From Stocking Groceries to Reading Philosophy for a Living — Stephen West of Philosophize This!

1. 0:00 – 1:41

   Start.

   1. SWStephen West0:00

      I was a dumb 17, 16-year-old kid right on that cusp. I knew that I needed mentors, and I wasn't in school. I didn't have people to look up to really, and I wasn't talking to my family. So I literally googled wisest person in the history of the world. It was my best idea I could come up with at the time. And one of Plato's dialogues, Gorgias, came up there, and it talked about this guy Socrates. He's harassing people in the Athenian Agora. He's asking them questions, trying to find a wise man, and I just got hooked, man.

   2. TFTim Ferriss0:30

      Stephen, I'm so happy that you are here in Austin, Texas. Welcome.

   3. SWStephen West0:34

      Thank you. I made it.

   4. TFTim Ferriss0:35

      You made it.

   5. SWStephen West0:35

      I'm here.

   6. TFTim Ferriss0:36

      You made it.

   7. SWStephen West0:37

      A long way around.

   8. TFTim Ferriss0:38

      And I wanna give a thank you upfront to a friend of mine. I think you've had some virtual interaction with him, Dave Ulitch.

   9. SWStephen West0:44

      Yeah.

   10. TFTim Ferriss0:45

       Professional drummer, all around mensch, amazing human, and he sent me an article I'm gonna quote from very shortly, which was, in a sense, a revisiting of you, and not so much your story, but your thinking for me, because I started listening to your podcast ages ago. And our dear videographer, who is helping with everything behind the scenes, listens to Philosophize This!. My producer listens to Philosophize This!, and in my little world, it is very well-represented.

   11. SWStephen West1:18

       Wow.

   12. TFTim Ferriss1:18

       Okay.

   13. SWStephen West1:19

       Thank you.

   14. TFTim Ferriss1:20

       Yeah, absolutely. It's an amazing contribution, incredible craft that you've honed, but as promised, I wanted to quote from a piece that was sent to me by Dave Ulitch. This was in The Atlantic, written by Thomas Chatterton Williams, great name, and here's the line or two that I will share. "11

2. 1:41 – 3:15

   Stephen's challenging childhood — from San Diego to Child Protective Services.

   1. TFTim Ferriss1:41

      years ago, Stephen West was stocking groceries at a Safeway warehouse in Seattle. He was 24 and had been working to support himself since dropping out of high school at 16." Okay, so we're gonna start there, and actually, we're gonna rewind the clock even further. Could you just share a bit about your childhood, how you grew up, anything that comes to mind?

   2. SWStephen West2:03

      Sure, yeah. I mean, clearly something went wrong along the way if I ended up dropping out of high school at 16. By the way, great writing from Thomas Chatterton Williams, by the way. Loved that.

   3. TFTim Ferriss2:13

      Incredible.

   4. SWStephen West2:14

      Dense writing there.

   5. TFTim Ferriss2:15

      Yeah.

   6. SWStephen West2:15

      Um, it's like Hemingway. Anyway, yeah, my parents had their own issues, as people's parents do. You know, everybody grows up with their own stuff. Um-

   7. TFTim Ferriss2:22

      Where were you born?

   8. SWStephen West2:23

      San Diego.

   9. TFTim Ferriss2:24

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SWStephen West2:24

       San Diago.

   11. TFTim Ferriss2:25

       [laughs]

   12. SWStephen West2:25

       Um, and then I moved to Alabama. Actually, North Carolina. My dad was in the military when I was very young, so we would just, uh, I went to North Carolina, then Alabama for a while, and then we went back to California, and then, yeah. I was taken by CPS off the streets when I was nine for the first time.

   13. TFTim Ferriss2:41

       Child Protective Services?

   14. SWStephen West2:41

       Yeah, yeah. We hadn't had an apartment in a few months, and they just thought it was best. I, uh, then went to, like, group homes.

   15. TFTim Ferriss2:51

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SWStephen West2:51

       I was placed with family members at first. They also had pretty toxic relationships. Apparently, that's how it works. Like-

   17. TFTim Ferriss2:56

       Yeah

   18. SWStephen West2:56

       ... my parents come from messed up situations, so when I then get replaced with one of these people-

   19. TFTim Ferriss3:01

       Right

   20. SWStephen West3:01

       ... apparently they also have kind of messed up situations. But anyway, taken by CPS again, separated from my big sister early. Long-term foster placement when I was 14 up in Washington-

   21. TFTim Ferriss3:11

       Mm-hmm

   22. SWStephen West3:11

       ... which is where I live now, and, uh, I haven't moved since.

   23. TFTim Ferriss3:14

       All right.

   24. SWStephen West3:14

       But yeah,

3. 3:15 – 5:08

   How Stephen supported himself after dropping out of school at 16.

   1. SWStephen West3:15

      when I was 16, I didn't have any place to stay. There was a long-term foster placement, like I said, and they did me a solid. They said, "Look, in the State of Washington, you, you don't have to report somebody as a missing person if they're over the age of 16. So what we can do for you is if you just were to run away, 'cause this obviously isn't working in this whole circumstance-

   2. TFTim Ferriss3:34

      Mm-hmm

   3. SWStephen West3:34

      ... we won't report you as a missing person." That was the best offer I'd ever gotten at that point.

   4. TFTim Ferriss3:38

      Wow.

   5. SWStephen West3:38

      So I, I took it. I lived in my friend's car for a bit. I got an apartment with a person that I was working with at the time. I wasn't old enough to sign a lease, so I had to just sort of be on an honor system with him, and eventually I moved in with my girlfriend at the time. Anyway, you know, people make do.

   6. TFTim Ferriss3:53

      Yeah. What did your kind of day-to-day, week-to-week look like at that point?

   7. SWStephen West3:58

      I worked a lot. That's why I had to drop out of school, is 'cause I had to work full time to pay my bills.

   8. TFTim Ferriss4:02

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SWStephen West4:02

      If I had no place to stay, I needed to get a place to stay, and so I, I made money, and so I worked at Safeway as a bagger for groceries.

   10. TFTim Ferriss4:09

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SWStephen West4:09

       And then eventually I got promoted to a helper clerk, which is like you, you stock shelves and you refill stuff, get stuff for customers. So-

   12. TFTim Ferriss4:15

       Mm-hmm

   13. SWStephen West4:15

       ... that was the biggest accomplishment of my life at the time.

   14. TFTim Ferriss4:18

       And when did you get that promotion? What age were you, roughly?

   15. SWStephen West4:21

       16.

   16. TFTim Ferriss4:22

       16?

   17. SWStephen West4:22

       Yeah.

   18. TFTim Ferriss4:23

       Okay, got it. And then did you continue working at Safeway? How long did you continue working at Safeway?

   19. SWStephen West4:28

       Until I was about 17 and a half, and then I... Well, actually, I worked at Safeway and I wasn't making enough money at Safeway making seven-whatever an hour it was.

   20. TFTim Ferriss4:37

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SWStephen West4:38

       So I worked at JOANN Fabrics, which actually was next door.

   22. TFTim Ferriss4:40

       Yeah.

   23. SWStephen West4:40

       There was a Safeway and a JOANN Fabrics next door.

   24. TFTim Ferriss4:42

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SWStephen West4:42

       I mean, this is like a grandma's wet dream.

   26. TFTim Ferriss4:45

       [laughs]

   27. SWStephen West4:46

       Um, and I would just, like, wound the yellow yarn every morning at 4:00 AM and, like, stock stuff there.

   28. TFTim Ferriss4:50

       Mm-hmm.

   29. SWStephen West4:51

       I, that was literally my life for a while-

   30. TFTim Ferriss4:52

       Mm-hmm
4. 5:08 – 7:27

   The physical wear and tear of warehouse work (and unexpected upsides of the job).

   1. SWStephen West5:08

      E- eventually, I, uh, I didn't wanna do that anymore. I thought instead of having two jobs, I will just get one job where I make $14 an hour at the warehouse, and I'll use whatever good reputation I've, I've accumulated-

   2. TFTim Ferriss5:19

      Mm-hmm

   3. SWStephen West5:19

      ... here thus far, and my manager was cool with it, and I transferred over there at, like, 17 and a half.

   4. TFTim Ferriss5:24

      So dumb question. I'm of somewhat of a specialist in those. Why does the warehouse [laughs] pay more than the other roles you had?

   5. SWStephen West5:33

      It's harder. It's harder work.

   6. TFTim Ferriss5:35

      Mm.

   7. SWStephen West5:35

      I mean, you show up every day, your back hurts at the end of the day. I mean, you don't wanna come back the next day. Look-

   8. TFTim Ferriss5:40

      [laughs] That's why they pay you. Yeah

   9. SWStephen West5:42

      ... the thing that made, the thing that made me wanna start a podcast is looking at the old dudes that were working in the office, and they would walk out to their car, like, just, like their backs had been fused together by, like, multiple spinal surgeries. It's just, like, walking on that hard concrete-

   10. TFTim Ferriss5:54

       Oh, yeah

   11. SWStephen West5:54

       ... and lifting 50-pound boxes on a-

   12. TFTim Ferriss5:56

       Oh, yeah

   13. SWStephen West5:56

       ... pallet all day long. It's, it's repetitive labor, and it's brutal.

   14. TFTim Ferriss6:00

       Yeah, I challenge anyone listening if they have never done it, just go stand on concrete for a few hours. It is excruciating [laughs]

   15. SWStephen West6:10

       I need good shoes for sure.

   16. TFTim Ferriss6:11

       Yeah, yeah. And people are like, "Oh, no, I walk on the streets." No, not the same.

   17. SWStephen West6:15

       [laughs]

   18. TFTim Ferriss6:15

       Asphalt's different. [laughs]

   19. SWStephen West6:16

       Yeah.

   20. TFTim Ferriss6:16

       It's, it's like a trampoline compared to [laughs] concrete.

   21. SWStephen West6:19

       Yeah.

   22. TFTim Ferriss6:19

       What were the best aspects and the worst aspects, I think you covered some of the worst, of that warehousing job?

   23. SWStephen West6:25

       You are so wise for asking that question because you know when you get older, you look back and you, you notice things that you didn't notice at the time.

   24. TFTim Ferriss6:33

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SWStephen West6:33

       The best aspect of it, I'm, I, I miss it sometimes talking to the guys in the warehouse. There are a lot of really good guys there, um, and I don't have that social element to the podcast. The other thing is I got to listen to audiobooks all day long.

   26. TFTim Ferriss6:47

       Mm-hmm.

   27. SWStephen West6:47

       I mean, what other job could I have gotten? I didn't even know I was stumbling into something that would open up so many possibilities for me at the time. It felt like I was just, you know, a, a day labor, just like ru-

   28. TFTim Ferriss6:58

       Mm

   29. SWStephen West6:58

       ... like, just horrible. But yeah, I got to listen to philosophy books all day long, and talk radio. I got to listen to, like, Loveline with Adam Carolla and Dr. Drew and Howard Stern, just, like, listening to these people paint pictures with their words. It was beautiful.

   30. TFTim Ferriss7:10

       Yeah.
5. 7:27 – 9:51

   How Stephen discovered philosophy through googling "wisest person in history."

   1. TFTim Ferriss7:27

      So for people listening, they may think to themselves, "I wouldn't immediately, if I were in your position, find philosophy," [laughs] right? It could've been, not to devalue any of these things, but it could've been Hunger Games, could've been any of a million genres, any of a million authors. How did you end up listening to philosophy? Or how did philosophy even enter your life in the first place?

   2. SWStephen West7:52

      I kinda looked into that one, too. I was a dumb 17, 16-year-old kid, right on that cusp, but I knew, I, I was self-aware enough to know that I had had trauma from the messed-up childhood that we just talked about. So I didn't wanna just spend my whole life taking that out on the people around me. I knew that I needed mentors, and I wasn't in school. I didn't have, like, y- you know, people to look up to really, and I wasn't talking to my family. So I literally googled wisest person in the history of the world. It was my best idea I could come up with at the time. [laughs] And one of Plato's dialogues, Gorgias, came up there, and it talked about this guy Socrates. He's harassing people in the Athenian Agora. He's asking them questions, trying to find a wise man, and I just got hooked, man.

   3. TFTim Ferriss8:37

      What was it about it that hooked you? Was, were there any particular aspects that grabbed you? Because a lot of folks, right, listening to this, no doubt some of them took compulsory classes in school related to philosophy and they were just like, "Please shoot me in the head now," right?

   4. SWStephen West8:51

      [laughs]

   5. TFTim Ferriss8:52

      In some cases.

   6. SWStephen West8:52

      Yeah.

   7. TFTim Ferriss8:53

      Not all cases.

   8. SWStephen West8:53

      No, I, I don't blame them.

   9. TFTim Ferriss8:54

      Right? It did not have that effect on you, at least with your self-directed exploration. What was it that appealed to you or hooked you?

   10. SWStephen West9:03

       It was voluntary. I mean, I, b- it was, I mean, that, that's a big part of it, is I'm not being forced into doing it. This is why I don't wanna force my daughter, who's eight, to, like, think about stuff or ask her philosophical questions. I just, I... Like, the best way to get your kid to not do something is to tell them to do it.

   11. TFTim Ferriss9:16

       [laughs]

   12. SWStephen West9:17

       So, uh, but aside from the voluntary nature of it, I think that I just have always been somebody that thinks my way out of problems, and so the idea that this is the discipline, if, if comedians go to a comedy club and it, it's this, it's this pure endeavor of trying to make people laugh, that's what makes a comedian what they are. For philosophy, thinking about things like that, forming new conceptual tracings of reality, seeing it in a new way, I mean, this is, of course I would be attracted to something like that as somebody that always thinks my way out of problems. I mean, that's the only service I can really provide to the people around me that, that, like, matter

6. 9:51 – 11:21

   Defining philosophy as a "disruption of common sense" and "gym for rethinking."

   1. SWStephen West9:51

      to me.

   2. TFTim Ferriss9:51

      So for the purposes of this conversation, how would you define or rebrand philosophy for people who have an immediate semi-allergic reaction-

   3. SWStephen West10:03

      [laughs]

   4. TFTim Ferriss10:03

      ... because perhaps they've heard a bunch of ivory tower specialists speaking in riddles or speaking in logic/math puzzles that no one can make any sense of.

   5. SWStephen West10:17

      Yeah.

   6. TFTim Ferriss10:17

      How would you... I shouldn't say no one. Yes, there are, like, 17 people who [laughs] probably make a lot of sense out of all of it, but how do you suggest people think about philosophy?

   7. SWStephen West10:27

      I mean, those guys, I used to dislike those people.

   8. TFTim Ferriss10:30

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SWStephen West10:30

      I thought that they were being too selfish. They were making it all about them. I think they have really good intentions, and I think it's hard when you get to be a professor to know what it's like to just be starting out.

   10. TFTim Ferriss10:40

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SWStephen West10:40

       For me, I would say philosophy, a way that I've heard it described is it's the disruption of common sense.

   12. TFTim Ferriss10:45

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SWStephen West10:47

       I mean, what is looking at the world at all? It's, it's an approximation. We are works in progress. I, I look at the world one way for a while, and everybody knows what it's like to change the way that you see everything in the world. And yeah, I mean, I just think that philosophy is the method of doing that. The question is not whether you're going to change the way that you think about things conceptually. The question is, how deliberate are you gonna be about it?

   14. TFTim Ferriss11:10

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SWStephen West11:10

       It's like the gym for rethinking, retracing reality in a new way that opens up new possibilities to you.

   16. TFTim Ferriss11:17

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SWStephen West11:17

       And it's also something that needs to go on at the highest levels of conversation-

7. 11:21 – 15:22

   The 4-Hour Workweek as a philosophical text.

   1. TFTim Ferriss11:21

      Right

   2. SWStephen West11:21

      ... as well.

   3. TFTim Ferriss11:21

      Yeah, it's like recreation or kind of unfocused activity versus deliberate practice, right?

   4. SWStephen West11:27

      Right.

   5. TFTim Ferriss11:27

      To, to use your comedy example, I interviewed Jerry Seinfeld, actually right at, I was at this table, and it was a few years ago, but the actual craft, right, the lifting of the weights, so to speak-

   6. SWStephen West11:41

      Right

   7. TFTim Ferriss11:41

      ... the writing, the testing, how do you approach it in a systematic way, and how could you take something like that and then apply it to the love of knowledge or philosophy or-

   8. SWStephen West11:54

      Right

   9. TFTim Ferriss11:54

      ... reframing things, learning how to stress test your own thinking. When you were in the warehouse, you got 10 hours a day with headphones, were there any particular kind of formative inputs that Influenced the path that would later land you in the podcast

   10. SWStephen West12:15

       I was reading everything I could get my hands on. And, uh, yeah, I mean, transparently, The 4-Hour Workweek was a huge book that allowed me to think about possibilities in my life in a new way. I mean, that's why I think, I, I get that it's, it's maybe weird to call it a work of philosophy, The 4-Hour Workweek, because it's in the business section, right?

   11. TFTim Ferriss12:33

       Yeah.

   12. SWStephen West12:33

       But, like, what I love from philosophy books, what they do to me, that book did for me in certain areas.

   13. TFTim Ferriss12:38

       Mm-hmm.

   14. SWStephen West12:38

       You're, you're calling into question assumptions that we're making about things like new rich, what it is to be wealthy at all.

   15. TFTim Ferriss12:45

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SWStephen West12:46

       Retirement, this is something that most people just assume is gonna be at the end of their life. They don't even really think about it anymore than that. What was possible in terms of how to make money or how to automate certain aspects of your life.

   17. TFTim Ferriss12:58

       Mm-hmm.

   18. SWStephen West12:58

       I mean, and you're also talking about it in contrast to an emerging digital world that at the time was just coming about. Like, new possibilities were presenting themselves in people's lives that they weren't necessarily aware of.

   19. TFTim Ferriss13:09

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SWStephen West13:10

       And yeah, I mean, what philosopher is talking about these issues? So-

   21. TFTim Ferriss13:13

       Mm.

   22. SWStephen West13:13

       That book was beautiful for me to even think that it was possible to start a podcast.

   23. TFTim Ferriss13:17

       Yeah.

   24. SWStephen West13:17

       So for whatever it's worth, thank you-

   25. TFTim Ferriss13:18

       [laughs]

   26. SWStephen West13:19

       ... for that.

   27. TFTim Ferriss13:19

       Thanks, man. [laughs]

   28. SWStephen West13:20

       I mean, I wouldn't be here.

   29. TFTim Ferriss13:21

       Yeah. Uh, you know, it's, it's, uh, so thank you for saying that. And also what's wild about the book is, you know, I revised it in 2009 and then realized this is an absolutely Sisyphean task [laughs] to try to revise this because the tech is moving so fast.

   30. SWStephen West13:37

       Yeah.
8. 15:22 – 18:25

   A philosophical shift around Ralph Waldo Emerson.

   1. TFTim Ferriss15:23

      what I realized over the following year or so, which was well before writing the book, well before selling the book, the tools are secondary to the sort of assumptions based on how you're going to use them, what you can do with them versus what you can't do with them, and the objectives. And when you come down to those, let's just say base levels of the pyramid, it turns into a philosophical discussion, whether you use that word or not, right?

   2. SWStephen West15:57

      Right. No, it-

   3. TFTim Ferriss15:57

      It's a, it's a mode of thinking, and how do you cross-examine your own thinking?

   4. SWStephen West16:01

      I think philosophy has a tendency of living in the shadow of the thing we actually give credit to for the thing.

   5. TFTim Ferriss16:05

      Yeah.

   6. SWStephen West16:06

      And that goes on personally in our lives. I mean, it would be very easy for me to just call what I did with the podcast a matter of hard work and a matter of-

   7. TFTim Ferriss16:12

      Mm-hmm

   8. SWStephen West16:13

      ... circumstance and content strategy or, like, a knowledge thing that I'm doing, but really it was a philosophical shift that made it possible to even think about.

   9. TFTim Ferriss16:22

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SWStephen West16:23

       You mentioned Walden, and I mean, another one of the transcendentalists, Ralph Waldo Emerson, is a person that had a huge impact on me at this time as well.

   11. TFTim Ferriss16:29

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SWStephen West16:30

       In fact, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him either. I, I used to think something that he talks about in Self-Reliance and other essays, like, to have a podcast or a YouTube channel or whatever it was, you, you needed to be a genius.

   13. TFTim Ferriss16:40

       Mm.

   14. SWStephen West16:40

       There's kind of a myth that I think gets promoted. If you're not a genius, you have nothing really that interesting to say, so who's ever gonna follow you and-

   15. TFTim Ferriss16:47

       Mm-hmm

   16. SWStephen West16:48

       ... that stuff. He was living during a time right around the abolition of slavery. So in the United States, it's a crucial time. A lot of changes are going on. There's also an Irish immigrant crisis going on at the time, and he wants to inspire people with his work to take action, to think for themselves, to be the catalyst for change in the world if that's something that they want. The way to apply what he's talking about to, like, a YouTube channel is, I mean, look at these YouTube creators. Are they geniuses? Are these people, like, unparalleled geniuses, thinkers of our time? No. They're people that have a certain message that they're sending, and that message corresponds to something that already exists in culture.

   17. TFTim Ferriss17:24

       Mm.

   18. SWStephen West17:24

       You don't need to be a genius. You just need to be saying something that resonates with other people.

   19. TFTim Ferriss17:28

       Mm-hmm.

   20. SWStephen West17:28

       That was huge for me to notice that. You can just be a catalyst for a sentiment that already exists in the hearts of people, and then you become the thing that they connect to. Like, they start to see you as symbolic of that. So really, he made me change my thinking. To write and to say something worth saying is not-

   21. TFTim Ferriss17:45

       Mm-hmm

   22. SWStephen West17:45

       ... to be a genius. It's to be brave. It's to be the one to say it and to have courage.

   23. TFTim Ferriss17:49

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SWStephen West17:49

       Really, that's probably a primary factor that determines whether one of these YouTube creators is successful or has a channel or not-

   25. TFTim Ferriss17:56

       Mm-hmm

   26. SWStephen West17:56

       ... is just th- they were the ones to say it, you know?

   27. TFTim Ferriss17:59

       Mm-hmm.

   28. SWStephen West17:59

       They, they had the courage to say it and, and risk all the, the bad that might come from that, right?

   29. TFTim Ferriss18:03

       Yeah. For folks, where would you suggest people start with Emerson if they haven't read his writing?

   30. SWStephen West18:08

       Been a while since I've jumped in. I, I'd say Self-Reliance and On Nature are the two that you absolutely-
9. 18:25 – 23:46

   The transition from warehouse work to starting Philosophize This! with friendly encouragement.

   1. TFTim Ferriss18:25

      So when did you switch gears and do something other than the warehouse job? Or did you do something concurrent and then sort of fade something in while you're fading something out? What did the next chapter look like?

   2. SWStephen West18:39

      Right. So I wanted to start the podcast. I mean, I didn't know if it was possible. I certainly didn't have a dream of doing it as, like, a living where it could provide for my family. At the time, I was much younger, so I had less responsibilities. I, I did some math. I realized I needed to make, like, 800 bucks a month to be able to do it. And there's this guy Scott I was playing guitar with at the time, and he inspired me here, too. He worked at Duke's Chowder House. It's like a seafood place-

   3. TFTim Ferriss19:03

      Uh-huh

   4. SWStephen West19:03

      ... up in Seattle, and he was a server. And his mom would give him crap all the time, like, just, "Why don't you get a real job?" And he would just play guitar all day and then go serving at Duke's Chowder House. And I would talk to him about it, and he's like, "Look, I don't want to be a rock star. I don't want to be, like, a millionaire doing this. All I wanna do is be able to play a few gigs on the weekend or some studio sessions or something."

   5. TFTim Ferriss19:21

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SWStephen West19:22

      "And then I'm playing guitar for a living."

   7. TFTim Ferriss19:23

      Yeah.

   8. SWStephen West19:23

      "I am literally living the dream if I can do that, and Duke's Chowder House is just how I pacify my mom. I just pay her some rent," right? For me, it was like I needed to find a way to make 800 bucks with the podcast.

   9. TFTim Ferriss19:33

      Mm-hmm.

   10. SWStephen West19:33

       That could satisfy whatever obligations I had at the home, my, my half of the rent and utilities at the time. So yeah, at the warehouse, they had this thing weekends only.

   11. TFTim Ferriss19:43

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SWStephen West19:43

       Instead of working seven days a week on call, which was the norm, I never had a scheduled day off my entire time working there. I would just work on the weekends. It would be a guaranteed thing I'd come in. And the reason they would do it that way is because they don't have to pay a benefits package at that point.

   13. TFTim Ferriss19:55

       [laughs]

   14. SWStephen West19:55

       It benefits the company at some level.

   15. TFTim Ferriss19:57

       Yeah.

   16. SWStephen West19:57

       But for me, it was perfect-

   17. TFTim Ferriss19:58

       Yeah

   18. SWStephen West19:58

       ... 'cause then I could work five days a week. And if I could find a way to make 800 bucks a month just doing the podcast and writing on the side and stuff like that-

   19. TFTim Ferriss20:05

       Mm-hmm

   20. SWStephen West20:06

       ... I'd just go in on the weekends, eight hours. That was my version of phasing in the podcast-

   21. TFTim Ferriss20:11

       Mm-hmm

   22. SWStephen West20:11

       ... and phasing out the warehousing, another thing I'm very fortunate to have.

   23. TFTim Ferriss20:13

       So let's take a closer look at that. I'm so interested in the catalyzing periods, right? Like, what happened in the span of a few weeks where you thought, "Well, maybe I could do this, but aren't those people geniuses," to, "Okay, I'm actually going to do weekends only"-

   24. SWStephen West20:31

       Mm-hmm

   25. TFTim Ferriss20:32

       ... and take that, which is a nontrivial step, right?

   26. SWStephen West20:35

       Right.

   27. TFTim Ferriss20:36

       What did that look like? I mean, was, was there a particular conversation?

   28. SWStephen West20:39

       [laughs]

   29. TFTim Ferriss20:39

       Was there, like, a particular week of just gobbling Advil because your back was bothering you? Like, how did it go from, "You know, maybe kind of in some universe that's maybe possible, but don't I have to be a genius," to, "All right, I'm gonna work two days a week"?

   30. SWStephen West20:54

       It was two things. On one hand, I'd been working there for years, so my back hurt every single day. It was utter desperation on one level. I hated my life there.
10. 23:46 – 26:59

    Authenticity as the secret sauce to Philosophize This!

    1. TFTim Ferriss23:46

       That's from Wrath of the Khans, if people want to watch, uh, or-

    2. SWStephen West23:48

       Fantastic series

    3. TFTim Ferriss23:49

       ... or, and I say watch. That's an interesting slip because his language is so visually evocative.

    4. SWStephen West23:54

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss23:54

       Right? Okay, Dan Carlin. That makes a whole lot of sense. Was there anybody else who you're like, "Ah, maybe I can take a little bit of that, a little bit of that"? Because Dan Carlin also does mega series. Like, his podcasts are long. I mean, Wrath of the Khans, I'm making this up, but it's like four or five parts. Each one is like four to five hours.

    6. SWStephen West24:12

       Yeah, he's fantastic. I mean, in terms of inspiration, at the time, I remember consciously not wanting to copy other people.

    7. TFTim Ferriss24:18

       Uh-huh.

    8. SWStephen West24:18

       In fact, I was listening to a Dave Chappelle interview at the time, I think, and he was just talking about how it was Miles Davis or Dizzy Gillespie or something like that. Just at the beginning of their career when they were playing trumpet, they just did an impression of another trumpet player.

    9. TFTim Ferriss24:31

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West24:31

        And you see this in a lot of industries where people-

    11. TFTim Ferriss24:33

        Mm-hmm

    12. SWStephen West24:33

        ... will just be even subconsciously trying to do an impression of what they think success looks like.

    13. TFTim Ferriss24:39

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SWStephen West24:40

        But I had read enough philosophy at that time to really not wanna fall into that trap. I mean, I knew I was highly inspired by him, so I didn't wanna sound too much like him. I wanted to be able to develop my own style.

    15. TFTim Ferriss24:49

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West24:49

        If anything, it was a negative inspiration because I noticed there was a gap in the philosophy sort of market. I was a big fan of podcasts, so I would be listening to philosophy, just trying to find something to pass the time at work, right?

    17. TFTim Ferriss25:00

        Yeah.

    18. SWStephen West25:00

        So I just noticed there were a lot of really smart, really talented people, Peter Adamson, History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Partially Examined Life at the time was huge.

    19. TFTim Ferriss25:08

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SWStephen West25:09

        And it's like I, I just wanted to do something that was a little more humanizing, a little more translating. That's all I was thinking.

    21. TFTim Ferriss25:14

        Okay. And you commit to working two days a week.

    22. SWStephen West25:19

        Mm-hmm.

    23. TFTim Ferriss25:20

        What else are you committing to? All right, so now you have five days a week. What is the experimental or prototyping phase look like? Did you apply some constraints right up front? How did you approach that?

    24. SWStephen West25:32

        Luckily for me, it took off fairly quickly. I spent a few months before just researching how to launch a podcast.

    25. TFTim Ferriss25:39

        Mm-hmm.

    26. SWStephen West25:39

        Like, I would just listen to podcasts about podcasting.

    27. TFTim Ferriss25:42

        Mm.

    28. SWStephen West25:42

        I would read books about it, about blogging too, 'cause there really wasn't that much. There was this feeling at the time that, I mean, what's the cliche? That the radio is to the TV, the TV is to the phone, or something like that.

    29. TFTim Ferriss25:51

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SWStephen West25:51

        Right? Like, the phone, this narrow casting that is developing is gonna be big, but there's no playbook for how to actually do it. So yeah, I, I started researching just how to take advantage of the launch phase of a podcast.
11. 26:59 – 28:11

    The discomfort of comparing old episodes with new.

    1. SWStephen West26:59

       I think I just made it as much me as I could. I leaned into that aspect of podcasting. What I loved about Dan Carlin is that it just felt like I was there and he was talking to me.

    2. TFTim Ferriss27:09

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SWStephen West27:09

       I think a lot of people at the time saw podcasting as, like, an afterthought. It was just the free content so you could drive people to funnels to then sell them the premium content or something, right?

    4. TFTim Ferriss27:19

       Yeah.

    5. SWStephen West27:19

       I saw it as, like, a very open-ended medium that was beautiful, and it could be a three-hour conversation with people smoking weed, talking about nothing. It, it could be 10 minutes of highly focused-

    6. TFTim Ferriss27:31

       I can't imagine who that is. [laughs]

    7. SWStephen West27:32

       Yeah, me neither.

    8. TFTim Ferriss27:32

       Just kidding. [laughs]

    9. SWStephen West27:33

       But, but it's been highly successful, right?

    10. TFTim Ferriss27:35

        I mean, yeah.

    11. SWStephen West27:35

        I mean, pretty successful.

    12. TFTim Ferriss27:36

        I mean, I mean, the most successful. [laughs]

    13. SWStephen West27:37

        You, you could say. No, but it's, it's beautiful, the medium-

    14. TFTim Ferriss27:40

        Yeah

    15. SWStephen West27:40

        ... how, how versatile it is, you know?

    16. TFTim Ferriss27:42

        Yeah, it is.

    17. SWStephen West27:42

        So that's, that's what I saw, and so I just wanted to be my own lane there.

    18. TFTim Ferriss27:47

        Mm-hmm.

    19. SWStephen West27:47

        You know, I didn't wanna be a part of podcasting. I wanted to just be a, a shop. There was an interview with Bill Burr back on the Fearless series.

    20. TFTim Ferriss27:54

        Yeah.

    21. SWStephen West27:54

        And he was talking about, "I don't really see myself as part of comedy. I just sort of do my, my thing, and I guess I'm a part of comedy. I set up a stand in the middle of a mall," he was saying, you know?

    22. TFTim Ferriss28:01

        Mm-hmm.

    23. SWStephen West28:02

        That's how I see it. I didn't think about what a podcast was and try to appeal to that.

    24. TFTim Ferriss28:06

        Mm-hmm.

    25. SWStephen West28:06

        I just tried to make it as authentic as I could, and I think that, that was one good thing that I did.

12. 28:11 – 30:17

    The current state of Philosophize This!: 225 episodes, Patreon, ads, upcoming book deal.

    1. TFTim Ferriss28:11

       All right. And in the beginning, my understanding is you approached it chronologically. Maybe you can explain, because there are a lot of different ways you could approach the canon of [laughs] Western philosophy or any, any philosophy really. How long were the episodes when you started?

    2. SWStephen West28:29

       About 4,000 words long.

    3. TFTim Ferriss28:32

       All right.

    4. SWStephen West28:32

       So I read slower back then, so it's about 30 minutes or so.

    5. TFTim Ferriss28:36

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SWStephen West28:36

       It would vary back then a bit, but yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss28:38

       Yeah. And what were the first handful of episodes?

    8. SWStephen West28:42

       The Presocratics. The first episode, it's so hard to even listen to it. I've, I've had to go back recently and, like-

    9. TFTim Ferriss28:47

       [laughs]

    10. SWStephen West28:48

        ... listen. I mean-

    11. TFTim Ferriss28:49

        Oh, I get it

    12. SWStephen West28:50

        ... it's just an artist's dilemma. Like, I'm not trying to talk down to anybody that enjoys-

    13. TFTim Ferriss28:53

        Yeah

    14. SWStephen West28:53

        ... those episodes still, but just from my perspective, you can imagine it's, it's tough to watch yourself 12 years ago now doing it for the first time publicly. The, the first episode was literally like I would, I just mention the Out of Africa theory and how, "Oh, yeah, people had a lot of free time back then, and they talked a lot."

    15. TFTim Ferriss29:08

        [laughs]

    16. SWStephen West29:09

        "So talking leads to philosophy, and it kind of settled around the Ionian coast and the Italian coast, and this led to the Presocratics." It's just, like, most of the episodes are me just, like, telling stories from their life or something. It's, it's, it's brutal, but also beautiful in a way, 'cause it's where it had to start.

    17. TFTim Ferriss29:23

        Yeah. I mean, [laughs] it's, it's sort of striking not to, like, over-wield the comparisons here, but [laughs] maybe, like, the story of the Presocratics as you just described it is sort of like the origin of the podcast in the early episodes. You know what I mean?

    18. SWStephen West29:39

        Yeah.

    19. TFTim Ferriss29:40

        Like, figuring it out, finding the language.

    20. SWStephen West29:43

        Yeah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss29:43

        Trying to develop a water feel for what this thing is, whatever this thing happens to be, whatever it will be.

    22. SWStephen West29:48

        For whatever it's worth, people tell me that's one of the endearing things that they like about it.

    23. TFTim Ferriss29:51

        Yeah.

    24. SWStephen West29:51

        They like seeing somebody kind of build their craft over the years.

    25. TFTim Ferriss29:54

        Mm-hmm.

    26. SWStephen West29:54

        It's just my audition tape is on camera for everybody to see.

    27. TFTim Ferriss29:57

        [laughs]

    28. SWStephen West29:57

        That's how I see it. That's cool, though. I'll take it.

    29. TFTim Ferriss30:00

        Yeah, yeah. [laughs] All right, so at this point, how many episodes have you done?

    30. SWStephen West30:04

        225.
13. 30:17 – 31:34

    Monetization.

    1. SWStephen West30:17

       it.

    2. TFTim Ferriss30:17

       All right. If we flash forward and we look at this craft you've developed, the life you've built, what does the ... Philosophize This! ecosystem look like? You have Patreon.

    3. SWStephen West30:31

       Mm-hmm.

    4. TFTim Ferriss30:32

       Right? Like, what are the different pieces of the puzzle as it stands currently?

    5. SWStephen West30:37

       Do you mean from, like, a monetization standpoint?

    6. TFTim Ferriss30:39

       Yeah, yeah, from a business perspective.

    7. SWStephen West30:40

       Yeah. Yeah, I have Patreon. I have ads that I run now. I have this book deal. That's gonna be good for 2026, like, kind of-

    8. TFTim Ferriss30:47

       Mm-hmm

    9. SWStephen West30:47

       ... emerging into a different market there. It is centered around the podcast, so-

    10. TFTim Ferriss30:51

        Mm-hmm

    11. SWStephen West30:51

        ... yeah, that's, that's kind of the, the core.

    12. TFTim Ferriss30:54

        Mm-hmm. And you mentioned you initially weren't planning on or pursuing advertising. Around what episode did you start doing advertising?

    13. SWStephen West31:04

        I'm not sure. Around the episode that my son was coming into the world.

    14. TFTim Ferriss31:08

        [laughs]

    15. SWStephen West31:09

        And I had prayed at an altar that my people listening would be, like, sympathetic to the fact that I've been doing it for so long with no ads, and now I'm trying to ... I don't know. You live longer on this planet, you don't know when you're gonna die. I'm just, I'm trying to leave something for my kids if I-

    16. TFTim Ferriss31:23

        Mm-hmm

    17. SWStephen West31:24

        ... kick the bucket one day, so-

    18. TFTim Ferriss31:25

        Yeah

    19. SWStephen West31:25

        ... you know.

    20. TFTim Ferriss31:26

        Yeah, totally. All right.

    21. SWStephen West31:27

        It's been fairly recent, though. To the rest of your question, it's, like, I don't know, maybe episode 180 or something like that.

    22. TFTim Ferriss31:32

        Yeah. Okay, so there

14. 31:34 – 33:10

    The value of focusing on content quality before monetization.

    1. TFTim Ferriss31:34

       we go.

    2. SWStephen West31:34

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss31:34

       The reason that I was hoping ... I didn't know the answer, but I was hoping for that. Wow, I threw, like, a very Hebrew, like, hoping-

    4. SWStephen West31:39

       [laughs]

    5. TFTim Ferriss31:40

       ... on there. [laughs]

    6. SWStephen West31:41

       Jesus.

    7. TFTim Ferriss31:42

       So the reason I was hoping that the answer would be something like that is that you were able to hone the craft for a while, for a pretty good long while, before distracting yourself with the preoccupations or maybe the easier path in my case, right? If I don't wanna write, what do I wanna do? I wanna talk about and think about and brainstorm marketing and these things, 'cause I find it much easier. But you for a very good stretch of time were able to focus on figuring it out, finding your footing, honing the craft. And for people who can make that work, I just wanna say I recommend it very, very highly-

    8. SWStephen West32:22

       Mm

    9. TFTim Ferriss32:22

       ... to have that type of focus. It just, it seems to make-

    10. SWStephen West32:26

        Yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss32:26

        ... a lot of difference.

    12. SWStephen West32:27

        I mean, I've tried marketing things. One of the good things about podcasting is-

    13. TFTim Ferriss32:31

        Mm

    14. SWStephen West32:31

        ... that people will reach out and they'll wanna support, and they won't wanna support financially, they'll support with their skillset, you know?

    15. TFTim Ferriss32:36

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West32:36

        Like professional marketers or whatever will come along and, like, offer ... And I've been doing it 12 years, so I've done things like that. I just, I am not an expert in this field, and I just feel that when it comes to content, like, the content is the number one focus for me. Like, I just ... If you do bad content, you may be able to market it amazingly, and then that'll be successful in some way. If you do amazing content that people don't wanna live without, you can't keep it a secret. Like, that's-

    17. TFTim Ferriss33:03

        Yeah

    18. SWStephen West33:03

        ... that's why I focused on that for so long. I-

    19. TFTim Ferriss33:04

        Yeah

    20. SWStephen West33:04

        ... I would never put something out that isn't content that I, I hope people don't wanna live without.

15. 33:10 – 34:38

    Most popular Philosophize This! episodes thus far.

    1. TFTim Ferriss33:10

       What are your most, some of your most popular episodes to date? Do any stand out?

    2. SWStephen West33:16

       People really like the Dostoevsky series that I just did.

    3. TFTim Ferriss33:19

       I tell you what, I'm just taking notes, 'cause I'm putting together my own reading list.

    4. SWStephen West33:22

       Sure.

    5. TFTim Ferriss33:22

       And we were talking about this before we started recording, but ... 'Cause I was, I was trying to figure out was Dave, you know, just the first person who introduced me to Philosophize This! It's possible. Or did a post I put, uh, apparently on Twitter predate that, where I was listening to it, I think, in my car. Coulda been in, in an Uber or something like that. But I took a photograph or a screenshot, and I do remember that really clearly. I think it was in my, I think it was in my car. And for that reason, I'm putting together my to-listen list and just using this question selfishly so I can take notes on-

    6. SWStephen West33:59

       Absolutely

    7. TFTim Ferriss33:59

       ... what I should grab. So Dostoevsky.

    8. SWStephen West34:01

       Yeah. So from about last October, there's a new arc of the show that I'm doing that's on kind of religious phenomenology. It's about the limitations of philosophy. It's about phenomenology as a movement at the beginning of the 20th century, and this bridge between philosophy and religion.

    9. TFTim Ferriss34:17

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West34:17

        Is religion just this superficial connection to a manlike God in the sky, or is a belief in God something much deeper than that, and something much more embodied in a daily practice every day? It's, it's been really fascinating for me, and people have been really liking it, for whatever sort.

    11. TFTim Ferriss34:32

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SWStephen West34:32

        So if you're looking for a place to start. But I'll, I'll say this. If I'm ever recommending a place for people to start, I just ask

16. 34:38 – 35:57

    Philosophize This! episodes I'd like to hear.

    1. SWStephen West34:38

       them what they're into. So what are you interested in?

    2. TFTim Ferriss34:40

       Well, let's see. I mean, if I had a, a wish list, and this, maybe this is the episode that I tracked down of yours. I'm not sure. I, in my reading of Seneca, realized ... And look, this is gonna be a very sloppy, simplified way of looking at things. But I was like, okay, the Stoics seem really good at self-regulation [laughs] -

    3. SWStephen West34:59

       Yeah

    4. TFTim Ferriss35:00

       ... on their good days. [laughs] But they don't seem great at, and it may be even antithetical to them to maximize joy, right?

    5. SWStephen West35:08

       Mm.

    6. TFTim Ferriss35:08

       On some level. And in the Moral Letters to Lucilius, Seneca the Younger keeps referencing Epicurus.

    7. SWStephen West35:17

       Hmm.

    8. TFTim Ferriss35:17

       And there's a whole backstory that's pretty interesting as to why he was doing that. Was it a rhetorical device to be like, "Okay, okay. You guys like Epicureanism. Sure. I'll give you that. Great guy. Look at this amazing thing he said."

    9. SWStephen West35:29

       Mm-hmm.

    10. TFTim Ferriss35:29

        "Now let me lead into my argument-

    11. SWStephen West35:30

        Right

    12. TFTim Ferriss35:31

        ... and what I wanna tell you." But my ability to track down writing for a number of reasons related to Epicureanism has been pretty limited. So that would be on my wish list. I would say the Stoics are always good reminders, even though some people might feel like I just threw them under the bus. But I still remain a avid fan of Stoicism. And then I would say, and this is not gonna be very helpful perhaps, but

17. 35:57 – 41:17

    Thinking of philosophy as a verb, not a noun.

    1. TFTim Ferriss35:57

       I could turn this question around and maybe ask for your help in finding philosophical systems or philosophies, schools of philosophy, that are imminently practical, where it's like, okay, this is something I'm going through. For instance, right now, very challenging period with medical issues in my family. And as much as I enjoy getting into the rarefied air of deep conceptual philosophical discussions, I'm like, no. Like, I am stressed the fuck out-

    2. SWStephen West36:26

       Right

    3. TFTim Ferriss36:26

       ... and having trouble sleeping, and, like, have anxious rumination.

    4. SWStephen West36:29

       Mm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss36:29

       I would like some tools in addition to the ones I'm familiar with for Delving into that.

    6. SWStephen West36:35

       All right

    7. TFTim Ferriss36:35

       Right? So that's a bit of a meandering answer.

    8. SWStephen West36:37

       No, no.

    9. TFTim Ferriss36:38

       Yeah.

    10. SWStephen West36:38

        Not, not at all. So, I mean, sorry to hear about your family. So the-

    11. TFTim Ferriss36:41

        Yeah, thanks

    12. SWStephen West36:41

        ... you're talking about the Hellenistic age basically, or two.

    13. TFTim Ferriss36:43

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SWStephen West36:43

        You're talking about Epicureanism, you're talking about Stoicism.

    15. TFTim Ferriss36:45

        Yep.

    16. SWStephen West36:45

        So there's two more there, skepticism and Cynicism.

    17. TFTim Ferriss36:47

        Yeah.

    18. SWStephen West36:48

        Cynicism famously is the, the school of thought of Diogenes.

    19. TFTim Ferriss36:51

        Yeah.

    20. SWStephen West36:51

        I think all four of these, it's been said, represent some aspect of the character of Socrates just turned into its own system. Maybe fill that out might be a-

    21. TFTim Ferriss37:00

        Yeah

    22. SWStephen West37:00

        ... really cool thing to do 'cause then you'll know the whole period, right? Practical stuff, don't you do meditation a lot?

    23. TFTim Ferriss37:05

        Yeah, I do.

    24. SWStephen West37:06

        Okay.

    25. TFTim Ferriss37:06

        I do. Right now I'm meditating twice a day.

    26. SWStephen West37:07

        Okay. Is that practice framed in, like, a utilitarian way for you? Is, is it like I'm doing it so that I can quell anxiety? Or is it like a... How do you think of it?

    27. TFTim Ferriss37:17

        Yeah, I would say there are a few, a few different ways that I look at it. So shameless plug, I'll just mention it 'cause it is so good. There's an app called The Way. Henry Shukman is the teacher. It is Sambo Zen focused. I was introduced to Henry, actually had him on the podcast, by Kevin Rose. Thank you, Kevin. And I would say that on one level, it is very utilitarian for me, right? If I use it to boot up in the morning, 10 minutes, that's it, and I use it to wind down at night, if I have it as bookends on my day-

    28. SWStephen West37:52

        Mm-hmm

    29. TFTim Ferriss37:52

        ... I just find that my resting anxiety level is lower, right?

    30. SWStephen West38:00

        Mm-hmm.
18. 41:17 – 43:12

    The concept of amor fati (love of fate) and its practical application.

    1. TFTim Ferriss41:17

       I think it's limited, but it's, for me, I would say I could think of it as necessary but not sufficient, if that makes sense.

    2. SWStephen West41:25

       Hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss41:26

       So you mentioned years, but I will give an example of something that is not new to me, but revisiting it today in preparation for this conversation. This is a, a philosophical concept. I mean, you don't even really need the modifier philosophical if it complicates things for people listening. But amor fati, so this is something that helped me over lunch while I was preparing for this because it helped me to reframe. Could you explain what this is for people who may not be familiar?

    4. SWStephen West41:55

       Sure, yeah. I mean, it goes back probably before the Stoics-

    5. TFTim Ferriss41:58

       Mm-hmm

    6. SWStephen West41:58

       ... if we're being honest. But my favorite formulation of it is in Nietzsche, where he's talking about, I mean, amor fati translates into love of fate.

    7. TFTim Ferriss42:07

       Mm-hmm.

    8. SWStephen West42:07

       It's the idea that so many traditions in the religious sectors or just in our, I mean, everyday lived experience are renunciative. They aim at denying some aspect of ourselves or of reality in an attempt to try to make it better.

    9. TFTim Ferriss42:22

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West42:22

        Nietzsche said amor fati is how he is going to live his life, I mean, henceforth. I mean, everything he is going to say yes to. He will be a yes-sayer, is what he says. This is an affirmative stance towards reality, where even if things are bad or uncomfortable or horrible We're going to affirm reality as it is and not idealize it into something that it's not. It's very common for people to do, even when they're not religious, is to think of reality as though it owes you something.

    11. TFTim Ferriss42:48

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SWStephen West42:49

        But to affirm reality fully is to accept the good, the bad. It's not to rationalize about it and to try to make excuses for it or frame your suffering in a way where it makes it go away. To truly affirm life and reality is just to be in it-

    13. TFTim Ferriss43:05

        Mm

    14. SWStephen West43:05

        ... and to have life itself be enough, truly.

    15. TFTim Ferriss43:09

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West43:09

        So yeah, I mean, I think that really is the essence of amor fati for me.

19. 43:12 – 46:03

    Wittgenstein's ladder as a metaphor for philosophical growth.

    1. TFTim Ferriss43:12

       And the way that I self-help bastardize this for myself, just [laughs] That's, uh, that could be a book title or a chapter in one of my forthcoming books. But if you wanted to bastardize this into something very self-helpy, I mean, what I ended up doing is like, okay, how could I exaggerate this to go beyond acceptance? Like, if I actually had to find a way to praise, to view in a positive light, if I had to, that was an obligation with everything that's going on right now, how would I do it, right? With the recognition that if you do that with everything, you end up running around with rose-colored glasses and you're gonna whack your head on a lot of corners. But in this particular case, like, okay, let me try really hard since I've been so focused on the things I can't control or hyper-aware of them, and the challenges and the hardship, not just now, but that are gonna probably be sustained for quite a few years, that sitting down and just asking myself, "What are the silver linings here? If I had to view this through a positive lens, what would I see?" Just doing that over lunch for 10 minutes, I probably dropped my cortisol [laughs] and resting heart rate tremendously. And that may not be maybe a Nietzsche's turning over in his grave with me just even approaching it this way, but-

    2. SWStephen West44:30

       No, not at all. No, I think that it's an extension of what we talked about with the meditation practice being utilitarian framed. And by the way, I don't think that should be a knock against it.

    3. TFTim Ferriss44:38

       Yeah.

    4. SWStephen West44:38

       Like, people get into meditation because it's going to help them with anxiety, or sleep better, or 4X their productivity or something like that.

    5. TFTim Ferriss44:47

       Right.

    6. SWStephen West44:47

       But if that's what gets you to the deeper stages of that, of, like, your awareness, where it's no longer something you're doing for some utilitarian end-

    7. TFTim Ferriss44:55

       Mm-hmm

    8. SWStephen West44:55

       ... that's beautiful. There's a famous thing from the end of the Tractatus by a philosopher named Wittgenstein, where he talks about how all these arguments in this book have led us to this point, and now you can essentially throw out the entire book because we've gotten to this new place. He compares it to a ladder. It's like so often in life, we'll have a conversation about happiness, say. How do I become happy? What's the best way to be happy? And then you climb this ladder, and then at the end of getting to this new place, all these conversations get you to this new perspective in life. And then all the conversations about happiness just seem kind of pointless.

    9. TFTim Ferriss45:26

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West45:26

        Just seem kind of naive almost. But it was only by having those conversations that got you to this next place anyway. And Wittgenstein talks about how you kick this ladder out from underneath you. You climb up the ladder, you use it, and then you kick it out from underneath you and you don't need it anymore. It's just, I think, a utilitarian approach to practice or to this amor fati thing. How else are you going to get to deeper levels of understanding of it? Or who's to even say that that's a deeper level of understanding it? Maybe this is just the best practical way for you to be using that in your life. I would not knock on you at all for doing that.

    11. TFTim Ferriss45:59

        Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that.

    12. SWStephen West46:00

        You have my acceptance there.

    13. TFTim Ferriss46:02

        [laughs]

20. 46:03 – 49:05

    Stephen's perspective on philosophy as a process rather than a set of protocols.

    1. TFTim Ferriss46:03

       I would love to ask you, and maybe this will be helpful for people to hear, in my case, there are certain philosophies that, for me, are almost like operating systems. Stoicism would be one, in some respects, where it gives you recommendations or instructions for how you might reframe or respond in certain circumstances.

    2. SWStephen West46:23

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss46:24

       And what I'm about to mention are not mutually exclusive, but there's also philosophy that if I read it, it just lets the snow globe settle, right?

    4. SWStephen West46:33

       Mm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss46:33

       It's sort of intrinsically calming just in the process of reading. That could be, say, one of Seneca's letters. There's one that I just thought was so hilarious. I mean, it's kind of a microcosm of On Anger, but where he's bitching and moaning about some type of bathhouse and gym below where he's living, and they're, like, sweaty and slapping things around and dropping weights, and it's bugging the shit out of him [laughs] .

    6. SWStephen West46:58

       Yeah.

    7. TFTim Ferriss46:58

       And it's just so hilarious and also humanizing to be like, "Oh, yeah, okay, I'm not the only impatient asshole who's running around overreacting to these little things." And then he offers some suggestions, right? But there are other things that I find very calming in and of themselves to read, and I'm wondering if there are any philosophers or writers, broadly speaking, with a philosophical bent, or philosophies that have that effect for you.

    8. SWStephen West47:26

       I personally don't look to philosophy for a set of protocols to live by.

    9. TFTim Ferriss47:31

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West47:31

        I think it's reactive. I mean, the world is always in a state of becoming. It's always changing into the future. I see a philosopher taking a snapshot in their work as a beautiful picture to look at, but not something that I really wanna, like, live by at this point.

    11. TFTim Ferriss47:44

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SWStephen West47:44

        I used to, by the way. Throughout my 20s, it helped me immensely. But just for whatever it's worth, at this point, this is just-

    13. TFTim Ferriss47:49

        Mm-hmm

    14. SWStephen West47:50

        ... where I'm at. It's almost like painting is not the Mona Lisa.

    15. TFTim Ferriss47:54

        Yeah.

    16. SWStephen West47:54

        Painting is not Starry Night by Van Gogh. Painting is a verb. It's a process.

    17. TFTim Ferriss47:58

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SWStephen West47:58

        For me, this is what philosophy is. It's the embodiment of a different conceptual tracing of the world.

    19. TFTim Ferriss48:04

        What does that look like, I guess, if we were to just put it in conceptual tracing for dummies, right?

    20. SWStephen West48:11

        Right.

    21. TFTim Ferriss48:11

        In your lived experience, what would maybe an example look like of doing that?

    22. SWStephen West48:14

        Well, it's the iterative process of showing up every day for the show and reading a philosopher and truly trying to embody their work-

    23. TFTim Ferriss48:21

        Mm-hmm

    24. SWStephen West48:21

        ... for a moment. But it's provisional. It's not something that I'm accepting. I'm not-

    25. TFTim Ferriss48:25

        Mm

    26. SWStephen West48:26

        ... tacking it onto the way that I see the world. It is just I'm, I'm almost method acting a thinker-

    27. TFTim Ferriss48:30

        Mm-hmm

    28. SWStephen West48:30

        ... in service to these other people that wanna know about the thinker, too. I mean, it really is a harmonious thing that's going on, and it's fun. But yeah, I really do try to entertain ideas without accepting them, and it's given me a lot of ... peace because I just realize, like, who I am is not one set of protocols. It's this weird mix of contradictions, and I feel two ways simultaneously sometimes. And I'll, I'll take pieces from this thinker and that thinker and put them together.

    29. TFTim Ferriss48:55

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SWStephen West48:55

        Just for me personally, that's more how I'm seeing philosophy. It's this exercise that I'm engaged in. The snow globe settles, to use your metaphor-
21. 49:05 – 50:54

    Philosophies that have personal meaning to Stephen: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Simone Weil.

    1. TFTim Ferriss49:05

       So if we're looking at Stephen West version one, or maybe like version 3.5 in your 20s-

    2. SWStephen West49:13

       Mm-hmm

    3. TFTim Ferriss49:13

       ... when maybe you had a different lens on these things.

    4. SWStephen West49:16

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss49:17

       Were there particular philosophies or philosophers or writing that hopped out that we haven't touched on?

    6. SWStephen West49:24

       Yeah. Nietzsche was huge for me early on in my life. Kierkegaard was very big after that, 'cause I, I realized in my early 20s, I mean, what kind of got me thinking about philosophy was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins-

    7. TFTim Ferriss49:38

       Mm-hmm

    8. SWStephen West49:38

       ... and The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Uh, I, I think at that time it was Letters to a Christian Nation. It's this whole, like, New Atheism sort of thing that was going on at the time. I had never read any philosophy before, so I thought, I mean, these people showed me what was possible to, like, think about the world.

    9. TFTim Ferriss49:53

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West49:53

        And so, I mean, I come from that, like, New Atheist beginning. I used to just argue with people on the internet incessantly about that kind of stuff.

    11. TFTim Ferriss50:01

        [laughs] That's what the internet's paid for.

    12. SWStephen West50:03

        Yeah. I mean, I was very young.

    13. TFTim Ferriss50:04

        [laughs]

    14. SWStephen West50:05

        So, but yeah, I remember for years, I just wrote off every religious argument as just nonsense, just like-

    15. TFTim Ferriss50:11

        Mm-hmm

    16. SWStephen West50:11

        ... absolute man-in-the-sky stuff. And then I read Kierkegaard and I just, I started thinking totally differently about the whole question, about the language that people use to describe universal human experiences. I mean, Kierkegaard talks about God, and he is a Christian.

    17. TFTim Ferriss50:23

        Mm-hmm.

    18. SWStephen West50:23

        He's describing a crisis in the church that's going on during his time. But I remember it being like, it just hit me like a ton of bricks one day. I'm like, "Oh, I listen to rap music, and they use different words, but I can relate to it because I'm, I'm feeling what they're feeling. We're both human beings. I may not come from Inglewood or something like that, but I can understand what they're saying here. They're using different words." And when I approached Kierkegaard like that-

    19. TFTim Ferriss50:44

        Mm

    20. SWStephen West50:44

        ... and religious conversations more generally, it just totally rocked me. And then that led me to Simone Weil, who's been top five favorite philosophers ever for me, and-

    21. TFTim Ferriss50:53

        Mm-hmm

    22. SWStephen West50:53

        ... yeah.

    23. TFTim Ferriss50:53

        Okay.

22. 50:54 – 53:41

    Simone Weil's concept of attention and self-emptying.

    1. TFTim Ferriss50:54

       That name you just gave, how do you spell the last name?

    2. SWStephen West50:57

       W-E-I-L.

    3. TFTim Ferriss50:58

       Okay, and how do you pronounce that? I don't even know.

    4. SWStephen West51:00

       Weil.

    5. TFTim Ferriss51:01

       Weil. Okay.

    6. SWStephen West51:01

       Simone Weil. And for whatever it's worth, it's in another language.

    7. TFTim Ferriss51:04

       I've definitely-

    8. SWStephen West51:04

       I'm just a dumb American

    9. TFTim Ferriss51:04

       ... I've definitely fucked that up at least-

    10. SWStephen West51:06

        Yeah

    11. TFTim Ferriss51:06

        ... a dozen times. Okay.

    12. SWStephen West51:07

        I'm just a dumb American. It could be something totally different, but...

    13. TFTim Ferriss51:10

        You know, if we added up all of my mispronunciations on this podcast, I mean, [laughs] it would, it would be the size of one of my phone books that I write.

    14. SWStephen West51:17

        Dude, she is incredible because she just is living in this time in the beginning of the 20th century. She's very skeptical of Marxism and capitalism and fascism and all these things that are going on. She had the ability. She was smart. She went to school. She had the ability to stay and be a professor and just sit behind a desk and write for the rest of her life. She didn't do that. She got out of her position at the university and went and worked in a factory voluntarily just to see what it was like to be somebody working on the front lines, to try to understand it as much as she possibly could. She didn't wanna live in theory.

    15. TFTim Ferriss51:48

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West51:48

        She didn't wanna have some theoretical understanding of what it was like to be a factory worker. She wanted to be there. She just has this concept of attention, man. Her example that she writes in her journal is just like, when you're talking to somebody, you can approach that conversation and filter every bit of it through this idea that like, "What, what use is this person serving to me?" Everything that they say, if I'm looking for similarities, it's just so far as it's commensurate with the way that I already look at things.

    17. TFTim Ferriss52:11

        Yeah.

    18. SWStephen West52:12

        What can this person do for me? That this conversation's boring to me. It doesn't... Or there's a way to not filter the person through all of your own agendas and projects, but just to see them as they are. It's, it, it's like a self-emptying. It's like a kenotic. You just try to receive them on their own home ground as much as you possibly can.

    19. TFTim Ferriss52:29

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SWStephen West52:29

        And it's a totally different framing, and it literally changed my life when I first read about it. So yeah, that's something I would write down.

    21. TFTim Ferriss52:35

        Okay, let's talk more about that, the self-emptying. Was it a particular phrasing or story that you read that hit you like a ton of bricks? Was it then trying to use it in your life? Can you say more about how it was impactful?

    22. SWStephen West52:51

        Sure. It was not a special story that she told. Again, like most of her writing in particular, she never intended for it to be published. It was just personal journals. But it hit me like a ton of bricks because I was realizing at that time that I had very narcissistic tendencies, as a lot of people do in the modern world. I just think when we don't have gods to worship and, like, external rituals to follow-

    23. TFTim Ferriss53:11

        Yeah

    24. SWStephen West53:12

        ... you just end up worshiping at the altar of yourself oftentimes.

    25. TFTim Ferriss53:14

        Yeah.

    26. SWStephen West53:15

        And narcissism is like a default that you can sort of fall into if you're not careful about it or aware of it. So when she said this, though, and I was just, "Oh my God, that's exactly what I'm doing." I mean, I was like 25 or something at the time, and then it really didn't hit me fully until I was like 32, just how much every encounter that I'm having is just framing people in the world in terms of what it can do for me-

    27. TFTim Ferriss53:36

        Mm

    28. SWStephen West53:36

        ... rather than for what purpose do I exist in this network around me.

    29. TFTim Ferriss53:39

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SWStephen West53:40

        And yeah, it was incredible.

23. 53:41 – 58:03

    Stephen's approach to simplicity and sacrificing efficiency for meaning.

    1. TFTim Ferriss53:41

       Maybe looking at, I don't know if it would be too presumptive of me to say a reaction to that, but can you speak to your decision, if it is a decision, to have as small a digital footprint as possible? Is that a fair question?

    2. SWStephen West53:58

       It's fair.

    3. TFTim Ferriss53:58

       Yeah.

    4. SWStephen West53:58

       I think it's just a lack of talent. I think it's a-

    5. TFTim Ferriss54:00

       [laughs]

    6. SWStephen West54:01

       You know? I mean, generally speaking, that's, that's what's going on there. Nobody wants my footprints in their sand.

    7. TFTim Ferriss54:07

       There's gotta be more to it. There's gotta be more to it.

    8. SWStephen West54:10

       Is it?

    9. TFTim Ferriss54:10

       Yeah. I mean, you could be doing choreographed dances on TikTok if you wanted.

    10. SWStephen West54:14

        No, I couldn't.

    11. TFTim Ferriss54:15

        [laughs]

    12. SWStephen West54:15

        That's, that's where you're wrong, Tim. No. Look, people give me offers. I try to keep the grass cut, I guess. One element of it is I try to keep my life simple.

    13. TFTim Ferriss54:23

        Yeah.

    14. SWStephen West54:23

        I have my wife and kids, I have the show, and that's about it. I love it that way. I love being able to be fully present in these things and not have 10 things going on in my head.

    15. TFTim Ferriss54:34

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West54:34

        And the people that support the show make it possible for me to live a life that simple-

    17. TFTim Ferriss54:39

        Mm-hmm

    18. SWStephen West54:39

        ... and that focused. So I'm, yeah, just super grateful.

    19. TFTim Ferriss54:43

        What are things, if any, that you've Trained yourself to categorically say no to or be wary of in service of simplicity. Do you have-

    20. SWStephen West54:53

        Yeah

    21. TFTim Ferriss54:53

        ... certain rules for yourself?

    22. SWStephen West54:54

        Yeah, I mean, I really do sacrifice efficiency for meaning pretty often.

    23. TFTim Ferriss54:59

        Hmm.

    24. SWStephen West55:00

        Reading The 4-Hour Workweek was transformative for me, and it really put a fire underneath me to, like, find a way to come up with protocols to live my, my days by and everything like that, and I've done so many different productivity-type efficiency things over the years. But I just, in the last few years, I've just... I'll find myself burning out if I separate myself from the task. If, if I do things for efficiency, personally, and I also realize who I'm talking to here.

    25. TFTim Ferriss55:25

        [laughs]

    26. SWStephen West55:25

        I know the people that listen to this show are... I have so much respect for what you guys do and how you can be peak performers and all that stuff. It's just for me personally, I struggle with it.

    27. TFTim Ferriss55:35

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SWStephen West55:36

        I struggle when I'm giving myself, "Okay, the next four hours and, and then I'm gonna, like, meditate with Baby Yoda on top of a mountain, and then me and my cat are gonna record a podcast."

    29. TFTim Ferriss55:43

        Have you been watching my nanny cam? [laughs]

    30. SWStephen West55:46

        [laughs] No. It, so yeah, it's just I, I will sacrifice efficiency for meaning a lot of times, and it doesn't make me the most productive, but the way I justify it to myself is, like, it's a long play. I wanna still be doing this for my family in 20 years.
24. 58:03 – 59:56

    Valuing time and playing the long game.

    1. TFTim Ferriss58:03

       I think paradoxically perhaps, when you start to sacrifice efficiency for meaning, you make better long-term choices, like you were saying, in service of the long game.

    2. SWStephen West58:14

       Right.

    3. TFTim Ferriss58:14

       Right?

    4. SWStephen West58:15

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss58:15

       And to play the long game, at least as far as I can tell, really well, you have to know what game you're playing. [laughs]

    6. SWStephen West58:20

       Mm-hmm.

    7. TFTim Ferriss58:21

       Right? And all of that requires a level of introspection that you can rob yourself of if you are trying to operate in the red zone at 500 miles an hour in the name of efficiency.

    8. SWStephen West58:34

       Yeah. And I'm not saying don't be efficient, just make it a second or third order priority, you know?

    9. TFTim Ferriss58:38

       Yeah.

    10. SWStephen West58:38

        And with as much work as you've done learning efficiency techniques, I'd imagine you can't help but be efficient at a certain level when you do things, so it's just part of your sort of embodied world.

    11. TFTim Ferriss58:50

        I think there are, like, 10% of the things I do are default hyper-efficient, and then I think people would be disgusted and shocked if they were to [laughs]

    12. SWStephen West58:58

        Well, you heard it here

    13. TFTim Ferriss58:59

        ... have, have seen, like, the first half of my day-to-day. They'd be like, "What is he doing? He looks like a Roomba with bad software. Like, what is he doing in his house? I have no idea what's happening right now."

    14. SWStephen West59:07

        I ask the hard-hitting questions, Tim.

    15. TFTim Ferriss59:08

        Yeah, I know, I know.

    16. SWStephen West59:09

        You got me on this one.

    17. TFTim Ferriss59:09

        Didn't, didn't see this turn of events when I, when I was prepping for this conversation. But I do think more and more, I mean, who knows? Maybe that's the book in the future, but it'd take me too long to write, so I either need to get faster at writing or I need to find a better format. Maybe it's a podcast. Just the long game. What does it mean to play the long game?

    18. SWStephen West59:29

        Yeah.

    19. TFTim Ferriss59:29

        Right? Because I think in a reactive, modern, digitally saturated environment, it's very easy to get pulled into short games that are not of your own designing.

    20. SWStephen West59:44

        Yeah, and then to feel quasi-alienated from everything you're doing, like you're looking at yourself from the outside or something. For me, this is what I struggle with, right? So I don't struggle with it anymore, but I have to be conscious about this every day for that reason.

    21. TFTim Ferriss59:55

        Mm-hmm.

25. 59:56 – 1:02:22

    How philosophy lives "in the shadow" of what we give credit to (science, psychology).

    1. TFTim Ferriss59:56

       There are a couple of cues I have here related to exploratory bullets, things that we can dig into, and maybe we've already covered it, but at the risk of repetition, I have here the non-obvious way that engaging in philosophy helps us grow.

    2. SWStephen West1:00:12

       Right.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:00:12

       What is that?

    4. SWStephen West1:00:13

       I just think, as I said before, philosophy always lives in the shadow of the thing that we give credit to. There's many examples of this, and it's kind of related to a conversation of like, why would anybody even care about philosophy at all? It would definitely be something that I would think. We're already thinking about things the best we've ever thought about them before. Look at the sciences.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:00:31

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SWStephen West1:00:31

       Why do we need old men yelling at each other about unverifiable speculation every... Like, why do you need philosophy?

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:00:38

       Yeah.

    8. SWStephen West1:00:38

       And what that point misses is that philosophy is how we got to the point where we're looking at the world in the way we do now.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:00:45

       Hmm.

    10. SWStephen West1:00:46

        Some examples of this. I mean, Isaac Newton, big name in the sciences, apparently.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:00:50

        [laughs]

    12. SWStephen West1:00:50

        His big book is called Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, one of them.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:00:55

        Oh, yeah.

    14. SWStephen West1:00:55

        It, it has natural philosophy in the title. It's because the things he's talking about in that book, motion, optics, the relationship of particles, this was the domain of natural philosophy before Newton comes along and writes this landmark work, and then it becomes a specialized field. I mean, another example, psychology isn't a specialized discipline until the end of the 19th century. Before that, questions like identity and how we behave around other people, these are questions in the philosophy of mind, in ethics, in epistemology, depending on what background you come from. One more example, Adam Smith, Scottish Enlightenment, wrote The Wealth of Nations. It's like a cornerstone of modern capitalist thought. But he wasn't an economist at first. He was an ethical philosopher. He starts asking questions about what sort of lives do we want to guarantee for people? What is a good life? How do we treat other people? This is what then scales up into his conversations at the level of economics and then turns into capitalism. My point is, at any point along the way here, somebody could come along and say, "Why do we need these philosophers abstracting about, you know, the, the, the individual human mind or something like that, or how to treat each other? We're already thinking about things the best we ever have." And what I'm saying, this is the role of philosophy, is to ask questions that seem a little bit wonky to us living during this moment, but they will become the best practices of tomorrow, and this will always be going on, and it's still going on today. And it, it goes on in the lives of individuals and at the scale of conversations. We're trying to have better and better conversations.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:02:21

        So

26. 1:02:22 – 1:03:58

    The value of philosophy in generating better questions.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:02:23

       if we go and double-click on better conversations, I mean, what, what strikes me, at least as one of the benefits I've derived from reading philosophical works, and honestly, it could even be a novel with interesting questions, which is what I want to focus on, that we have developed incredible technology. We have this fantastic framework, scientific method, for principally not fooling ourselves, but testing hypotheses-

    2. SWStephen West1:02:54

       Mm-hmm

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:02:54

       ... right? Which may start as a question, but I don't find, and I'm happy to be disproven here, but that the scientific method itself helps people to generate better questions automatically.

    4. SWStephen West1:03:06

       Mm-hmm.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:03:06

       And at least as an adjunct, that philosophy, for me, has been fertile ground for finding good questions.

    6. SWStephen West1:03:16

       Yeah. And by the way, that goes on in every one of these specialized disciplines. The PH in PhD stands for philosophy for a reason. I mean-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:03:23

       Right

    8. SWStephen West1:03:23

       ... the highest level of abstraction in any field is going to be philosophy. If you're somebody well-educated in a field at the top of your field, in order to make progress in that field, you have to subvert the existing set of protocols and assumptions axiomatically that are going on in that field. To move the field forward-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:03:38

       Mm

    10. SWStephen West1:03:38

        ... you have to be doing philosophy. And science is wonderful, but it is compartmentalized and specialized and technical and all the things that it is when we're just talking about an experimental setting. But you're, I, I think you're right. I mean, anybody at the top of these fields has to be doing philosophy, and that extends to asking good questions in our lives to try to come up with new ways of seeing things.

27. 1:03:58 – 1:12:44

    Stephen's future plans: possibly writing philosophical fiction.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:03:58

       Mm-hmm. So I'm so curious. Since you are hoping to do this 10, 20 years from now in some form or fashion, how do you see it adapting? That may not even be the right word. Changing over time in terms of format. And there may not be a need to do that, and I, I feel like you, by choosing a very well-defined, narrow lane that had not been filled before, you actually have more existential health insurance for your podcast than most podcasts-

    2. SWStephen West1:04:36

       Hmm

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:04:36

       ... by being that focused. I very firmly believe that. You have much more anti-fragility built into it for surviving in an audio format.

    4. SWStephen West1:04:45

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:04:45

       Right? It's not the type of thing, especially given the duration, that I feel would be forced into video for discovery. Maybe there are benefits to be had, but it can be an option and not an obligation-

    6. SWStephen West1:04:57

       Right

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:04:57

       ... perhaps, for at least a period of time. How do you anticipate this could change over time? I mean, you mentioned the book projects. That's one way of kind of diversifying format, maybe opening new doors. But how are you thinking about playing the long game?

    8. SWStephen West1:05:14

       I mean, I'm not restricting myself to a plan, certainly. I think I'm just going to continue with what got me to the dance. I mean, I, I genuinely-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:05:23

       [laughs]

    10. SWStephen West1:05:23

        ... have just been listening to-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:05:25

        Yeah

    12. SWStephen West1:05:25

        ... people tell me what they want to hear about and showing up every day completely iterative, just trying to do it the best I possibly can. That will change.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:05:33

        Yeah.

    14. SWStephen West1:05:33

        But it won't be planned. I think that I'll just keep listening to the listeners and see what they want to do. I guess h- here's the, the heart of your question, maybe something you want. Like, I would like to write philosophical fiction at some point. I would like to not be, like, teaching philosophy forever. I would like to just incorporate philosophical ideas and maybe deliver it in a different way. So that's, that's like a outside possibility-

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:05:53

        I don't think so

    16. SWStephen West1:05:54

        ... if people are interested.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:05:54

        I don't think so. I'll be, I'll be like the shoutcaster.

    18. SWStephen West1:05:57

        Really?

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:05:57

        Oh, yeah.

    20. SWStephen West1:05:58

        Really?

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:05:58

        I don't think it's an outside-

    22. SWStephen West1:05:59

        Maybe this is the moment.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:06:00

        I don't think it's an-

    24. SWStephen West1:06:00

        Hold on.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:06:01

        Yeah, we have it recorded. [laughs]

    26. SWStephen West1:06:03

        Yeah.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:06:03

        I don't think that's an outside possibility at all.

    28. SWStephen West1:06:05

        Really?

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:06:05

        No.

    30. SWStephen West1:06:05

        You think people would enjoy hearing about these philosophical ideas delivered to them in fiction, as long as I'm a decent writer?
28. 1:12:44 – 1:15:29

    Stephen's billboard.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:12:44

       right. And this is one of the rapid fire questions, but it doesn't need to be a fast answer. It's just intended to be something that's fun to play with. So the billboard question, right? If there was a billboard, metaphorically speaking, you could put a message on, a quote, a word, a question, an image, anything at all just to convey it to mass numbers of people. What might you put on the billboard?

    2. SWStephen West1:13:09

       Geez, man. This is a great question because it's like the inverse of me.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:13:13

       [laughs]

    4. SWStephen West1:13:14

       The idea that wisdom can be distilled down into a single quote or, like, an idea or something, I mean, th- this is kind of the antithesis of what I'm... Like, it's a way of thinking wisdom. It's not a particular idea. But if I have to come up with one-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:13:26

       Good. Yeah

    6. SWStephen West1:13:27

       ...let's see. How about-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:13:27

       Great question, great question for you then

    8. SWStephen West1:13:28

       ...how about be the one that takes advice? How about that?

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:13:31

       Mm-hmm. I like that.

    10. SWStephen West1:13:32

        Like, I don't give advice because if a person is asking for advice, I mean, typically they're not the person that really takes the advice really.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:13:41

        [laughs]

    12. SWStephen West1:13:41

        It's almost always a waste of your time. But if you're the one that genuinely takes advice-

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:13:46

        Yeah

    14. SWStephen West1:13:46

        ...and it's ironically me giving you advice to be the one that takes advice, but if you can do that, if you can manage that, then you won't need advice here in, like, six months. You'll be the one giving it, right?

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:13:54

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West1:13:54

        So maybe that's what I'd put on the billboard.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:13:55

        So someone sees that. They're like, "You know what? I like the sound of that. I wanna be someone who takes advice." How might that manifest? Like, how might they change how they relate to people or the world or otherwise? Like, what, what might that look like?

    18. SWStephen West1:14:07

        Geez, I don't know. Man, they'd have to, like, really pay attention to the advice that's being given to them, and that would maybe come from just reading the world around them a bit better. I think advice comes not just from deliberate, like a motivational video on YouTube, but you just, the world around you is trying to tell you stuff all the time if you're paying attention to it. So maybe that goes along with it. Don't think of the world as just buildings and, and people walking around. You think of it as, like, education.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:14:30

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SWStephen West1:14:30

        Like, truly try to take things from moments and be open to them. It's maybe an important point here for, like, philosophy. It's like, like we were talking about before, it can turn into just this broad theoretical exercise that doesn't really change you at all and nobody really takes action. That's why I think any serious philosophy has to be coupled with openness and curiosity-

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:14:49

        Mm-hmm

    22. SWStephen West1:14:49

        ...and somebody willing to let the ideas impact them. And I just think education, like advice giving, people often relegate it to, like, a room, a classroom, with a teacher in front, and there's desks, and there's pencils and everything. But, like, if you strip away all the rules there and, like, re-territorialize it, I mean, education is constant. It's constantly going on. And so, yeah, I don't know. That's what I'd add to it.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:15:12

        Yeah. I dig it. Okay. So let's say as part of that, people are listening and they're like, "Hmm," and they're thinking to themselves, "You know what? I want to try this philosophy thing [laughs] that everybody's talking about."

    24. SWStephen West1:15:24

        It's a hit with the kids.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:15:25

        Yeah. [laughs] Exactly. You know, Minecraft and philosophy, it's all these kids talk

29. 1:15:29 – 1:18:09

    Recommendations for getting started with philosophy.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:15:29

       about these days.

    2. SWStephen West1:15:29

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:15:30

       So how does someone, or what advice might you have for someone who wants to find the right book to further explore-

    4. SWStephen West1:15:37

       Right

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:15:37

       ...what they're interested in or might find interesting within the very broad field of philosophy?

    6. SWStephen West1:15:41

       So I used to give overviews of philosophy and stuff like that. I don't do that anymore. I just think the book that's best for you is the one that you're gonna stick with. It's the one that's gonna get you the value proposition of studying philosophy, which is the one that you're gonna be the most interested in. So, like, look into your heart. Maybe go to the bathroom and, like, flip the lights on and off for a while and just stare at yourself in the mirror and really-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:16:01

       [laughs] That sounds so intense. [laughs]

    8. SWStephen West1:16:01

       ...really think about what you're interested in. And then when you find it, go to, I would say, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:16:09

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West1:16:09

        It's like Wikipedia on steroids. It's a free site, and it has an entry for basically anything out there. It's certainly not like the gospel. You shouldn't go there reading it and thinking you're an expert in the field. But it is a step up from Wikipedia because it cites academic sources. It's usually written by somebody from academia that has dedicated a good portion of their thought and life to-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:16:31

        Mm-hmm

    12. SWStephen West1:16:31

        ...this particular area. So it's a great place to start. That's what I would say. Start with a secondary source, meaning don't just go to Barnes & Noble, look at Being and Nothingness by Sartre on the, it's like 700 pages long, and just pull it off and start trying to read it. It's just, you're, you're, you're not gonna get much out of it. It's a great, a classic way to just be bored, I guess.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:16:51

        [laughs]

    14. SWStephen West1:16:51

        Like, like why would you ever do that? There, there's so much context about these thinkers and why they're even interested in the questions that they are.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:16:58

        Mm-hmm. So when you say secondary source, what you mean by that is someone who, uh, is, is commenting on the work.

    16. SWStephen West1:17:06

        Some expert that is trying to humanize this work, trying to make it available-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:17:10

        Mm-hmm

    18. SWStephen West1:17:10

        ...that maybe dedicated their whole life to studying them, but they're, they're talking about the work itself, giving you context, explaining the ideas, not in the language that a philosopher uses.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:17:19

        Mm-hmm.

    20. SWStephen West1:17:20

        So, um, I, I think that's massively helpful, and I don't know why anybody that's just starting out, which is what this e- example is for, would ever start with something other than a secondary source.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:17:28

        Mm-hmm. So I guess maybe an example of that for Stoicism would be certainly Ryan Holiday's work. He's right here nearby. He's 30 minutes away or so.

    22. SWStephen West1:17:36

        Nice.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:17:37

        Uh, Obstacles Away and so on, or On the, I think it's just called On the Good Life, William Irvine, I believe it is.

    24. SWStephen West1:17:43

        Yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:17:43

        Could be getting that wrong, but something along those lines, which then comments on Epictetus and so on, all of these figures associated-

    26. SWStephen West1:17:49

        Right. And after reading those books, those secondary sources, you read the originals, and you get much more out of them-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:17:54

        Yeah

    28. SWStephen West1:17:54

        ...because you know where they're coming from, right?

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:17:55

        Yeah. And you can wade through all of the [laughs] like astronomy and the sort of cosmological arguments and, and not throw the book away in, in anger and-

    30. SWStephen West1:18:07

        For sure. Yeah
30. 1:18:09 – 1:20:35

    Gilles Deleuze and concepts as machines.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:18:09

       Are there any really bizarre philosophers or philosophies, strange-

    2. SWStephen West1:18:14

       Yeah

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:18:14

       ...that, that you're like kind of into it, you know?

    4. SWStephen West1:18:17

       Yeah, like-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:18:17

       Like a philosophy kink. Is there any, like [laughs]

    6. SWStephen West1:18:19

       Yeah. There's, there's people that are deliberately bizarre to try to invite people to do more philosophy and do it in new ways. So a great example of this is a guy named Gilles Deleuze, who actually-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:18:30

       Oh

    8. SWStephen West1:18:30

       ...just died in the '90s.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:18:31

       How do you spell the last name?

    10. SWStephen West1:18:32

        D-E-L-E-U-Z-E.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:18:35

        Okay. Hmm. Got it. Mm-hmm.

    12. SWStephen West1:18:36

        So he's a great example of somebody that is trying, his, his philosophy is an invitation. The only reason I, I use the word bizarre is 'cause it would seem bizarre to somebody else that just doesn't really like thinking about philosophy or something. He, so most philosophers throughout history, if we can paint them into a broad category, think of concepts. Remember those, the, the ways we chop up and make sense of the world.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:18:56

        Right. Tree, love.

    14. SWStephen West1:18:56

        In terms of nouns. They think of them in terms of, like, a thing that exists statically. But I mean, Deleuze, to, to put this in extremely simple terms here, he, he just doesn't think anything has a fixed formal essence like that at all. Everything is constantly moving and changing, so there's no, we're, we're only setting ourselves up for, like, misunderstanding the world if we think about things in terms of fixed categories, snapshots of the world at all. So- Because of this, he thinks of the world mostly in terms of verbs, you could say. I mean, this is again a-

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:19:27

        Mm

    16. SWStephen West1:19:27

        ... big oversimplification of it, but, like, he doesn't even think in terms of concepts. He thinks in terms of machines. A tree is not a thing that exists out there in the woods. It, it is only a thing insofar as it connects to s- many other things that present a problem to us in some way for that tree. The tree is part of a process that's going on, an assemblage of things, a machine-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:19:46

        Mm-hmm

    18. SWStephen West1:19:47

        ... that is constantly moving and changing. And it can be used for a million different purposes by somebody, but the thing in itself doesn't really have a static, fixed identity at all. I mean, when you ask for a bizarre example of a philosopher's work, this is one that I love. Because it gets you to start thinking of reality in maybe entirely different ways. Like, what would reality be structured around adverbs, for example? It, it would just be the modulation of the way that things are arising or, or, or leaving.

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:20:14

        Quickly, cheaply, whatever.

    20. SWStephen West1:20:15

        Exactly.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:20:16

        Yeah.

    22. SWStephen West1:20:16

        What would that look like? It wouldn't be a machine. It would be like a song or something, or a poem, or...

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:20:20

        Mm.

    24. SWStephen West1:20:20

        I'm not even sure, but this is the point. This is philosophy right here.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:20:23

        Yeah.

    26. SWStephen West1:20:23

        It's just like, how do we look at the same things through a different framing and then get exciting new ways of looking at the world, new possibilities for us on the other side of it? So-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:20:32

        Mm

    28. SWStephen West1:20:32

        ... Deleuze is perfect for that, I think.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:20:34

        Great. Thank you.

31. 1:20:35 – 1:24:38

    Why do we believe what we believe?

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:20:36

       One of the big, uh, questions on your show, I believe, please fact-check me brutally if need be, but is in essence, why do you believe what you believe? Right? Is that fair to say?

    2. SWStephen West1:20:48

       Sure, yeah. I mean, certainly at the beginning of the show, yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:20:50

       Yeah.

    4. SWStephen West1:20:50

       Yeah.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:20:50

       So can you unpack that for us? Like, how does someone begin to attempt to answer that? Or are there toolkits that you would recommend for someone who wants to try to engage with that question? Why do you believe what you believe? Like, like why, why this question at all, I suppose, is where we could start.

    6. SWStephen West1:21:11

       Yeah, I think that was something towards the beginning of my show because I just find the question personally to be unanswerable-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:21:17

       Mm-hmm

    8. SWStephen West1:21:17

       ... the, like, older that I get. I don't think we're in the best place to know why we believe the stuff that we believe. We just come up with rational narratives after the fact that sound good to us, I think.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:21:26

       Yeah.

    10. SWStephen West1:21:26

        That's more how I see it. But yeah, I mean, I'm telling you, if you wanna be more self-aware of your beliefs, the, the key is to do this very philosophical exercise we, we've been talking about. Take a concept that is seemingly well-known, that everybody has thoughts on, and just shake it up. Like, love is one that I use on the show a lot because it's so common. Love, justice, freedom, these are things, like concepts that basically everybody has thoughts on.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:21:51

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SWStephen West1:21:51

        I mean, love, what's a common way of thinking about love? Love is, is a, a thing that happens to you.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:21:57

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SWStephen West1:21:57

        It's not a choice that I made. Like, I was just around this person and then I fell in love with them. That's how I go from this liking somebody to loving somebody. What is that transition? Well, it just happened to me. I fell in love. That's how it happened. Then somebody else can come along and say, "No, love for me is a choice that I make. It, it's a set of conditions. I choose to love someone, and it's when they meet these criteria. It's when they make a certain amount, it's when they look a certain way. These are secondary things, but really it's that they provide some kind of emotional service for me."

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:22:27

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West1:22:27

        "That's when I know I love someone, is when, you know, my Starbucks order can be messed up and I get a little testy when they don't put the extra shot inside of it, and so the person I love is gonna be there for me and submit to me and make me feel good about it." But then a philosopher might come along and just shake those things up. It's not something that happens to you. It's not a set of conditions. Love is something more unconditional, they might say. They might say love is a verb, not a noun. It is a commitment, an active commitment to a little slice of the universe in a person, that I'm going to affirm them exactly as they are.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:22:56

        Mm.

    18. SWStephen West1:22:56

        I'm not gonna idealize them. I'm not gonna demonize them. I'm not gonna make excuses for them, rationalize them in some way. I'm just gonna look at them and try to receive them on their own home ground, that this is the essence of love. Now, even if you disagree with that, that's just... First of all, that's one of thousands of different ways a philosopher might shake up love and try to get you to think about it in a new way. I mean, even if you disagree with that, you have to defend your position on what love is. You're already doing philosophy-

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:23:19

        Mm

    20. SWStephen West1:23:19

        ... and it's valuable. It makes you have to come back to your core principles and, and d- define them and d- defend them in a way that's, I think, good for the world. And there's also an outside chance you hear that from the philosopher and it changes the whole way you see every relationship in your life.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:23:33

        Mm-hmm.

    22. SWStephen West1:23:34

        You'll hear a philosopher talk about, like, the philosophy of language or something. They'll, they'll talk about, like, what does it mean to mean something, or something like that. And, and rightfully so, everybody looks at that and cringes, and it's just like, why would anybody be thinking about that?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:23:46

        [laughs]

    24. SWStephen West1:23:47

        But I just think to do it with these well-known concepts, to read the thinking of people that are trying to stir up these, these, like, rigid definitions and get you to see the world in a new conceptual tracing, massively valuable. I mean, people that send me emails will say they feel like they've lived 10 lifetimes in the amount of time they used to live one because, you know, with the love example, they, they might go through five relationships, get their heart broken five times before they think about love in this new way and, and-

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:24:12

        Mm

    26. SWStephen West1:24:12

        ... try to create a new tracing of it. So-

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:24:14

        Mm

    28. SWStephen West1:24:14

        ... anyway, why we believe what we believe, I think comes from just engaging in that process more.

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:24:20

        Let's do a callback to the, the New Atheists. Sam Harris-

    30. SWStephen West1:24:24

        Yeah
32. 1:24:38 – 1:26:13

    Stephen's evolving relationship with religion after starting as a New Atheist.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:24:38

       And now you're looking at, if I remember correctly, sort of the maybe intersections or comparisons between philosophy and religion.

    2. SWStephen West1:24:47

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:24:48

       Where do you personally sit with religion now?

    4. SWStephen West1:24:52

       Well, I'm not going to church every Sunday.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:24:54

       Yeah.

    6. SWStephen West1:24:54

       To the spirit of your question, do I believe in a god that is in the sky that has a moral dictate for me to follow that I'm going to get into the after... No.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:25:04

       Yeah.

    8. SWStephen West1:25:04

       No, I don't.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:25:04

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SWStephen West1:25:05

        But I will say this, the older that I get, the more I realize that most of the people that I respect talking about theol- most of the high-level theologians and philosophers that talk about these issues don't believe in a god like that either.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:25:15

        Yeah.

    12. SWStephen West1:25:15

        This is almost like a dramatized version of a god that speaks to people when, you know, they're, they're just being people. They got kids. They got a job to go to. They don't got time to sit around and read philosophy and religion all day long. Like, you, you need a story that's going to relate to them, and, and- It guides them to wisdom that's written into it. I mean, I don't think that God needs to be anthropomorphic like that.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:25:38

        Yeah.

    14. SWStephen West1:25:38

        I mean, in this religious phenomenology thing, it's been much more along the lines of, like, Aquinas, where he just believes God is being itself or somewhere along these lines.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:25:45

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SWStephen West1:25:45

        It's, um, I mean, obviously a very complicated conversation to try to put into a summary form here.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:25:50

        [laughs]

    18. SWStephen West1:25:50

        But yeah, I am, I'm, I'm more and more interested with what-

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:25:54

        How would you answer that question on a billboard?

    20. SWStephen West1:25:55

        Right. [laughs]

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:25:56

        With three words.

    22. SWStephen West1:25:57

        One word. That's all you get.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:25:57

        [laughs]

    24. SWStephen West1:25:58

        No, yeah, for sure. It's tough. But yeah, I, I would say that I'm deeply fascinated in it-

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:26:02

        Mm-hmm

    26. SWStephen West1:26:03

        ... and humble.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:26:03

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SWStephen West1:26:03

        Like, humbly reading these thinkers and genuinely opening myself to trying to understand what, what's being said deeper. And that's all I can do really, I think.

33. 1:26:13 – 1:31:36

    Exploring mysticism and religious phenomenology.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:26:13

       So I suppose if I were to improve upon my question or add a little more context, I suppose what I'm wondering, because I used to also be on, I would say, the militant atheist side of things.

    2. SWStephen West1:26:24

       Mm-hmm.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:26:24

       In part because of a friend of mine, a very, very close friend, one of my closest friends, was sort of weaponized within a very militant church-

    4. SWStephen West1:26:33

       Right

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:26:33

       ... uh, during a very vulnerable time in his life. And so I took it upon myself to try to rescue him from that situation. Did not work. But in the process of trying to arm myself with the right tools, I read all the books, right?

    6. SWStephen West1:26:47

       Right.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:26:47

       And I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna read Bertrand Russell. I'm gonna read this. I'm gonna read Dawkins."

    8. SWStephen West1:26:50

       Nice.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:26:51

       "Da, da, da, da. I'm gonna gather the Avengers of the [laughs] sort of ath- atheist world or the f- the four horsemen of the atheist apologists, depending on who you ask, and I'm gonna go in with all the arguments."

    10. SWStephen West1:27:04

        Mm.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:27:05

        And ultimately, didn't really work. I also realized that religion for him at that point was actually a really important lifeline/raft that he needed in a life of incredible instability at that point in time. So I, I, I didn't end up pressing it. But then over time... Well, I don't wanna make this, uh, like some kind of TED Talk for me right now. But the question for you is, uh, you know, I've softened around those edges a lot, and I'm wondering if in your reading of philosophy, if you've come across writings from people who might be described as mystics, people who've had these direct experiences, uh, with different labels, revelatory experiences, divine experiences, whatever they might be, or who struggle to define something. And again, maybe they use terms that you've learned to see as symbolic, right? Much like the rap music, right?

    12. SWStephen West1:28:03

        Mm-hmm.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:28:03

        Or, or basically you wouldn't use the same words, but you feel like you understand the intention behind them, where you're, you're glancing across their descriptions of the numinous and that's affected you in some way. That is what on some level has happened to me through a few different channels.

    14. SWStephen West1:28:23

        You've read the mystics?

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:28:25

        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    16. SWStephen West1:28:25

        Of like Dogen and-

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:28:25

        I mean, I've never looked... Yeah, I do read a lot related to whether it's Sufism or-

    18. SWStephen West1:28:31

        Right

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:28:31

        ... could be in the Christian traditions for sure. It could be any number. The team, so to speak, doesn't matter as much to me-

    20. SWStephen West1:28:41

        Yeah

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:28:41

        ... as clear, lucid description of what they feel was a direct encounter with something that is, I don't wanna use this word, but it's as good as any right now, like divine or-

    22. SWStephen West1:28:58

        Right

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:28:59

        ... both accessible and perhaps, like, ubiquitous and everywhere, while at the same time being or feeling hidden to most people, right? Something like that.

    24. SWStephen West1:29:10

        Yeah. It's not like you've argued a set of theoretical abstractions, come up with a philosophical system, and arrived at a divine. It's like you strip away something. It's, it's eminent. It's always sort of there, right?

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:29:20

        Yeah.

    26. SWStephen West1:29:20

        And various different types of self-emptying, where just through a practice you can feel communion with the stuff around you at a level that's just extreme. Yeah, I mean, this is what we've been talking about on the show recently. It's fascinating to me the, the, like, limitations of philosophy there.

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:29:36

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SWStephen West1:29:37

        Where there are aspects of the human experience that cannot be put into abstractions. Yeah, it's dope, man. I'm super fascinated by it myself and-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:29:45

        Mm-hmm

    30. SWStephen West1:29:45

        ... uh, excited to keep going deeper into these waters.
34. 1:31:36 – 1:34:03

    Parting thoughts.

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:31:36

       Well, I look forward to more episodes.

    2. SWStephen West1:31:38

       Definitely.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:31:39

       And, uh, Stephen, we covered a lot of ground. Is there anything else you'd like to say? Anything we haven't covered? Any closing comments, requests from my audience? Anything you'd like to point them to? Certainly, they can find you at philosophizethis.org. On Patreon, they can find you very easily, Philosophize This! On X, I am StephenWest, that's with a P-H, Stephen West. YouTube, @philosophizethispodcast. Anything at all that you'd like to say before we wind to a close?

    4. SWStephen West1:32:12

       I guess I would just say thank you for being patient with me and, uh, y- you know, I get going in my head talking about philosophy. I don't get to have conversations this deep about philosophy with very many people. I'm mostly around my wife and kids who want nothing to do with those sorts-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:32:26

       [laughs]

    6. SWStephen West1:32:26

       ... of things. So thank you for giving me a forum, and if I was a little too speedy talking through this stuff, I apologize, but just send me an email if you have any further questions, anybody. Um, thank you. For, for you, man. Thank you for, uh, the sacrifice over the years, for doing something, um, when you coulda just sat around and did nothing with, with your life. Like, you, you did something, and that sacrifice literally opened possibilities for me that-

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:32:52

       Mm

    8. SWStephen West1:32:52

       ... land me here in this beautiful place. So thank you-

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:32:55

       Aw

    10. SWStephen West1:32:55

        ... very much.

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:32:55

        Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. And, uh, I love doing it. I mean, this is, how did I end up with this as a job, right? [laughs]

    12. SWStephen West1:33:02

        Yeah, definitely.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:33:02

        And I am very excited for more episodes. People, check out Philosophize This! It's so relatable. It is so easily digested. Give it a shot. You will not regret it. And I'm also very excited about your book adventures, so we, we may offline chat more about that.

    14. SWStephen West1:33:21

        Definitely, yeah. Thank you.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:33:22

        So to be continued. And to everybody listening, we will link to everything that we discussed in the show notes, as per usual, tim.blog/podcast. If you search West, I think you may be the only West I've interviewed, so Stephen West with a P-H.

    16. SWStephen West1:33:37

        You haven't gotten Kanye?

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:33:39

        [laughs]

    18. SWStephen West1:33:40

        Kanye hasn't been on this show?

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:33:40

        He's not returning my texts.

    20. SWStephen West1:33:42

        Ah.

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:33:42

        I don't know. He's very unpredictable. [laughs]

    22. SWStephen West1:33:44

        Why'd I even come?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:33:46

        And until next time, as always, everybody, be just a bit kinder than is necessary, not only to others, but to yourself as well. If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete, as Jack Kornfield would say. And also, as always, thanks for tuning in. See you next time.

Episode duration: 1:34:13