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Peter Attia MDFreedom, PTSD, war, and life through an evolutionary lens | Sebastian Junger & Peter Attia (Ep. 195)
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CHAPTERS
- 0:02 – 9:55
Growing up with a pacifist father and the lesson of fascism
Sebastian Junger describes his father, a refugee from two wars, and how he taught him that fascism was the ultimate evil. His father insisted he sign the draft registration card despite Junger's anti-war upbringing, which changed his thinking about citizenship.
- •His father fled Spain and then France as a refugee and was a pacifist who believed force is sometimes necessary against fascism
- •Junger grew up in a liberal, anti-Vietnam environment in Massachusetts
- •His father told him to sign the draft registration card, saying he owed his country something and could protest an immoral war later
- •His father misdirected a German tank column in Bayonne with a lie
- 9:55 – 11:42
Anthropology, a first thesis, and finding journalism
Junger explains how studying anthropology and running led him to write a thesis on Navajo long-distance runners. That was his first taste of journalism and set him on a long path toward becoming a writer.
- •He majored in anthropology and was a strong distance runner
- •He did fieldwork on the Navajo reservation in 1983
- •Writing the thesis made him decide to become a journalist
- •He did construction and ran as a sponsored regional athlete while figuring out his path
- 11:42 – 18:57
Tree climbing: agency, risk, and a chainsaw injury
Junger describes working as a residential tree climber in his late 20s, mainly for the money and free time. He explains how he saw the work as a game with no accidents, and the discussion turns to Peter's son's fascination with tree removal.
- •Climbing paid $500 to $1,000 a day in the early '90s and left time to write and train
- •He compares tree work to chess: outcomes depend on your own mistakes, not chance
- •He cut his leg with a chainsaw once and then felt safer aloft
- •Peter shares that his young son is obsessed with pine tree removal videos and uses a hand saw
- 18:57 – 25:36
How Junger became a good writer
Junger describes his writing method as slow and careful, like paving a road, with little editorial rework. He also discusses long-form nonfiction, the rules of journalism, and the novelistic techniques it can use.
- •He writes carefully and pares prose down, unlike writers who dump a rough draft and edit it later
- •His three principles are efficiency, rhythm, and originality
- •Nonfiction cannot blend invented material with fact
- •Long-form journalism can use novelistic structure while relying only on factual material
- 25:36 – 28:37
Achilles injuries, from chainsaw to combat
Junger recounts how the chainsaw cut across his Achilles tendon, which turned out to be intact. He later partially ruptured the Achilles in Afghanistan, which he attributes to the malaria drug Lariam, and Peter notes fluoroquinolones have a similar effect.
- •The chainsaw wound was across his Achilles, but the tendon was intact
- •He felt a slap on his leg in the Korangal Valley and thought he'd been shot
- •It was a partial Achilles rupture, which he links to Lariam
- •Peter mentions fluoroquinolones and Junger adds that aging does too
- 28:37 – 38:27
Becoming a war reporter: Bosnia, Massoud, and the fall of the Taliban
Junger explains how a painful breakup pushed him toward war reporting in Bosnia, then to Afghanistan, where he covered the Taliban and Ahmad Shah Massoud's forces. He describes Massoud's assassination, the Northern Alliance push into Kabul after 9/11, and the delight of Kabul residents.
- •He went to Bosnia after a breakup, looking for meaning and a passage into adulthood
- •His father was proud but worried, and his mother took it personally
- •He gives a short history of the Taliban's rise after the Soviet withdrawal
- •He was with Massoud in 2000, and Massoud was killed two days before 9/11
- •He walked into liberated Kabul in November 2001
- 38:27 – 52:25
Trauma, the Liberia bodies, and discovering PTSD
Junger explains why human suffering, especially of children, is more traumatic to him than personal danger. He recounts the Liberia mortar victims, the delayed panic attack in a Paris cafe, and the relief of learning from a psychiatrist that his symptoms were PTSD.
- •Counting 27 bodies in Liberia led to a delayed panic attack in Paris years later
- •He had no idea his panic attacks and subway fear were combat-related until a psychiatrist named it around 2003
- •He felt relief on learning these were normal reactions to trauma
- •He hid his symptoms from those around him
- •Peter relates the lasting cost of survivable injuries to his own trauma-surgery training
- 52:25 – 59:32
Embedding with American soldiers and why they fight
Junger describes why he refused to cover Iraq and returned to Afghanistan in 2005 with Battle Company. He explains the motivations of young soldiers, which lead to Restrepo and War.
- •He refused to cover Iraq because he thought it a mistake and could not be unbiased
- •In 2005 the insurgency in Afghanistan was gaining traction and he embedded in Zabul Province
- •He was impressed by the physical effort of the soldiers
- •Many soldiers wanted to test themselves in combat, and some missed it afterward
- •The experience led to the book War and the documentary Restrepo
- 59:32 – 1:16:07
The evolutionary bond of soldiers and the scale of tribes
Junger explains that group loyalty in danger is evolutionarily adaptive and therefore feels intoxicating. Peter asks whether such bonds can scale beyond groups of 30 to 40, as with firefighters and Pat Brown, and Junger discusses national unity in crises.
- •Humans are wired to bond through shared danger, including at a neurochemical level
- •Men will die for unrelated same-sex peers in a platoon, even ones they dislike
- •Symbolic thought lets people feel affiliation with a whole nation
- •Crises such as World War II, the Depression, and the Avezzano earthquake produced egalitarian communalism
- •Hunter-gatherers worked about four hours a day but needed full-time cooperation
- 1:16:07 – 1:29:13
Hunter-gatherer views of death and the case for saying thank you
Asked how ancestral societies handled loss, Junger describes beliefs about ancestors and the role of shamans. Prompted by Peter's elk hunt, he proposes that ritual gratitude can ease the moral burden of killing animals and harming the planet.
- •Suicide and depression were rare in hunter-gatherer societies, and death was seen as passage to a realm of ancestors
- •Soldiers cope with killing by dehumanizing the enemy or by respecting them
- •Native hunters thank the animals they kill, which helps them psychologically
- •Junger suggests modern society should acknowledge the harm it does to the Earth
- •Peter describes thanking a deer with his daughter on a hunt
- 1:29:13 – 1:42:04
Fatherhood at 55 and the cost of loss
Junger explains how becoming a father made him risk-averse and led him to stop war reporting after Tim Hetherington's death in 2011. He and Peter reflect on how parenthood magnifies the pain of harm to children, and Peter shares a story from his trauma surgery days.
- •Junger has two young daughters and says his main job now is not to die
- •He stopped war reporting in 2011 after Tim was killed in Misrata
- •Seeing how Tim's death affected those who loved him made war reporting seem selfish
- •Peter says he could not be a pediatric oncologist now that he has children
- •Peter recounts a mother who tore the pocket off his scrubs after her son's death
- 1:42:04 – 1:54:33
Why society struggles with PTSD, and sleeping with your children
Junger argues that affluent, isolated societies have worse and longer PTSD, while communal societies buffer trauma. This leads into the evolutionary case for children sleeping near their parents, including Dr. Ferber's recantation.
- •Most trauma symptoms fade within months, and Junger argues alienation prolongs them
- •Warriors embedded in their community in an East African study avoided the depression component of PTSD
- •Children having their own rooms is historically new, and Junger calls Americans the only mammal that doesn't sleep with its young
- •He says nighttime alone was dangerous for early humans
- •His family sleeps together by choice
- 1:54:33 – 2:06:20
Why Junger doesn't own a smartphone and evolutionary parenting
Junger explains he never adopted a smartphone, wanting to experience the street and keep email at his desk. He ties this to addiction and freedom, describes his daughter's screen-free upbringing, and points to the Evolutionary Parenting website.
- •He has never had a smartphone and wants to be present when walking in New York
- •He says social media algorithms are designed to addict and are linked to teen depression
- •His daughter had no screen time but got hooked on an iPhone within minutes
- •He says it is more cultural than a result of combat
- •The Evolutionary Parenting website frames child behavior in evolutionary terms
- 2:06:20 – 2:20:40
The near-death experience: a ruptured aneurysm
Junger recounts months of abdominal pain from an aneurysm in an artery compensating for a compressed celiac artery, followed by a rupture. He describes the hour and a half to the ER, a hemoglobin of 1.2, the sense of his dead father appearing, and the nurse's advice to see it as sacred.
- •A dream of dying preceded the rupture the next day
- •He nearly bled out, was in shock, and reached the ER with a hemoglobin of 1.2
- •He felt a black pit and sensed his late father, despite being an atheist
- •He received 10 units of blood and the leak was embolized after eight hours of searching
- •A nurse told him to think of it as a sacred experience
- 2:20:40 – 2:26:54
Afterlife questions, lingering anxiety, and the book Pulse
Junger explains how the experience made him curious about near-death experiences and whether anything continues after death. He describes lasting anxiety and plans a book called Pulse.
- •He notes consistent reports of the black pit and dead relatives across cultures
- •He says artificially reproducing low oxygen, ketamine, or endogenous compounds doesn't reproduce near-death experiences
- •He became neurotic and fearful afterward and is still working through it
- •An anthropologist friend called it a shamanic journey
- •He plans to write Pulse and talk to a quantum physicist
- 2:26:54 – 2:33:12
Depression, healing, and the power of being needed
Junger describes his dangerous depression after Tim's death and a lost pregnancy. He credits therapy, ending his first marriage, stopping drinking, and his new wife's compassion, and argues that feeling needed is the ultimate antidote.
- •Anxiety dominated until Tim's death and a lost pregnancy triggered a real depression
- •Therapy, a respectful divorce, and quitting alcohol helped
- •He says depression can make others' love feel unreachable
- •He says being needed by the group improves psychological state, citing London during the Blitz
- •Peter adds that suicide fell after 9/11
- 2:33:12 – 2:39:08
Why the pandemic worsened mental health
Peter asks why the pandemic did not unify people the way earlier crises did. Junger says it forced isolation and lacked unity of purpose because of contradictory political messages.
- •Peter hoped the pandemic would improve collective emotional health but overdoses rose
- •Junger says crises normally draw people together physically, but this one required isolation
- •He says contradictory messages from political leadership left no unity of purpose
- •He criticizes the Trump administration's mixed messaging on masks and vaccines
- 2:39:08 – 2:44:54
The Afghanistan withdrawal and Taliban prospects
Peter relays questions about the withdrawal, and Junger agrees a small residual force could have prevented the collapse. He blames a corrupt US-backed government and discusses what the Taliban face in governing.
- •Junger agrees a few thousand troops could have kept the Taliban at bay at minimal cost
- •He argues the Taliban gained acceptance by cleaning up corruption
- •He says the US never demanded accountability for money flowing to warlords
- •He raised the corruption issue with John Kerry, who said the US had no leverage
- •He expects the Taliban to struggle to govern and possibly fracture
- 2:44:54 – 3:04:52
Freedom: run, fight, think, and knowing when to quit
Junger describes his railroad walk from Washington to Pittsburgh and the book Freedom, which he organizes around run, fight, and think. He explains how underdogs keep autonomy and recounts ending the trip at the Youghiogheny River, with reflections on knowing when something is over.
- •The rail walk was a 400-mile game of hide and seek with police and became The Last Patrol
- •Only humans let smaller groups defeat larger ones, by running, fighting, or thinking
- •Women were central to the Lawrence mill strikes because soldiers would not bayonet them
- •He ended the trip because he realized there was no good reason to continue on bleeding feet
- •He says you must feel when something is over rather than act for symbolism
- 3:04:52 – 3:18:48
Defining freedom in modern society
Peter asks when America was most free, and Junger says politically it is now, with caveats about inequality and addiction. He shares a former prisoner's view that one can be freer inside prison and contrasts nomadic and sedentary societies.
- •Junger says we are politically the most free now but economic inequality is a serious concern
- •Addiction to substances, television, and phones makes people unfree
- •A man released after decades in prison told him he was freer inside because of self-examination
- •He is unsure whether a man hauling his belongings on a shovel is free or oppressed
- •Nomadic peoples were materially poor but autonomous, and we might take note of those qualities
