Modern WisdomThe Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness - Pursuit of Wonder
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 12,218 words- 0:00 – 5:48
Why is Self-Awareness a Problem?
- CWChris Williamson
Why is self-awareness a problem?
- RPRobert Pantano
Self-awareness is a problem... Well, first of all, I think it's important to recognize that we often think about self-awareness as a good thing. Um, we generally think about it as a gradient, so we, we might refer to somebody as being more or less self-aware than others, and, and more is, is typically assumed as better. When I'm referring to self-awareness, I'm referring to just the fact that we are aware of a self at all. And so the mere fact that we have a certain form of consciousness that provides us that sense of self is a problem for a, a number of reasons. Um, first and foremost, we've arrived with a sense of self-awareness, um, by a process of evolution that doesn't really care. Um, obviously care I'm using loosely there because evolution doesn't care at all about anything besides it's just continuation propagation. But the experience of consciousness and self-awareness from the first-person perspective is not central to the reason for why self-awareness and consciousness arrived in the form that humans experience it. And so we are often at odds with the fundamental nature of reality and existence by virtue of the self-awareness, in my view at least. And, and the, and the reason for that is as a self who is aware of that self, we attach to that self, we attach to the ideas of that self, we attach to people and things, and our desire to make sense of our perception and understanding through all of the concepts that we form by nature of having that degree of, of awareness. And yet reality and existence is fickle, chaotic, uncertain. We're going to lose everybody and everything, um, through time or distance, decay, age, or illness or death. Um, and so we, we find ourselves in this sort of cosmic ocean where the waves are crashing on our, our heads constantly, and yet we, we must continue because we are also a part of the same substrate that, that built us, that needs continuation. So it puts us in this very peculiar position where we can feel the intensity and pain and suffering that seems from a conscious individual entity terrible, and yet we mu- we, we just refuse to give up. We, we must e-endure, and so that's why it's problematic. But also, obviously, I, I, I see the other side of that coin, and the paradox of self-awareness, in my view, is that self-awareness, self-consciousness, self-apprehension is the most horrific, terrifying thing in the known universe, and yet it is the most beautiful thing in the known universe because as far as we're aware, it's the only thing that allows conceptual understanding of existence and reality, so we can form the very idea of beauty and wonder and meaning and purpose and hope. And it n- seems to me to be necessary that the first part, the other half of that coin, is in the equation for the second half to be possible.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. Yeah, you've got this line, "Self-awareness is a sort of poison that we each consume upon birth."
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah. Yeah. I, I believe that's... Our, our birthright is the, the horrific qualities of self-awareness, a, a, a poison, but that we, as almost magicians or alchemists, can transmute into, into gold, into art, a- a- and beauty and wonder and love and all that. And, and so it, it makes you wanna, you know, you love and hate it in the fullest possible form of those words at the same time, at least obviously that's my perspective. I know maybe some people might see life and existence as purely, um, positive and beautiful. Some might see it as purely negative and horrific, and somewhere in between there's a spectrum. But, um, in my view, it sort of... It, it has to be both at the same time, and, and that is the paradoxical nature of it.
- CWChris Williamson
How much of that do you think is just us all coming up with some fancy philosophical explanation for our own idiosyncratic experience of the world, that you have a bit of a grasp of the awe and a bit of a grasp of the dread, and some people are almost all dread, and some people are almost all awe, and each of them kind of create their own philosophical views of the world and the universe based around just, "Well, this is, this is my typical daily affect. This is my typical experience of things"?
- RPRobert Pantano
I, I, I think that it's, it's definitely important to not universalize your own perspective, your own experiences, and your own way of thinking. It's, it's easy to assume that the way you think, both in the most literal of sense and in the most abstract of sense, i- is the way most people do.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RPRobert Pantano
And it, it's not the case. Um, there's a huge spectrum and variety of, of, um, modes of thought that people experience and operate through. And so people might be more visually inclined. People might be more linguistically inclined. People might be a, a more feeling orientation of the world. So just on that level alone, there's a, a, a wide variety and spectrum of experience of thought. And so we have to start there in recognizing that our own fundamental experience of the world and reality is not going to be universal, um, in the way that we might project or assume.
- 5:48 – 8:13
The Tragedy of the Human Condition
- CWChris Williamson
If consciousness is a mystery that can't understand itself, does that mean that the human condition is just fundamentally tragic?
- RPRobert Pantano
[sighs] Well, that, that's, that's at the heartOr a heart of the paradox. It's a multi-hearted paradox, I would say [both laughing] .
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Yep.
- RPRobert Pantano
Um, s- so y- it's, it is a, a part of the tragedy, or it is partly a tragedy perhaps is a better way of putting it, in the sense that, yeah, I, I, I, I think that, um, consciousness from the first person perspective, which is naturally the limit of consciousness, right? You can't... As far as I, I could possibly conceive, there's no reality world being entity phenomenon in which a consciousness could perceive itself in the world without its consciousness. And so it's a feedback loop in that sense. And so it, it'll get increasingly close to comprehending the nature of itself, but it'll never breach. It's sort of that Zeno's paradox of the arrow, where it'll get increasingly close, but it's always infinitely far away. And, and that's, that's sort of how I see consciousness attempting to comprehend itself. It's like, can you make sense of an i- an inch with an inch, a minute with a minute? No, it ju- it's just the same thing, um, trying to, you know, measure itself with itself. And so that is tragic in that sense. But also on the flip side of it, it's what fuels the unending inquiry about what it means to be a conscious entity and what it means to be, in our case, a human. And so that's the beauty if you see it that way, because what else is there to do and make interesting about existence other than the exploration of the nature of existence? I mean, maybe some people would think that we'll just sort of sit around the surface a- and that's fun with margaritas and, and, you know, sit by p- the pool and all that, and I, I, I totally get that. But I think there is something very riveting a- and the deepest experiences of wonder come from those explorations that are, uh, if... From my view, uh, an infinite landscape of possibilities, questions and answers that, um, we'll never satisfy, we'll never fulfill, we'll never reach some sort of peak. That landscape is flat. Um, but there's just an- you know, so much territory
- 8:13 – 13:41
Self-Awareness Without Self-Destruction
- RPRobert Pantano
to explore.
- CWChris Williamson
Is there a way to become self-aware without it becoming self-destructive?
- RPRobert Pantano
[sighs] I, I think so. I think, I think that it's a spectrum, it's a gradient of... You start from maybe a, a very, I don't wanna say a low level of self-awareness 'cause that reduces it, it's, it's not like that. But maybe, um, reflectiveness about that self-awareness where you can realize that, and then it might... There, there's a certain experience of difficulties and confusions and sufferings that they are just, th- them-- they exist for themselves and you struggle to justify them, you struggle to deal with them. And I think if you continue on that path, you, you get to a point where you become more comfortable with the confusions and the uncertainties, and you become... You don't be- you don't get better at justifying them, you don't get better at dealing with the problems of being a conscious entity in the world, but you get better at, at recognizing that the lack of answers, the lack of stability, the lack of rigidness is, is par for the course and par for the beauty of the course. And that, I think, is, is th- the ultimate goal to strive for when it comes to these sorts of topics and questions.
- CWChris Williamson
I think a lot of people have this sense that the more that they learn about themselves, the more difficult life becomes. That there's a kind of enjoyment, freedom. There's a freedom in naivety-
- RPRobert Pantano
Yep
- CWChris Williamson
... would be a way to put it.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, that there, uh... The m- the less naivety that they have, the more challenging the world seems to be. There's complexity and responsibility and self-doubt and self-esteem issues come in, and there's an awareness of what I could have done. Standards kind of begin to rise, but in kind of squirrely ways-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... about virtue. Uh, if you've got a critical mind, you find an ever-increasing number of ways to derogate success, even if you manage to achieve the success, because you were aware of all of the ways that you might have lied or, or, or cajoled or coerced or not been fully virtuous on route to achieving the thing. Whereas previously, you were just happy to have fucking done it.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And then, yeah, this tighter and tighter spiral, this ever-increasing resolution that you look at the world with, I think to a lot of people feels like a personal curse. I think it feels like an increase in self-awareness just equates to an increase in suffering.
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah, I mean, I, first of all, I resonate with that reaction, and I think there's, there's validity in that reaction, and if you feel that way, um, that's justified. That makes sense to me. I feel that way often. I think most people feel that way when they start to, like you said, unravel, um, the absurdity of a lot of what we are and what we're doing. Um, and there is perhaps a better version of a being, of existence from a human perspective that, that dulls that, that dilutes that. But unfortunately, you don't really get to choose whether or not you are or are not thinking about those things, experiencing those thoughts and feelings. So you, you kind of... You know, you don't think... In my view, you don't think thoughts. Thoughts, you know, arrive in your head a- after a sort of conveyor belt of experiences and neurology and all of that. And so you ultimately wind up with these questions and thoughts and concerns, these, uh, the, you know, a certain proximity to those thoughts and concerns, um, that become very difficult to, to experience and manage. And it, it, it might make you, um, envious ofThe idea of not feeling that way and not experiencing that proximity. But unfortunately, once you start worrying about something or once you start thinking about something, that, that can of worms is fully opened and you can't, you can't close it. You, you, you have to figure out how to, how to deal with it, how to move forward. And I find that the, the best way to deal with those sorts of cans of worms or those tunnels is, uh, is forward n-not back. Because backwards, that, that, that end is closed, um, in, in terms of the t-tunnel metaphor. You, you can't return to some form of yourself, some version of yourself that hasn't already, um, you know, wondered, questioned, pondered, or, or become concerned about those sorts of things. And so I, I see that it's, it's quintessential to, to not put those things aside if you're experiencing the sufferings and pains of almost self-alienation and self, uh, confusion. You, you have to move forward and figure out how to... In so- in some people's cases, it's maybe resolving them through, through practical and tactical methodology. And in other, in other people's cases, it, it might be more of a embracement of, of those feelings. A- and by embracing certain thoughts and certain experiences, um, if possible, I do find that you can reduce their, uh, gravity, their force on, on your head and neck.
- 13:41 – 20:57
Why Regret is Just an Illusion
- CWChris Williamson
What about regret? I think one of the things that comes along as a side dish with quite a lot of, um, quite a lot of self-awareness is people's increase in rumination, uh, sort of whimsical, wistful, uh, remembering regret. What have you learned about regret?
- RPRobert Pantano
Well, I think regret is very interesting because regret implies that you could have done differently. You, you could have done, you know, better than you had, uh, in a particular moment of your life. Um, which in my view, I get the, I get the impulse, I get the, the sentiment, but, um, if you rewind the clock of reality, uh, 100% of the time you're arriving at that same moment as your same self with the same brain, the same physiology, the same information, and the same external circumstances. There's no way you could have made any different of a decision. And so regret is sort of a, an understandable illusion of our consciousness where it makes us feel like there's a lot of possibilities and, um, we can be deluded by our hindsight and our ability to reference back and forth between time. But there is, there is no world in which you didn't make all the decisions you've made, putting aside maybe sort of q-quantum, you know, mult-multiworld theories. But i-i-in this world, the world that we're talking about and in, there's no version that you could have done anything differently. And that, that brings into sort of, um, you know, the, the concept of free will, which personally I, I don't believe in, in the, in the sense that we typically refer to it as. Um, but yeah, i-if you consider free will as a part of the equation, a- and even if you don't, I see no world, I see no logic that makes sense of, of regret being... Uh, i-it's an understandable reaction, but not a, um, certainly not a rational reaction, which I know we oscillate between emotion, feeling, and, and, and logic. But I, I, I just think that, you know, regret exists in a, in an illusory realm of our perception.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a weird one because I think the free will argument is one of... It, it's an in, in an interesting category. It's something that might, might be, uh, literally true but figuratively useless. Um, that it, it might actually be-- we might be a deterministic set of dominoes all the way from the Big Bang until this conversation right here. But it's functionally pointless to believe that as far as I can see.
- RPRobert Pantano
[chuckles]
- CWChris Williamson
Um, you, you need to go so deep into non-attachment to, "I couldn't have done any differently," but you need to not overshoot into nihilism and fatalism, and it's just fucking... it's too hard. But if we stay, if we shelve the discussion around determinism and you say, "Okay, you, you get to go back. You didn't make a decision before you got to the point at which you made a decision, or you didn't do a thing, or you did do a thing after or before you wish that you had, and you want to do it differently." As far as I can see, sort of reading your perspective, regret is kind of like a, a refusal to accept the limits of foresight.
- RPRobert Pantano
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
Like you couldn't, you couldn't have chosen differently under the same conditions, and an acceptance of necessity kind of helps to dissolve regret.
- RPRobert Pantano
I think that's very well put. I think... And, and to your point, you could even put aside the deterministic, the potential deterministic nature of reality. You're still limited by the same constraints in any given moment. Um, it doesn't mean that maybe there's some sort of deterministic ultimate reality that was gonna pan out the way it, it has and did, but it does mean that you are always limited in every moment by a set of constraints. Your physiology, your, your, the condition of your mind, your emotional state, the information you have, the, you know, the most recent influences you've experienced, all of that is going to cause you to make a decision. And, and, and whether it's, you know, built into the laws or the nature of the unfolding of reality is, is ir- irrelevant a- at that point. It's just you are going to make the same deci- decision over and over again. To regret having made that decision is to deny the very fact that you're always going to be limited by a set of constraints. And unless you, uh, intentionally decided to make the, the less viable decision, the worst decision in that moment, which I, I mean, I... Obviously, there are masochists and so forth. But for the most part, people are trying to make good decisions that make sense to them in any given moment. And so you're always trying your best given those constraints.A- a- and it's absurd to think that you could have done or would have done any better. And like you put very well, it's, it's sort of this, this foresight hindsight equilibrium that you just sort of stretch and contort to make the most sense for your current reality. And I also think, I think another important point of what regret tends to point to is, is a lack of embrace around the fact that there are no conditions of your life that are gonna resolve the fundamental tensions that we often experience. Which is, you know, we want a sense of certainty, a sense of, uh, happiness a- and ultimate resolve, a sense of having made all the right decisions, having done everything right, and, and all these pieces are in order. That's a, a sort of underlying desire that we all experience. Some, you know, maybe recognize that that's not gonna be the case or not, but I think there's a proportional relation to how willing you are to accept that you're never going to get out of the, the sort of hamster wheel of desire and suffering and boredom and anxiety, and how much you might regret what you've done and how your life has gone.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 20:57 – 36:24
Why You Should Never Waste Adversity
- CWChris Williamson
You've got that, you know that, uh, Cormac McCarthy line, "You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from"?
- RPRobert Pantano
I do not know that line, but I, I love it. I love how that sounds.
- CWChris Williamson
Bro, I fucking love that line. "You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."
- RPRobert Pantano
That's beautiful. No, I love that.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you've got that story about the, the guy asking for directions, which is pretty similar.
- RPRobert Pantano
Yes. And so, yeah, I, I mean, I've, I've written a story called "The Nova Effect," um, and I've also done a lot of similar explorations around the idea that, you know, we basically never know... This is sort of playing off a Kurt Vonnegut line. We never know the good luck from the bad luck until the s- the story's over. And, and for, you know, for all of us, we don't-- the story never ends until we're not even around. And so you never quite can discern what was good and what was bad for you or for a collective until it's reached its, you know, ultimation. And, um, yeah, that goes for each of our individual lives where it's, it's the same case. It's we, we feel in any given moment that good, some good fortune is going to lead ultimately to good fortune forever thereafter. But that's not how life works or reality works. It's, it's a, a, a sort of spurring off of multiple lines that one good thing, one advantage could lead you to a, a misfortune or a disadvantage and vice versa. And so there's... You know, you always wanna feel good when good things happen, but there's... And you always, you don't always wanna feel bad when bad things happen, but you do ultimately tend to feel bad when bad things happen. But there's, here's the dual-sided coin of a, of a different phenomenon where, you know, y- if you know that when good things happen, it's still, there's still more, more game to play, more life to live-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm
- RPRobert Pantano
... you're, you're, you're g- gonna be willing to accept the potential for more trials and errors and all that, uh, which is not so great. But knowing that when bad things happen, that's not, it's not gonna ju- just be misfortune forever thereafter as well-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- RPRobert Pantano
... gives you some, some hope, uh, and, and gives you a sense of, you know, the possibility that things could, could be directly related to that, that ultimately save you i- in whatever sense save you might mean.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from. I wrote a, I wrote an essay today actually, and, uh, I wanna read you this thing 'cause I, I thought it was really interesting. All right. "Adversity is a terrible thing to waste. Almost all of the biggest periods of growth in your life have germinated from your lowest points. Once shock, grief, sadness, and fear subside, more energetic emotions arise, pain, resentment, bitterness, anger, and a chip on your shoulder. Change is hard, and deeply fundamental change requires an insane amount of activation energy, far more than is available by just wanting it a lot. This is why people change so much after losing a parent, enduring a betrayal, losing a job, or going through a breakup. Not because the past version of their world has been stripped away alone, but because they finally have enough fuel to get their new life off the launchpad."
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"In the mid-'90s, there was a single mother living in a near poverty home in Edinburgh. When she left her first marriage, it wasn't a quiet parting. She's described the relationship as abusive. She fled to Portugal with her baby daughter and a suitcase that contained the early chapters of a book that she was working on. At one point, her ex-husband hid the manuscript, trying to prevent her from leaving with it. She was clinically depressed and contemplating suicide. She couldn't afford to heat her flat properly, so she pushed a pram to cafes to write while her daughter slept. The manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers. That's 12 people telling her in different ways that it wasn't good enough."The rejection wasn't abstract, it was survival level. If the book failed, so did her last attempt at building a life. The humiliation of those refusals became momentum. J.K. Rowling went on to sell five hundred million copies in the Harry Potter series globally and became richer than the Queen. But here's the uncomfortable truth, not all adversity becomes growth. Some people are crushed by it. Adversity is fuel, not destiny. The difference is what you do with the surplus emotion. If that energy isn't directed, it curdles into rumination. The same fuel that could power a transformation can just as easily power self-destruction. There's also a time window because pain calcifies. The chip on your shoulder becomes your identity. The story of what happened becomes the story of who you are. Anger gets you moving, but it can't steer. It's rocket fuel, not guidance. Eventually, the chip on your shoulder has to become purpose. As a TLDR, the worst thing that's happened to you might be the only thing powerful enough to change you. Pain is temporary and fuel is rare, so if you're going through a hard time, don't waste it. You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.
- RPRobert Pantano
Beautiful. I think that's beautiful. I, I'm curious to think about or to ask you about what you think allows someone to, to create that, um, differentiation or to act on that differentiation between it becoming a collapsible effect and-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm
- RPRobert Pantano
... a fueling effect. What do, what do you think it, uh, it is that allows some people to, to utilize th- those adversities versus-
- CWChris Williamson
I'm always-
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah, go ahead.
- CWChris Williamson
Gr- great question. I'm, I'm always hesitant of giving some pithy philosophical answer to this stuff because I think so much of it is just practical. Uh, uh, spending less time on your own. Sounds so dumb. You go through a breakup, s- spend less time on your own, man.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like you... It's important for you to have your friends come round with tacos and ice cream and watch shit movies.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like that is an important part of the healing process.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's important for you to stay busy.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
It's important for you to reconnect with the hobbies that you had as a kid.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? Start playing football again or, or pickleball or whatever it is that you like to do, martial arts or running, whatever, and to do it in a group, and that will carry a lot of the difference between somebody who, it, that pain calcifies-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm
- 36:24 – 38:59
The Curse of Living Inside Your Mind
- CWChris Williamson
Given the fact that we can never step outside of our own minds, how should that change the way that we treat our beliefs?
- RPRobert Pantano
I think that, and I obviously agree with the fact that, you know, there's not only can we not obviously step out of our own minds, but there's a huge implication to that. Um, we will never obtain objective truth, in my view, as a consequence of that fact. And so-I believe that humility and almost a, a love of uncertainty is the only appropriate response to the fact that there's just no way that you can get out of the tunneled vision of your mind, your specific mind. And then your own mind has sort of been molded and mapped according to a particular condition of geography, of culture, of history. Um, and there's been no moment as far as, you know, if we sort of rewind the clock, every stage of history has presented, um, a similar ensemble of ignorance, of futility, of wrongness, all that. A-and so you, you must recognize that as individuals and as a collective at any given time, in any given space, we're up against this contorted, chiseled out view of, of reality that's a pinhole size. And, and to have rigid beliefs, have a sense of certainty, I think is a n- a less than ideal response to that condition. Um, and this isn't to say that someone ought to be totally nebulous about everything they think and feel and believe. You can be convictive and confident in life while also not ever being dead set and final about a belief or set of beliefs. And so there's, there's a sort of essence of confidence and conviction that can carry through across a spectrum of ideas and beliefs. And the importance is, is not the individual belief, but the continuation of, you know, exploration and curiosity and openness and humility. I feel, I feel personally that that's a, a sort of essential fundamental quality of, for lack of better words, a sort of wisdom.
- 38:59 – 46:03
How to Reduce Choice Anxiety
- CWChris Williamson
What about choice anxiety? Because I, I, I get the sense that people who have a lot of self-awareness, again, we've sort of touched on I know how much better I could have been. I, I know all of the different optionality that lays out in front of me. How do you come to think about, um, n-netting down choice anxiety as a deeply self-aware person?
- RPRobert Pantano
You, you're sort of referring to the paradox of choice, if you will, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RPRobert Pantano
See, I, I don't know if I have a good answer to that because first of all, I struggle with it. Um, I think the best way to deal with choice anxiety is to recognize, um, the degree of your... You know, at what point are your desires no longer serving you? And if once you recognize that ceiling, the amount of choices that you need to consider can reduce. So if I think that, you know, I'm on an infinite conveyor belt of desires and satisfaction, desire, satisfaction over and over and over, then there is an infinite number of choices that can satisfy or can play into that conveyor belt phenomenon. But if you recognize that there is a certain limit to which your, your, you know, minimum quality of experience is achieved in life, um, you can start to redirect your decision-making towards a smaller number of options for different reasons than just like, you know, if you go to a grocery store, you could... There's so obviously an infinite number, not nearly, I mean, there's a, not literally, but nearly an infinite number of choices of cereal and everything else. A-and if you regard cereal as a, as a reasonable proxy of your quality of life, you might stand in that aisle forever. But i-if you recognize that cereal is not gonna serve you, it's not gonna serve your quality of life, then you pick one and move on, and then you recognize that there is still a difficulty around decision-making in other areas of your life, uh, that you're going to ruminate on and struggle with. But you can reduce the amount of decisions that are relevant to you by recognizing, uh, the sort of ceiling around how much your decisions are going to change the quality of your experience. And I'm somebody who believes that it's much more... Like I, I wanna make decisions that, uh, allow me to keep going. A-and I mean that in both the m-most basic literal sense and then sort of a more abstract sense, which is, you know, I wanna decouple my awareness from my desire when I'm making decisions about what's gonna allow me to get up in the morning and still care. Um, a-and then also what's gonna allow me to experience some continual fuel, as you put it in, in, in your essay.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RPRobert Pantano
And so there's no clean way of, of totally absolving yourself from the paradox of choice and the anxiety around decision-making unless you sort of... You can kind of, uh, oscillate back and forth between the f-foresight of, or the anxiety around decision-making and the hindsight of regret. You can refer to your regrets-
- CWChris Williamson
[laughing]
- RPRobert Pantano
... to, to remember the absurdity of your anxiety right now.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RPRobert Pantano
But I understand there's a, a, maybe a degree of impracticality there. But I, I do think that just recognizing that there is like every option in life for everything from cars to cereal to clothes to p- to relationship partners to friends to careers. You can start to chisel those down by recognizing that so much of that is not what you care about. And, and, you know, you decide what you care about or you end up caring about what you care about. But then you chisel those things out and you're still left with a huge chunk of decision-making possibilities, but it's maybe a little bit more manageable.
- CWChris Williamson
Oliver Burkeman had this question. Uh, how much should you care about things?Answer, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it's not as much as possible about everything all of the time
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah, I love it. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
And, um, I, I think, yeah, the, that's like the curse of the over optimizer.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Somebody who just for everything at every opportunity... Uh, I have a friend who is huge into, um, credit card points. He got every different airline and he knows to use this card for this flight, and then if he goes to this supermarket, he can get an additional three percent. And then he gets to fly his whole family for free and all of this stuff. One of his best friends is the most simple person. Like, oh, you must have a complex system just like, just like our mutual friend. He's like, "No, I, I, I just decided that there was an area I had to consciously be de-optimized in."
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"And, and that was just one of the ones."
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"I can't, I can't pick it for everything all of the time." And the advantage of that is when you make the big decision around, "I'm not going to bother about this at all," all of the sub-decisions fall away if you can sort of relinquish it. And there is a, there is a power in sort of letting go. It's the same sensation anybody's had if they've left a bad relationship, that they go, "That, that thing and all of the decisions and all of the rumination around it wasn't serving me, and by letting go of it, I feel liberated."
- RPRobert Pantano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Isn't that great? Uh, so yeah, it's, um, it's a funny, it's a funny blend for that. I think you mentioned anxiety there. Do you think anxiety is just the natural consequence of seeing reality clearly and being a deep thinker then?
- RPRobert Pantano
I would even go so far to say that, uh, you don't have to add that, that last part about being a deep thinker. I would think anxiety is a, um, sort of fundamental consequence of being aware of reality on any level, um, and it only goes up from there. Um, I know that people have worse cases and experiences of anxiety, um, but the idea that anx- somebody could live and not... And h- this is me projecting my, you know, own experience, universalizing it and assuming everybody's the same, and I recognize that. But I do find it very hard to imagine that anxiety is not a, a sort of building block of, of consciousness and self-awareness from a human perspective. Because everything... I mean, when we're talking about decision-making, we're talking about regrets, we're talking about, um, adversity, all these things. Everything is this hodgepodge of, of chaos and uncertainty that a singular framework of perspective is trying to control and make sense of. A- and what's, what could be more anxiety inducing than that? Trying to filter a, a ocean of possibility into a tiny, you know, pinhole of desire and preference and hope and idealization. So I would think that if you're, if you're that pinhole, there's a lot to be worried about. [laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- 46:03 – 48:29
Truth vs Security: What Are We Really Chasing?
- CWChris Williamson
Is, is the pursuit of truth really about truth or, or more about sort of a psychological security then? It feel, it feels to me like our desire for truth is, uh, a fear response to the uncertainty of the future.
- RPRobert Pantano
I absolutely agree. Yeah, I think that, uh, personally, I think that everything, uh, that humans do and humanity has done is, is never in it of itself. It's never for itself. It's, it's based on some preference. And so the desire for truth is not because we care so much about truth. I- in my view, it's because we care so much about what truth will provide us, and that is a quelling of the uncertainty and the unknowability of existence and our relationship with it. We want to know that everything is going to be okay, both now and forever thereafter. That's why heaven exists. That's why religions exist. That's why philosophies exist. And so the, the pursuit of truth is, is an attempt to bring down the heavens a- and make it make sense right now so that we can feel comfortable as, as conscious beings. And so yeah, no, truth is not, in my view, a, a desire in and of itself. It's, it's a, it's a sort of proxy byproduct of the desire to reduce uncertainty and unknowability.
- CWChris Williamson
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- 48:29 – 58:57
How to Come to Terms With Your Anger
- CWChris Williamson
I'm thinking about that anxiety a- and I guess anger as well, which is kind of a little bit like anxiety in motion. A- a- anxiety is anger at rest in a way, and, and anger is anxiety in motion. It seems like anxiety arises because of, uh, foresight without control, and then anger is desire for control that gets denied. Um, and I'm wondering what, what you've come to learn about how to sort of dissolve or reduce-The anger and the anxiety in that way?
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah. So I mean, they're, they're pretty tightly intertwined, where if you start to recognize... Maybe I, I would intertwine anger more closely with something like regret, because if you start to recognize the absurdity of regret, um, and your ability to control the way things have gone, um, with a greater distance and time, there are, are many cases of anger in which it might be in real time that you're experiencing an event, but it was an event that you couldn't have controlled.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RPRobert Pantano
And so in the same way, it's, it's a much more difficult thing to quell in the moment, but you can sort of start to shave off the edges of anger, I find, by recognizing your lack of control over everything else besides yourself, and perhaps even yourself. And that takes it to a different degree, and we don't need to, you know, necessarily take it there for the same point to be cogent.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, uh, no, I think the, the, the lack of control over yourself is the regret point from earlier on, even the one that's been lobotomized from the fucking deterministic view- [laughs]
- RPRobert Pantano
[laughs]
- CWChris Williamson
... perspective of the universe. Um, that I'm angry at me, I should have done differently, is ju- You're right. You're, you're right to say that it, it, it's closer to regret. It's like, I should have done differently. Well, but you didn't. You didn't.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're trying to motivate yourself to do it more in future. I understand. And if your brain ramps up the pain of the lesson from the last mistake that you made-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... you will make sure that you don't make that mistake again. It's basically ex- existential psychological equivalent of I put my hand on that stove. Or I, I... Close to this. I got bit by a dog when I was five. The lesson is don't go near dogs-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... for the rest of li- re- rest of time.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, that is what our brain is trying to teach us, and the sort of amplitude, the fucking volume of the lesson is proportional to how important we think it was and how much pain we were in at the time. And if you're in a lot of pain, and then you realize that you are making the pain worse by trying to sort of whip yourself into submission so that you will be reminded, you've cat of nine tails-ed your way through this thing, you think, well, in some ways you can kind of love that part of you.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
That is a good thing. That's a really fucking cool thing to love. Thank you so much for trying to keep me safe.
- RPRobert Pantano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I understand that I'm fallible and fucked up, and I consistently make apparently the same mistakes over and over again, and they really have a great f- like fucking consecutive lineage of often being similar sorts of things. And I, I get it. You're trying to keep me safe. Thank you. Thank you-
- RPRobert Pantano
Hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... for trying to keep me safe.
- RPRobert Pantano
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you for trying to make me learn a lesson that my, uh, actions insist on not fucking detecting-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, and not updating themselves from. Uh, that's, that's great. Um, it's just... It's such a fucking all-encompassing emotion, anger.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So trying to think rationally when you're in it is not easy.
- RPRobert Pantano
It's definitely not. Do you think that anger is necessary for what you just described, or do you think you can have that, um, response without necessarily anger, the anger tank, so to speak, filling all the way up?
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm. I guess it depends. A, a lot of people convert anger into other emotions.
- RPRobert Pantano
Right.
- 58:57 – 1:03:17
Is Desire a Hidden Trap?
- CWChris Williamson
at checkout. What, what's the desire trap?
- RPRobert Pantano
In terms of... What are you referring to?
- CWChris Williamson
Well, think about a, th- your relationship with desire and what you've learned about it. Is it a trap? Because it seems like desire fuels suffering in many ways, and even the desire to escape desire is a desire-
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm
- CWChris Williamson
... as well. And then evolution sort of hardwired dissatisfaction into us.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and we sort of may, we may secretly prefer striving over satisfaction in many ways.
- RPRobert Pantano
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So how the fuck do we survive this?
- RPRobert Pantano
Uh, well, we survive this because that, uh, fuels survival, in my view. I- it's inescapable. I, I, I mean, I know that there are people that, you know, maybe sit on mountainsides and, and, and, you know, do nothing all day long, and, and they're able to live an ascetic life and totally quell all desire. But for the vast majority of people, e- especially those who might be watching or listening to this, uh, that, that's not gonna probably happen. And, and, and it probably shouldn't. It doesn't-- you don't have to force some sort of romanticism around ascetic life. And so what you're left with is k- kind of comes back to what we were talking about a moment ago when it comes to understanding the, the constraints around your decision-making and what matters to you. 'Cause you're never gonna eliminate desire, and you're never gonna eliminate the continual pain or dissatisfaction that comes from the very substrate that desire functions on. Because desire is, is, is not something that you, you, you get, you achieve, and then you're done. That-- obviously, that's not how that works. It's the same with hunger. It's the same with every a- every breath is a desire for another breath. And, and that doesn't mean you're done. You're, you're gonna have to find the next breath, the next meal, the next everything. And so you don't escape that trap. That trap is paradoxical i- in the same sense as many of the other things we've, we've discussed, where it's, it's unfortunate because it makes you... You're, you're kind of destined to never feel an ultimate satisfaction. But by virtue of that, you end up pursuing a ton of things, people, goals, achievements, preferences, art, that you wouldn't otherwise ever care about if you were done.After your first moment of achievement. And so the trap is also the open door. I mean, it's, it's, it's both ways. It's you're, you're stuck in an infinite, you know, s- hallway of open doors, but in each door you can decide what you care about and what meaning you might derive from what's inside that room. And then you get bored, unfortunately, and then you move on to the next room. But there seems to be, if you c- keep moving, a, an unending hallway of doors. So it's, it's not... It doesn't have to be purely tragic.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. So does that mean that happier people are simply less aware or are they, are they better at metabolizing awareness?
- RPRobert Pantano
Oh, that's a very good way of framing that question. [sighs] I, I-- reluctant to answer that with conviction because I, I just don't know if I know enough happy people [chuckles] to, to say one way or the other. Um, I think that it could go... It could be both. I don't, I don't know if it's binary, and I'm not saying you're presenting it as a binary option. But I, I think that you can be happy by being maybe, uh, less reflective and less aware about absurdity and futility and all that, and the sort of associated, um, you know, suffering with desire. You could be happy that way, and you could be, happy is maybe not the best word. But you could be a kind of happy by also knowing, um, that everything you do is ultimately absurd and futile. But, but you're, you're still experiencing moments that are enthralling and interesting, and you're experiencing moments of love and wonder, and those don't... You know, the awareness of the futility of those things, for me, doesn't negate them. Um, so I see no reason why both kinds of people or all kinds of people couldn't find, maybe not happiness, but a, a justification, a, a wonder, um, a reason to, to keep moving.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 1:03:17 – 1:05:04
Can You Trust Our Own Mind?
- CWChris Williamson
I gue- I guess if everything is uncertain and constructed, why trust any of our conclusions?
- RPRobert Pantano
Oh, I wouldn't. [scoffs] You, you're saying why trust any conclusion? I, I, I definitely would not trust any conclusion, um, a- at least in the absolute sense. Um, when you say trust, do you mean believing wholly in its sort of finality?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I suppose. How can we trust any of our insights? Like w- w- our, our own conclusions. E- everything's uncertain. Everything's constructed. Our consciousness is filtering what we see in the world. There's no such thing as real truth. I, h- how, how are we not just permanently sort of wallowing in our own uncertainty?
- RPRobert Pantano
Yeah. So I, I think I have a way out of that to some extent. It is... Everything isn't uncertain because what you're experiencing now is, is completely real and certain, and so you have that basis always, that tether to experience and selfhood and existence that, you know, maybe can't be extrapolated out onto some sort of metaphysics a- and, you know, insight about some grander picture. But you can know that you're certainly feeling what you're feeling and experiencing right now, and you can navigate a life and existence based on those feelings to the best of your ability, and that doesn't provide certainty in I think the way that we often like to think of it. But it does provide a, a, a barometer, a compass that we can, can reference a- and derive what we're really after from.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm-hmm.
- 1:05:04 – 1:06:58
What Actually Makes Life Worth It?
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think makes life worth the trouble?
- RPRobert Pantano
[sighs] I would, I would certainly... So, uh, Pu- Pursuit of Wonder is the name of, of my YouTube channel. The reason why I'm bringing that up is because, um, pursuit of happiness is, is the common phrasing, and I believe that there's... You know, that's, that's the wrong way of approaching the justification around pursuits and life in general. And so I think what makes life the tr- worth the trouble is, and it's by a very slim margin, I must say, but the experience of wonder, the experience of a self-produced meaning and, and you can experience wonder from through art, through relationships, through friendships, through, um, and es- you know, aesthetic experiences. Just, uh, walk through nature. A- and if you have enough of those moments, and enough is relative. But if you have enough of those moments, you can draw. You can take the ingredients of the trouble of existence. You can take the graphite of, of that sort of sludge, and you can make it into something beautiful and worthwhile. And it's, it's like I said, it's by a certain margin for everybody how much that actually feels like you made it worthwhile in terms of all the trouble. But I think that's... You're kind of in a boxing match that you're destined to lose, but you're still putting up a hell of a good fight. And there's, you know, there's so much spirit in that. There's... You know, everybody loves an underdog story, and I believe each of us are, are the underdogs up against our lives and existence. But we, we put up a hell of a fight, and that's, that makes it worth it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 1:06:58 – 1:09:55
Does Self-Awareness Make Love More Fragile?
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think, uh, self-awareness makes love deeper or more fragile?
- RPRobert Pantano
Probably more fragile if I had to pick. Um, the reason I would say that is because-It, it makes you maybe more self-conscious and, and obviously self-conscious and self-awareness are almost synonyms, but self-conscious in the more typical sense of the word, where you're worried about how you're coming off and how you're integrating with somebody else's, um, preference, preferences and desires. However, on the flip side of that, um, to be more self-aware is to recognize, and this is one thing that I think is useful in all areas of life, is to recognize, you know, how annoying you can be and how neurotic you can be. And so when you recognize, uh, uh, a more granular sense of your neuroses or your annoyances or your-- all the sorts of things that make you on a day-to-day basis from inside your skull a little bit challenging to deal with. To be more aware of those qualities makes you more understanding of another person's, uh, difficulties with dealing with those qualities. And if you're not aware of those qualities, then you might never understand why is this person reacting to me in such a way? Why are they feeling this sort of way in relation to my behavior? Um, you know that you have a certain outward behavior, but without recognizing the proper, you know, picture, the full picture of those qualities and how they become manifest and why they are the way they are, it, it can be challenging to empathize with somebody who is trying to be as close to you as possible, um, a-and they-- obviously you are as close to you as possible, humanly possible, and if they're trying to get anywhere near that without recognizing those qualities, you, you do tend to lack the empathy for their perspective and experience. So I, I think ultimately this may be more of a benefit, but it can be also very challenging because you, you want to-- You always want-- I mean, when you're, you're, you're always seeking ideal circumstances, at least for me. And so when you're aware of all those negative qualities, I'm always seeking to integrate them fully and properly, um, into myself and, and in a way that makes sense for other people that I'm close with. And, um, that's a, a impossible goal.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RPRobert Pantano
And so that also can make you, you know, maybe over, overzealous, over angered by, by the lack of success in certain areas like that.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 1:09:55 – 1:10:40
Where to Find Robert
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Robert Pantano, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, you rule. I love your YouTube channel. The book's fantastic. Where should people go to check out everything you do?
- RPRobert Pantano
Appreciate it, Chris. Yeah. So I have a, a new book, uh, Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness, that's coming out, um, March tenth. So depending on when you're watching this, it's available for pre-order now. After March tenth, it's obviously available for regular order. And then YouTube channel is Pursuit of Wonder. Try to come out with videos a couple times a month over there. And then, uh, Pursuit of Wonder everywhere else on all socials and pursuitofwonder.com.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck yeah. Dude, I appreciate you, man. Congratulations.
- RPRobert Pantano
Thanks so much, Chris. I really appreciate you.
- CWChris Williamson
[outro jingle] Congratulations, you made it to the end of an episode. Your brain has not been completely destroyed by the internet just yet. Here's another one that you should watch. Go on.
Episode duration: 1:10:41
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