The Real Reason Your Life Is Still The Same - Angelo Somers

1. 0:00 – 9:41

   Where Does Self-Belief Stem From?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What does trying for 20 mean to you?

   2. ASAngelo Somers0:05

      Um, as with most things people tend to do, it has a positive and negative side, um, I'm sure you're aware of that, um, the idea is just that, you know, when everybody else is trying for 10, you're gonna be the guy that tries for 20. And so the positive side of that is you can end up getting a lot done, you can end up building a podcast with a billion plays, um, but the negative side of it is, uh, you're constantly anchoring your actions and your behaviors to what you see other people around you doing. Um, so, in some sense it kind of reduces your freedom but, um, can increase your actual output, or at least like what you're managing to achieve.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:46

      Mm-hmm.

   4. ASAngelo Somers0:46

      So it's kind of like this comparative, competitive, sort of testosterone maxing thing where you're just like, "Whatever the other guy does, I'm gonna do more."

   5. CWChris Williamson0:52

      Mm-hmm.

   6. ASAngelo Somers0:53

      Um, I think it was in the Hormozi episode or something when it came to meditation, it was something like, "However much everyone else is meditating for inner peace, I'm gonna meditate more." And it's like, you, if you're a hammer everything is a nail, and so if that's the type of guy you are, you're probably gonna achieve a lot of cool stuff, um, but yeah, you might not be the happiest while you're doing it, but you never know, maybe you will be as well.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:15

      Because the position is always lack, it's always, you always feel behind the eight ball and you're trying to catch up.

   8. ASAngelo Somers1:23

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:23

      Not only do you need to be better than everybody else, but you have set your sights so much higher than them, double-

   10. ASAngelo Somers1:28

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:28

       ...that you're always going to be setting a, uh, chasing an unrealistic opportunity.

   12. ASAngelo Somers1:33

       100%. And also you're living in a reactive state, right, like you're, you're not actually affirming something that's like an internally generated idea of what you should be doing with your time, you're just reacting to the environment, oftentimes out of like a sense of lack or a fear. I mean, we have these like adaptive personalities that we create where we'll, like something bad will happen and then, um, I don't know, maybe like you're kind of outcast in school, that was my example-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:56

       Mm.

   14. ASAngelo Somers1:56

       ...and then you kind of create this adaptation which is like, okay, to avoid that sort of pain you're gonna do everything you can to not be in that position again-

   15. CWChris Williamson2:04

       Mm.

   16. ASAngelo Somers2:04

       ...which often means just doing better than the next guy. Um, but the problem, you, you can end up just getting really good at shit you don't actually care about, um, or making a lot of progress along a dimension that you wouldn't have otherwise pursued.

   17. CWChris Williamson2:20

       What line- Give me an example.

   18. ASAngelo Somers2:22

       Um... Well, I was just in LA, and I feel like this is a hub of that, um, there's a lot of people sort of playing the status game. It seems to be like the, the center of the status game in, in many ways. Um, and oftentimes it's to overcome a sense of lack. Um... But you know, Nietzsche always spoke about like creating your own values, um, and there's kind of a lot of debate about the extent to which you're actually capable of doing that. Um, people like Peterson are kind of saying, like, "You can't do it," Jung says, "You can't do it," um, but I think it's because there's, it's not because we're actually confused about what we mean when we say values or like the capacity, um, or where they come from, it's because we're generally quite confused about this term you. Like I, like what actually is that? What's the scope of it?

   19. CWChris Williamson3:19

       Mm.

   20. ASAngelo Somers3:19

       And it can kind of expand or contract depending on the context at play, um, so if you consider you to be like the body that is Chris Williamson, like that body will actually be creating its own values even if they're mimicking other stuff in other people's bodies. Like mirror neurons are still in your head, right, so you're kind of, if that's who you are, then you are creating your own values. But the conscious personality, the conscious identity Chris doesn't have any like top-down control over the body. If you did, I could say, "Just pause your heartbeat," and you'd be able to pause it. But you can't because it's, you know, nature's quite smart and it realizes that, um, certain things just shouldn't be within the jurisdiction of-

   21. CWChris Williamson4:01

       Mm.

   22. ASAngelo Somers4:02

       ...um, the conscious personality.

   23. CWChris Williamson4:05

       What do you think about self-belief, or where do you think self-belief comes from? Because it seems there that trying for 20 is inherently, uh, wrapped up in a high level of self-belief, "I can do this thing," even if you're whipping yourself into doing it, right, even if it's coming from a relatively negative, uh, fuel source. It seems like that has to be tied up with self-belief, and also in self-belief is the word self, which is what you were just talking about.

   24. ASAngelo Somers4:30

       Mm.

   25. CWChris Williamson4:31

       So w- what do you think about, uh, self-belief and its relationship to aiming high?

   26. ASAngelo Somers4:38

       Um... I did this, you know the, the, the quote, um, like, "Is the juice worth the squeeze?"

   27. CWChris Williamson4:44

       Mm-hmm.

   28. ASAngelo Somers4:44

       I, I kind of inverted that at one point and said like, "The, the juice isn't a product of the," um, the, sorry, "The belief that the juice is worth the squeeze is not a product of the juice or any of the attributes of the juice."

   29. CWChris Williamson4:57

       Mm.

   30. ASAngelo Somers4:57

       "Um, the juice is actually a product of the belief that it's worth the squeeze," and I think that kind of maps on roughly to self-belief where it's like, can you actually do something, um, there's like a bi-directional sort of answer to that question where obviously if you don't believe that you can, you're never act- gonna actually try.
2. 9:41 – 14:45

   Does Dissatisfaction Come from Complacency?

   1. ASAngelo Somers9:41

      ...

   2. CWChris Williamson9:41

      Well, everybody's got this sense. It's been stuck in my- in my head for about three years now, this- this line, "Built for more." And, uh, it- it's certainly something that I felt when I was in my 20s, not when I was probably a teenager. But especially as I got to the end of my 20s, I was like, "God, this- I just- I feel like a crab sort of growing up against the- my shell. Like I just need ... There's something that's constraining me and constricting me here, and this doesn't feel good." But I think a lot of people feel that. A lot of people feel like, "I'm not where I'm meant to be actualizing my potential. I'm built for more. There is something more out there that I should do." But the- another line from one of your videos, like, "What if your dreams are just dreams?" What if there isn't any there there? And nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to hear, "Be realistic. Don't try harder. Don't commit yourself to this thing. Take less risk." Nobody wants to hear that. And rightly so, because I think on average, the- the sort of people that seek out content like mine and like yours are the sorts of people who already have quite a bit of self-doubt. They already have quite a bit of introspection and rumination and have a tendency toward like high agency, but, um, analysis paralysis.

   3. ASAngelo Somers10:55

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson10:55

      Which is this sort of brutal middle ground, right? Which is like, "I can make I- I happen to the world, but only if I really, really push myself to do it. And I'm chronically afraid of making- making a mistake and getting it wrong."

   5. ASAngelo Somers11:08

      Mm-hmm. Yeah. We, uh... There was a- there was a quote you had a while ago. I forgot what it was though. It was something along the same lines.

   6. CWChris Williamson11:19

      Mm-hmm.

   7. ASAngelo Somers11:20

      Um, but yeah, this fear, I- I- it's kind of sad to- to think like you walk around and you get a false picture of how like younger generations are actually doing, because the ones that are struggling aren't actually outside. Um, so you can go around living life thinking, "Yeah, people are roughly okay," but there is like millions of young people who are kind of just like dying of thirst for that sense of adventure, to like test themselves up against something. Um, and you know, it's a cocktail of bad conditions in- in which there is sufficient ways to sort of sedate yourself and sort of avoid...... um, (instrumental music plays) the pain that comes from, like, a slow decay. Um, and yeah, you can get really resentful as, as a result of that. I think, you know, this is something that happened with me to some extent. It kind of turned into this, like, slow suicide almost, where it was like, "I'm not actually going to commit to it, but, like, I'm just going to do everything I possibly can to ensure my own destruction."

   8. CWChris Williamson12:30

      Mm-hmm.

   9. ASAngelo Somers12:30

      "Like, I'm gonna go out and do all the drugs. I'm gonna go out and, you know, abandon everything that I'm working on. I'm just gonna, um, essentially stage, like, a misguided attempt at rebelling against the harsh conditions of life."

   10. CWChris Williamson12:44

       Mm-hmm.

   11. ASAngelo Somers12:45

       And it feels like rebellion. It feels like, "Yeah, why would I go out and, and com- commit to life? Why would I get involved? Why would I participate?" Um, especially today, where it feels like it's kind of... The, the goal is just ever-receding into the distance with, like, home ownership and, like, the, the things people actually want-

   12. CWChris Williamson13:00

       Mm-hmm.

   13. ASAngelo Somers13:01

       ... um, is just kind of scooting further and further away and seeming less and less possible. And, um, yeah, it's ch- it's a chicken and egg thing. It's like the other thing. It's not like one then the other. It's not like you, you, you dangle the reward in front of somebody and then they go for it, or they go for it first and then the wa- rewards start appearing. It's like a dynamic thing both ways. And, like, sometimes you just need to, like... It's like that urge you get when you see somebody in that position, you just want to shake them-

   14. CWChris Williamson13:29

       Mm-hmm.

   15. ASAngelo Somers13:29

       ... like, as if, like, um, something was out of whack. There's this thing in, like, um, in metallurgy, where they, like, heat up metal and... In order to make it stronger, because the heat will make the atoms, like, get unlocked from their positions, and then they'll settle back into, like, a firmer position. But you need that, like, energy, you need that volatility in order to have it. And when you live, like, every day on repeat and you're just in your mum's basement eating whatever, doing whatever, then, yeah, you kind of lack the volatility that s- acts as the spark to that. And, like, there's plenty of fodder in your soul, there's plenty of timber ready to catch fire, but oftentimes it's, like, we're actually avoiding the sparks because the sparks are oftentimes stresses. They're often things that we don't really want to, uh, to experience 'cause they're uncomfortable. Um, but then, yeah, you just trade, like, acute pain for chronic pain.

   16. CWChris Williamson14:22

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a, a short amount of discomfort or a lifetime of misery.

   17. ASAngelo Somers14:27

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson14:27

       And, yeah, well, I suppose it's this sort of comfortable complacency thing, region beta paradox, right? It's not good enough to be good, but it's not bad enough to be bad, and you have this weird prolonged dissatisfaction.

   19. ASAngelo Somers14:41

       Do you think that reaches a fever pitch at some point? Do you think it gets bad enough?

   20. CWChris Williamson14:44

       It depends.

3. 14:45 – 25:52

   Who We are is Constantly Changing

   1. CWChris Williamson14:45

      So I, I, the region beta thing got... I had a few questions on my live tour in Australia last year about this, and this guy (laughs) , he was ballsy. He was like, uh, "I think I'm stuck in region beta. Should I purposefully make my life worse?"

   2. ASAngelo Somers15:02

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson15:02

      Y- you know, "Should I self-destruct in an attempt to hit rock bottom so I can bounce back out?" I'm watching the Charlie Sheen documentary on Netflix at the moment. Have you seen that?

   4. ASAngelo Somers15:09

      I haven't, no.

   5. CWChris Williamson15:09

      You'd love it. Very, very good.

   6. ASAngelo Somers15:11

      Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson15:12

      And, um, it... He has a unique constitution, right?

   8. ASAngelo Somers15:17

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson15:17

      But still, it, it certainly seems like there was periods... He, he didn't learn consequences, was a big thing. Every time that he did something insane, he seemed to land not only on his feet, but on his feet three steps higher than he had been previously. So, he never felt that come into contact with reality. Rock bottom was... It wasn't a floor, it was a trampoline.

   10. ASAngelo Somers15:39

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:39

       And for him, he just kept bouncing higher and higher and higher. Uh, but he did... When he was in sort of a capable complacency, which is still a downward spiral, but until he hit rock bottom, he, it was a... And this is presumably the life cycle of a lot of addicts as well-

   12. ASAngelo Somers15:59

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson15:59

       ... which are like, "Ah, uh, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm a little dirty, I'm a little dirty, I'm a little dirty. Oh," bink-

   14. ASAngelo Somers16:06

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson16:06

       ... "and then we go back up. I'm clean again. Clean, clean, clean, clean, and then I sort of spiral back."

   16. ASAngelo Somers16:10

       Yeah. Yeah, 'cause you're not, like, just one... You don't... You're not just, like, one person. You're many people inhabiting the same body, and they all have their own agenda of what they want to get done, what they want to prioritize. And, um, and yeah, the, the, the will to smash loads of cocaine and fuck hookers is there in those people.

   17. CWChris Williamson16:27

       Mm-hmm.

   18. ASAngelo Somers16:27

       And it will win. Occasionally, it will win over time. And, like, the... There, there's this really interesting idea from Nietzsche that's kind of, like, probably one of the main reasons that I became so OCD about his questions that he asks and, like, trying to understand them or come up with answers to them. Um, which is like, that question of the, the, the I. "What is the I? What is the you?" is something that has, like, always taken my interest 'cause my dad was this non-duality speaker who speaks about that type of stuff a lot. Um, and also it's just a weird thing. I mean, like, you can... Viveky gives a... an example where he, like... (pauses) The spit that's in your mouth is kinda you. If you spit it into a clean cup, it's not you anymore, so the idea of drinking it again is disgusting.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:14

       (laughs)

   20. ASAngelo Somers17:15

       But nothing's changed about what it was. It hasn't got dirtier or anything-

   21. CWChris Williamson17:18

       Yeah, yeah.

   22. ASAngelo Somers17:19

       ... but just physically, as soon as it exits you, that's not me anymore.

   23. CWChris Williamson17:21

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   24. ASAngelo Somers17:21

       But while it's there, it's kind of a part of you.

   25. CWChris Williamson17:23

       Yeah.

   26. ASAngelo Somers17:23

       And so this, like, sense of self can be very sort of transient and it can move around a lot.

   27. CWChris Williamson17:28

       Mm-hmm.

   28. ASAngelo Somers17:29

       Um, and, you know, the idea history is written by the victors?

   29. CWChris Williamson17:34

       Mm-hmm.

   30. ASAngelo Somers17:35

       So, Nietzsche kind of took that... Not literally that quote, but, like, this is a good way of explaining it. He took that and applied it to the sense of self, where those drives, like the, the urge to fuck hookers and do cocaine, versus the urge to start a family and-
4. 25:52 – 41:55

   Why We Follow Internet Advice

   1. CWChris Williamson25:52

      give me your thesis. W- what, what do you think about the world of modern self-help advice on the internet?

   2. ASAngelo Somers26:02

      I think we've culturally sort of mistaken unpleasant experiences for harm. We've sort of made a false equivocation that, like, there... This goes deep into, like, the, kind of the fundamental values that you have. But, like, I think largely we're in a hedonistic culture. And that's not to say that everyone's running around doing whatever they want. It's just to say that pleasure and pain are paramount considerations. And if the, if pleasure and pain are sort of the only values that we're still holding onto, then anything that's painful is harmful. And we're kind of unable to distinguish between the two. Like, you see it on university campuses all the time, where, like, safe, like, I need to feel safe, and you often get it in relationships as well, where the word safe isn't quite... It shouldn't really be there.

   3. CWChris Williamson26:49

      Mm-hmm.

   4. ASAngelo Somers26:50

      Um, but we make this false equivocation. And then what comes downstream of that is, you know, it... There's something kind of a bit messy about the incentives of the internet when it comes to advice. Um, people that have done a very good job at coming up with, uh, retrofitting narratives to their experiences that optimize for pleasure, um, and against pain, uh, tend not to have truth as, like, an anchoring point.

   5. CWChris Williamson27:29

      Can you give an example?

   6. ASAngelo Somers27:32

      Have you ever had a conversation with somebody that just went through a breakup, and they're sort of talking about what happened? And they're like, "Can you believe they, they did this thing, and then they did the other thing with the person, and, and they did the..." And you're like nodding, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But in your head you're thinking, "Well, actually, kind of maybe that was actually the right thing for them to do. And the reaction that you're seeming to be okay with on your h- on your side isn't-"

   7. CWChris Williamson27:55

      Mm-hmm.

   8. ASAngelo Somers27:56

      "... adding up. And this story you're writing is a bit fishy." And so you're, like, not convinced, but the other person is fully convinced. They are genuinely... They're not lying to you.

   9. CWChris Williamson28:06

      Mm-hmm.

   10. ASAngelo Somers28:07

       They're lying to themselves, and they're fully convinced by their lie. Um, and so those sorts of stories that people create, uh, they're adaptive. They're, they're there to, to kind of avoid discomfort and oftentimes to avoid, like, uncomfortable implications about ourselves. Um, and then you can take that sort of story, and naturally people become very enthusiastic when they find a story that rewrites the history of a painful experience such that it's not as painful anymore to think back on. Obviously, they're gonna be enthusiastic about that. And that enthusiasm often translates to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're posting it, and th- that video then gets filtered to other people who have had similar painful experiences, because they've kind of got this, like... If it's, if the story of the narrative is kind of abstract enough and zoomed out enough, then you can kind of, like, take what they said about that thing, about their relationship that they're not saying was a part of their relationship or derived from it, but, uh, they've made it really abstract, so now you can

   11. CWChris Williamson29:10

       It's like horoscopes in a way. It's sufficiently vague-

   12. ASAngelo Somers29:13

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson29:13

       ... that everybody can insert their own story into.

   14. ASAngelo Somers29:15

       Yeah, yeah, like cold reading, like-

   15. CWChris Williamson29:17

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ASAngelo Somers29:17

       ... bluish-brownish, greenish eyes.

   17. CWChris Williamson29:18

       Uh-huh.

   18. ASAngelo Somers29:19

       Like, you kind of just take the out, the part that you like-

   19. CWChris Williamson29:21

       Mm-hmm.

   20. ASAngelo Somers29:21

       ... and go, "Ah, yes, of course." Um...

   21. CWChris Williamson29:25

       And w- that is at least what you see as a good chunk of online advice?

   22. ASAngelo Somers29:30

       Yeah, like probably the va- the vast majority of it, not in terms of what... Not if you're measuring it by, like, what gets consumed. I think people have half-decent bullshit detectors generally-

   23. CWChris Williamson29:38

       Mm-hmm.

   24. ASAngelo Somers29:38

       ... especially adults.

   25. CWChris Williamson29:39

       That's a good, that's a really good way to put it.

   26. ASAngelo Somers29:40

       Um, but in terms of, like, the actual advice that gets posted, like, God, I live in Bali at the moment. You go to Bali, there is thousands of coaches that shouldn't be coaching.

   27. CWChris Williamson29:51

       Mm-hmm.

   28. ASAngelo Somers29:51

       Like, a- a- and, you know, it's, you can make the point that, okay, maybe, like, they're actually, like, good at giving advice, they're just not good at implementing it themselves. And, like, just because a doctor is fat doesn't mean he's not good at being a doctor. Like, you can make that whole point, and that's fair. But I think in lots of these things, they're so, especially on like the, the dating side, it's so intimate and raw, like with your emotional centers, that it's, it's hard to separate the-

   29. CWChris Williamson30:17

       Which should be treated with caution as well, holy fuck.

   30. ASAngelo Somers30:19

       100%.
5. 41:55 – 55:47

   Coming Face to Face with Self-Destruction

   1. ASAngelo Somers41:55

   2. CWChris Williamson41:55

      Didn't you try nihilism for a while?

   3. ASAngelo Somers41:57

      Yeah.

   4. CWChris Williamson41:58

      How'd that go?

   5. ASAngelo Somers42:01

      Not great. Um, yeah. It's, uh... That, that was sort of the slow offing myself period, when I was, like, a teenager. Um-

   6. CWChris Williamson42:11

      Well, gimme, gimme the story of what happened with your school career and the subsequent spirals.

   7. ASAngelo Somers42:18

      Right, yes. Um, so I never, like, really enjoyed school. I didn't fit in too well. Um, so I would always, like, come up with different ways to...... um, sort of convince myself to go to school, often by, like, sandwiching school in between two things I was excited about, which could be, like, a bunch of random shit. It was video games at one point. In primary school, it was, uh, unicycling at one point. I would unicycle to my primary school, um, 'cause it was something different and exciting. And, uh, eventually, like, when I got to secondary school, it was parkour. Um, so I was doing, like, a bunch of parkour, going to competitions and stuff after a while. And yeah, I landed on my spleen on a bar of scaffolding, um, at this competition, which had, like, a bunch of doctors then, uh, sort of a couple of days later, coming and trying to convince me to do, like, a, a CT scan, um, to see what was going on with my spleen, whether or not there was a tear in the lining, um, which is what they were worried about. But, um, if they did find a tear in the lining, they wouldn't have been able to actually do anything anyway. They were just covering their asses legally, um, 'cause if there was a tear, you wouldn't operate in case it bursts. You would just put somebody in a bed and watch them. So I was like, "Can I be in a bed at home?" And they were like, "Well yeah, technically, but you know, it's very dangerous." And they applied a lot of pressure. I had like six different doctors come in and try and convince me I was gonna die. Um, which really brought-

   8. CWChris Williamson43:38

      Uh, 12 years old?

   9. ASAngelo Somers43:39

      Yeah, I was 12. So that really brought mortality, like, right up front. It became like a state I was currently in, rather than like a event in the future. Um, which is, I think how people generally perceive it. It's like an event that... Like your death is an event in the future, versus your mortality being a state you're in. Like you're in the process of dying right now. Um, and that all became like immediate at way too young of an age, and sort of, I freaked out a little bit. Um, but one of the side effects of that was that whenever I felt like I was wasting time, or I couldn't really see the, the end or the purpose of a certain action, it would like trigger that anxiety I felt in the hospital. Um, it felt like I was sort of like dying again. Um, so yeah, I ended up going to see like a child psychologist and stuff to make sure I wasn't completely insane, but they were just like, "Yeah, leave school." Um, that was what I was pushing for already. Um, and they kind of were like, "Yeah, it makes sense." So yeah, I wrote this, like, document trying to convince my, my dad and my mom to let me just drop out. Um, and-

   10. CWChris Williamson44:42

       I, I think you're glossing over... Wasn't it, like, a big PowerPoint presentation?

   11. ASAngelo Somers44:46

       Yeah, it was like 22 pages. Yeah, like, uh, like, uh... Yeah. I mean, it worked. I think there were more... Ch- probably not because of the content of what was in it, it was clearly written by a 12-year-old, but the fact that I'd gone and done it off my own impetus was like, I think enough for them to kind of be like, at least take the question seriously.

   12. CWChris Williamson45:06

       What was your proposal?

   13. ASAngelo Somers45:07

       Um, it was just like a constellation of different points around, like, mainly trying to outline the pros and cons, and quell their biggest fears. But I-

   14. CWChris Williamson45:15

       But what did you want? What was the outcome that you wanted?

   15. ASAngelo Somers45:18

       I wanted to learn stuff that I was genuinely interested in, um, that I would actually remember, and that would actually be useful in life.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:27

       But this was gonna be self-directed.

   17. ASAngelo Somers45:29

       Um, originally, the idea was actually to do the curriculum at home and get through it as quickly as possible, and then start learning stuff I was interested in. That didn't go too well, 'cause again, when I got the textbooks, I'd started to get the anxiety from the hospital experience. So eventually we were just like, "Okay, we have to ditch that entirely." And, um... Yeah, so I ended up just learning about things that I was actually interested in, um, which has worked out better than expected. You know, T- (laughs) Taleb said, uh, uh, everything that he learned in school... And this is a guy that did like, he did the degrees, but he also spent an additional 30 hours a week reading for like 10 years. And he said everything he learned off of his own interests he remembers, but everything he learned teleologically, which is just to like achieve a different end, you forget. Because once that purpose is served, your brain deletes the information, and that was happening at school all the time. So I kind of felt like school was wasting my time. So I wanted to leave and do it myself. Um, and yeah, wrote the document, sent that to them and yeah, ended up leaving. Um, and then I, I think it, it kind of went okay for a little bit, and then a couple years later, like... You, you know that experience people get when they leave university and they're like, "Oh shit, I, I'm alive. This is the real world. I have to figure out where I'm going and what I care about and who I am." Um, that kind of happened like at a way, probably too young age. Um, so yeah, after like a few... About a year of like questioning everything, um, that inevitably leads you towards nihilism because the method generates its own frustration. It's like if you're trying to test whether or not water can be carried by getting a net and putting the net in the ocean and lifting it up and going, "Well, nope, see every time I bring up the net, there's no water in it."

   18. CWChris Williamson47:17

       Mm-hmm.

   19. ASAngelo Somers47:17

       And then you kind of like get a false conclusion. Um, when you obsessively question why you do things, you can end up in that exact spot, um, where you just end up thinking, "Okay, everything is pointless, 'cause I'm only doing this to do that, and I'm doing that to do that, and I'm doing that to die." Or like, "There's nothing perma-" Uh, it... You kind of get con- confused in a way, which is I think what nihilism is. I think it is a confusion. Um, and so-

   20. CWChris Williamson47:41

       You were what, like 15 now?

   21. ASAngelo Somers47:42

       Yeah, I was... It was, yeah, 15 when it started going tits up. Yeah. Um, and then I found out there about this awesome stuff called weed, um, which is great, and alcohol, and parties. And that was a good anesthetic to the sort of existential questions. And you know, as we were saying about the upwards and downward spirals, that kickstarted a downward one for the first time in my life, which, you know, then served as further evidence that life sucks and it's all evil. And I started to develop this sort of adversarial relationship with reality itself, where it was like, reality and the conditions I found myself in, called life, are sort of out to get me. They're like, problematic. Um, and yeah, I think that sort of became the fuel for me to-... spin out various narratives that justified that sort of nihilistic, hedonistic obsession with pleasure and pain, um, which drugs obviously fit really well into. Um, and yeah, it went on like that for a couple of years.

   22. CWChris Williamson48:57

       The obsession with pleasure and pain, was that just obsession with running away from pain?

   23. ASAngelo Somers49:03

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's kind of one slider, in a way.

   24. CWChris Williamson49:07

       Mm-hmm.

   25. ASAngelo Somers49:07

       Like, the further down you are, the more painful, the further up, like, the more pleasurable.

   26. CWChris Williamson49:10

       I think there's some- there's certainly some people... Y- y- you're right. By design, if you are in pleasure, you tend to not be in pain.

   27. ASAngelo Somers49:17

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson49:17

       But I think there's some people that are pleasure-focused, running toward a thing.

   29. ASAngelo Somers49:21

       Yeah.

   30. CWChris Williamson49:21

       There's some people who are anti-pain focused, running away from a thing.
6. 55:47 – 1:03:28

   We Can Find Hope in Other’s Experiences

   1. CWChris Williamson55:47

      I always had this, this line, I keep using it, uh, a lot, about the idea of a personal curse.

   2. ASAngelo Somers55:52

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson55:52

      The fact that I don't know the psychology of other people, which means that I believe a lot of the mental pathologies I have are unique challenges that only I face.

   4. ASAngelo Somers56:03

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson56:04

      Like this personal curse. No one else on the planet feels this thing, has this doubt, has this shame, it manifests in this way, thinks that thought. And one of the brilliant things that I think about exists in longer form conversations like this is not really to do with the big ideas that people come up with, but the throwaway lines that are sort of, like, filler-

   6. ASAngelo Somers56:30

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson56:30

      ... that explains where somebody was at-

   8. ASAngelo Somers56:33

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson56:33

      ... at a certain time. Mel Robbins had this line, it was preparing to speak to somebody... Dr. Paul Conti, fucking trauma guy. I knew it would come back to me. Maybe it was Paul, I can't remember. And she said in the back of her mind her whole life, she felt like someone was always mad at her.

   10. ASAngelo Somers56:49

       Hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson56:50

       She just had this sense-

   12. ASAngelo Somers56:52

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson56:52

       ... "My whole life, I'd always felt like somebody was mad at me, like I'd done something wrong and someone was angry about it."

   14. ASAngelo Somers56:59

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson57:00

       And I was like... And it was a, a tossaway line.

   16. ASAngelo Somers57:03

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson57:03

       That wasn't the thing. It wasn't even the thing in between. It was, like, just this random filler sentence that she said.

   18. ASAngelo Somers57:08

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson57:08

       And, you know, that happened over and over again. It happened with Peterson, it happened with Rogan, it happened with Naval Ravikant, it happened with Alain de Botton from The School of Life. And that sense, at least you're less alone than you thought you were-

   20. ASAngelo Somers57:24

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson57:25

       ... is a big source of comfort for a lot of people-

   22. ASAngelo Somers57:29

       Mm-hmm.

   23. CWChris Williamson57:29

       ... I think. "Holy fuck, that person who seems to be at least remotely put together in a manner that I'm not," right? "Because I'm deficient, I am flawed, I am broken-"

   24. ASAngelo Somers57:41

       Right.

   25. CWChris Williamson57:42

       "... uh, that person, even if they're some unknown guy on a podcast or, or some random clip on TikTok... Oh, fuck, that means it's not just me." And I think that, you know, you can feel when you think, "It's not just me."

   26. ASAngelo Somers57:56

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson57:56

       Like, your whole fucking nervous system just releases a little bit, because it's not... You're not the foot of some great cosmic joke.

   28. ASAngelo Somers58:02

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson58:02

       This is an e- an endemic part of being a sensitive human.

   30. ASAngelo Somers58:06

       Mm-hmm.
7. 1:03:28 – 1:11:26

   How Do We Identify Who We Really are?

   1. CWChris Williamson1:03:28

   2. ASAngelo Somers1:03:28

      Do you think... You posted something on Instagram the other day that fucking was great.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:03:32

      Mm.

   4. ASAngelo Somers1:03:32

      Kinda similar to what I was saying about the you at the beginning-

   5. CWChris Williamson1:03:35

      Mm.

   6. ASAngelo Somers1:03:35

      ... but true self.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:03:36

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   8. ASAngelo Somers1:03:39

      When something kind of affirms a, a moral stance that we have in somebody else-

   9. CWChris Williamson1:03:44

      Mm.

   10. ASAngelo Somers1:03:44

       ... we say that's their true self.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:03:45

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   12. ASAngelo Somers1:03:46

       And when it's different, we say they're not themselves anymore.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:03:49

       Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   14. ASAngelo Somers1:03:50

       How does that gel with what you were just saying about, like, feeling like you were going in an inauthentic direction? Like, where do you think that sense actually comes from of inauthenticity? 'Cause like, you can't really pinpoint it with words. Words are oftentimes like, a terrible tool for most jobs. But like, it feels like you c- you can, not in the moment, but retroactively, you can tell that something was off.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:04:15

       Yeah.

   16. ASAngelo Somers1:04:15

       But in the moment, you're convinced, and so that brings in the question that we had earlier about like, if you are just retrofitting narratives, then is there-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:04:23

       Whoever the victor was is the one that gets to-

   18. ASAngelo Somers1:04:24

       Whoever... Yeah, exactly. So then you say, "Ah, that was inauthentic." But like, I don't know, like you can make that case, but it does f- it really feels like there is some like, inner bullshit detector, which means there must be inner bullshit, right?

   19. CWChris Williamson1:04:37

       Yeah, that's a, that's a really good point. So the, uh, essay that I wrote basically explained how we tend to see the best in our allies and the worst in our enemies, and that our allies making an error is some sort of, uh, loss of their self and our, uh, enemies, uh, doing well is some sort of aberration or some sort of like, weird deviation from who they truly are.

   20. ASAngelo Somers1:05:06

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:05:06

       And, uh, that when it comes to the way that we see ourselves too, typically, th- it's the fundamental attribution error, right? Like, I cut that person off in traffic because I'm late. They cut me off because they're a, a prick.

   22. ASAngelo Somers1:05:17

       Yeah. (laughs)

   23. CWChris Williamson1:05:18

       Um, uh, it's ba- it's that, but for everything that we do all the way down. Um, you are right though, when it comes to authenticity, what does it mean to say that this is my true self, uh, given that it is constantly being rewritten and w- the immersiveness of the environment around us and social conditioning and norms and all the rest of the stuff.

   24. ASAngelo Somers1:05:37

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson1:05:37

       At least for me, y- y- it's a good point to make, that cognitively top-down trying to say, "This is who I am"-

   26. ASAngelo Somers1:05:45

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:05:45

       ... doesn't really seem to be able to capture the question, because if you explain why, if you ask why sufficient times, it gets back to something like, "It feels right. It feels like me." Usually it tends to be a bit upward aiming, and I think that that's why when you hear people who are drug addicts or sort of down on their luck and they say, "It's who I really am" it, that, whenever I see that on documentaries or, y- you know, movies and stuff like that, that really sort of strikes at my heart because that's, you know, somebody who has embodied that downward trajectory and taken it as a sen- a part of their sense of self and they believe it.

   28. ASAngelo Somers1:06:23

       Mm.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:06:23

       Maybe only in that moment. You know, I'm sure that maybe at some points in your downward spiral you thought, "This is who I am." But, you know, you've also got this upward aiming, this high sort of, uh, belief thing going on too. So these two things are coming into conflict.

   30. ASAngelo Somers1:06:39

       Do you know what's fascinating about that is, maybe counterintuitively the, the moment where I said, "This is who I am," that was actually the inflection point where it started getting better.
8. 1:11:26 – 1:21:28

   The Pain of a Lack of Self-Belief

   1. ASAngelo Somers1:11:26

   2. CWChris Williamson1:11:26

      I do like the way that Alex reframes it as saying, uh, "How can I say that I'm a man who can withstand han- uh, withstand hard things if I've never withstood hard things?"

   3. ASAngelo Somers1:11:36

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:11:37

      And that turns, uh, pullback into nobility in that way. But you're right, you know, if, if you regularly try and then there is some sort of a challenge, the next time that you try, you're expecting challenge, and sometimes the challenge is really uncomfortable, or, or, or results in no progress, which is, you know, the fucking Rocky line of like, "It's not about how hard you can hit, it's about, you know, getting knocked down, getting back up," et cetera. There's... A little trite, but I think functionally ends up being really important. Like, it's way deeper than it, than it actually sounds-

   5. ASAngelo Somers1:12:10

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:12:10

      ... because if all that happens is a straight trajectory of going up, okay, what problem have you got? This is why people have an issue with the sort of silver spoon infant whose life appears to be smooth sailing the whole way through. We have a sort of instinctive revulsion, resentment, discontent with that person, because we think, "Well, you didn't deserve it. You started halfway along the race and then didn't encounter a single hurdle, uh, for the rest of it. Th- this feels unfair." And then the people who sort of bounce and then come back out, you think, "Oh, well, you know, there they, they sort of kissed death and then, uh, uh, uh, rose to a- an acceptable altitude. Congratulations on that." But there is something about (laughs) like, people who just regularly, uh, struggling-... that just I don't think really gets talked about, especially if it's like a mundane struggle. "Oh, well, what's the issue? The issue is that I don't really believe in myself that much. The issue is that I fear things. The issue is that I struggle to make a commitment." It's like, dude, there's people, like, starving. There's people who can't af- afford their medical bills. There's people who can't afford food. There's people who were beaten or abused or child d- d- a- addicted to drugs as kids. Like, and you're s- all like, "Waah, my inability to believe in myself is stopping me from making progress. Waah. I wish that I could make more risk without feeling scared about. Waah." Like, you v- and that shame, I think, gets layered on top-

   7. ASAngelo Somers1:13:43

      Yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:13:43

      ... for a lot of people too, and this sort of generation of lost men thing. Uh, I was d- dinner with Rob Henderson in New York. He had this fucking brilliant line. He was talking about why guys struggle to approach women, and he said, uh, "If you approach one woman and get rejected, you remember it for the rest of your life. If you approach 100 women and get rejected, it's just another Tuesday."

   9. ASAngelo Somers1:14:04

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:14:04

       And y- you have this thing, as you said, the more insulated that you are, the bigger all of these events sort of feel, because there's fewer... there's less ballast, you know what I mean, in the system. There's, like, less sort of, uh, uh, stabilizers going on.

   11. ASAngelo Somers1:14:19

       Yeah. Yeah, Taleb has a quote that something like, um, the, the beginning of robustification it starts with a modicum of harm.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:14:30

       Mm-hmm.

   13. ASAngelo Somers1:14:31

       It's often true. Y- you have to have something bad happen, like, you have to get hurt a little bit in order to, like, have the compensatory response to actually heal and get better as a, as a result.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:14:42

       Mm-hmm.

   15. ASAngelo Somers1:14:42

       There was this theory I've, uh, I haven't looked into in years. But there was this psychologist called Debrowski. Um, he w- had this theory of positive disintegration, where everybody in his time, it was... there wasn't really much positive psychology going on as a field of study at that time, um, but they all were sort of painting psychological disintegration as a horrible thing-

   16. CWChris Williamson1:15:04

       Mm-hmm.

   17. ASAngelo Somers1:15:04

       ... and it's always bad. And he was the first guy to kind of flip that and, and notice these cases in which disintegration is actually, like, the metal thing. It's stuff getting, like, knocked out of place and unlocked so that-

   18. CWChris Williamson1:15:15

       Mm-hmm.

   19. ASAngelo Somers1:15:15

       ... it can resettle in a more integrated fashion. Literally, in the case of metal, it's more integrated.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:15:21

       Mm-hmm.

   21. ASAngelo Somers1:15:21

       And your psyche can do that too, but oftentimes that's, yeah, catalyzed by these unpleasant experiences that we go our whole lives trying to avoid. And, uh, you know, it was, it was the case that may- a few thousand years ago, you actually couldn't avoid them. It was just life. Like, your sister's gonna die of the bubonic plague, and that's gonna suck. And so, you know, I do wonder, uh, human brains are expectant, right? Like, they... the, the brain when you first are a baby is kind of like a first draft. And, uh, I think you get to a certain age and most of the neurons have already been created, and then, uh, it's really young. And from that point forwards, it's s- it's actually just pruning. It's getting rid of neurons as new experiences come in. So you get, like, the marble, and then it, like, sculpts down to the actual sculpture. Um, and I wonder to what extent, um, we are expectant, our brains are expectant of more suffering than we're actually getting in terms of acute suffering, right? 'Cause we have plenty of chronic-

   22. CWChris Williamson1:16:23

       Mm-hmm.

   23. ASAngelo Somers1:16:23

       ... suffering. Things are just kind of moderately shit all the time.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:16:27

       (laughs)

   25. ASAngelo Somers1:16:28

       Um, Britain basically in a sentence.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:16:30

       Correct. Yeah. I said it like a, a true British person.

   27. ASAngelo Somers1:16:32

       Yeah. Um, but that kind of moderately shit all the time doesn't actually tend to do anything for you, uh, in terms of growth or harm. And so I think your friend actually had a genuinely good question of, "Should I make my life worse"-

   28. CWChris Williamson1:16:47

       Mm-hmm.

   29. ASAngelo Somers1:16:48

       ... "in order to rebound out of it?"

   30. CWChris Williamson1:16:50

       Mm-hmm.

Episode duration: 2:09:46