:46 ... we were talking about the eco-movement and about how many, many people are pro-green simply because that's the thing that makes them look good. And they like-

Tom van der Linden 9:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:56 ... highlighting the problems of other companies or other people from an iPhone that was built on the back of slave labor out in China, from a car which is still pumping a bunch of fossil fuels out into the atmosphere.

Tom van der Linden 10:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:12 You know, like, the, the point just being that performative empathy can sometimes be more important than genuine empathy.

Tom van der Linden 10:19 Yeah, definitely. Uh, but yeah, yeah, in the... Especially in the context of, like, climate change and the green movement, that's... It becomes like... It has, like, a whole other layers of complications because, uh, it kind of suggests that's, like... It ties your personal actions to, like, the whole continent or, like, the whole world. Like, everything that you do has, like, connections, uh, everywhere else. Um, and at the same time you also know more about what your connections are, like, doing. Because at the same time we have a more globalized world, like, the banana you eat, it's coming from far away. Or, like, even, like, the, the fruits that should, like, grow in your area, they might be grown, like, two continents over and then packaged somewhere else and then shipped back to you again. And at the same time you have, like, the internet and now you... Every day you hear about all those things so you know exactly, like, how you're connected in this global web of, like, endless connections and, um, naturally, like, all kinds of things that you would maybe ethically be against but at the same time, like, uh, I can imagine, like, you want to make an effort to lessen that impact or maybe better, like, um, align your own values with those implications, but at the same time I... It's also hard, like, you cannot expect someone else to be completely insulated from the world around them. You cannot, like, expect them to disconnect entirely from that web of, like, interaction. So it's... That- that's kind of, like, the n- the, the quote of mine that you mentioned, like, it's such a fine line and everything is so... It- it's such a balancing act between wanting to do good, having to face the implications and then not having those implications, like, discourage you, but at the same time also not having the good impact, like-... overly inflate your ego. So this, like, these endless... it's this constant balancing act between, um, being hopeful on the one hand, but not being, like, grandiose about it, or like, being overzealous about it. But at the same time, also, I think it's also very important to not fall into, like, cynicism and, "Oh, everything sucks and nothing matters." And that's something I'm- I think people should be extremely careful of, because it's so easy to just end up in that, uh, fall down into that rabbit hole nowadays. Um-

Chris Williamson 12:49 Have you got

Chris Williamson 12:50 any idea how people can work out-

Tom van der Linden 12:52 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 12:52 ... whether they're acting to better the world or just to inflate their own ego?

Tom van der Linden 12:58 Um, no, that- (laughs) that's the reason I- I wanted to make the video, because I didn't have the answer myself. (laughs) And it's something I struggled with, because at the same time, like, there were a lot of things that... It- it's not always either/or. Like, there can be things that make you feel better and make your, like, your ego more b- or that flatter your ego, while at the same time doing actual good. But, um, I think it's just one element that can never do s- uh, that never, um, would be... that's never hurtful is to just maintain some awareness about how you're feeling about what you're doing and seeing, like, how you're connected to certain actions, like, emotionally. Because that's, I think, the part of ourselves that we are sometimes most reluctantly to really examine. Um, like, so, y- you know, the- the Ben Shapiro thing, like, "Facts don't care about your feelings," but I think it- it very much works the other way around as well. Like, feelings don't always care about the facts, so you might be mindful of those as well. I don't think it's constructive to pretend that we're, like, completely rational persons who gather information, make a reasonable decision, and then act accordingly. I think it's important to un- to- to have a sense of your own, like, desires and fears and your own biases, your own, like, hidden ideological beliefs, that sort of st- stuff. Um, the things that trigger you, like emotionally, um, those things, I think, are always worth- worth, like, examining. And, um... So yeah, I guess that's, uh, as good a start as any.

Chris Williamson 14:41 Well, I think that is the temptation of the rational movement, right? That people thought that if they became the most educated on cognitive biases and they were able to-

Tom van der Linden 14:53 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:53 ... identify all of the different ways that their thinking might be flawed, that they would actually be able to shortcut the system itself. But the Jonathan Haidt example of the rider on the back of an elephant is like, you- you get to see this tiny little two percent sliver of what's going on, and then the rest of it's-

Tom van der Linden 15:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:11 ... just running on autopilot. You know, okay, so I- I'm just at the mercy of most of these things. And I- (sighs) I went to this, um... You know Scott Alexander, right, from Slate Star Codex or Astral Codex Ten? He's this blogger, very famous blogger.

Tom van der Linden 15:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:25 Big rationalist guy. Uh, and he held a meetup in Austin, and I went to it. And somebody asked him something along the lines of, um... But I- I- I don't even think he got asked about it. I think he just said out of- out of the blue. Um, "There was a period where we all thought that we could fix our lives through rationalism," right? Through the rationalist movement.

Tom van der Linden 15:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:48 "Um, and it turns out that isn't true."

Tom van der Linden 15:50 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:50 And I was like, that's really interesting because Daniel Kahneman, that wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, he was on stage with Sam Harris five or six years ago, and Sam said, "So Daniel, you're a Nobel Prize winner, one of the most preeminent psychologists on the planet that understands the way that the human brain works. After decades and decades at the cutting edge of this research, are you any closer to being a more rational human being?" And Daniel just went, "Not really."

Tom van der Linden 16:16 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 16:16 And you think, right, okay, so this is the guy... Roy Baumeister talks about his willpower.

Tom van der Linden 16:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:21 You know, like the guy that wrote the- the book on willpower. And you think, well, if that's the case, if more knowledge isn't necessarily the solution-

Tom van der Linden 16:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:31 ... then it- it is something else. And accepting the fact that feelings are going to continue to just plow through however much logic you try to throw at it-

Tom van der Linden 16:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:41 ... and- and trying to, um, trying to hold onto that, uh, uh, uh-

Tom van der Linden 16:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 16:47 ... as- as a- a place of wisdom as opposed to something to kind of be ashamed of. I actually had this, uh, this concept that I wanted to teach you about. I thought that this would be up your street, and it's about right here. So I spoke about this-

Tom van der Linden 16:59 Oh yeah.

Chris Williamson 16:59 ... in my- my newsletter a couple of months ago, about- about a year ago, and, um, then I released it the other week. And yet again, every time I talk about it, people love it. It's called The Inner Citadel, right?

Tom van der Linden 17:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 17:08 So it's, uh, Isaiah Berlin is the first guy that came up with this, so I'm just gonna read you a little passage here. So it's-

Tom van der Linden 17:15 Oh yeah, sure.

Chris Williamson 17:16 "When the natural road toward human fulfillment is blocked, human beings retreat into themselves, become involved in themselves, and try to create inwardly that world which some evil fate has denied them externally. If you cannot obtain from the world that which you really desire, you must teach yourself not to want it. If you cannot get what you want, you must teach yourself to want what you can get." This is a very frequent form of spiritual retreat in depth into a kind of inner citadel in which you try to lock yourself up against all the fearful ills of the world. And a simpler example from my friend Rob is, if your leg is wounded, then you can try to treat the leg, and if you can't treat the leg, you cut it off and announce that the desire for legs is misguided and must be subdued.

Tom van der Linden 17:58 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 17:59 Uh, basically, if you can't win the game-

Tom van der Linden 18:01 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:01 ... then you stop playing, say that you never cared about the game, and then create your own game with rules that you can more easily win at. And I think that this is what's happening with the rationalist movement, in part. Don't get me wrong-

Tom van der Linden 18:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:11 ... I love cognitive biases, fs.blog, Shane Parrish has been on the show. All that stuff's great, but...

Tom van der Linden 18:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 18:18 ... there is, like, a cold comfort of rationality-

Tom van der Linden 18:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:22 ... that ins, that insulates people from having to feel things. And I think-

Tom van der Linden 18:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 18:26 ... that that's where this comes from.

Tom van der Linden 18:27 And the funny thing, too, is that y- y- i- f- w- when you look at those people who are, like, the loudest about being about the facts and the truth and the rationality, they're, like, also, they tend to be the people who are most obviously driven by, like, emotional responses, like, but it's, yeah, it's, uh, it can be, like, a, an interesting phenomenon to me. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 18:54 I find it, I find it fascinating to see how the interchange between the fact that we have the opportunity to, to know so much, right? We have the opportunity to kind of-

Tom van der Linden 19:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:04 ... wrangle the world into what it is, but the fact that we can't get away from our emotions, the tension between those two things is funny, because we think, "Well, hang on. Science has let us go to the moon, and it's cured some diseases, and it's done all of this other stuff. We can communicate around the globe. Why can't I be the one that's in control of my emotions or my internal state-

Tom van der Linden 19:23 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:23 ... or my fears, or my insufficiency, or my ego, or my desire for more or whatever?" And we're not.

Tom van der Linden 19:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:29 And I think that that's something that we kind of distaste, we have distaste for, too.

Tom van der Linden 19:37 Yeah, it's like you're reaching certain limitations within yourself in the same way that you might reach, like, limitations in the external world, which can be, i- i- it's like an existential rea- realization in some way. Like, the idea that maybe if you're, like, have a tendency towards, like, jealousy or, like, envy that, that that might not be something that goes away. Like, no matter how m- m- much you try to let it go or, like, even, like, try to feed into it, like, try to get all the things that you would want or otherwise be envious about, then it's, it's still gonna be there. Like, there are certain character traits that I think you just carry with you and that, um, you just have to deal with in some way or another. But in that, in that sense, I would say, like, it's the best to have it, like, right at the surface where you can keep an eye on it instead of just repressing it down and waiting for it to, like, come up unexpectedly, uh, probably at a moment that's least convenient. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 20:41 Yeah,

Chris Williamson 20:42 there's a bit that you said here talking about the, um, the fact that everybody is kind of fundamentally alone. Everybody tries to let the people around them understand themselves as best as they can, but when we really, really do genuinely try to open up, that's often-

Tom van der Linden 21:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:02 ... when we sort of stumble over our own words and fall face-

Tom van der Linden 21:05 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:06 ... flat on the floor. Um, you've got this quote from David Foster Wallace that says, "Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down, they are different from everyone else."

Tom van der Linden 21:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:19 What's that mean to you?

Tom van der Linden 21:20 Yeah, I also... Um, I think that comes... David Foster Wallace is also someone who was really conscious about people having this egocentric n- h- human condition, sort of, like, nature of their character. Like, um... Yeah, I think that's, that's the part where he says, like, that we experience the world as from our, like, point of view, like, literally like we are at the center of our universe. And, um, I think the, the author Ernest Becker, he also goes into that, like, with real poetic language as well. Like, you, you are, like, in touch with yourself with such, like, wealth and depth, and you feel, like, complicated emotions, and complex thoughts, and, like, contradicting ideas. But it's, it's much more difficult to get a sense of those, like, uh, in another person. Like, it's easy to see another person almost literally, like, as less human than you, because you, uh, you see maybe, like, a handful of, like, surface level traits that they have, and then you kind of cut it off. You don't deny them, or, or you tend to deny peop- other people, like, from having the same dep- depth that is within you. So, um, yeah, I think that's what that sort of means to me. Like, you, um... I guess it's also an, an issue of, like, empathy, like, the limits of empathy. Like, you can try to understand other people, but at some point, um, especially if you're not making a conscious effort to, like, understand others, it's easy to, like, cut them off at some point, like, instead of, of in, in, in terms of, like, character depth, and-

Chris Williamson 23:05 But we don't even understand-

Tom van der Linden 23:06 ... yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:06 ... our own emotional states, you know?

Tom van der Linden 23:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:10 If you... How, how do you hope to truly be able to understand somebody else and the nuance to their very personal type of suffering-

Tom van der Linden 23:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 23:22 ... when you can't even put into words your own suffering?

Tom van der Linden 23:26 Yeah, that's very much true. Yeah. Yeah, for me, I always, like, I like to compare, like, the, the depths of, like, the human heart or the soul or whatever you wanna call it, like, to just basically, like, the, the nature of the universe itself. Like, I think the, the most smallest depth within you, it's, like, comparable, comparable to, like, the grandest mystery of the universe in the sense that we can understand, like, a lot about it, but we can never quite touch that ultimate essence that it's, that's at the heart of things. Um, but at the same time, that may very well be, like, a projection that we cast onto it. Maybe there isn't some secret, like, unconscious hidden depth. Maybe, like, all the, the things we see and feel, it's just-

Chris Williamson 24:15 That is all that we are.

Tom van der Linden 24:16 ... that's just all it is.

Chris Williamson 24:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tom van der Linden 24:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 24:17 Which is kind of even more terrifying.

Tom van der Linden 24:19 Yeah.... have you seen the, the movie Drive My Car? The, the one that won the Oscar for best foreign film?

Chris Williamson 24:26 No.

Tom van der Linden 24:27 It's a Japanese film. It's, it, it's a 3-hour movie about, basically, this guy who, I won't go into spoilers too much, but this is, like, the premise. Um, y- yeah, there's a long introduction and we just... in which you see the life of a guy who apparently knows that his wife is cheating on him, and then the wife suddenly dies before he con- confronts her about it. So, it leaves him, like, with this gaping hole with not understanding his wife and why she did what she did. And, um, there's a point later on where another character, like, he... uh, of course, he's, like, trying to get into the depths of her and, like, what he... trying to figure out what it is that he doesn't get about, uh, w- or what he was missing maybe, or what he didn't provide for her that maybe caused her to do that. And then, at some point, there's another character that kind of points out, like, "Maybe there's not... maybe there's no secret. Maybe that's just... maybe she loved you, and she went with other guys as well," or something like that. And that, to me, got me thinking about, yeah, maybe there is... maybe we try to overanalyze it sometimes, like we can, um... I th- I feel that's also a thing that happens a lot with people who actively go in search of their self. Like, they go to some retreat or, like, on some journey. Like, they want to discover, like, some hidden essence within them that they feel out of touch with, but maybe that's part of the issue. Maybe there's nothing, like... maybe the whole idea of having one, like, solid center somewhere hidden within you is, uh, kind of an illusion too. Like, maybe that's something we project or that we i- i- i- for some reason or another, like, symbolize and project within ourselves, but yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:13 That's even more scary to me, the idea that-

Tom van der Linden 26:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:18 ... there isn't, you know, the egoic-less, infinite whole of peace that is to be found.

Tom van der Linden 26:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:32 That the, the, the conflict that you have, that you're riding on a daily basis, is just... that's what it is. And y- you're right. Y- y- I always think about, um, you know when there's missing people, someone's daughter has gone missing or whatever-

Tom van der Linden 26:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 26:45 ... and it's been four years, and the mother's still unable to ha- hold a press conference without breaking down in tears, and what do they always say? They say, "I just want to know." Right?

Tom van der Linden 26:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:56 What they want is to close that loop, and I wonder whether the, um... let's say, with a thought experiment, that there is, there are certain-

Tom van der Linden 27:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:08 ... uh, disjointed, discordant elements of ourselves, right, that just do not mesh together.

Tom van der Linden 27:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:13 The fact that we want to do certain things, and yet our nature or our, uh, predisposition or our programming pulls us away from doing them. We don't want to eat the cookie, because we want to lose weight, but then we also want to have the cookie, right?

Tom van der Linden 27:25 Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:25 Let, let, let's say that there isn't anything deeper than that.

Tom van der Linden 27:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 27:29 Let's say that there is no way to close that loop, right? The missing person, the missing cookie doesn't come back, and we don't find out where it went.

Tom van der Linden 27:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:36 We don't find out why we wanted it.

Tom van der Linden 27:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 27:39 That's, that's almost... like, that... when... thinking about that makes me feel even more scared by it.

Tom van der Linden 27:47 Yeah, 'cause other... in, in the first example, or in the cookie example, you can say, like, if you have t- the one hand, uh, I want the cookie, but I also, like, I want to be disciplined because I don't w- want to lose weight, and then you... of course, you hope, like, that one of those, especially, like, the latter one, is connected to, like, your true self or, like, your true desire and the other one is just an obstacle that you have to overcome, but yeah. So yeah, I can imagine if that, if that true self is not there, then it's really just the two desires that, um-

Chris Williamson 28:16 And what the fuck's virtue, you know?

Tom van der Linden 28:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:18 What does that mean? What does it mean about who you are?

Tom van der Linden 28:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:21 Maybe you are the cookie-eater more than you are the discipline.

Tom van der Linden 28:25 But I think even without that sense of, like, a true self, you can still choose to not eat the cookie. It's just, I feel like you can still, like, choose to... you still have that freedom to feed one desire over another, and that's, I guess, the... even without an essence, there's still, like, a guiding sort of consciousness or an awareness that can choose between, like, what am I trying to feed or what am I trying to, like, avoid or, like, have there be less of. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 28:56 There's a,

Chris Williamson 28:57 uh... I, I wanna go back to what you said before, 'cause I've had this sort of sense for a little while, and I really, really... I really-

Tom van der Linden 29:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:02 ... love the idea that there's a, an imbalance between how much we're going to see of ourselves, i.e.-

Tom van der Linden 29:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:10 ... everything, uh, and how much we're going to see of everybody else-

Tom van der Linden 29:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:14 ... re- relatively nothing, and the fact that there is this huge imbalance in the richness of our own experience-

Tom van der Linden 29:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:21 ... and yet, we get to see this (laughs) ... we only get to see what other people are aware of, that they choose to communicate, that we're around to be able to see at the right time when we were paying attention-

Tom van der Linden 29:33 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:33 ... duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. You know, you just filter down all of this stuff, and I, I do think you're right. Like, that true empathy, when you look at it that way, you go, "How are you even supposed to begin to understand-

Tom van der Linden 29:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:44 ... somebody else?" I mean, so what do you think with that? Do you th- is it possible to ever truly know another person?

Tom van der Linden 29:50 Um, I think well enough, but to add another layer to what you just said, like, there's, uh... to just drop another movie, there was the recent one, uh, The Worst Person in the World. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that one. It's a Danish film. Um, it also... it, it's about this woman who is in her 30s, and she's also kind of struggling through life and existence and her relationships and stuff. And again, without spoiling too much, too much, at one point, a person is, um, on his death bed, and he says to her, like, "When I die, I..." I don't know the exact quotes, but...Um, it was an ex-lover and he, he says like, "When I die, I'm gonna take some part of you with me because there's things that I know about you." Like, little details that you have probably forgotten, or like, moments that they've shared that she doesn't remember, but he does, and he's taking that with him in death. And that's kind of, I thought that was such an interesting reversal of the idea, like, we- we're trying to get to know other people, but in the same sense we're, we can lose ourselves, like... Or- or we give little pieces of ourselves to others that they then maybe keep to themselves that we, sort of, l- that we lose for ourselves, but that others keep for us. Um, which I, that was strangely uplifting to me. I don't know what you're thinking about it, but-

Chris Williamson 31:14 It's a... Dude, I just keep on getting existential terror by all of these-

Tom van der Linden 31:18 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:20 ... these situations. But you're right. There is something that we get to do... And- and- and also, you know, when somebody leaves, by definition, they're no longer here to be themselves, to be able to see themselves, and yet you have a part of them-

Tom van der Linden 31:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:35 ... that's within you. Do you remember, you've seen, you've done a bunch of, or maybe even more than one review of Interstellar, right?

Tom van der Linden 31:42 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:42 Yeah. And in that-

Tom van der Linden 31:44 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 31:44 ... do you remember the, the discussion that they're having, uh, when they're going to make their final decision about which planet to go to, and they're saying, "Look, he's not going to be there. There's no chance that he's there." Uh.

Tom van der Linden 31:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:58 And they start having this debate about evolution, about why is it that we love people that have already passed or that are no longer with us. Do you remember this?

Tom van der Linden 32:05 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very clearly.

Chris Williamson 32:06 Yeah. So that... D- w- what, I mean, what does that mean to you? What does that section mean to you, when they're talking about the fact that she's lost this person-

Tom van der Linden 32:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:15 ... he's gone to somewhere else, and she knows that he's there, and she can't explain to anybody why she knows she's there?

Tom van der Linden 32:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:22 And one of the guys tries to explain it away with the rational thing about, "Oh, it's just pair bonding and it's a way to cohesia the group together," and blah, blah. And she goes, "No, it's not. There's something going on."

Tom van der Linden 32:32 Mm-hmm. Uh, yeah, actually that, my last video was on Christopher Nolan, so I re-watched, uh, Interstellar not too long ago for that. So yeah, the- the scene is kind of fresh in my memory. Um, as a, like, sci-fi concept, I thought it was interesting in the way that, um, the- the character, it's Anne Hathaway character, she's kind of arguing for like, "I'm feeling this longing towards this person, and I think that should influence, like, my rational deci- decision, even if I don't understand why." And then there's, of course, Matthew McConaughey's character, who at that point is, like, more the- the- the- the, quote unquote, "reasonable" person who says, like, "No, that's kind of silly because that's not a rational concept." Like, "Love def- definitely has a function," he says. "It's for, like, child rearing," and, like, uh, later on, the Matt Damon character, he's also like, speaks of love as a survival tool, like, "If you're, like, struggling, then you think about your loved ones because that gives you that extra push to keep going." So there's... Th- the film does offer, like, a lot of reasons to, um, why love is just basically this chemical in the brain, as, like, the rationals sometimes say. Like it's- it's, it has a function, it's evolutionary, it's nothing more beyond that. But, um, I think d- the way the film tries to, not necessarily dismiss that, but at least add to that, that it's, no, it's, it's all that, but it's also more is the way then that ultimately the whole plot revolves or- or succeeds because of a more intangible connection to love. Like, um, I think it's fine if we spoil the movie, right? I think a lot of people have seen it. Um, because Murph at that point, she feels drawn to her, like, old bedroom with the ghost and, uh, at that point, I'm pretty sure she knows that her dad isn't coming back. Like, uh, I'm guessing everyone on Earth, they, uh, understand that either they are all gone or they are dead, and either way there's no... Her dad is not coming home. Um, but then she goes back for that watch anyway, and that's also why Matthew McConaughey's character, he makes that decision to, like, he codes it into the- the- the- the data or whatever they need for the plot, like, that's coded into the watch, with the sole reason that, like, he th- has faith that she will return for that watch because that's... Of all the elements within that room that he has access to, that's the connection there, that's the- the, that's love. That's- that's the one thing that binds everything together there. So, um, yeah, I think it's just, uh, I think, I thought it actually was a nice suggestion in the way that it shows that love might be a more guiding, uh, element than we appreciate it, or than- that there can be appreciated in rational terms, um, or more like a guiding light or a driving force or- or whatever you want to call it. Um, so yeah, and y- if you go even more science fiction about it, like I- I- I personally like the idea just as, like, a thought experiment that love is like, maybe the, uh, part of, like, a sort of higher consciousness that's multidimensional, so that we, uh, that something that, uh, filmmaker Terrence Malick also, uh, kind of hinted at in his film, uh, The Thin Red Line, uh, where one of the characters at one point, uh, questions like, "Maybe there's one big soul that everyone's a part of." Like, "Oh, everyone's just different faces of the same man." Um, now, I- I wouldn't, like... It's not like a belief that I have literally, but I do like the idea of... Because we, especially because we know so little about multiple dimensions and multiverses and whatever, like, possibilities that there are out there that maybe, like, our consciousness is some, in some way, like...... also existing in, in another sliver of reality that we don't have access to.

Chris Williamson 36:45 But doesn't panpsychism kind of begin to take this one step-

Tom van der Linden 36:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:49 ... toward actually being reality? That the, the argument from panpsychism is that-

Tom van der Linden 36:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:55 ... everything has consciousness baked into it, but it-

Tom van der Linden 36:59 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:00 ... it only manifests in particular ways, in particular places. That-

Tom van der Linden 37:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:05 ... consciousness is a, a fundamental, uh, element of the universe, and if that's the case and we can't measure it, then who knows-

Tom van der Linden 37:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:12 ... where it goes to. Um, yeah, I, uh, another thing that I always think about that's kind of one of these imbalances between how much we can see of ourselves, how much we can ever know of o- of other people is the fact that we're a finite creature that's surrounded by infinite complexity, but the depth-

Tom van der Linden 37:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:29 ... that we're able to go to inside of ourselves is also infinite. So we're a finite-

Tom van der Linden 37:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:34 ... infinite creature surrounded by-

Tom van der Linden 37:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:36 ... infinite complexity that we only have a finite ability to reach, and-

Tom van der Linden 37:40 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:40 ... all of that sort of mixed together just makes me think, "Well, why wouldn't you be, uh, scared, or confused, or alone, or, uh, worried or concerned or in solidarity or in s- in solitude?" Whatever it is. Like, all of these different things, all of these experiences seem to make sense to me because you (laughs) have, like, this para- a paradox, you're a paradox living inside of a paradox.

Tom van der Linden 38:06 Yeah. Yeah, that, that's pretty much the, the Ernest Becker's the- uh, thesis. Like, you know, we are like half god, half fleshy structure that slowly decays and ultimately dies. Um, or, like, half symbolic, half physical, yeah. Y- yes, (laughs) some interesting ways of, uh, phrasing it. But, um, yeah, I think that's, that's one of the things that I still, that I still feel drawn towards because I haven't, like, encoun- I haven't yet encountered, like, a good counterargument for that or someone who really frames it differently or, uh, articulates it in a significantly different way. But, um, yeah, I think he perfectly captures that, um, the idea of being, having two elements that are fundamentally incompatible, um, within us and that we somehow have to make sense of without destroying each other in the process, because that's, uh, he, in his book, he kind of points out, like, how, how, how this human condition can drive us basically insane in some ways, or at least it drives, like, violence and, um, warfare because we are all so desperate to, like, um, uh, or just to, to lay out his basic argument is that we are basically trying to symbolically transcend what we cannot transcend physically. So he says, like, "Okay, we, there's a part of us that fears death." Like, if you chase after an animal, it will, like, go into this death-defying response. It will chase, it will, (coughs) like, flee away, and then we basically do the same. But because we have a consciousness that is constantly aware of, like, death, at least, like, conceptually, like, we accept, like, "Oh, shit, we're gonna die someday." So to some extent, he says we're basically in this constant death-denying state or this death-escaping, uh, state. And we try to do that through, like, symbolism or, like, maybe true love is one of them. That's, I think, the, the main solution. Like, we try to transcend ourselves through, on the one hand, procreation, but also through, like, family members, like, living in their memories or whatever.

Chris Williamson 40:24 Legacy, yeah.

Tom van der Linden 40:25 Yeah, exactly. Uh, and of course, legacy more generally, like, maybe through work or achievements or leaving something behind, having, leaving this world with the comfort that we f- at least have done something, like, that o- although our body is gonna, gonna go away, like, we're gonna, there's some part of us that lives on. Um, so yeah, that's, uh...

Tom van der Linden 40:49 yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:49 You mentioned earlier about, uh, cynicism.

Tom van der Linden 40:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:53 And I said that I'd, uh, n- had no desire at all to watch After Life with Ricky Gervais, but then you did a, a video analysis of the first season.

Tom van der Linden 41:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:02 And now I'm, I'm tempted to go and do it. And in that, you spent a good bit of time talking about Albert Camus.

Tom van der Linden 41:08 Oh, yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:08 What have you learned from him, or what are some of your favorite insights or takeaways from having spent some time reading Camus?

Tom van der Linden 41:17 Yeah, he's probably my favorite of the existentialists, um, mainly because he's firmly, like, secular about it. Like, you have existentialist writers like Kierkegaard who I also think is great, but he also is, he has a more, like, religious solution. He has the leap of faith that's ultimately, like, the, um, his, his, his main thing. Uh, whereas for Camus, he, he, uh, he's famously said, like, "I want to live with what I know and that alone." Like, "I don't want to leap into anything, I don't want to make, rely on some potential, like, god or other dimension or some other, like, unreachable truth that may be out there and that I must just have faith in. I just want to live with what I know and that alone." Um, so yeah, he, I, I, am, I'm best familiar with his book, uh, The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he kind of explains the, the myth of Sisyphus, which, um, the guy who was punished by the gods has to push a rock up the mountain, see it roll back down, and do it all over again. And he kind of explains, like, it's, it's only tragic if he is conscious about that fact. If, because if Sisyphus, like, if he doesn't know the rock is gonna go down, like, he's gonna go up each time knowing with the hope that he might succeed this time. But if he knows, like, this is his fate, like, he's gonna do this eternally and then there's nothing else, then...... that's the real tragedy, like, having to be aware of your predicament without being able to do anything about it. And so, I think he takes that premise, which is then sort of the, the metaphor for life. Like, we know we go into this world, we're gonna work, we're gonna sleep, we're gonna do other stuff, maybe have some fun, and at some point, we're gonna die. Like, we, we know, like, we see the whole game that's been laid out before us, like, in general terms. And I think that Camus is mostly trying to find the freedom within it instead of trying to leap towards something else, towards some grander ideal or belief. And he also really has the, um, I think the idea of rebellion. Like, we can maybe... we cannot escape our fate, but we can rebel against it, which, um, I thought was nice. Just basically give a, uh, like, give a middle finger to the universe. (laughs) And, and I, I don't have his work, like, fresh in my mind, but, uh, I, I do like that idea of just, uh... because that's, uh, uh, it's a token of, like, a very fundamental freedom to just see this whole universe with everything, like, all the, the nothingness that it kind of impresses upon you. Like, because if you're really taking the weight of the universe, it really seems to try to make you feel, like, absolutely insignificant. Like, you are this (laughs) tiny human that exists for, like, m- nothing. And even in, in the span of, like... even in the span of, like, our planet, like, it's nothing. Like, there's been millions of years before us, there's a million years that's gonna be after us, and then there's the scale of the universe, it's gonna be even worse. So, um, everything about the universe screams to you, like, you're insignificant. And then to say, like, as that insignificant person, like, "I'm gonna make this have meaning anyway. I'm gonna find significance anyway," that's a very powerful act. At least, that's, I think, what Camus, um, is kind of about, and what's, what I personally also find really inspiring about him.

Chris Williamson 45:06 They say that in Interstellar as well though, right? The "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Tom van der Linden 45:11 Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:11 That's the same sort of look.

Tom van der Linden 45:14 Yeah, I guess it comes down to the same concept. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:16 Yeah, everything... And, and s- so is the line between, or is the, um, the reason that we must imagine Sisyphus being happy-

Tom van der Linden 45:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:24 ... is that (clears throat) telling people who are aware of their own mortality that even though you know this game is going to end-

Tom van der Linden 45:31 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:32 ... that you have to be able to play the game in a good way?

Tom van der Linden 45:36 I think so, or, or at least you're capable of doing so. Um, like, he, he... we must imagine Sisyphus happy because he... there is freedom for him to be happy. Like, he can defy his fate in that, um, in, in, in that moment. Um, I'm not, I'm, I'm not sure exactly how he wrote it down, but he... I think he describes towards the end of that book, like, the moment that Sisyphus walks down the hill, like, waiting for his whole fate to start all over again. And then if he finds, like, a moment of happiness in that, during that walk down, then in that moment, he basically defies his whole punishment. He still... they've a- they've essentially failed at punishing him because he still, he still, uh, he's still able to be himself. He's still able to express that-

Chris Williamson 46:26 He's taking a sliver-

Tom van der Linden 46:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:27 ... of gratitude or pleasure from whatever it-

Tom van der Linden 46:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:30 This is... I, I had a discussion with a friend. (laughs) I have a friend-

Tom van der Linden 46:33 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 46:33 ... who's a philosopher who, and I quote, "is trying nihilism as a life philosophy." Like-

Tom van der Linden 46:38 Okay.

Chris Williamson 46:38 ... consciously just decided. He was like, "Well, I've had a crack at a few other things and they didn't seem to work, so I'm just going to try nihilism." Uh, and I was like, "How's it going?" Uh, and I don't really know what you're supposed to say. Like, what does, what does, "Nihilism is going well as a life philosophy" mean? I'm not really too sure. But he, uh, was telling me about David Benatar, who is one of the, um, antinatalist philosophers. Uh, and the argument of antinatalists is that life is filled with so much suffering that it is basically a crime to bring any human into the world, I think. Uh-

Tom van der Linden 47:15 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:15 ... something like that. Don't have kids. Don't have kids because life's terrible. Um, and I, I try... I really sort of tried to look at it from the opposite perspective, and I didn't realize that that was part of the myth of Sisyphus that, well, hang on, you can say that a life of almost endless suffering, which it isn't, like it's, it's-

Tom van der Linden 47:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 47:34 ... small amounts of suffering and small amounts of pleasure. But even a life of, uh, with an entirety of suffering with a small amount of pleasure in it, tiny, tiny little sliver of it at some point, consciously, I don't know, like, does that cash out at being w- better than annihilation-

Tom van der Linden 47:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:49 ... or non-existence overall? I, I would be tempted, the non-nihilist in the room-

Tom van der Linden 47:54 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 47:54 ... was tempted to say yes.

Tom van der Linden 47:56 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 47:56 And it kind of seems like the same thing there, you know? If the-

Tom van der Linden 47:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:59 ... 24-hour cycle that Sisyphus pushes the rock up the hill, but there's three seconds as the rock lands back in front of him and he takes sac- satisfaction as he begins pushing it off, maybe that is worth it.

Tom van der Linden 48:12 Yeah. Yeah, I, I would be interested to hear what a person like that would say. If you, if they... if someone believes, like, it's, it's bad to bring children into this world, like, you can kind of twist that question around. Like, do you think that you should not have been born at all? Like, would you rather have not existed at all? And maybe if that person says, "Yes, like, I wish none of this would have happened," then I guess he's living his philosophy, but... (laughs)

Chris Williamson 48:38 (laughs) Well, you talk of-

Tom van der Linden 48:39 But overall, I think that that's, that's, uh, uh, a point where people, a lot of people are going to expose their own hypocrisy. Like, I don't think that a lot of people who believe that we should not bring children into the world because of suffering or the potential for suffering, they...... would, they themselves would not have wanted to, have not existed? Am I-

Chris Williamson 48:58 Yes.

Tom van der Linden 48:58 ... saying that correctly?

Chris Williamson 48:59 Have not have wanted to exist. Yeah.

Tom van der Linden 49:00 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:00 Um, with, uh, in the afterlife video that you did, you quote Camus and you say, uh, "At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them. You wonder why they are alive." And that is him talking about kind of the, uh-

Tom van der Linden 49:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:19 ... pointless daily, uh, machinations that people go through, right, as they NPC-

Tom van der Linden 49:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:25 ... and bleep, bleep, bleep their way-

Tom van der Linden 49:27 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 49:27 ... through the world. Um, and i- it seems, k- 'cause again, I haven't read barely any Camus, that to me seems like a much more very sort of cynical view of the world, and yet you're saying that at the end of the Myth of Sisyphus, he kind of has managed to f- arrive at a place that seems much more hopeful. What's the arc-

Tom van der Linden 49:47 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:47 ... between that? Is that what Camus does? Does Camus sort of personally, and also, uh, in terms of his writing go on this journey of cynicism and nihilism and everything's-

Tom van der Linden 49:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:57 ... shit, to then come out, come out to something else?

Tom van der Linden 50:00 Um, not necessarily. Um, again, uh, I, I, I, I haven't read him recently, so I'm, I'm not in the best position to accurately explain it, but I think he, he... Especially e- early in that book, he calls out the concept of the absurd, like, that we know there's some part of existence that's fundamentally, like, strange. And that's, uh, the quote you mentioned, and, like, some other stuff as well that's like... It, it, that's, uh, there b- I think it's, it's also he that says, like, that, that you sometimes have the realization that something very ordinary seems fundamentally alien-like to us. Like, there's some things that, that... Sometimes you just have these moments where you feel, like, a little bit disconnected from reality or something that just feels weird. And that's basically, that's, I think he- us becoming aware of our, like, Sisyphus-like fate. Like, that's us being, um... Because we don't walk around, like, day to day, like, being aware, like, "Oh, I'm gonna push this rock up the hill and it's gonna come, and it's gonna come back down again." Like, like, "Uh, how o- how old am I? Like, how many years do I have left?" Like, we're not constantly aware of our, like, mortality and our fate and all those existential things. And so, when he says those, br- or when he brings those things up early in the, in his work, he's kind of pointing out that we have those moments where it does, where we suddenly do become aware of that. And that's when that sort of journey begins, because that's when you become Sisyphus who is conscious now suddenly. He's no longer, like, hopefully going about his life. Now he's tried to... Now he's, like, forced to make, um, to justify it in some way, to make sense of it. And I think that's basically the, uh, jumping board towards the rest of that book. I hope

Tom van der Linden 51:53 it made sense.

Chris Williamson 51:53 You also looked at Don't Look Up, and I've got a, a closet obsession with-

Tom van der Linden 52:00 Mm.

Chris Williamson 52:00 ... existential risk. So-

Tom van der Linden 52:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 52:02 ... one of my friends messaged me and was like, "Dude, I'm not gonna tell you anything about this film, but watch it and tell me what you think it was about." What do you-

Tom van der Linden 52:10 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:10 ... think Don't Look Up was about?

Tom van der Linden 52:14 Yeah, so for me, when I made the video, I thought it was a- or when I went, went into the film in t- in, in first place, like, I... To me it was obvious that it was about climate change, because that's also kind of how it was promoted. Like, Leonardo DiCaprio himself, he's really into environmentalism, and he obviously really promoted the film in that context. And I think even the, uh, director did some tweets about... That at least, like, vaguely emphasized like, "Okay, this is maybe the, the angle through which we're, um, approaching this film." Um, obviously it's, like, about other stuff as well, but that's, like, the, the, the main metaphor with the comet that's set to strike the planet. But, um, yeah, that- that's kind of, like, I went into it with that assumption, so naturally that's what I read into it. But I was surprised when I made the video about it, um... For context, I did a video on, um, kind of questioning to what extent it was an effective metaphor for climate change and where it was kind of, like, struggling a little bit or, like, failing to capture some nuances, and why it did so. Um, but I was actually surprised to see afterwards that there were people who didn't at all think about climate change when they saw that film. So that, to me, that came actually as a bit of a surprise, because I thought it was so, uh, so on the nose in the way they, uh, they presented the film, and then the film itself, of course. To me it seemed obvious, but now I'm thinking like, "Oh, it's pro- probably because that's what I went in looking for."

Chris Williamson 53:49 The frame-

Tom van der Linden 53:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:50 You, your priors, you'd already been primed for that. Yeah. So again, I, I hadn't seen any of those tweets or whatever, uh, or, or Leonardo DiCaprio's promotion. But there's one scene in it where Jonah Hill's character, uh, th- they're sat in the, the White House.

Tom van der Linden 54:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:04 And they're talking about the fact that, "Look, you, you're not taking this seriously. This is, the, the, the asteroid is gonna come, it's gonna kill everybody."

Tom van der Linden 54:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:13 Uh, and Jonah Hill starts listing off all of the big existential risks. And he says, uh, "You know, every single week there's somebody in here telling us about a, a, an rogue AI algorithm, or a nanobot, or an engineered pandemic-"

Tom van der Linden 54:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:28 "... or a w- climate change or whatever." And that, to me, because I had my priors and my priors were make it the film about existential risk, about proper ex- existential risk, was that's the nod to what's going on. And even if it's not, it was... I found it really, really nice that they had that section in there. Because I do think-

Tom van der Linden 54:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:47 ... you know, I, I had this big... I said, this conversation with Peter Thiel and Alex, uh, Epstein at s- this event over the weekend. Uh, and when he's talking about fossil fuels and the future of climate change, and, and energy and energy costs and stuff like that...... and I keep on wanting, like, I love the conversation, I think Alex's work is fascinating. But I keep on wanting to be like, "Why is everybody talking about the climate when we've got, you know, artificial intelligence and, and engineered pandemics and natural pandemics," and we've literally just had one that's occurred.

Tom van der Linden 55:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:16 Uh, and I do think that increasingly, hopefully, we'll see films that are more symbolic, trying to get people to understand x-risk-

Tom van der Linden 55:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:25 ... in a more well-rounded way, like, Don't Look Up. Because the fact that it's open to inter- at least partially open to interpretation means that it starts to get people thinking-

Tom van der Linden 55:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 55:33 ... in this sort of a way.

Tom van der Linden 55:35 Yeah. Uh, I had a lot of comments of, from people who saw it, saw it indeed as a, uh, metaphor for the pandemic, um, which I kind of, I thought about it, but I also knew the film was probably written before the pandemic happened, so, I knew that was not the author's intention. Um, but it does, it fit well to a c- to a certain extent, because I do believe the pandemic is a sort of microcosm for climate change, um, uh, in the sense that it's a, um, an, an external element, like, out of nature that's kind of invading our, like, human society and wreaking havoc, and kind of like, uh, confronting us with our, uh, the way we kind of thought we could go a- and have this lifestyle. We could go, like, have this global, like, everyone's traveling back and forth, it doesn't matter, but then there's, you introduce this one little virus and you can see how... It's the same thing that the, that you, uh, catch the story about that ship that got stuck in the-

Chris Williamson 56:42 Yeah, the Evergreen.

Tom van der Linden 56:42 ... Suez Canal, I think? Yeah. How, how, like, such a tiny event, like, so- such a tiny screw in the machine could, like, uh, mess everything up. Like, um, I think it's a, was a, it's, it's also such a reminder of how fragile our system really is and how much we've actually come to take for granted, even though we probably should not have done that.

Chris Williamson 57:06 It's a function of the interdependence as well, right? That-

Tom van der Linden 57:11 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:11 ... you, you, you don't have society as... Even though individuals might have become atomized, everything is very interdependent, and-

Tom van der Linden 57:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:19 ... supply chain issues and-

Tom van der Linden 57:21 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:21 ... problems to do with, you know, the, uh, personal protective equipment and all of the issues that we've had over the last couple of years.

Tom van der Linden 57:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:28 Um, everybody is at the mercy of everybody else.

Tom van der Linden 57:33 Yeah. But we've, and we've grown, like, entitled about it too. Like, we're not only expecting that this is the way it, th- the ways things are, but we're also like, firmly believe this is what we deserve, like, we should be... Freedom is, like, I can do whatever I want and nothing should, like, impact me in any way.

Chris Williamson 57:52 Why should I have to-

Tom van der Linden 57:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:53 ... not be able to travel when I want to be able to travel? Yeah.

Tom van der Linden 57:56 Exactly, yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:57 Why can't I see my family when I want to be able to see my family?

Tom van der Linden 57:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:59 And i- not as in the policy is stupid. I'm not getting into that discussion. I'm getting into the discussion around-

Tom van der Linden 58:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 58:05 ... why is there a thing that isn't my choice that is impacting the way that I exist in the world?

Tom van der Linden 58:10 Yeah. Yeah, I think it, it's, it has, at least for some people, like, exposed a, how we can have a bit of a childish sense of freedom, like, as a c- when you're a child, like, you're, you have rules that are laid out by your parents, and then you... Freedom to the child is like, "I can have a cookie whenever I want." Like, "I decide when I go to bed." Like, but I think when you're adult and when you're like, maybe, like, a family man or like, uh, um, like a parent, uh, or, or a partner to someone, then there's like, you have responsibilities. Like, you, freedom is no longer like, "I'm gonna do whatever I want." It's, it, it has, you have to, like, get a more mature, like, version of that to make, make it have, or make it make sense in an adult context. And so, I think the people who are really, like, concerned about, uh, to put it lightly, like petty freedoms, like they, those are might also be the people whom might need to, like, have a more evolved sense of what freedom actually means in both an adult context for themselves and maybe also for like on a collective level in a civilized society where, um...

Chris Williamson 59:30 Well, also a broader-

Tom van der Linden 59:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:32 ... a broader timeline as well, I think one of the problems-

Tom van der Linden 59:35 Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Chris Williamson 59:36 ... one of the problems that we have is that life's become so convenient recently, that-

Tom van der Linden 59:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:41 ... we're hyper-attuned to any minor reduction in that convenience.

Tom van der Linden 59:46 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:46 The fact that, uh, your car, your new car is going to take 14 weeks to arrive instead of 10 weeks to arrive because of supply chain issues to get the particular type of metallic paint and-

Tom van der Linden 59:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 59:58 ... leather seats that you wanted to go in it, it feels like a, a huge inconvenience, but only because of how hyper-attuned we've become to being able to have things (snaps fingers) as soon as we want.

Tom van der Linden 1:00:08 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're completely living within our own sort of time frames, which, uh, I was actually watching a video today on YouTube from the channel, uh, Our Changing Climate, which is kind of interesting from a, uh, like, environmentalist perspective. But he, uh, also pointed out, like, this, that maybe at some point we need to go back to living more in tune with like the, the waves of, or the currents of, like, the planet. And so, like, when you go to a supermarket, like, maybe we shouldn't expect that everything is-

Chris Williamson 1:00:40 In season-

Tom van der Linden 1:00:40 ... always there, like-

Chris Williamson 1:00:41 ... all the time.

Tom van der Linden 1:00:41 ... all year round.

Chris Williamson 1:00:41 Yes.

Tom van der Linden 1:00:41 Like, from everywhere around the planet, like we've-

Chris Williamson 1:00:43 Yes.

Tom van der Linden 1:00:44 ... we've grown, like, so disconnected from the way, like, the natural ebb and flow of, that you can, that you find in nature and, like, the concept of seasonality, and, um. Also with work, like, we were kind of working, like, the whole year around the clock, uh, like 9:00 to 5:00, even though that doesn't always make sense. Like, maybe in the summertime we feel more energetic than in the wintertime, maybe we should, like, account for that, or...

Chris Williamson 1:01:07 That's a good point. I've never thought of that.

Tom van der Linden 1:01:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:09 Yeah, well-

Tom van der Linden 1:01:10 But yeah, there's a lot of those things where we are kind of like disconnected. We are completely living in these mechanical terms instead of, like, going more with, like, in terms of, like, flow or, like, other elements that you find in nature, but that we have sort of, uh, repressed or, like, done away with in our own lives or in our society.

Chris Williamson 1:01:30 Well, we never know when we get mastery over something, what is baby and what is bath water that we're throwing out, right?

Tom van der Linden 1:01:37 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:37 You know, what is it that... And this is one of the most compelling arguments for conservatism that I can think of, the fact that progress doesn't always mean making things better. You know, you can change things and very easily make them a hell of a lot worse. I think that-

Tom van der Linden 1:01:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:52 ... you know, there's probably a pretty easy argument to be made that, uh, reductions in norms around casual sex have probably fed into something which was immediately gratifying, but longer term, for most people individually and collectively, probably doesn't make them actually feel all that much better. Uh, and yet-

Tom van der Linden 1:02:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:10 ... it's really, really hard to argue against. "Well, I'm supposed to be a free individual. I thought that we had control over... I can drive myself to work, and I can choose where I want to live, and I can-"

Tom van der Linden 1:02:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:19 "... have a job. I can get up when I want, and I can be hot when it's cold and cold when it's hot. Why can't I have sex with people whenever I want?" And you go, "Well, no, you can, you c- like, you, you actually can, but, like, what you want to do isn't always necessarily what's good for you."

Tom van der Linden 1:02:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:02:32 And, um, th- that conflict, you're right, the kind of feet-stamping tantrum that is mostly, I would argue, people just realizing that maybe the world wasn't as at their whims as they thought it was-

Tom van der Linden 1:02:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:02:49 ... I think a lot of people have probably become quite... And rightly so, you know. You've got (laughs) a pandemic, um, crazy American election cycle that lasted for three months or something, uh, war-

Tom van der Linden 1:03:05 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:06 ... energy shortage, you know, in the space of two years.

Tom van der Linden 1:03:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:09 So apart from the fact that you're a finite creature surrounded by infinite complexity, you also now have this wild sort of turbulent existence that's going on outside of you.

Tom van der Linden 1:03:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:03:23 Like, it, it... Now is a good time to be freaking out. Like it's... That's fine.

Tom van der Linden 1:03:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:27 I genuinely think that that's something that would be a natural response.

Tom van der Linden 1:03:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:30 But up until that point, we kind of didn't have any stimulus that would have caused us to do that.

Tom van der Linden 1:03:36 Yeah, i- i- it's weird. You would, you'd almost feel nostalgic about, like, 2008 when we g- only had a financial crisis.

Chris Williamson 1:03:43 (laughs)

Tom van der Linden 1:03:44 (laughs) And then a good, like, a good decade to recover from it. Like now, like, with, like, Russia is at, at the border here, even though we're barely getting over COVID, so yeah. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:03:54 Yeah, yeah. Shit's moving faster, man. Um-

Tom van der Linden 1:03:58 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:03:58 What else-

Tom van der Linden 1:03:59 I wonder, though, if that's actually something that's happening, if there's actually more crises going on or, or if, if it's also more that we're, like, hypersensitive towards stuff that's going on.

Chris Williamson 1:04:10 Yeah, maybe. I would certainly say that the last couple of years have seen... You know, I don't know whether we would have ignored the Ukraine-Russia conflict. I don't think we would have ignored the supply chain-

Tom van der Linden 1:04:22 No, that's true. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:22 ... shortages. But I also do think that you're right, that you've got... You are hyperattuned. Well, the human system isn't designed to consume the entire globe's information 24-

Tom van der Linden 1:04:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:34 ... hours a day on a real-time basis.

Tom van der Linden 1:04:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:36 And yeah, I've said this for ages, that the most competent people that I know now aren't the ones who are able to find information. They're the ones that are able to discriminate information, you know.

Tom van der Linden 1:04:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:04:56 So in 2008, we didn't have more information than we needed, you know. It was still-

Tom van der Linden 1:05:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:04 ... a, a competitive advantage to be somebody that was able to seek out more and more and more, because the asymmetry between what we wanted to know and what we could know kind of was still imbalanced, and we wanted to know more than we had access to. And then there was one month in the end of 2011 or something, where the balance between those two things was perfect, and then very, very quickly, the balance just pivoted in the other direction. And it was like, it's no longer about whether you can find information. It's about whether you can separate noise and signal apart.

Tom van der Linden 1:05:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:05:37 And that's kind of the job, broadly, of people now. Not to scavenge-

Tom van der Linden 1:05:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:40 ... for more, but to be able to be more discriminating.

Tom van der Linden 1:05:45 Yeah, definitely. Because it's, it's a tricky thing, too. Like, it's very easy to be fooled by information, to mistake, like, noise for signal, as you said. Um, so yeah, that- that's something that I, that I'm probably most, like, dreadful about. Like, I see, at least in my country, like, there's groups of people who seem to be-

Chris Williamson 1:06:04 Where are you from?

Tom van der Linden 1:06:06 The Netherlands. Um, so yeah, there, there's... Like in the United States, or, like, I'm guessing everywhere else, like, there's increasingly, you, you see, like, people who would otherwise be kind of like maybe individuals or, like, small communities or like the fringes of, like, not just politics, but just al- also basic world view. But they are now, like, more, getting more organized, and they're also, like, feeding each other into this. Like, it's, it's kind of like they're, like they're bordering off their bubble and, like, trying to drift out, slowly, like, drifting away in their own parallel reality with it becoming, like, increasingly difficult to reach those. Because that's something that I do worry about and that I don't really have answers to. Like, how do you reach someone who seems to have a completely different world view than your own? Like, who's completely, like, not even more like... Because politics has always been like an, a conflict of values, like, you debate maybe what kind of directions we should go. But now it seems like we're not...... we're not even getting to that because, like, we don't even agree, like, basically on how the world works. And that, to me, that's kind of, like, scary, because that's something that really ... th- that's not going to bring us anywhere, um, um, I, I think.

Chris Williamson 1:07:25 It's a fundamental incompatibility.

Tom van der Linden 1:07:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:27 I learned this from, uh, a, a friend who did, uh, philosophy at Oxford, and he was saying how people that do ethics professionally, I didn't know that being an ethicist is, is actually a job, but apparently, it is-

Tom van der Linden 1:07:39 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:07:39 ... uh, a- and people who partake in debating ethics, um, they can have a debate about ethics as long as the meta-ethics that underpin their beliefs, they agree on. So you have to agree on the metaethical framework before you can have a discussion about the ethics. And that's a really nice, uh, framework-

Tom van der Linden 1:07:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:07:56 ... that I use moving forward that's, look, we can have a debate about stuff to do with what's going on in the world, but if we can't debate about what the world is-

Tom van der Linden 1:08:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:08:06 ... or what the fundamental situation that everything else is being built on top of is, you know, if you're flat earth and I'm lizard people, then-

Tom van der Linden 1:08:13 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:08:14 ... we have an incompatible, or maybe we have a completely-

Tom van der Linden 1:08:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:08:16 ... compatible worldview, I actually think.

Tom van der Linden 1:08:17 I think in that case, we would probably go along. Yeah (laughs) . I, I get the point.

Chris Williamson 1:08:19 Cross over maybe, maybe a little bit better. Um,

Chris Williamson 1:08:23 what do you watch? So, uh, you know, like Stories of Old, your channel, which will be linked in the show notes below, people can go check that out.

Tom van der Linden 1:08:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:08:29 It's awesome. Uh, what else do you really-

Tom van der Linden 1:08:32 I also have a podcast now, by the way. I'm not sure if you've listened to that.

Chris Williamson 1:08:35 What's that called?

Tom van der Linden 1:08:35 It's called Cinema of Meaning. It's, uh, we launched it, I, I'm doing it together with Thomas Flight, who's another, um, YouTube video essayist, uh, really smart guy too. Um, we launched, uh, this March, so it's, uh, kind of new. Uh, it's a weekly podcast that, uh, each week we discuss, like, a single film, and we really want to dive into, like, the meanings and philosophies and, uh, the kind of the stuff that we're talking about now, but then specifically tied to understanding, uh, uh, an individual film. Um, so yeah, that, that's something that we're doing as well.

Chris Williamson 1:09:10 Well, congratulations. Wel- welcome to the, welcome to the industry.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:13 Yeah, thanks.

Chris Williamson 1:09:13 Who else do you watch then online? What are the YouTube channels, if people think, "Oh, this, this Tom guy sounds all right." What else do you watch-

Tom van der Linden 1:09:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:09:20 ... that you think people should check out?

Tom van der Linden 1:09:23 Um, I watch a bunch of different stuff. Um, like, like are you d- you g- are you asking me, like, channels similar to mine or like-

Chris Williamson 1:09:35 Uh, no, whatever you think-

Tom van der Linden 1:09:36 ... channels that are mine interests, because I have, like-

Chris Williamson 1:09:37 Yeah. Just whatever you think.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:39 ... vastly different interests than, like-

Chris Williamson 1:09:39 Whatever you think that people need to know more about.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:41 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:09:41 You can shill whoever you want.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:43 Yeah. Okay. So there's one guy, he's also from the Netherlands, uh, but he makes content in English, um, that I recently came across, he's called Martijn Dolaard.

Chris Williamson 1:09:53 Okay. Yeah.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:54 Uh-

Chris Williamson 1:09:54 No one's going to be able to spell that, Tom.

Tom van der Linden 1:09:56 Yeah. Uh, he has a video series, uh, it's called Two Years on a Bike. If you search for that, I'm sure you'll find it. It's a four-part video series where he basically accounts the journey he made on his bicycle from Vancouver to Patagonia, I think it was. Um, but it was really just, like, this great exercise in cinematography and storytelling. And he is now doing a series in which he has bought, like, a cabin in the Italian Alps that he's really just, just, uh, renovating from scratch. And, um, the interesting thing is, it's not really about anything. He makes these long vlogs, but you see a lot of them, he ... A lot of them is just he, or just him doing everyday stuff. Like, h- he's like, "Today, I'm going to do the plumbing or whatever. Today I'm going to build a temporary shed while I work on the other cabin." And so it's a really ... To me, it's kind of like, it took me by surprise. Like, I was watching it and I, I was thinking at first like, "Oh, this is kind of boring." Like, I was even skipping through a little bit. But at some point I kind of tuned into what he was doing, and it became this ... Really, it's almost like an escape into, into someone's life who is more, like, connected to, or more directly connected to his labor and to, to the world, to say it, like, a bit cheesily (laughs) . Um-

Chris Williamson 1:11:19 It seems like a peaceful way to-

Tom van der Linden 1:11:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:11:22 ... to be.

Tom van der Linden 1:11:23 Yeah. That's, uh, he, he really captures that sense of peace of, like ... And, uh, he, he instantly m- makes you want to go, like, into your garden or whatever-

Chris Williamson 1:11:32 (laughs) .

Tom van der Linden 1:11:32 ... and, and work on something with your hands.

Chris Williamson 1:11:33 If you started building a shed out back. There's a, uh, a series of books, um, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and then the subsequent one is Wise Man's Fear. And, uh, that series is written the same way as the YouTube that you're talking about.

Tom van der Linden 1:11:52 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:11:52 So, and the second book is 1,100 pages. And dude, it goes so slowly.

Tom van der Linden 1:12:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:00 Like, you get to know this guy's daily routine. You get to learn-

Tom van der Linden 1:12:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:12:03 ... about the route that he walks to go and play his lute at the club that he plays at on the nighttime. And you can go for, you know, a good while and kind of not much happens. I mean, it's beautifully written-

Tom van der Linden 1:12:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:14 ... and the, the characters are compelling, and the protagonists are really, really fun. But I really enjoyed the more pedestrian nature of this book. It wasn't (snaps fingers) super quick cuts-

Tom van der Linden 1:12:24 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:12:24 ... every three seconds. It wasn't, and then a dragon arrived-

Tom van der Linden 1:12:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:27 ... and some crazy shit happened.

Tom van der Linden 1:12:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:12:30 You sink into the, the peace and the pedestrian sort of pace and cadence that he goes through.

Tom van der Linden 1:12:37 Yeah. I think it's good to immerse yourself in content like that every now and then, whether it's a book or, like, a YouTube series, because I think it's also something that you then carry with you outside of it. Like, you, when you, like, stop watching a video like that, or you stop reading that book, then maybe when you're, like, doing something for yourself, then, uh, maybe you bring that same awareness to your own activities, which, um, I think is kind of, like, enriching, or at least probably.

Chris Williamson 1:13:04 Yeah. I think I certainly found, when I was reading that book, that I had that same sort of mindset. I think your, your stuff has that, uh, uh, similar sort of pacing to it that's kind of, um, considered.... and-

Tom van der Linden 1:13:18 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:13:18 ... and makes you reflect. I'll give you the best thing that I've found. Uh, Melody Sheep. Have you heard of them?

Tom van der Linden 1:13:25 Y- it does ring a bell, yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:13:27 So they do, um, documentaries, uh, in space, but the entire thing is, uh, created on a computer in, uh, beautiful motion animation, four, like 4K. The whole thing is insane. And, uh, the guys that do it, I don't know who they are, they must work professionally outside of this.

Tom van der Linden 1:13:48 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:13:49 Uh, but yeah, it's called Melody Sheep, and they've just announced, they do a trailer before the full-length films get released, and they've just released a new trailer, uh, about some new alien worlds documentary that they're going to do. And it's outstanding. Like, the fact that it's on YouTube is completely disgusting. It's the, the-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:07 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:14:07 ... some of the m- th- this sound editing is great, the narration is brilliant, the script writing is really good. It's genuinely interesting and you learn a ton of different stuff. So they did this one-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:14:17 ... about, um, how life could have evolved on different planets and stuff like that. Uh, and you're compelled to watch, but the main thing is it, it looks like Interstellar, you know, like it's-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:26 Oh, wow. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:14:26 ... so spectacular. So those, that's two. Uh, you said-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:14:30 ... Two Years on a Bike will find your guy, and-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:14:34 ... Melody Sheep from me will find mine. And if people want to get started, the, uh, Alien Worlds, I think it's called, is a series that they can get cracking with.

Tom van der Linden 1:14:44 Sounds good. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:14:45 Dope. Tom-

Tom van der Linden 1:14:45 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:14:46 ... I really appreciate you, man. I love the work that you do. I hope that you continue to do it. Like Stories of Old, it will be linked in the show notes below.

Chris Williamson 1:14:52 If people want to find out other bits that you do online, where should they go?

Tom van der Linden 1:14:56 Um, I don't really have a website or anything. I have a Patreon page that also links to, like, some of the stuff that I have, like the YouTube, um. I'm not sure if Cinema of Meaning, the podcast is on there, but you can find that wherever you're probably listening to this podcast. So, uh, yeah, you can check that out as well and, um, um, also on Nebula, the streaming platform. I'm not sure if you're, you've heard of that one. Uh, that's a, like a creator-owned streaming platform. I'm like, uh, it's something we created with like a bunch of YouTubers. They came together and they sort of, uh, kind of through our own agency and we started our own streaming platform that's, it's, it's basically like, uh, Netflix, but with YouTubers, like you pay a monthly fee instead of, um, having ads. So it's the, the experience is completely ad-free, and so, uh, we also get a much, like, fairer, like, share of the revenue. So that's, um, kind of the, the principle of it. And, uh, a lot of us, uh, including myself, have been posting, like, some exclusive stuff there or like extended videos. Uh, you also see like, uh, you always see like special, uh, edit vide- uh, specially edited videos without like the sponsor bits at the end because like, again, it's completely ad-free, so that includes the, uh, sponsor you normally see in the video itself. Uh, so yeah, you can definitely check that out as well.

Chris Williamson 1:16:19 Dope, man. I appreciate you. Thanks for today.

Tom van der Linden 1:16:21 Yeah, thanks.

Chris Williamson 1:16:22 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.