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Transcription complète d'Andrew Huberman sur le podcast Lex Friedman par@videoman
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Transcription complète d'Andrew Huberman sur le podcast Lex Friedman

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Video Man

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i'm a man i'm a man i'm a video man...

1 min read2023/08/29
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Andrew Huberman est neuroscientifique à Stanford et animateur du podcast Huberman Lab. Voici la vidéo et la transcription complète d'Andrew Huberman sur le podcast Lex Friedman.
featured image - Transcription complète d'Andrew Huberman sur le podcast Lex Friedman
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Video Man

Video Man

@videoman

i'm a man i'm a man i'm a video man


- Listen, when it comesto romantic relationships,

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if it's not a hundred percent in you,

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it ain't happening.

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And I've never seen

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a violation of that statement

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where it's like, yeah, it'smostly good and they're this,

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and this is like the negotiations.

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Well, already you're, it's doomed.

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And that doesn't meansomeone has to be perfect,

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the relationship has to be perfect.

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But it's gotta feel ahundred percent inside.

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Like, yes, yes, and yes.

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- The following is aconversation with my dear friend,

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Andrew Huberman, his fourthtime on this podcast.

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It's my birthday.

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So this is a specialbirthday episode of sorts.

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Andrew flew down to Austin justto wish me a happy birthday,

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and we decided to doa podcast last second.

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We literally talked for hours beforehand

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and a long time after,late into the night.

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He's one of my favorite humanbeings, brilliant scientist,

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incredible teacher, and a loyal friend.

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I'm grateful for Andrew.

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I'm grateful for good friends,

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for all the support and love I've gotten

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over the past few years.

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I'm truly grateful for this life.

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For the years, the days, the minutes,

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the seconds I've gotten to live

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on this beautiful earth of ours.

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I really don't want to leave just yet.

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I think I'd really like to stick around.

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I love you all.

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This is the "Lex Fridman Podcast."

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And now, dear friends,here's Andrew Huberman.

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- I'm trying to

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run a little bit more.

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- Are you losing weight?

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- I'm not trying to lose weight,

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but I always do the same fitness routine

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after like 30 years, basically,

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lift three days a week,run three days a week.

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But one of the runs is a longrun, one of 'em is medium,

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one of 'em is a sprint-type thing.

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So what I've decided to dothis year was just extend

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the duration for the long run.

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And I like being a mobile.

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I never wanna be soheavy that I can't move.

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Like I wanna be able to go out

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and run 10 miles if I have to.

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So sometimes I do.

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And I wanna be able tosprint if I have to.

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So sometimes I do.

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And lifting an objects, feels good.

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It feels good to train like a lazy bear

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and just lift heavy objects.

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But I've also startedtraining with lighter weights

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and higher repetitions,

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and for three month cycles,

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and it gives your joints a rest.

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And yeah, so probably, you know,

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I think it also is interesting to see

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how training differentlychanges your cognition.

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That's probably hormone-related,

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you know, that hormonesdownstream of training heavy

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versus hormones downstream oftraining a little bit lighter.

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I think my cognition is betterwhen I'm doing more cardio

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and when the repetition rangesare a little bit higher,

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which is not to say thatpeople who lift heavy are dumb,

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but there is a...

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'cause there's realvalue in lifting heavy.

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- There's a lot of angrypeople listening to

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this right now.- No, no, no.

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But lifting heavy and thentaking 3 to 5 minutes rest

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is far and away a different challenge

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than running hard for 90 minutes.

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That's a tough thing.

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Just like getting in anice bath, people say,

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"Oh, well, how is that anydifferent than working out?"

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Well, there are a lot of differences,

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but one of 'em is thatit's very acute stress,

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within one second you're stressed.

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So I think subjecting the body to a bunch

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of different types ofstressors in space and time

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is really valuable.

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So yeah, I've beenplaying with the variables

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in a pre-systematic way.

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- Well, I like long and slow

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for, like you said, theimpact it has on my cognition.

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- Yeah, the wordlessness of it,

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the way it puts you in a,

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the way it seems to clean out the clutter.

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You know, it can take away that hyperfocus

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and put you more in arelaxed focus, for sure.

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- Well, for me, it brings the clutter

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to the surface at first.

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Like, all these thoughts come in there

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and then they dissipate.

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You know, I've been,

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because I got knee barred pretty hard,

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that's when somebodytries to break your knee,

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you know?- That's Jiu-jitsu.

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They try and break your knee?

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Oh, so you tap, so they...

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- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So it's, you know, hyperextend the knee

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at that direction, they gotknee barred pretty hard.

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So in ways I don't understand,it kinda hurts to run.

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I don't understand what'shappening behind there.

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I need to investigate this.

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It basically, this, the hamstringing flex,

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like curling your leg hurts a little bit.

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And that results in this weird, dull,

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but sometimes extremely sharppain in the back of the knee.

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So I'm working through this, anyway,

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but walking doesn't hurt.

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So I've been playing aroundwith walking recently,

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like for two hours and thinking-

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- I love that.- because I know

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a lot of like smartpeople throughout history.

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I have walked and thought,and you have to like,

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you know, play with thingsthat have worked for others.

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Not just to exercise,

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but to like integrate this very light

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kind of prolonged exerciseinto a productive life.

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So they do all theirthinking while they walk.

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It's like a meditative type of walking.

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And it's really interesting.

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It really works.

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- Yeah, the practice I've beendoing a lot more of lately

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is I walk while reading a book,

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in the yard, I'll just pace back and forth

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or walk in a circle.

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- [Lex] Audiobook

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or are you talking about-- No, hard copy.

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- [Lex] Well, you're just holding-

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- I'm holding the book andI'm walking and I'm reading.

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And I usually have apen and I'm underlining,

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I have this whole system,

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like underlining stars,exclamation points,

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goes back to university ofwhat things I'll go back to,

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which things I export tonotes and that kind of thing.

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But from the beginning whenI opened my lab at that time

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in San Diego before Imoved back to Stanford,

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I would have meetings withmy students or postdocs

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by just walking in thefield behind the lab,

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you know, and I'd bringmy Bulldog, Costello.

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Bulldog Masttif at the time.

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And he was a slow walker.

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So these were slow walks,

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but I can think muchmore clearly that way.

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There's a Nobel Prize winning professor

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at Columbia University Schoolof Medicine, Richard Axel,

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who won the Nobel Prize, co-wonNobel Prize with Linda Buck

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for the discovery of themolecular basis of olfaction.

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And he walks and voicedictates his papers.

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And now with Rev or these other,

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maybe there are better ones than Rev,

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where you can convert audiofiles into text very quickly

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and then edit from there.

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So I will often voice dictate first drafts

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and things like that.

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And I totally agree on the long runs,

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the walks, the integratingthat with cognitive work,

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harder to do with sprints.

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And then the gym, you know,

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are you, you weight train?

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- Yeah.- You just seem naturally

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strong and like thicker jointed.

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- (chuckles)- It's true, it's true.

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I mean, we did the one very beginner.

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'cause I'm a very beginnerof jiu-jitsu class together.

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And yeah, as I mentioned then,what if people missed it?

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Lex is freakishly strong.

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- I think I was borngenetically to hug people.

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- [Andrew] Oh, like Costello.

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- Yeah, exactly.- You guys have

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a certain similarity.

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He had wrists, like, you know,

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it's like you and Jocko andCostello have these like wrists

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and elbows that are super thick, you know,

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and then when you look around,you see tremendous variation.

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You know, some people have likethe wrist width of a Whippet

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or Woody Allen, and thenother people like you or Jocko

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or, you know?

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There's this one Jocko videoor thing on GQ or something.

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Have you seen the comments on Jocko?

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These are the best.

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- [Lex] No. (chuckles)

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- The comments, I lovethe comments on YouTube

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'cause occasionally they're funny.

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The best is when Jocko was born,

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the doctor looked at hisparents and said, it's a man.

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(Lex laughs)

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- [Lex] It's like ChuckNorris type comments.

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- Oh yeah, those are great.

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That's what I miss aboutRogan being on YouTube

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with the full lengthepisode, oh, that comment.

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- So this is technicallya birthday podcast.

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What do you love most about getting older?

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- It's like, the confirmation

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that comes from getting more and more data

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that which basically says,

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yeah, the first timeyou thought that thing,

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it was actually right

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because the second, thirdand fourth and fifth time,

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it turned out the exact same way.

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In other words, there havebeen a few times in my life

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where I did not feel easyabout something I felt

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a signal from my body, this is not good.

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And I didn't trust it early on,

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but I knew it was there.

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And then two or threebad experiences later,

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I'm able to say, ah, every single time

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there was a signal from the body

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informing my mind, "this is not good."

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Now the reverse has also been true

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that there've been a number of instances

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in which I feel theresort of immediate delight.

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And there's this kindof almost astonishingly

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simple experience of feelingcomfortable with somebody

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or at peace with something,or delighted at an experience.

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And it turns out all,

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literally all of thoseexperiences and people

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turned out to be experiences and people

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that are still in my life

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and that I still delight in every day.

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In other words, what'sgreat about getting older

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is that you stop questioning

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the signals that come from the,

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I think, deeper recesses ofyour nervous system to say,

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Hey, this is not good, or hey,this is great, more of this.

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Whereas, I think in myteens, my 20s, my 30s,

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I'm 40, almost 48, I'll be 48 next month.

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I didn't trust, I didn't listen.

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I actually put a lot of workinto overriding those signals

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and learning to fight through them,

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thinking that somehowthat was making me tougher

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or somehow that was making me smarter.

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When in fact, in the end,

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those people that you meet that are,

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you know, difficult or you know,

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there are other names forit, you know, it's like,

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in the end you're like, thatperson's a piece of, you know?

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Or this person is amazingand they're really wonderful.

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And I felt that from go.

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- So you've learned to trust your gut

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versus like the influencesof other people's opinions.

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- I've learned to trust my gut versus

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the forebrain over analysis,overriding the gut.

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Other people often in my lifehave had great optics, right?

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I've benefited tremendouslyfrom an early age of being

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in a large community.

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Well, it's been mostly guys,

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but I have some close femalefriends and always have as well

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who will tell me thatthat's a bad decision

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or this person not so good, or be careful,

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or they're great, or that's great.

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So oftentimes my communityand the people around me

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have been more alignedwith the correct choice

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than not-- Christian, really?

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- Yes- Really?

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When you were younger, like,

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or like friends, parents and so on?

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- I don't recall ever reallylistening to my parents

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that much, you know, Igrew up in a, you know,

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we don't have to go backto my childhood thing,

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but my sense was that-- It's your fault, Andrew.

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- Thank you, I learned that recently

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in a psilocybin journey.

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My first high dose psilocybin journey,

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which was-- Welcome back.

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- done with a clinician,thank you very much.

[00:11:06] : [00:11:08]

Thank you.

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I was worried there fora second at one point,

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I might not coming back,

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but in any event, yeah, Igrew up with some wild kids.

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You know, I would sayabout a third of my friends

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from childhood are dead or in jail,

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about a third have gone on

[00:11:20] : [00:11:23]

to do tremendously impressive things.

[00:11:23] : [00:11:25]

Start companies, excellent athletes,

[00:11:25] : [00:11:28]

academics, scientists and clinicians.

[00:11:28] : [00:11:32]

And then about a thirdare living their lives

[00:11:32] : [00:11:34]

as kind of more typical.

[00:11:34] : [00:11:35]

I just mean, that they arehappy family people with jobs

[00:11:35] : [00:11:40]

that they mainly serve thefunction to make money.

[00:11:40] : [00:11:44]

They're not sort ofcareer into their career

[00:11:44] : [00:11:46]

for career's sake.

[00:11:46] : [00:11:47]

But, so some of my friendsearly on gave me some bad ideas,

[00:11:47] : [00:11:52]

but most of the time,my bad ideas came from

[00:11:52] : [00:11:57]

overriding the signalsthat I knew that my body,

[00:11:57] : [00:12:02]

and I would say my body andbrain were telling me to obey.

[00:12:02] : [00:12:07]

And now I say body and brain is that

[00:12:07] : [00:12:09]

there's this brain region, the insula,

[00:12:09] : [00:12:11]

which does many things,

[00:12:11] : [00:12:14]

but it represents oursense of internal sensation

[00:12:14] : [00:12:18]

and interoception.

[00:12:18] : [00:12:19]

And I was talking toPaul Conti about this,

[00:12:19] : [00:12:21]

you know, who as you know,I respect tremendously.

[00:12:21] : [00:12:24]

I think he's one of thesmartest people I've ever met,

[00:12:24] : [00:12:27]

I think for different reasons.

[00:12:27] : [00:12:28]

He and Marc Andreessenare some of the like,

[00:12:28] : [00:12:30]

smartest people I've ever met.

[00:12:30] : [00:12:32]

But Paul's level of insightinto the human psyche

[00:12:32] : [00:12:34]

is absolutely astounding.

[00:12:34] : [00:12:36]

And he says the oppositeof what most people say

[00:12:36] : [00:12:41]

about the brain, which is most people say,

[00:12:41] : [00:12:46]

oh, the supercomputer ofthe brain is the forebrain.

[00:12:46] : [00:12:48]

It's like a monkey brain

[00:12:48] : [00:12:49]

with a extra real estate put on there,

[00:12:49] : [00:12:51]

and the forebrain is what makes us human

[00:12:51] : [00:12:53]

and gives us our superpowers.

[00:12:53] : [00:12:57]

Paul has said,

[00:12:57] : [00:12:59]

and he's done a wholeseries on mental health

[00:12:59] : [00:13:02]

that's coming out fromour podcast in September.

[00:13:02] : [00:13:04]

So this is not an attempt to plug that,

[00:13:04] : [00:13:06]

but he'll elaborate on-

[00:13:06] : [00:13:07]

- Wait, Paul-- what I'm about to say.

[00:13:07] : [00:13:08]

- [Lex] Wait, you'redoing a thing with Paul

[00:13:08] : [00:13:09]

with the series?- We already did.

[00:13:09] : [00:13:10]

Yeah, so Paul-- Oh, nice.

[00:13:10] : [00:13:11]

- Yeah, so Paul Conti shot, we did,

[00:13:11] : [00:13:13]

he and I sat down and hedid a four episode series

[00:13:13] : [00:13:15]

on mental health.

[00:13:15] : [00:13:16]

This is not mental illness, mental health

[00:13:16] : [00:13:18]

about how to exploreone's own subconscious,

[00:13:18] : [00:13:20]

explore the self build andcultivate the generative drive.

[00:13:20] : [00:13:26]

You'll learn more aboutwhat that is from him.

[00:13:26] : [00:13:28]

He's far more eloquentand clearer than I am.

[00:13:28] : [00:13:31]

And he provides essentially

[00:13:31] : [00:13:34]

a set of steps to explore the self

[00:13:34] : [00:13:37]

that does not require thatyou work with a therapist.

[00:13:37] : [00:13:39]

This is self-explorationthat is rooted in psychiatry,

[00:13:39] : [00:13:44]

it's rooted in neuroscience.

[00:13:44] : [00:13:45]

And I don't think thisinformation exists anywhere else.

[00:13:45] : [00:13:48]

I'm not aware that itexists anywhere else.

[00:13:48] : [00:13:50]

And he essentially distills it all down

[00:13:50] : [00:13:52]

to one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet,which we provide for people.

[00:13:52] : [00:13:57]

And he says there,

[00:13:57] : [00:14:02]

I don't want to give too much away

[00:14:02] : [00:14:03]

because I would detract fromwhat he does so beautifully,

[00:14:03] : [00:14:05]

but if I tried and I wouldn'thave accomplish it anyway.

[00:14:05] : [00:14:08]

But he said, "And I believethat the subconscious

[00:14:08] : [00:14:13]

is the supercomputer of the brain.

[00:14:13] : [00:14:16]

All the stuff working underneathour conscious awareness

[00:14:16] : [00:14:18]

that's driving our feelings

[00:14:18] : [00:14:20]

and what we think are the decisions

[00:14:20] : [00:14:22]

that we've thought through so carefully.

[00:14:22] : [00:14:24]

And that only byexploring the subconscious

[00:14:24] : [00:14:27]

and understanding it a little bit,

[00:14:27] : [00:14:29]

can we actually improveourselves over time."

[00:14:29] : [00:14:34]

And I agree.

[00:14:34] : [00:14:35]

I think that, so that the mistake

[00:14:35] : [00:14:37]

is to think that thinkingcan override it all.

[00:14:37] : [00:14:40]

It's a certain style ofintrospection in thinking

[00:14:40] : [00:14:43]

that allows us to readthe signals from our body,

[00:14:43] : [00:14:47]

read the signals from our brain, integrate

[00:14:47] : [00:14:48]

the knowledge that we'recollecting about ourselves

[00:14:48] : [00:14:51]

and to use all that in waysthat are really adaptive,

[00:14:51] : [00:14:54]

and generative for us.

[00:14:54] : [00:14:56]

- What do you think isthere in that subconscious,

[00:14:56] : [00:14:58]

what do you think of theJungian shadow, what's there?

[00:14:58] : [00:15:03]

- You know, there's this idea,as you're familiar with too,

[00:15:03] : [00:15:05]

I'm sure that thisJungian idea that there,

[00:15:05] : [00:15:07]

we all have all things inside of us.

[00:15:07] : [00:15:09]

That all of us have thecapacity to be evil,

[00:15:09] : [00:15:11]

to be good, et cetera,

[00:15:11] : [00:15:12]

but that some peopleexpress one or the other

[00:15:12] : [00:15:15]

to a greater extent.

[00:15:15] : [00:15:16]

But he also mentioned thatthere's a unique category

[00:15:16] : [00:15:19]

of people, maybe 2 to 5% of people

[00:15:19] : [00:15:22]

that don't just have allthings inside of them,

[00:15:22] : [00:15:24]

but they actually spenda lot of time exploring

[00:15:24] : [00:15:27]

a lot of those things.

[00:15:27] : [00:15:28]

The darker recesses, theshadows, their own shadows.

[00:15:28] : [00:15:31]

You know, I'm somebody who's drawn

[00:15:31] : [00:15:36]

to goodness and to light, and to joy,

[00:15:36] : [00:15:38]

and all those things like anybody else.

[00:15:38] : [00:15:39]

But yeah, I think maybe itwas part of how I grew up.

[00:15:39] : [00:15:43]

Maybe it was the crowdI was with, maybe...

[00:15:43] : [00:15:46]

But then again, you know,

[00:15:46] : [00:15:47]

even when I started spendingmore time with academics

[00:15:47] : [00:15:50]

and scientists, I mean,

[00:15:50] : [00:15:52]

you see shadows in other ways, right?

[00:15:52] : [00:15:54]

You see pure ambition with no passion.

[00:15:54] : [00:15:56]

I recall a colleague in San Diego

[00:15:56] : [00:16:00]

who, it was very clear to me,

[00:16:00] : [00:16:02]

did not actually care aboutunderstanding the brain,

[00:16:02] : [00:16:05]

but understanding thebrain was just his avenue

[00:16:05] : [00:16:07]

to exercise ambition.

[00:16:07] : [00:16:10]

And if you gave himsomething else to work on,

[00:16:10] : [00:16:11]

he'd work on that, in fact, he did.

[00:16:11] : [00:16:13]

He left and he worked on something else.

[00:16:13] : [00:16:14]

I realized he has no passion

[00:16:14] : [00:16:15]

for understanding the brain, like all,

[00:16:15] : [00:16:17]

I assumed all scientists do,certainly why I went into it.

[00:16:17] : [00:16:21]

But some people, it's just raw ambition.

[00:16:21] : [00:16:23]

It's about winning.

[00:16:23] : [00:16:24]

It doesn't even matter what they win.

[00:16:24] : [00:16:26]

It's to which to me is crazy.

[00:16:26] : [00:16:27]

But I think that's a shadowthat some people explore,

[00:16:27] : [00:16:30]

not one I've explored.

[00:16:30] : [00:16:32]

I think the shadow partsof us are very important

[00:16:32] : [00:16:34]

to come to understand and look,

[00:16:34] : [00:16:36]

better to understand themand know that they're there

[00:16:36] : [00:16:39]

and work with them than to notacknowledge their presence,

[00:16:39] : [00:16:44]

and have them surface in theform of addictions or behaviors

[00:16:44] : [00:16:48]

that damage us and other people.

[00:16:48] : [00:16:52]

- So one of the processesfor achieving mental health

[00:16:52] : [00:16:54]

is to bring those things to the surface.

[00:16:54] : [00:16:56]

So fish the subconscious mind.

[00:16:56] : [00:16:58]

- Yes, and you know,

[00:16:58] : [00:17:01]

Paul describes 10 cupboardsthat one can look into

[00:17:01] : [00:17:05]

for exploring the self.

[00:17:05] : [00:17:06]

There's the structure of selfand the function of self.

[00:17:06] : [00:17:08]

Again, this will all bespelled out in this series

[00:17:08] : [00:17:10]

in a lot of detail also interms of its relational aspect

[00:17:10] : [00:17:13]

between people, how to pick good partners

[00:17:13] : [00:17:16]

and good relations.

[00:17:16] : [00:17:17]

It gets really into this froma very different perspective.

[00:17:17] : [00:17:20]

Yeah, fascinating stuff.

[00:17:20] : [00:17:21]

I was just sitting there, just...

[00:17:21] : [00:17:23]

I will say this, that fourepisode series with Paul

[00:17:23] : [00:17:28]

is at least to date,the most important work

[00:17:28] : [00:17:31]

I've ever been involvedin, in all of my career.

[00:17:31] : [00:17:35]

Because it's very clearthat we are not taught

[00:17:35] : [00:17:38]

how to explore our subconscious.

[00:17:38] : [00:17:40]

And that very few people actuallyunderstand how to do that.

[00:17:40] : [00:17:42]

Even most psychiatrists,

[00:17:42] : [00:17:44]

he mentioned somethingabout psychiatrists.

[00:17:44] : [00:17:46]

You know, if you're acardiothoracic surgeon

[00:17:46] : [00:17:48]

or something like that and50% of your patients die,

[00:17:48] : [00:17:51]

you're considered a badcardiothoracic surgeon.

[00:17:51] : [00:17:53]

But with no disrespect to psychiatrists,

[00:17:53] : [00:17:56]

there are some excellentpsychiatrists out there.

[00:17:56] : [00:17:58]

There are also a lot of terriblepsychiatrists out there.

[00:17:58] : [00:18:01]

Because unless all of those,

[00:18:01] : [00:18:03]

all of their patients commitsuicide or half commit suicide,

[00:18:03] : [00:18:06]

they can treat for a long timewithout it becoming visible

[00:18:06] : [00:18:09]

that they're not so good at their craft.

[00:18:09] : [00:18:11]

Now he's superb at his craft.

[00:18:11] : [00:18:13]

And I think he would say that,yes, exploring some shadows,

[00:18:13] : [00:18:17]

but also just understanding the self.

[00:18:17] : [00:18:19]

Like what, you know,really understanding like,

[00:18:19] : [00:18:24]

who am I and what's important?

[00:18:24] : [00:18:26]

What are my ambitions?

[00:18:26] : [00:18:27]

What are my strivings?

[00:18:27] : [00:18:28]

Again, I'm lifting from some of the things

[00:18:28] : [00:18:30]

that he'll describeexactly how to do this.

[00:18:30] : [00:18:32]

People do not spend enough timeaddressing those questions.

[00:18:32] : [00:18:37]

And as a consequence,

[00:18:37] : [00:18:39]

they discover what residesin their subconscious

[00:18:39] : [00:18:43]

through the sometimesbad, hopefully also good,

[00:18:43] : [00:18:47]

but manifestations of their actions.

[00:18:47] : [00:18:50]

We are driven by this huge 90%

[00:18:50] : [00:18:54]

of our real estate that is not visible

[00:18:54] : [00:18:56]

to our conscious awareness.

[00:18:56] : [00:18:58]

And we need to understand that,

[00:18:58] : [00:19:01]

you know, I've talked about this before,

[00:19:01] : [00:19:02]

I've done therapy twicea week since I was a kid.

[00:19:02] : [00:19:04]

I had to, as a condition ofbeing let back in school,

[00:19:04] : [00:19:07]

I continue, I found a wayto either through insurance

[00:19:07] : [00:19:11]

or even when I didn't have insurance,

[00:19:11] : [00:19:12]

I took an extra job writingfor Thrasher Magazine

[00:19:12] : [00:19:14]

when I was a postdoc

[00:19:14] : [00:19:15]

so I could pay for therapy at a discount

[00:19:15] : [00:19:17]

'cause I didn't makemuch money as a postdoc.

[00:19:17] : [00:19:20]

I mean, I think for me,

[00:19:20] : [00:19:21]

it's as important as going to the gym.

[00:19:21] : [00:19:23]

And people think it's just, oh, you know,

[00:19:23] : [00:19:25]

ruminating on problemsor getting, no, no, no.

[00:19:25] : [00:19:27]

If you work with somebody really good,

[00:19:27] : [00:19:30]

they're forcing you to ask questions

[00:19:30] : [00:19:31]

about who you really are,what you really want.

[00:19:31] : [00:19:34]

It's not just about support,but there should be support,

[00:19:34] : [00:19:38]

there should be rapport,

[00:19:38] : [00:19:39]

but then it's also, thereshould be insight, right?

[00:19:39] : [00:19:43]

Most people who get therapy,they're getting support.

[00:19:43] : [00:19:45]

There's rapport,

[00:19:45] : [00:19:46]

but insight is not easy to arrive at.

[00:19:46] : [00:19:49]

And a really goodpsychologist or psychiatrist

[00:19:49] : [00:19:52]

can help you arrive at deep insights

[00:19:52] : [00:19:53]

that transform your entire life.

[00:19:53] : [00:19:56]

- Well, sometimes when I lookinside, and I do this often,

[00:19:56] : [00:20:00]

you know, exploring who you truly are,

[00:20:00] : [00:20:02]

you come to this question,

[00:20:02] : [00:20:04]

do I accept once you see parts,

[00:20:04] : [00:20:07]

do I accept this or do I fix this?

[00:20:07] : [00:20:11]

Is this who you are fundamentally,

[00:20:11] : [00:20:15]

and it will always be this way?

[00:20:15] : [00:20:17]

Or is this a problem to be fixed?

[00:20:17] : [00:20:19]

Like, for example, one of the things,

[00:20:19] : [00:20:23]

especially recently,

[00:20:23] : [00:20:23]

but in general over timeI've discovered about myself

[00:20:23] : [00:20:27]

probably has roots in childhood,

[00:20:27] : [00:20:29]

probably has roots in a lot of things,

[00:20:29] : [00:20:32]

is I deeply value loyalty

[00:20:32] : [00:20:34]

maybe more than the average person.

[00:20:34] : [00:20:39]

And so when there's disloyalty,it can be painful to me.

[00:20:39] : [00:20:43]

And so this is who I am, andso do I have to relax a bit?

[00:20:43] : [00:20:48]

Do I have to fix this part?Or is this who you are?

[00:20:48] : [00:20:51]

And there's a million,that's one like little...

[00:20:51] : [00:20:53]

- I think loyalty is agood thing to cling to,

[00:20:53] : [00:20:55]

provided that when loyalty is broken,

[00:20:55] : [00:20:58]

that it doesn't disrupt toomany other areas of your life.

[00:20:58] : [00:21:02]

But it spends also on who'sdisrupting that loyalty,

[00:21:02] : [00:21:05]

if it's a coworkerversus a romantic partner

[00:21:05] : [00:21:08]

versus your exclusive romantic partner,

[00:21:08] : [00:21:10]

depending on the structure

[00:21:10] : [00:21:11]

of your romantic partner life, you know,

[00:21:11] : [00:21:13]

I mean, I have always experienced extreme

[00:21:13] : [00:21:17]

joy and feelings of safety,

[00:21:17] : [00:21:24]

and trust in my friendships.

[00:21:24] : [00:21:27]

Again, mostly male friendships,

[00:21:27] : [00:21:29]

but female friendshipstoo, which is only to say

[00:21:29] : [00:21:30]

that they were mostly male friendships.

[00:21:30] : [00:21:32]

The female friendshipshave also been very loyal.

[00:21:32] : [00:21:35]

You know, so getting backstabbed

[00:21:35] : [00:21:38]

is not something I'm familiar with.

[00:21:38] : [00:21:40]

And yeah, I love being crude up, you know?

[00:21:40] : [00:21:44]

- Yeah, yeah, no, forsure and I'm with you,

[00:21:44] : [00:21:46]

and you know, you and I are very much

[00:21:46] : [00:21:48]

have the same values on this,

[00:21:48] : [00:21:50]

but you know, that's one little thing.

[00:21:50] : [00:21:51]

And then there's many other things,

[00:21:51] : [00:21:53]

like I'm extremely self-critical.

[00:21:53] : [00:21:55]

Then you look at my, you know,

[00:21:55] : [00:21:56]

I look at myself as, I'mregularly very self-critical,

[00:21:56] : [00:21:59]

there's a self-criticalengine in my brain.

[00:21:59] : [00:22:01]

And I talked to actually Paul about this,

[00:22:01] : [00:22:03]

I think on the podcast quite a bit.

[00:22:03] : [00:22:06]

And he's saying, thisis a really bad thing.

[00:22:06] : [00:22:08]

Like, you need to fix this.

[00:22:08] : [00:22:10]

You need to be able to beregularly very positive

[00:22:10] : [00:22:14]

about yourself.

[00:22:14] : [00:22:15]

And I kept disagreeing with him.

[00:22:15] : [00:22:16]

No, this is like who I am.

[00:22:16] : [00:22:19]

And he seems to work,

[00:22:19] : [00:22:20]

don't mess with a thing thatseems to be working, it's fine.

[00:22:20] : [00:22:23]

Like I oscillate betweenbeing really grateful

[00:22:23] : [00:22:25]

and really self-critical.

[00:22:25] : [00:22:27]

But then you have to likefigure out what is it,

[00:22:27] : [00:22:29]

maybe there's a deeper root thing.

[00:22:29] : [00:22:31]

Maybe there's an insecurityin there somewhere

[00:22:31] : [00:22:33]

that has to do with childhood

[00:22:33] : [00:22:35]

and then you're trying toprove something to somebody

[00:22:35] : [00:22:37]

from your childhood, this kind of thing.

[00:22:37] : [00:22:39]

- Well, a couple things thatI think are hopefully valuable

[00:22:39] : [00:22:42]

for people here.

[00:22:42] : [00:22:43]

One is

[00:22:43] : [00:22:44]

one way to destroy your life

[00:22:44] : [00:22:48]

is to spend time trying to control your

[00:22:48] : [00:22:51]

or somebody else's past.

[00:22:51] : [00:22:53]

So much of our destructive behavior

[00:22:53] : [00:22:57]

and thinking comes from wanting something

[00:22:57] : [00:23:00]

that we saw or did, orheard to not be true,

[00:23:00] : [00:23:04]

rather than really workingwith that and getting close

[00:23:04] : [00:23:08]

to what it really was.

[00:23:08] : [00:23:09]

And you know, sometimes thosethings are even traumatic

[00:23:09] : [00:23:11]

and we need to really get close to them

[00:23:11] : [00:23:13]

and for them to move through us.

[00:23:13] : [00:23:15]

And that, you know, thereare a bunch of different ways

[00:23:15] : [00:23:17]

to do that with supportfrom others and hopefully,

[00:23:17] : [00:23:20]

but sometimes on our own as well.

[00:23:20] : [00:23:23]

I don't think we canrewire our deep preferences

[00:23:23] : [00:23:26]

and what we find despicable or joyful.

[00:23:26] : [00:23:30]

I do think that

[00:23:30] : [00:23:31]

it's really a questionof what allows us peace.

[00:23:31] : [00:23:35]

Like, can you be at peace with the fact

[00:23:35] : [00:23:36]

that you're very self-critical

[00:23:36] : [00:23:38]

and enjoy that, get some distance from it,

[00:23:38] : [00:23:40]

have a sense of humor about it

[00:23:40] : [00:23:41]

or is it driving you in a way

[00:23:41] : [00:23:43]

that's keeping you awake at night

[00:23:43] : [00:23:44]

and forcing you back to thetable to do work in a way

[00:23:44] : [00:23:48]

that feels self-flagellatingand doesn't feel good.

[00:23:48] : [00:23:51]

You know, can you get thathumility and awareness

[00:23:51] : [00:23:55]

of how you're, you know,of your one's flaws?

[00:23:55] : [00:23:57]

And I think that can create, you know,

[00:23:57] : [00:24:00]

this word space sounds very new agey,

[00:24:00] : [00:24:02]

like get space from it.

[00:24:02] : [00:24:03]

It's, you know, you canhave a sense of humor

[00:24:03] : [00:24:04]

about how, you know,neurotic, we can all be,

[00:24:04] : [00:24:07]

I mean, you know, neurotic isn't actually

[00:24:07] : [00:24:10]

a bad term in the classicsense of the psychologists

[00:24:10] : [00:24:12]

and psychiatrists, the freudians.

[00:24:12] : [00:24:14]

So that, you know, the bestcase is to be neurotic,

[00:24:14] : [00:24:17]

to actually see one's ownissues and work with them.

[00:24:17] : [00:24:19]

Whereas psychotic is the other way to be,

[00:24:19] : [00:24:23]

which is obviously not good.

[00:24:23] : [00:24:24]

So I think the question whetheror not to work on something

[00:24:24] : [00:24:27]

or to just accept it as part of ourselves,

[00:24:27] : [00:24:31]

I think really depends

[00:24:31] : [00:24:33]

if we feel like it'sholding us back or not.

[00:24:33] : [00:24:36]

And I think you're asking perhapsthe most profound question

[00:24:36] : [00:24:39]

about being a human, which is,

[00:24:39] : [00:24:42]

you know, what do you do with your body?

[00:24:42] : [00:24:44]

What do you do with your mind?

[00:24:44] : [00:24:45]

I mean, it's also a question.

[00:24:45] : [00:24:47]

We started off talkingabout fitness a little bit.

[00:24:47] : [00:24:50]

We just, for whatever reason,

[00:24:50] : [00:24:51]

you know, do I need torun an ultra marathon?

[00:24:51] : [00:24:58]

I don't feel like I need to.

[00:24:58] : [00:24:59]

David Goggins does, and doesa whole lot more than that.

[00:24:59] : [00:25:04]

So that for him, that's important.

[00:25:04] : [00:25:06]

For me, it's not important to do that.

[00:25:06] : [00:25:08]

I don't think he does it justso he can run the ultras.

[00:25:08] : [00:25:11]

There's clearly somethingelse in there for him.

[00:25:11] : [00:25:13]

And guys like Cam Hanes

[00:25:13] : [00:25:14]

and tremendous respect for whatthey do and how they do it.

[00:25:14] : [00:25:19]

Does one need to make theirbody more muscular, stronger,

[00:25:19] : [00:25:24]

more endurance, more flexibility?

[00:25:24] : [00:25:27]

Do you need to read harder books?

[00:25:27] : [00:25:29]

Do you need to, I thinkdoing hard things feels good.

[00:25:29] : [00:25:33]

I think it, I know it feels good.

[00:25:33] : [00:25:35]

I know that the worst I feel,

[00:25:35] : [00:25:38]

the worst way to feel iswhen I'm procrastinating

[00:25:38] : [00:25:42]

and I don't do something.

[00:25:42] : [00:25:43]

And then whenever I dosomething and I complete it,

[00:25:43] : [00:25:44]

and I break through thatpoint where it was hard

[00:25:44] : [00:25:46]

and then I'm doing it,

[00:25:46] : [00:25:47]

at the end, I actuallyfeel like I was infused

[00:25:47] : [00:25:50]

with some sort of super chemical.

[00:25:50] : [00:25:52]

And who knows if it's probably a cocktail

[00:25:52] : [00:25:55]

of endogenously made chemicals.

[00:25:55] : [00:25:57]

But I think it is good to do hard things,

[00:25:57] : [00:25:59]

but you have to be carefulnot to destroy your body,

[00:25:59] : [00:26:02]

your mind in the process.

[00:26:02] : [00:26:03]

And I think it's about whetheror not you can achieve peace.

[00:26:03] : [00:26:07]

Can you sleep well at night?

[00:26:07] : [00:26:09]

Stress isn't bad if youcan sleep well at night.

[00:26:09] : [00:26:11]

You can be stressed all day,go, go, go, go, go, go, go,

[00:26:11] : [00:26:14]

and it'll optimize your focus.

[00:26:14] : [00:26:16]

But can you fall asleep andstay deeply asleep at night?

[00:26:16] : [00:26:19]

Being in a hard relationship.

[00:26:19] : [00:26:21]

Some people say, youknow, that's not good.

[00:26:21] : [00:26:24]

Other people like it.

[00:26:24] : [00:26:25]

Can you be at peace in that?

[00:26:25] : [00:26:27]

And I think we all, you know,

[00:26:27] : [00:26:30]

have different RPM that, you know,

[00:26:30] : [00:26:33]

we all kinda idle at different RPM

[00:26:33] : [00:26:34]

and some people are big mellow Costellos,

[00:26:34] : [00:26:38]

and others are kind of like, you know,

[00:26:38] : [00:26:39]

need more friction inorder to feel at peace.

[00:26:39] : [00:26:43]

But I think ultimately whatwe want is to feel at peace.

[00:26:43] : [00:26:47]

- Yeah, I've been throughsome really low points

[00:26:47] : [00:26:50]

over the past couple years and I think

[00:26:50] : [00:26:52]

the reason could be boiled down

[00:26:52] : [00:26:55]

to the fact that Ihaven't been able to find

[00:26:55] : [00:26:58]

a place of peace,

[00:26:58] : [00:26:59]

a place or people, or momentsthat give deep inner peace.

[00:26:59] : [00:27:05]

Yeah, you know,

[00:27:05] : [00:27:09]

and I think you put it really beautifully.

[00:27:09] : [00:27:13]

You have to figure out, given who you are,

[00:27:13] : [00:27:17]

the various characteristicsof your mind, all the things,

[00:27:17] : [00:27:21]

all the contents of the cupboards,

[00:27:21] : [00:27:22]

how to get space from it.

[00:27:22] : [00:27:25]

And ultimately, one goodrepresentation of that

[00:27:25] : [00:27:27]

is to be able to laugh at all of it.

[00:27:27] : [00:27:29]

Whatever's going on inside your mind

[00:27:29] : [00:27:32]

to be able to step backand just kinda chuckle

[00:27:32] : [00:27:33]

at the beauty and theabsurdity of the whole thing.

[00:27:33] : [00:27:36]

- Yeah, and keep going.

[00:27:36] : [00:27:38]

There's this beautiful, as I mentioned,

[00:27:38] : [00:27:40]

it seems like every podcast lately,

[00:27:40] : [00:27:42]

I'm a huge Rancid fan,

[00:27:42] : [00:27:44]

mostly 'cause I just thinkTim Armstrong's writing

[00:27:44] : [00:27:46]

is pure poetry and whether ornot you like the music or not,

[00:27:46] : [00:27:50]

you know, and he's written music

[00:27:50] : [00:27:51]

for a lot of other people too.

[00:27:51] : [00:27:53]

He's not, doesn't advertise that much

[00:27:53] : [00:27:55]

'cause he's humble, but-

[00:27:55] : [00:27:57]

- [Lex] And that by the way,I went to a show of theirs

[00:27:57] : [00:27:58]

like 20 years ago.- Oh yeah?

[00:27:58] : [00:27:59]

I'm gonna see them inBoston, September 18th.

[00:27:59] : [00:28:01]

I'm literally flying there for,

[00:28:01] : [00:28:04]

or I'll take the train up from New York.

[00:28:04] : [00:28:06]

I'm gonna meet a friend ofmine named Jim Thiebaud,

[00:28:06] : [00:28:08]

who's a big guy whoowns a lot of companies,

[00:28:08] : [00:28:10]

the skateboard industry.

[00:28:10] : [00:28:12]

We're meeting there likea couple little kids

[00:28:12] : [00:28:13]

to go see them play.

[00:28:13] : [00:28:15]

Amazing people, amazing music.

[00:28:15] : [00:28:18]

- Very intense.- Very intense,

[00:28:18] : [00:28:20]

but embodies all the different emotions.

[00:28:20] : [00:28:22]

That's why I love it, right?

[00:28:22] : [00:28:23]

They have some love songs,they have some hate songs,

[00:28:23] : [00:28:25]

they have some, but you know,

[00:28:25] : [00:28:26]

going back to what you said,I think there's a song,

[00:28:26] : [00:28:31]

the first song on theIndestructible album,

[00:28:31] : [00:28:33]

I think there's a,

[00:28:33] : [00:28:34]

it's sort of, he's justtalking about like shock

[00:28:34] : [00:28:37]

and disbelief of discoveringthings about people

[00:28:37] : [00:28:40]

that were close to you,

[00:28:40] : [00:28:41]

and, you know, I won't sing it,

[00:28:41] : [00:28:44]

but, you know, nor I wouldn't dare.

[00:28:44] : [00:28:46]

But there's this one lyricwhere that's really stuck

[00:28:46] : [00:28:50]

in my mind for ever sincethat album came out in 2003,

[00:28:50] : [00:28:54]

which is, you know, thatnothing's what it seems,

[00:28:54] : [00:28:59]

so I just sit here laughing,I'm gonna keep going on.

[00:28:59] : [00:29:02]

I can't get distracted.

[00:29:02] : [00:29:04]

There is this piece of like,you gotta learn how to push out

[00:29:04] : [00:29:06]

the disturbing stuffsometimes and go forward.

[00:29:06] : [00:29:10]

And I mean, I remember hearing that lyric

[00:29:10] : [00:29:12]

and then writing it down and, you know,

[00:29:12] : [00:29:15]

that was a time where myundergraduate advisor,

[00:29:15] : [00:29:17]

who was like a mentor and a father to me,

[00:29:17] : [00:29:20]

you know, blew his head off in the bathtub

[00:29:20] : [00:29:22]

like three weeks before.

[00:29:22] : [00:29:26]

And then my graduate advisor,

[00:29:26] : [00:29:27]

who I was working for at thattime, who I loved and adored,

[00:29:27] : [00:29:29]

was really like a mother to me.

[00:29:29] : [00:29:31]

I knew her when she waspregnant with her two kids died

[00:29:31] : [00:29:33]

at 50, breast cancer.

[00:29:33] : [00:29:35]

And then my postdoc advisor,you know, first day of work

[00:29:35] : [00:29:38]

at Stanford as a facultymember sitting across the table

[00:29:38] : [00:29:41]

like this from him, had a heartattack right in front of me,

[00:29:41] : [00:29:43]

died of pancreatic cancerat the end of 2017.

[00:29:43] : [00:29:45]

And I remember just thinking like,

[00:29:45] : [00:29:47]

you know, going back to thatsong lyric over and over, like,

[00:29:47] : [00:29:50]

and where people would, you know,

[00:29:50] : [00:29:52]

I haven't had many betrayals in life.

[00:29:52] : [00:29:53]

I've had a few, but just thinking like,

[00:29:53] : [00:29:55]

or seeing something or learning something

[00:29:55] : [00:29:57]

about something you just,like, you can't believe it.

[00:29:57] : [00:29:58]

And I mentioned thatlyric off that first song,

[00:29:58] : [00:30:03]

Indestructible on that album

[00:30:03] : [00:30:06]

because it's this like, justthe raw emotion of like,

[00:30:06] : [00:30:09]

I can't believe this, whatI just saw is so disturbing,

[00:30:09] : [00:30:14]

but I have to just keep going forward.

[00:30:14] : [00:30:17]

There are certain things thatwe really do need to push,

[00:30:17] : [00:30:20]

not just into our periphery,

[00:30:20] : [00:30:21]

but often to the gutter and keep going.

[00:30:21] : [00:30:23]

And that's a hard thingto learn how to do.

[00:30:23] : [00:30:26]

But if you're going to befunctional in life, you have to.

[00:30:26] : [00:30:29]

And actually just to get atthis issue of do I change

[00:30:29] : [00:30:32]

or do I embrace this aspect of self?

[00:30:32] : [00:30:34]

About six months, it was April

[00:30:34] : [00:30:38]

of this last year, I did some intense work

[00:30:38] : [00:30:43]

around some things that werereally challenging to me.

[00:30:43] : [00:30:46]

And I did it alone,

[00:30:46] : [00:30:47]

and it may have involved some medicine.

[00:30:47] : [00:30:50]

And I expected to get peace through this.

[00:30:50] : [00:30:53]

I was like, I'm gonna let go of it,

[00:30:53] : [00:30:55]

and I spent 11 hours justgetting more and more frustrated

[00:30:55] : [00:31:00]

and angry about this thingthat I was trying to resolve.

[00:31:00] : [00:31:02]

And I was so unbelievably disappointed

[00:31:02] : [00:31:06]

that I couldn't get that relief.

[00:31:06] : [00:31:07]

And I was like, what is this?

[00:31:07] : [00:31:08]

Like this is not howthis is supposed to work.

[00:31:08] : [00:31:11]

I'm supposed to be feel peace.

[00:31:11] : [00:31:13]

The clouds are supposed to lift.

[00:31:13] : [00:31:15]

And so a week went by

[00:31:15] : [00:31:16]

and then another half week went by,

[00:31:16] : [00:31:20]

and then someone whoseopinion I trust very much,

[00:31:20] : [00:31:23]

I explained this to them

[00:31:23] : [00:31:25]

because I was getting alittle concerned like,

[00:31:25] : [00:31:27]

what's going on? Thisis worse, not better.

[00:31:27] : [00:31:29]

And they said, "This is very simple.

[00:31:29] : [00:31:31]

You have a giant blind spot,

[00:31:31] : [00:31:34]

which is your sense of justice, Andrew,

[00:31:34] : [00:31:37]

and your sense of anger are linked

[00:31:37] : [00:31:40]

like an iron rod andyou need to relax it."

[00:31:40] : [00:31:44]

And as they said that, Ifelt the anger dissipate.

[00:31:44] : [00:31:48]

And so there was somethingthat I think is, it is true.

[00:31:48] : [00:31:50]

I have a very strong sense ofjustice and my sense of anger

[00:31:50] : [00:31:54]

then at least, was verystrongly linked to it.

[00:31:54] : [00:31:58]

So it's great to have asense of justice, right?

[00:31:58] : [00:32:00]

I hate to see people wronged.

[00:32:00] : [00:32:01]

I absolutely do.

[00:32:01] : [00:32:02]

And I'm human, I'm sure I'vewronged people in my life.

[00:32:02] : [00:32:04]

I know I have, they've told me,

[00:32:04] : [00:32:05]

I've tried to apologize andreconcile where possible,

[00:32:05] : [00:32:08]

still have a lot of work to do.

[00:32:08] : [00:32:09]

But where I see injustice,

[00:32:09] : [00:32:13]

it draws in my sense of anger in a way

[00:32:13] : [00:32:15]

that I think is just eating me up.

[00:32:15] : [00:32:18]

And, but it was only in hearing that link

[00:32:18] : [00:32:20]

that I wasn't aware of before,

[00:32:20] : [00:32:22]

it was in my subconscious, obviously.

[00:32:22] : [00:32:24]

Did I feel the relaxation?

[00:32:24] : [00:32:27]

It wasn't, there's noamount of plant medicine

[00:32:27] : [00:32:30]

or MDMA or any kind of, you know,

[00:32:30] : [00:32:34]

chemical you can take that's naturally

[00:32:34] : [00:32:36]

just going to dissipatewhat's hard for oneself.

[00:32:36] : [00:32:39]

It needs, if one embraces that

[00:32:39] : [00:32:41]

or if one chooses to do itthrough just talk therapy

[00:32:41] : [00:32:43]

or journaling, orfriends, or introspection,

[00:32:43] : [00:32:45]

or all of the above,

[00:32:45] : [00:32:46]

there needs to be anawareness of the things

[00:32:46] : [00:32:49]

that we're just not aware of.

[00:32:49] : [00:32:51]

So I think the answer to your question,

[00:32:51] : [00:32:52]

do you embrace or do you fightthese aspects of self is,

[00:32:52] : [00:32:56]

I think you get in your subconscious

[00:32:56] : [00:32:58]

through good work withsomebody skilled or,

[00:32:58] : [00:33:01]

and sometimes that involvesthe tools I just mentioned

[00:33:01] : [00:33:03]

in various combinations,and you figure it out.

[00:33:03] : [00:33:06]

You figure out if it's serving you.

[00:33:06] : [00:33:08]

Obviously, it was not bringing me peace.

[00:33:08] : [00:33:10]

It was undermining my sense of justice,

[00:33:10] : [00:33:13]

was undermining my sense of peace.

[00:33:13] : [00:33:15]

And so in understanding this link be...

[00:33:15] : [00:33:17]

Now, I would say that the,

[00:33:17] : [00:33:19]

in understanding this linkbetween justice and anger,

[00:33:19] : [00:33:21]

now, I think it's alittle bit more of like a,

[00:33:21] : [00:33:24]

you know, it's not likea Twizzler stick bendy,

[00:33:24] : [00:33:26]

but it's at least, it'snot like an iron rod.

[00:33:26] : [00:33:28]

Like, you know, when Isee somebody wronged,

[00:33:28] : [00:33:30]

I mean, it used to just like,(puffs) like immediately.

[00:33:30] : [00:33:33]

- But you're able to stepback now that's like to me,

[00:33:33] : [00:33:36]

the ultimate place to reach is laughter.

[00:33:36] : [00:33:41]

- I just sit here laughing.

[00:33:41] : [00:33:43]

Exactly, that's the lyric,I like, I can't believe it.

[00:33:43] : [00:33:46]

So I just sit here laughing like,

[00:33:46] : [00:33:48]

can't get distracted.

[00:33:48] : [00:33:50]

Just you at some point,

[00:33:50] : [00:33:52]

but the problem I think injust laughing at something,

[00:33:52] : [00:33:55]

like that gives you distance.

[00:33:55] : [00:33:57]

But the question is,

[00:33:57] : [00:33:58]

do you stop engagingwith it at that point?

[00:33:58] : [00:34:02]

Like, I experienced this,

[00:34:02] : [00:34:04]

I mean, recently, I gotto see how sometimes

[00:34:04] : [00:34:07]

I'll see something that's just like, what?

[00:34:07] : [00:34:09]

Like this is crazy so I just laugh,

[00:34:09] : [00:34:11]

but then I continue to engage in it

[00:34:11] : [00:34:13]

and it's taking me off course.

[00:34:13] : [00:34:15]

And so there is a place where,

[00:34:15] : [00:34:17]

you know, I mean, I realizethis is probably a kid show too,

[00:34:17] : [00:34:20]

so I want to keep it, you know, G-rated,

[00:34:20] : [00:34:22]

but at some point for certain things,

[00:34:22] : [00:34:24]

it makes sense to go, fuck that.

[00:34:24] : [00:34:27]

- But also laugh at yourselffor saying fuck that.

[00:34:27] : [00:34:31]

- Yeah, and then move on.

[00:34:31] : [00:34:32]

So the question is,

[00:34:32] : [00:34:33]

do you get stuck or do you move on, right?

[00:34:33] : [00:34:36]

- Sure, but like, there'sa lightness of being

[00:34:36] : [00:34:38]

that comes with laughter.

[00:34:38] : [00:34:39]

I mean, I've gotten...- Sure.

[00:34:39] : [00:34:40]

- Like, as you know, I spentthe day with Elon today.

[00:34:40] : [00:34:43]

He just gave me this burnt hair.

[00:34:43] : [00:34:45]

Do you know what this is?

[00:34:45] : [00:34:46]

- [Andrew] I have no idea.

[00:34:46] : [00:34:46]

- I'm sure there's actually,

[00:34:46] : [00:34:47]

there should be a Hubermanlab episode on this.

[00:34:47] : [00:34:50]

It's a cologne that's burnt hair.

[00:34:50] : [00:34:53]

- I see.- And it's like

[00:34:53] : [00:34:54]

supposedly a really intense smell.

[00:34:54] : [00:34:55]

And it is.- Give me a smell.

[00:34:55] : [00:34:56]

- [Lex] Do please, it's not gonna leave

[00:34:56] : [00:34:57]

your nose.- That's okay.

[00:34:57] : [00:34:58]

Well, that's okay, I'll take a gent...

[00:34:58] : [00:35:00]

I'll whiff it as if I were whiffing

[00:35:00] : [00:35:02]

a chemical in the lab.- You have to actually spray

[00:35:02] : [00:35:02]

it on yourself.

[00:35:02] : [00:35:03]

'cause I don't know if you can-

[00:35:03] : [00:35:04]

- So I'm reading an amazing book

[00:35:04] : [00:35:07]

called "An Immense World" by Ed Yong.

[00:35:07] : [00:35:09]

He won a Pulitzer for"We Contain Multitudes"

[00:35:09] : [00:35:11]

or something like that,

[00:35:11] : [00:35:12]

I think is the title of the other book.

[00:35:12] : [00:35:14]

And the first chapteris all about olfaction

[00:35:14] : [00:35:16]

and the incredible powerthat olfaction has.

[00:35:16] : [00:35:20]

That smells terrible.

[00:35:20] : [00:35:21]

I don't even-- And it doesn't leave you.

[00:35:21] : [00:35:24]

For those listening,

[00:35:24] : [00:35:25]

it doesn't quite smell terrible.

[00:35:25] : [00:35:27]

It's just intense and it stays with you.

[00:35:27] : [00:35:29]

This to me represents

[00:35:29] : [00:35:32]

like just laughing atthe absurdity of it all.

[00:35:32] : [00:35:35]

- So I have to ask, so youwere rolling jiu-jitsu?

[00:35:35] : [00:35:38]

- [Lex] Yeah, we'retraining jiu-jitsu, yeah.

[00:35:38] : [00:35:40]

- So is that fight between Elon

[00:35:40] : [00:35:42]

and Zuck actually gonna happen?

[00:35:42] : [00:35:45]

- I think Elon is a hugebeliever of this idea

[00:35:45] : [00:35:47]

of the most entertainingoutcomes is the most likely.

[00:35:47] : [00:35:51]

And he almost like,there's almost the sense

[00:35:51] : [00:35:56]

that there's not a freewill and the universe

[00:35:56] : [00:35:59]

has a kinda deterministicgravitational field pulling

[00:35:59] : [00:36:04]

towards the most fun and he'sjust a player in that game.

[00:36:04] : [00:36:09]

So from that perspective,

[00:36:09] : [00:36:10]

I think it seems like somethinglike that is inevitable.

[00:36:10] : [00:36:14]

- Like a little scrap in the parking lot

[00:36:14] : [00:36:16]

of a Facebook or something

[00:36:16] : [00:36:17]

like that.- Exactly.

[00:36:17] : [00:36:18]

- Sorry, Meta.- Yeah.

[00:36:18] : [00:36:19]

- But it looks likethey're training for real,

[00:36:19] : [00:36:21]

and Zuck has competed right in jiu-jitsu?

[00:36:21] : [00:36:23]

- So I think he isapproaching it as a sport.

[00:36:23] : [00:36:27]

Elon is approaching it as a spectacle.

[00:36:27] : [00:36:32]

And I mean, the way he talks about it,

[00:36:32] : [00:36:33]

he's a huge fan of history.

[00:36:33] : [00:36:35]

He talks about all thewarriors that have fought

[00:36:35] : [00:36:37]

throughout history.

[00:36:37] : [00:36:38]

If you look, he wants toreally do it at the Colosseum.

[00:36:38] : [00:36:41]

And you know, theColosseum is for 400 years,

[00:36:41] : [00:36:44]

there's so many, so muchgreat writing about this.

[00:36:44] : [00:36:47]

I think over 400,000 people have died

[00:36:47] : [00:36:50]

in the Colosseum, Gladiators.

[00:36:50] : [00:36:52]

So this is this historic placethat sheds so much blood,

[00:36:52] : [00:36:56]

so much fear, so much anticipationof battle, all of this.

[00:36:56] : [00:37:01]

So he loves this kinda spectacle.

[00:37:01] : [00:37:04]

And also, the meme of it,

[00:37:04] : [00:37:06]

the hilarious absurdity of it,

[00:37:06] : [00:37:08]

that two tech CEOs battling it out on sand

[00:37:08] : [00:37:12]

in a place where gladiatorsfought to the death

[00:37:12] : [00:37:16]

and then bears and lion ate prisoners

[00:37:16] : [00:37:19]

as part of the execution process.

[00:37:19] : [00:37:21]

- Well, it's also gonna be an instance

[00:37:21] : [00:37:23]

where Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk

[00:37:23] : [00:37:25]

gets to change bodily fluids.

[00:37:25] : [00:37:26]

If they bleed, there's onething's about fighting, you know?

[00:37:26] : [00:37:30]

I think it was in that book,

[00:37:30] : [00:37:31]

it's a great book "Fighter's Heart,"

[00:37:31] : [00:37:33]

where he talks about, youknow, the sort of the intimacy

[00:37:33] : [00:37:36]

of sparring.

[00:37:36] : [00:37:37]

I only rolled jiu-jitsu with you once,

[00:37:37] : [00:37:38]

but there was a periodof time where I boxed

[00:37:38] : [00:37:40]

and which I don't recommend.

[00:37:40] : [00:37:43]

I got hit, I hit some guysand definitely got hit back.

[00:37:43] : [00:37:46]

I'd spar on Wednesday nightswhen I lived on San Diego.

[00:37:46] : [00:37:50]

And you know, when you spar with somebody,

[00:37:50] : [00:37:54]

even if they hurt you,especially if they hurt you,

[00:37:54] : [00:37:56]

you know, you see that person afterwards

[00:37:56] : [00:37:59]

and there's an intimacy, right?

[00:37:59] : [00:38:01]

It was in that book "Fire'sHeart" where he explains,

[00:38:01] : [00:38:03]

you know, you're exchanging bodily fluids

[00:38:03] : [00:38:05]

with a stranger, right?

[00:38:05] : [00:38:06]

And you're in your primitive mind,

[00:38:06] : [00:38:11]

and so there's an intimacythere that persists, so.

[00:38:11] : [00:38:14]

- You go together through aprocess of fear, anxiety, like-

[00:38:14] : [00:38:18]

- Yeah, when they get you, you nod.

[00:38:18] : [00:38:19]

I mean, you watch somebody likecatch somebody if, you know,

[00:38:19] : [00:38:22]

not so much in professional fighting,

[00:38:22] : [00:38:23]

but if people are sparringthat they catch you,

[00:38:23] : [00:38:26]

you acknowledge that they caught you,

[00:38:26] : [00:38:27]

like you got me there.

[00:38:27] : [00:38:29]

- And on the flip side of that,

[00:38:29] : [00:38:31]

so we trained and then afterthat we played Diablo IV.

[00:38:31] : [00:38:34]

- [Andrew] I don't know what that is.

[00:38:34] : [00:38:36]

I don't play video games, sorry.

[00:38:36] : [00:38:37]

- But it's a video game.

[00:38:37] : [00:38:38]

So it's like, it's a, you know,

[00:38:38] : [00:38:40]

pretty intense combat in the video.

[00:38:40] : [00:38:43]

You know, you're fighting like demons and-

[00:38:43] : [00:38:45]

- Oh, okay.

[00:38:45] : [00:38:46]

The last video game I playedwas Mike Tyson's "Punch Out."

[00:38:46] : [00:38:48]

- [Lex] There, you go.

[00:38:48] : [00:38:49]

That's pretty close.- I met him recently,

[00:38:49] : [00:38:50]

went on his podcast.

[00:38:50] : [00:38:51]

- [Lex] You went, wait...

[00:38:51] : [00:38:52]

- It hasn't come out yet.- Oh, it hasn't come

[00:38:52] : [00:38:53]

out yet, okay.- Yeah.

[00:38:53] : [00:38:54]

Yeah, I asked Mike, his kids are great.

[00:38:54] : [00:38:57]

They came in and they're super smart kids.

[00:38:57] : [00:38:59]

Goodness gracious.

[00:38:59] : [00:39:00]

They ask great questions.

[00:39:00] : [00:39:02]

I asked Mike what he did withthe piece of a Evander's ear

[00:39:02] : [00:39:06]

that he bit off

[00:39:06] : [00:39:08]

and said-- Did he remember?

[00:39:08] : [00:39:09]

- He's like, gave itback to him. (chuckles)

[00:39:09] : [00:39:11]

- [Lex] There you go, sorry about that.

[00:39:11] : [00:39:14]

- He sells edibles thatare in the shape of ears

[00:39:14] : [00:39:16]

with a little bite out of it.

[00:39:16] : [00:39:18]

Yeah, his life has been incredible.

[00:39:18] : [00:39:21]

He's intimate.

[00:39:21] : [00:39:23]

Yeah, his family are,

[00:39:23] : [00:39:25]

you get the sense thatthey're really a great family.

[00:39:25] : [00:39:29]

They're really...- Mike Tyson?

[00:39:29] : [00:39:31]

That's a heck of a journeyright there of a man.

[00:39:31] : [00:39:33]

- Yeah, my now friend, Tim Armstrong,

[00:39:33] : [00:39:35]

like I said, lead singerfrom Rancid, he put it best.

[00:39:35] : [00:39:38]

He said, you know, thatMike Tyson's life is,

[00:39:38] : [00:39:40]

you know, Shakespearean

[00:39:40] : [00:39:42]

and you know, down, up, down, up.

[00:39:42] : [00:39:45]

And just that the arcsof his life are just like

[00:39:45] : [00:39:49]

sort of an only in Americakinda tale too, right?

[00:39:49] : [00:39:52]

- So, speaking of Shakespeare,

[00:39:52] : [00:39:53]

I've recently gotten to know Neri Oxman,

[00:39:53] : [00:39:55]

who's this incredible scientist

[00:39:55] : [00:39:58]

that works at the intersectionof nature and engineering.

[00:39:58] : [00:40:01]

And she reminded me ofthis Anna Akhmatova line,

[00:40:01] : [00:40:06]

this is this great Sovietpoet that I really love

[00:40:06] : [00:40:11]

from over a century ago that,

[00:40:11] : [00:40:13]

"Each of our lives is aShakespearean drama raised

[00:40:13] : [00:40:16]

to the thousand degree."

[00:40:16] : [00:40:17]

So I have to ask,

[00:40:17] : [00:40:18]

why do you think humans are attracted

[00:40:18] : [00:40:21]

to this kind of Shakespearean drama?

[00:40:21] : [00:40:24]

Is there some aspectwe've been talking about

[00:40:24] : [00:40:29]

the subconscious mind thatpulls us towards the drama,

[00:40:29] : [00:40:33]

even though the place ofmental health is peace?

[00:40:33] : [00:40:36]

- Yes, and yes.

[00:40:36] : [00:40:39]

- Do you have some of that?

[00:40:39] : [00:40:41]

- Draw towards drama?

[00:40:41] : [00:40:42]

Yeah.

[00:40:42] : [00:40:45]

- [Lex] If you look at the empirical data.

[00:40:45] : [00:40:46]

- Yes, I mean...

[00:40:46] : [00:40:47]

Right, if I look at the empirical data,

[00:40:47] : [00:40:49]

I mean, I think aboutwho I chose to work for

[00:40:49] : [00:40:51]

as an undergraduate, right?

[00:40:51] : [00:40:52]

I was, you know, barelyfinished high school,

[00:40:52] : [00:40:54]

finally get to college, barely.

[00:40:54] : [00:40:57]

I think...

[00:40:57] : [00:40:58]

This is really embarrassingand not something to aspire to,

[00:40:58] : [00:41:01]

you know, I was, you know,thrown outta the dorms

[00:41:01] : [00:41:03]

for fighting, barely passedmy classes, you know,

[00:41:03] : [00:41:07]

the girlfriend and I split up.

[00:41:07] : [00:41:09]

I mean, I was living in asquad, got into a big fight.

[00:41:09] : [00:41:11]

I was getting in trouble with the law.

[00:41:11] : [00:41:13]

Eventually got my acttogether, go back to school,

[00:41:13] : [00:41:15]

start working for somebody,

[00:41:15] : [00:41:16]

who do I choose to work for?

[00:41:16] : [00:41:18]

A guy who's an ex-navyguy who smokes cigarettes

[00:41:18] : [00:41:21]

in the fume hood, drinks coffee,

[00:41:21] : [00:41:24]

and we're injecting rats with MDMA.

[00:41:24] : [00:41:26]

And, you know, I was drawnto like the personality,

[00:41:26] : [00:41:29]

his energy, but also, hewas a great scientist.

[00:41:29] : [00:41:32]

Worked out a lot on a thermal regulation

[00:41:32] : [00:41:34]

in the brain and more,

[00:41:34] : [00:41:37]

you know, go to graduateschool, I'm working for somebody

[00:41:37] : [00:41:40]

and decide that yeah, doing,working in her laboratory

[00:41:40] : [00:41:45]

wasn't quite right for me.

[00:41:45] : [00:41:46]

So I'm literally sneakinginto the laboratory next door

[00:41:46] : [00:41:48]

and working for the woman next door

[00:41:48] : [00:41:49]

because I liked therelationships that she had

[00:41:49] : [00:41:51]

to a certain set of questions.

[00:41:51] : [00:41:53]

And she was a kind of a quirky person.

[00:41:53] : [00:41:55]

And, you know, so drawn to drama,

[00:41:55] : [00:41:57]

but drawn to, I like characters.

[00:41:57] : [00:41:59]

I like people that have texture.

[00:41:59] : [00:42:01]

And I'm not drawn to raw ambition.

[00:42:01] : [00:42:03]

I'm drawn to people thatseem to have a real passion

[00:42:03] : [00:42:06]

for what they do and a uniqueness to them

[00:42:06] : [00:42:08]

that I, you know, youcan kind of, not kind of,

[00:42:08] : [00:42:12]

I'll just say how it is.

[00:42:12] : [00:42:13]

I can feel their heart for what they do.

[00:42:13] : [00:42:15]

And I'm drawn to that, like...

[00:42:15] : [00:42:18]

And that can be good.

[00:42:18] : [00:42:19]

The same reason I went to workfor Ben Barres as a postdoc,

[00:42:19] : [00:42:23]

it wasn't because he wasthe first transgender member

[00:42:23] : [00:42:26]

of the National Academy of Sciences.

[00:42:26] : [00:42:27]

That was just a feature of who he was.

[00:42:27] : [00:42:28]

I loved how he loved Glia.

[00:42:28] : [00:42:31]

He would talk about these cells

[00:42:31] : [00:42:32]

like they were the most enchanting things

[00:42:32] : [00:42:34]

that he'd ever seen in his life.

[00:42:34] : [00:42:36]

And I was like, this is likethe biggest nerd I've ever met,

[00:42:36] : [00:42:38]

and I love him.

[00:42:38] : [00:42:39]

I think I'm drawn to that.

[00:42:39] : [00:42:41]

This is another thing thatConti makes elaborates on quite

[00:42:41] : [00:42:46]

a bit more in the series onmental health coming out.

[00:42:46] : [00:42:48]

But there are different drives within us.

[00:42:48] : [00:42:50]

There are aggressive drives,not always for fighting,

[00:42:50] : [00:42:55]

but for intense interaction.

[00:42:55] : [00:42:57]

I mean, look at Twitter,

[00:42:57] : [00:42:58]

look at people clearlyhave an aggressive drive.

[00:42:58] : [00:43:02]

There's also a pleasure drive.

[00:43:02] : [00:43:04]

Some people also have astrong pleasure drive.

[00:43:04] : [00:43:07]

They want to experiencepleasure through food,

[00:43:07] : [00:43:09]

through sex, through friendship,

[00:43:09] : [00:43:11]

through adventure, you know?

[00:43:11] : [00:43:13]

But I think the Shakespeareandrama is the drama

[00:43:13] : [00:43:17]

of the different drivesin different ratios

[00:43:17] : [00:43:20]

in different people.

[00:43:20] : [00:43:21]

I know somebody and she's incredibly kind,

[00:43:21] : [00:43:24]

has an extremely high pleasure drive,

[00:43:24] : [00:43:27]

loves taking great care ofherself and people around her

[00:43:27] : [00:43:30]

through food and through retreats,

[00:43:30] : [00:43:32]

and through all these things,

[00:43:32] : [00:43:33]

and makes spaces beautifuleverywhere she goes.

[00:43:33] : [00:43:37]

And gifts, these things that are

[00:43:37] : [00:43:39]

just so unbelievablyfeminine and incredible.

[00:43:39] : [00:43:43]

These gifts to people andthe kind and thoughtful

[00:43:43] : [00:43:45]

about what they like.

[00:43:45] : [00:43:46]

And then, but I would sayvery little aggressive drive

[00:43:46] : [00:43:50]

from my read.

[00:43:50] : [00:43:53]

And then I know other peoplewho are just have a ton

[00:43:53] : [00:43:55]

of aggressive drive andvery little pressure drive.

[00:43:55] : [00:43:57]

And I think, so there's this alchemy

[00:43:57] : [00:43:59]

that exists where people have these things

[00:43:59] : [00:44:01]

in different ratios,and then you blend in,

[00:44:01] : [00:44:04]

you know, the differencesin the chromosomes

[00:44:04] : [00:44:07]

and differences in hormones,

[00:44:07] : [00:44:08]

and differences in personal history,

[00:44:08] : [00:44:09]

and what you end up with is a species

[00:44:09] : [00:44:12]

that creates incredible recipes of drama,

[00:44:12] : [00:44:17]

but also peace, also relieffrom drama, contentment.

[00:44:17] : [00:44:21]

I mean, I realize thisisn't the exact topic

[00:44:21] : [00:44:23]

of the question,

[00:44:23] : [00:44:24]

but someone I know very dearly,

[00:44:24] : [00:44:28]

actually an ex-girlfriend ofmine, long-term partner of mine

[00:44:28] : [00:44:31]

sent me something recentlyand I think it hit the nail

[00:44:31] : [00:44:34]

on the head, which isthat ideally for a man,

[00:44:34] : [00:44:37]

they eventually settle wherethey find and feel peace.

[00:44:37] : [00:44:41]

Where they feel peaceful,

[00:44:41] : [00:44:43]

where they can be themselvesand feel peaceful.

[00:44:43] : [00:44:45]

Now, I'm sure there's a equivalent

[00:44:45] : [00:44:47]

or mirror image of that for women,

[00:44:47] : [00:44:50]

but this particular postthat she sent was about men.

[00:44:50] : [00:44:53]

And I totally agree.

[00:44:53] : [00:44:54]

And so it isn't always thatwe're seeking friction,

[00:44:54] : [00:44:58]

but for periods of our life,we seek friction, drama,

[00:44:58] : [00:45:01]

adventure, excitement, fights, you know,

[00:45:01] : [00:45:06]

and doing hard, hard things.

[00:45:06] : [00:45:09]

And then I think at some point,

[00:45:09] : [00:45:11]

I'm certainly coming to thispoint now where it's like,

[00:45:11] : [00:45:13]

yeah, that's all great andchecked a lot of boxes,

[00:45:13] : [00:45:17]

but had a lot of close calls,

[00:45:17] : [00:45:18]

flew really close to the sunon a lot of things with life

[00:45:18] : [00:45:21]

and limb, and heart and spirit.

[00:45:21] : [00:45:23]

And some of, you know, peopleclose to us didn't make it.

[00:45:23] : [00:45:28]

And sometimes not making it means

[00:45:28] : [00:45:30]

the career they wanted went off a cliff

[00:45:30] : [00:45:31]

or their health went off a cliff,

[00:45:31] : [00:45:33]

or their life went off a cliff.

[00:45:33] : [00:45:35]

But I think that there'salso the Shakespearean drama

[00:45:35] : [00:45:39]

of the characters that exit the play

[00:45:39] : [00:45:42]

and are living their liveshappily in the backdrop.

[00:45:42] : [00:45:44]

It just doesn't make foras much entertainment.

[00:45:44] : [00:45:47]

- That's one other thing that's a benefit,

[00:45:47] : [00:45:52]

you could say is thebenefit of getting older

[00:45:52] : [00:45:54]

is finding the Shakespeareandrama less appealing

[00:45:54] : [00:45:58]

or finding the joy in the peace.

[00:45:58] : [00:46:01]

- Yeah, definitely.

[00:46:01] : [00:46:02]

I mean, I think that, I thinkthere's real peace with age.

[00:46:02] : [00:46:05]

I think the other thing is

[00:46:05] : [00:46:07]

this notion of checkingboxes is a real thing,

[00:46:07] : [00:46:09]

for me anyway.

[00:46:09] : [00:46:11]

I have a morning meditation that I do,

[00:46:11] : [00:46:13]

well, I wake up now, I getmy sunlight, I hydrate,

[00:46:13] : [00:46:17]

I use the bathroom, I do allthe things that I talk about.

[00:46:17] : [00:46:20]

I've started a practice ofprayer in the last year,

[00:46:20] : [00:46:23]

which is new-ish for me,

[00:46:23] : [00:46:25]

which is, we could talk about it

[00:46:25] : [00:46:27]

if you want.- In the morning?

[00:46:27] : [00:46:28]

- Yeah.- Can you talk about it

[00:46:28] : [00:46:29]

a little bit?- Sure, yeah.

[00:46:29] : [00:46:30]

And then I have a meditation that I do

[00:46:30] : [00:46:33]

that actually is where I think through

[00:46:33] : [00:46:35]

with the different roles that I play.

[00:46:35] : [00:46:37]

So like, I start very basic.

[00:46:37] : [00:46:39]

I say, you know, okay, I'm an animal.

[00:46:39] : [00:46:42]

Like we are like,biologically animals, right?

[00:46:42] : [00:46:45]

Human, you know, I'm a man,I'm a scientist, I'm a teacher,

[00:46:45] : [00:46:50]

I'm a friend, I'm a brother, I'm a son,

[00:46:50] : [00:46:53]

you know, I go throughthis, I have this list

[00:46:53] : [00:46:54]

and I think about thedifferent roles that I have

[00:46:54] : [00:46:57]

and the roles that I stillwant in my life going forward

[00:46:57] : [00:47:00]

that I haven't yet fulfilled.

[00:47:00] : [00:47:02]

It just takes me, it'ssort of an inventory

[00:47:02] : [00:47:04]

of where I've been, where I'm at,

[00:47:04] : [00:47:06]

and where I'm going as they say.

[00:47:06] : [00:47:07]

And I don't know why I do it,

[00:47:07] : [00:47:10]

but I started doing it this last year,

[00:47:10] : [00:47:12]

I think because it helps me understand

[00:47:12] : [00:47:16]

just how many differentcontexts I have to exist in

[00:47:16] : [00:47:19]

and remind myself that there's still more

[00:47:19] : [00:47:21]

that I haven't donethat I'm excited about.

[00:47:21] : [00:47:24]

- So within each of those contexts,

[00:47:24] : [00:47:25]

there's like things that youwant to kind of accomplish,

[00:47:25] : [00:47:28]

to define that.

[00:47:28] : [00:47:30]

- Yeah, and I'm ambitious so I think,

[00:47:30] : [00:47:32]

you know, I'm a brother.

[00:47:32] : [00:47:33]

I have an older sister andI love her tremendously.

[00:47:33] : [00:47:35]

And I think like,

[00:47:35] : [00:47:36]

I wanna be the bestbrother I can be to her.

[00:47:36] : [00:47:39]

Which means maybe a call, maybe just,

[00:47:39] : [00:47:41]

you know, we do an annual triptogether for our birthdays.

[00:47:41] : [00:47:44]

Our birthdays are close together.

[00:47:44] : [00:47:45]

We always go to New York for our birthdays

[00:47:45] : [00:47:46]

and we've gone for thelast three, four years,

[00:47:46] : [00:47:47]

like really like remindingmyself of that role,

[00:47:47] : [00:47:49]

not because I'll forget,

[00:47:49] : [00:47:50]

but because I have all these other roles

[00:47:50] : [00:47:52]

I'll get pulled into.

[00:47:52] : [00:47:53]

I say the first one, I'm an animal

[00:47:53] : [00:47:55]

because I have to rememberthat I have a body

[00:47:55] : [00:47:57]

that needs care, like any of us.

[00:47:57] : [00:47:59]

I need sleep, I need food,I need hydration, I need...

[00:47:59] : [00:48:02]

That I'm human, that the brain of a human

[00:48:02] : [00:48:05]

is marvelously complex,

[00:48:05] : [00:48:07]

but also marvelouslyself-defeating at times.

[00:48:07] : [00:48:12]

And so I've been thinkingabout these things

[00:48:12] : [00:48:13]

in the context of the different roles.

[00:48:13] : [00:48:15]

And the whole thing takesabout four or five minutes.

[00:48:15] : [00:48:17]

And I just find it brings mea certain amount of clarity

[00:48:17] : [00:48:19]

that then allows me toratchet into the day.

[00:48:19] : [00:48:22]

The prayer piece,

[00:48:22] : [00:48:23]

yeah, I think I've beenreluctant to talk about until now

[00:48:23] : [00:48:28]

because I don't believe inpushing religion on people.

[00:48:28] : [00:48:33]

And I think that, and I'm not.

[00:48:33] : [00:48:38]

It's a highly individual thing.

[00:48:38] : [00:48:41]

And I do believe thatone can be an atheist

[00:48:41] : [00:48:43]

and still pray or agnostic and still pray.

[00:48:43] : [00:48:45]

But for me, it really cameabout through understanding

[00:48:45] : [00:48:50]

that there are certain aspects of myself

[00:48:50] : [00:48:55]

that I just couldn't resolve on my own.

[00:48:55] : [00:49:00]

And no matter how much therapy,

[00:49:00] : [00:49:02]

no matter how much, and Ihaven't done a lot of it,

[00:49:02] : [00:49:04]

but no matter how much plant medicine

[00:49:04] : [00:49:07]

or other forms of medicine, or exercise,

[00:49:07] : [00:49:09]

or podcasting, or science, or friendship,

[00:49:09] : [00:49:14]

or any of that, I wasjust not going to resolve.

[00:49:14] : [00:49:17]

And so I started this

[00:49:17] : [00:49:20]

because someone close to me said,

[00:49:20] : [00:49:25]

a male friend said, "Youknow, prayer is powerful."

[00:49:25] : [00:49:31]

And I said, "Well, how?"

[00:49:31] : [00:49:32]

And he said, "I don't knowhow, but if you can get...

[00:49:32] : [00:49:35]

It can allow you to get outside yourself,

[00:49:35] : [00:49:38]

let you give up control, andat the same time take control."

[00:49:38] : [00:49:41]

I don't even like saying take control.

[00:49:41] : [00:49:43]

But the whole notion is that,

[00:49:43] : [00:49:45]

and again, forgive me,

[00:49:45] : [00:49:46]

but there's no other way to say it.

[00:49:46] : [00:49:48]

The whole notion is that,

[00:49:48] : [00:49:49]

you know, like God works through us,

[00:49:49] : [00:49:51]

whatever God is to you,he, him, her, whatever,

[00:49:51] : [00:49:55]

life force, like nature,whatever it is to you, right?

[00:49:55] : [00:49:57]

That it works through us.

[00:49:57] : [00:49:59]

And so I do a prayer,I'll just describe it,

[00:49:59] : [00:50:01]

where I ask, I make an askto help remove my defects,

[00:50:01] : [00:50:06]

my character defects.

[00:50:06] : [00:50:09]

I pray to God to helpremove my character defects

[00:50:09] : [00:50:12]

so that I can show up betterin all the roles of my life

[00:50:12] : [00:50:16]

and do good work.

[00:50:16] : [00:50:18]

Like to, which for me islearning and teaching.

[00:50:18] : [00:50:21]

Learning and teaching.

[00:50:21] : [00:50:22]

And so you might say,well, how is that different

[00:50:22] : [00:50:25]

than a meditation?

[00:50:25] : [00:50:25]

Well, I'm acknowledgingthat there is something

[00:50:25] : [00:50:28]

that bigger than me, biggerthan nature as I understand it,

[00:50:28] : [00:50:32]

that I cannot understand orcontrol, nor do I want to.

[00:50:32] : [00:50:35]

And I'm just giving over to that.

[00:50:35] : [00:50:37]

And does that make me less of a scientist?

[00:50:37] : [00:50:40]

I sure as hell hope not.

[00:50:40] : [00:50:41]

I certainly know, there'sthe head of our neurosciences

[00:50:41] : [00:50:45]

at Stanford until recently.

[00:50:45] : [00:50:46]

You should talk to him directly about it.

[00:50:46] : [00:50:49]

Bill Newsome has talkedabout his religious life.

[00:50:49] : [00:50:52]

For me, it's really a wayof getting outside myself

[00:50:52] : [00:50:56]

and then understanding how Ifit into this bigger picture.

[00:50:56] : [00:50:59]

And the character defectspart is real, right?

[00:50:59] : [00:51:02]

I'm a human, I have defects,

[00:51:02] : [00:51:03]

like I got a lot of flawsin me, like anybody.

[00:51:03] : [00:51:08]

But, and trying to acknowledge them

[00:51:08] : [00:51:13]

and asking for help inremoving them, not magically,

[00:51:13] : [00:51:17]

but through right action,through my right action.

[00:51:17] : [00:51:21]

So I do that every morning.

[00:51:21] : [00:51:23]

And I have to say that it'shelped, it's helped a lot.

[00:51:23] : [00:51:26]

It's helped me be better to myself,

[00:51:26] : [00:51:28]

be better at other people.

[00:51:28] : [00:51:30]

I still make mistakes,

[00:51:30] : [00:51:31]

but it's becoming abigger part of my life.

[00:51:31] : [00:51:36]

And I never thought I'd talk like this,

[00:51:36] : [00:51:38]

but I think it's clear to me that

[00:51:38] : [00:51:44]

if we don't believe in something,

[00:51:44] : [00:51:50]

again, doesn't have to be traditional,

[00:51:50] : [00:51:52]

standardized religion,

[00:51:52] : [00:51:53]

but if we don't believe insomething bigger than ourselves,

[00:51:53] : [00:51:57]

we at some level will self-destruct.

[00:51:57] : [00:52:01]

I really think so.

[00:52:01] : [00:52:03]

And it's powerful in a waythat all the other stuff,

[00:52:03] : [00:52:07]

meditation, all the tools

[00:52:07] : [00:52:08]

is not because it's really operating

[00:52:08] : [00:52:11]

at a much deeper and bigger level.

[00:52:11] : [00:52:14]

And, you know, yeah, I think that's all

[00:52:14] : [00:52:19]

I can talk about it,

[00:52:19] : [00:52:22]

mostly because I'm still working out,

[00:52:22] : [00:52:24]

you know, the scientistsin me wants to understand

[00:52:24] : [00:52:26]

how it works, and I wanna understand.

[00:52:26] : [00:52:27]

And the point is to just go,

[00:52:27] : [00:52:29]

you know, there's you know,

[00:52:29] : [00:52:32]

for lack of a better language for it,

[00:52:32] : [00:52:33]

there's higher power thanme and what I can control,

[00:52:33] : [00:52:37]

I'm giving up control on certain things.

[00:52:37] : [00:52:39]

And somehow that restoresa sense of agency

[00:52:39] : [00:52:42]

for right action, better action.

[00:52:42] : [00:52:46]

- I think perhaps a part ofthat is just the humility

[00:52:46] : [00:52:49]

that comes with acknowledgingthere's something bigger

[00:52:49] : [00:52:52]

and more powerful than you.

[00:52:52] : [00:52:52]

- And you can't control everything.

[00:52:52] : [00:52:54]

I mean, that you go throughlife as a hard-driving person,

[00:52:54] : [00:52:58]

you know, forward center of mass.

[00:52:58] : [00:53:00]

I remember being thatway since I was little.

[00:53:00] : [00:53:02]

It's like a new Legos,

[00:53:02] : [00:53:03]

I'm like, I'm gonna make all the Legos.

[00:53:03] : [00:53:04]

And it was like on the weekends,

[00:53:04] : [00:53:05]

you know, learning about medieval weapons

[00:53:05] : [00:53:07]

and then giving lectures about it in class

[00:53:07] : [00:53:09]

when I was five or six years old,

[00:53:09] : [00:53:10]

or learning about tropical fish

[00:53:10] : [00:53:12]

and, you know, catalogingall of them at the store,

[00:53:12] : [00:53:14]

and then organizing it and making my,

[00:53:14] : [00:53:15]

you know, my dad driveme or my mom drive me

[00:53:15] : [00:53:18]

to some fish store and thenspending all my time there

[00:53:18] : [00:53:20]

until they throw me out,you know, all of that,

[00:53:20] : [00:53:22]

but I also remember my entirelife, I would secretly pray.

[00:53:22] : [00:53:26]

When things were goodand things weren't good,

[00:53:26] : [00:53:29]

but mostly when things were weren't good

[00:53:29] : [00:53:31]

'cause it's important to pray,

[00:53:31] : [00:53:32]

for me, it's important topray each morning regardless.

[00:53:32] : [00:53:35]

But when things weren't right,

[00:53:35] : [00:53:38]

I couldn't get make sense of'em, I would secretly pray,

[00:53:38] : [00:53:40]

but I felt kind of ashamedof that for whatever reason.

[00:53:40] : [00:53:43]

And then it was once incollege, I distinctly remember,

[00:53:43] : [00:53:45]

I was having a hard timewith a number of things

[00:53:45] : [00:53:49]

and I took a run down to Sands Beach,

[00:53:49] : [00:53:53]

it was UC, Santa Barbara.

[00:53:53] : [00:53:54]

And I remember I just, I was like,

[00:53:54] : [00:53:56]

I don't know if I evenhave the right to do this,

[00:53:56] : [00:54:00]

but I'm just praying and I just prayed for

[00:54:00] : [00:54:03]

the ability to be asbrutally honest with myself

[00:54:03] : [00:54:09]

and with other peopleas I possibly could be

[00:54:09] : [00:54:11]

about a particular situationI was in at that time.

[00:54:11] : [00:54:14]

I mean, I think now it'sprobably safe to say,

[00:54:14] : [00:54:16]

I'd gone off to college 'causeof a high school girlfriend.

[00:54:16] : [00:54:18]

We had, essentially, shewas my family, more frankly,

[00:54:18] : [00:54:22]

more than my biological family was

[00:54:22] : [00:54:23]

at a certain stage of life.

[00:54:23] : [00:54:25]

And we'd reached a pointwhere we were diverging

[00:54:25] : [00:54:27]

and it was incredibly painful.

[00:54:27] : [00:54:29]

It was like losing everything I had.

[00:54:29] : [00:54:31]

And it was like, what do I do?

[00:54:31] : [00:54:33]

How do I manage this?

[00:54:33] : [00:54:34]

Do I, you know, I was ready to quit

[00:54:34] : [00:54:35]

and join the fire servicejust to support us

[00:54:35] : [00:54:38]

so that we could move forward.

[00:54:38] : [00:54:39]

And you know, it was just, but praying,

[00:54:39] : [00:54:43]

just saying, I can'tfigure this out on my own.

[00:54:43] : [00:54:45]

It's sort of like I can'tfigure this out on my own.

[00:54:45] : [00:54:48]

And how frustrating that isthat no number of friends

[00:54:48] : [00:54:50]

could tell me, or, and inher wisdom couldn't tell me.

[00:54:50] : [00:54:53]

And eventually, it ledme to the right answers.

[00:54:53] : [00:54:55]

And she and I are arefriendly friends to this day.

[00:54:55] : [00:54:57]

She's happily married with achild and we're on good terms,

[00:54:57] : [00:55:01]

but I think, you know, it's a scary thing,

[00:55:01] : [00:55:06]

but it's the best thing when you just,

[00:55:06] : [00:55:10]

I can't control all this.

[00:55:10] : [00:55:11]

And asking for help, Ithink is also the piece.

[00:55:11] : [00:55:14]

You're not asking for somemagic hand to come down

[00:55:14] : [00:55:16]

and take care of it.

[00:55:16] : [00:55:17]

You're asking for the helpto come through you, right?

[00:55:17] : [00:55:20]

So that your body is usedto do these right works,

[00:55:20] : [00:55:23]

right action.

[00:55:23] : [00:55:24]

- Isn't it interestingthat this secret thing

[00:55:24] : [00:55:27]

that you're almost embarrassed by,

[00:55:27] : [00:55:29]

that you did it as achild is something you,

[00:55:29] : [00:55:31]

it's another thing youdo as you get older,

[00:55:31] : [00:55:32]

as you realize, like thosethings are part of you,

[00:55:32] : [00:55:35]

it's actually a beautiful thing.

[00:55:35] : [00:55:36]

- Yeah, a lot of the contentof the podcast is, you know,

[00:55:36] : [00:55:39]

deep academic content and wetalk about everything from,

[00:55:39] : [00:55:42]

you know, eating disordersto bipolar disorders,

[00:55:42] : [00:55:45]

to depression, you know,a lot of different topics,

[00:55:45] : [00:55:47]

but the tools or theprotocols as we say, right?

[00:55:47] : [00:55:49]

The sunlight viewing and all the rest,

[00:55:49] : [00:55:51]

you know, a lot of thatstuff is just stuff

[00:55:51] : [00:55:54]

I wish I'd known when Iwas in graduate school.

[00:55:54] : [00:55:56]

If I'd known to go outsideevery once in a while

[00:55:56] : [00:55:58]

and get some sunlight,not just stay in the lab,

[00:55:58] : [00:56:01]

I would've, you know, I might not have hit

[00:56:01] : [00:56:03]

like a really tough round of depression

[00:56:03] : [00:56:06]

when I was a postdoc andworking twice as hard.

[00:56:06] : [00:56:09]

And, you know, when mybody would break down

[00:56:09] : [00:56:11]

or I'd get sick a lot, Idon't get sick much anymore.

[00:56:11] : [00:56:13]

Occasionally, about onceevery 18 months to two years

[00:56:13] : [00:56:15]

maybe I'll get something,

[00:56:15] : [00:56:16]

but you know, I used tobreak my foot skateboarding

[00:56:16] : [00:56:20]

all the time, I couldn'tunderstand what's wrong

[00:56:20] : [00:56:22]

with my body, I'm getting injured,

[00:56:22] : [00:56:23]

I can't do what everyone else can.

[00:56:23] : [00:56:24]

Now I developed more slowly,I had a long arc of puberty,

[00:56:24] : [00:56:27]

but so that was part ofit, I was still developing,

[00:56:27] : [00:56:31]

but you know, how toget your body stronger,

[00:56:31] : [00:56:33]

how to build endurance?

[00:56:33] : [00:56:34]

Like no one told me, theinformation wasn't there.

[00:56:34] : [00:56:36]

So a lot of what I put outthere is the information

[00:56:36] : [00:56:38]

that I wish I had

[00:56:38] : [00:56:39]

because once I had it, I was like, wow!

[00:56:39] : [00:56:42]

Like A, this stuff really works.

[00:56:42] : [00:56:44]

B, it's grounded in something real.

[00:56:44] : [00:56:46]

You know, sometimes certain protocols

[00:56:46] : [00:56:48]

are a combination of,you know, animal, human,

[00:56:48] : [00:56:51]

and animal, and human studies,sometimes clinical trials,

[00:56:51] : [00:56:54]

sometimes there's somemechanistic conjecture

[00:56:54] : [00:56:57]

for some, not all, Ialways make clear which.

[00:56:57] : [00:56:59]

But in the end,

[00:56:59] : [00:57:01]

like figuring out how thingswork so that we can be happier,

[00:57:01] : [00:57:06]

healthier, more productive, suffer less,

[00:57:06] : [00:57:09]

like reduce the suffering of the world.

[00:57:09] : [00:57:11]

And I think that,

[00:57:11] : [00:57:14]

well, I'll just say thank you

[00:57:14] : [00:57:17]

and for asking about the prayer piece.

[00:57:17] : [00:57:22]

Again, I'm not pushing oreven encouraging it on anyone,

[00:57:22] : [00:57:27]

I've just found it to betremendously useful for me.

[00:57:27] : [00:57:29]

- (sighs) You know, I meanabout prayer in general,

[00:57:29] : [00:57:34]

you said information andfiguring out how to get stronger,

[00:57:34] : [00:57:38]

healthier, smarter, allthose kinds of things.

[00:57:38] : [00:57:41]

A part of me believesthat deeply, you know?

[00:57:41] : [00:57:45]

You can gain a lot of knowledgeand wisdom through learning.

[00:57:45] : [00:57:49]

But a part of me believesthat all the wisdom I need

[00:57:49] : [00:57:53]

was there when I was 11 and 12 years old.

[00:57:53] : [00:57:57]

- And then it got cluttered over.

[00:57:57] : [00:58:00]

Well, listen, I can't wait foryou and Conti to talk again.

[00:58:00] : [00:58:03]

Because when he gets goingabout the subconscious

[00:58:03] : [00:58:06]

and the amount of thisthat sits below the surface

[00:58:06] : [00:58:08]

like an iceberg and thefact that when we're kids,

[00:58:08] : [00:58:13]

we're not obscuring a lot ofthat subconscious as much.

[00:58:13] : [00:58:18]

And sometimes that can looka little more primitive.

[00:58:18] : [00:58:21]

I mean, that kid that'sdisappointed will let you know,

[00:58:21] : [00:58:26]

that kid that's excited will let you know.

[00:58:26] : [00:58:28]

And you feel that rawexuberance or that raw dismay.

[00:58:28] : [00:58:32]

And I think that as we grow older,

[00:58:32] : [00:58:35]

we learn to cover that stuff up.

[00:58:35] : [00:58:36]

We wear masks and we haveto, to be functional, right?

[00:58:36] : [00:58:39]

I don't think we all wanna go around

[00:58:39] : [00:58:40]

just being completely raw.

[00:58:40] : [00:58:44]

But as you said, as youget older, you also,

[00:58:44] : [00:58:46]

you get to this pointwhere you kind of go,

[00:58:46] : [00:58:49]

eh, you know, what are wereally trying to protect anyway?

[00:58:49] : [00:58:53]

I mean, I have this theory that,

[00:58:53] : [00:58:55]

you know, certainly myexperience has taught me

[00:58:55] : [00:58:58]

that a lot of people,

[00:58:58] : [00:59:01]

but I'll talk about men

[00:59:01] : [00:59:04]

'cause that's what I know best.

[00:59:04] : [00:59:06]

Whether or not they show up strong or not,

[00:59:06] : [00:59:10]

that they're really afraid of being weak.

[00:59:10] : [00:59:15]

Like they're just afraid.

[00:59:15] : [00:59:17]

Like sometimes the strength is even a way

[00:59:17] : [00:59:18]

to try and not be weak, right?

[00:59:18] : [00:59:20]

Which is different than beingstrong for its own sake.

[00:59:20] : [00:59:23]

I'm not just talkingabout physical strength,

[00:59:23] : [00:59:24]

I'm talking about intellectual strength.

[00:59:24] : [00:59:25]

I'm talking about money.

[00:59:25] : [00:59:26]

I'm talking about expressing drive.

[00:59:26] : [00:59:30]

I've been watching this series

[00:59:30] : [00:59:31]

a little bit of "Chimp Empire-"

[00:59:31] : [00:59:34]

- Oh, yeah.

[00:59:34] : [00:59:35]

- So Chimp Empire is amazing, right?

[00:59:35] : [00:59:37]

They have the head chimp,he's not the head chimp,

[00:59:37] : [00:59:39]

but the alpha in the group.

[00:59:39] : [00:59:42]

And he's getting older.

[00:59:42] : [00:59:44]

And so what does he do?

[00:59:44] : [00:59:46]

Every once in a while hegoes on these vigor displays.

[00:59:46] : [00:59:49]

He goes and he grabs branch.

[00:59:49] : [00:59:50]

He starts breaking him andhe starts thrashing 'em,

[00:59:50] : [00:59:52]

and he's incredibly strong,

[00:59:52] : [00:59:53]

and they're all kind like watching.

[00:59:53] : [00:59:54]

I mean, yeah, Iimmediately think of people

[00:59:54] : [00:59:56]

like they're deadlifting on Instagram

[00:59:56] : [00:59:58]

and I just think, displays a vigor.

[00:59:58] : [01:00:01]

This is just the primateshowing that displays a vigor.

[01:00:01] : [01:00:04]

Now what's interesting is thathe's doing that specifically

[01:00:04] : [01:00:08]

to say, Hey, I still have what it takes

[01:00:08] : [01:00:10]

to lead this troop, okay?

[01:00:10] : [01:00:12]

Then there're the ones thatare subordinate to him,

[01:00:12] : [01:00:15]

but not so far behind-

[01:00:15] : [01:00:18]

- It seems to be thatthere's a very clear,

[01:00:18] : [01:00:20]

like numerical ranking.

[01:00:20] : [01:00:21]

- There is.- Like, it's clear

[01:00:21] : [01:00:23]

who's the number two, number three?

[01:00:23] : [01:00:24]

- Oh yeah.- I mean, probably-

[01:00:24] : [01:00:25]

- Who gets to mate first?

[01:00:25] : [01:00:26]

Who gets to eat first?

[01:00:26] : [01:00:27]

This exists in other animal societies too,

[01:00:27] : [01:00:29]

but Bob Sapolsky would be a great person

[01:00:29] : [01:00:30]

to talk about this with

[01:00:30] : [01:00:32]

'cause he knows obviously,tremendous amount about it.

[01:00:32] : [01:00:34]

And I know just the top contour,

[01:00:34] : [01:00:35]

but yeah, so number two,three and four males

[01:00:35] : [01:00:40]

are aware that he's doingthese vigor displays,

[01:00:40] : [01:00:43]

but they're also aware

[01:00:43] : [01:00:44]

because in primate evolution

[01:00:44] : [01:00:46]

they got some extra forebraintoo, not as much as us,

[01:00:46] : [01:00:49]

but they got some,

[01:00:49] : [01:00:50]

and they're aware that thevigor displays are displays that

[01:00:50] : [01:00:54]

because they've done them aswell in a different context,

[01:00:54] : [01:00:57]

might not just be displays of vigor,

[01:00:57] : [01:00:59]

but might also be an insurance policy

[01:00:59] : [01:01:01]

against people seeing weakness.

[01:01:01] : [01:01:03]

Okay, so now they startusing that prefrontal cortex

[01:01:03] : [01:01:08]

to do some interesting things.

[01:01:08] : [01:01:09]

So in primate world,

[01:01:09] : [01:01:12]

if a male is friendly withanother male wants to affiliate

[01:01:12] : [01:01:15]

with him and say, Hey, I'm backing you,

[01:01:15] : [01:01:18]

they'll go over and they'llpick off the little parasites

[01:01:18] : [01:01:22]

and eat them.

[01:01:22] : [01:01:23]

And so the grooming isextremely important.

[01:01:23] : [01:01:25]

In fact, if they want to ostracize

[01:01:25] : [01:01:27]

or kill one of the members of their troop,

[01:01:27] : [01:01:31]

they will just leave it alone.

[01:01:31] : [01:01:32]

No one will groom it.

[01:01:32] : [01:01:33]

And then there's actually areally disturbing sequence

[01:01:33] : [01:01:35]

in that show of then the parasites start

[01:01:35] : [01:01:37]

to eat away on their skin.

[01:01:37] : [01:01:38]

They get infections, they have issues,

[01:01:38] : [01:01:40]

no one will mate with them, no one,

[01:01:40] : [01:01:41]

they have other issues aswell and can potentially die.

[01:01:41] : [01:01:44]

So the interesting thingis, is number two and three

[01:01:44] : [01:01:48]

start to line up astrategy to groom this guy,

[01:01:48] : [01:01:51]

but they are actuallythinking about overtaking

[01:01:51] : [01:01:56]

the entire troop, setting in a new alpha.

[01:01:56] : [01:01:59]

But the current alpha didthat to get where he is.

[01:01:59] : [01:02:03]

So he knows that they'redoing this grooming thing,

[01:02:03] : [01:02:06]

but they might not besincere about the grooming.

[01:02:06] : [01:02:09]

So what does he do?

[01:02:09] : [01:02:10]

He takes the whole troopon a raid to another troop

[01:02:10] : [01:02:11]

and sees who will fightfor him and who won't.

[01:02:11] : [01:02:14]

This is advanced contracting of behavior

[01:02:14] : [01:02:19]

for a species thatnormally we don't think of

[01:02:19] : [01:02:22]

as sophisticated as us.

[01:02:22] : [01:02:24]

So it's very interestingand it gets to something

[01:02:24] : [01:02:25]

that I hope we'll have anopportunity to talk about

[01:02:25] : [01:02:28]

'cause it's something thatI'm obsessed with lately

[01:02:28] : [01:02:29]

is this notion of overt versuscovert contracts, right?

[01:02:29] : [01:02:33]

There are overt contracts whereyou exchange work for money

[01:02:33] : [01:02:35]

or you exchange any numberof things in an overt way.

[01:02:35] : [01:02:39]

But then there are covert contracts.

[01:02:39] : [01:02:42]

And those take on a very different form

[01:02:42] : [01:02:43]

and always lead to, inmy belief, bad things.

[01:02:43] : [01:02:47]

- Well, how much of humanand chimp relationships

[01:02:47] : [01:02:51]

are overt versus covert?

[01:02:51] : [01:02:53]

- Well, here's one thingthat we know is true.

[01:02:53] : [01:02:55]

Dogs and humans,

[01:02:55] : [01:02:58]

the dog to humanrelationship is 100% overt.

[01:02:58] : [01:03:01]

They don't manipulate you.

[01:03:01] : [01:03:04]

Now you could say they doin the sense that they learn

[01:03:04] : [01:03:06]

that if they look a certainway or roll on their back,

[01:03:06] : [01:03:08]

they get food.

[01:03:08] : [01:03:09]

But there's no banking of that behavior

[01:03:09] : [01:03:14]

for a future date where thenthey're going to undermine you

[01:03:14] : [01:03:18]

and take your position, okay?

[01:03:18] : [01:03:19]

So in that sense, dogs canbe a little bit manipulative

[01:03:19] : [01:03:22]

in some sense, but.

[01:03:22] : [01:03:23]

Now, okay, so overt contract would be,

[01:03:23] : [01:03:29]

we both wanna do some work together.

[01:03:29] : [01:03:31]

We're gonna make some money.

[01:03:31] : [01:03:32]

You get X percentage, I getX percentage, it's overt.

[01:03:32] : [01:03:35]

Covert contract, which is,in my opinion, always bad

[01:03:35] : [01:03:41]

would be, we're gonnado some work together.

[01:03:41] : [01:03:44]

You're gonna get a percentage of money,

[01:03:44] : [01:03:45]

I'm gonna get a percentage of money,

[01:03:45] : [01:03:47]

could look just like the overt contract,

[01:03:47] : [01:03:49]

but secretly, I'm resentfulthat I got the percentage I got.

[01:03:49] : [01:03:54]

So what I start doing iscovertly taking something else.

[01:03:54] : [01:03:59]

What do I take?

[01:03:59] : [01:04:00]

Maybe I take the opportunityto jab you verbally

[01:04:00] : [01:04:03]

every once in a while.

[01:04:03] : [01:04:05]

Maybe I take theopportunity to show up late.

[01:04:05] : [01:04:07]

Maybe I take the opportunity

[01:04:07] : [01:04:09]

to get to know one of your coworkers

[01:04:09] : [01:04:10]

so that I might starta business with them.

[01:04:10] : [01:04:12]

That's covert contracting.

[01:04:12] : [01:04:14]

And you see this sometimesin romantic relationships.

[01:04:14] : [01:04:17]

One person, we won'tset the male or female

[01:04:17] : [01:04:19]

in any direction here and just say,

[01:04:19] : [01:04:20]

I'll make you feel powerfulif you make me feel desired.

[01:04:20] : [01:04:25]

Okay, great.

[01:04:25] : [01:04:26]

There's nothing explicitlywrong about that contract

[01:04:26] : [01:04:29]

if they both know and they both agree,

[01:04:29] : [01:04:31]

but what if it's, I'll do that,

[01:04:31] : [01:04:33]

but I'll have kids withyou so you feel powerful,

[01:04:33] : [01:04:37]

you'll have kids withme so I feel desired,

[01:04:37] : [01:04:39]

but secretly, I don't want to do that.

[01:04:39] : [01:04:41]

Or one person says, I don't wanna do that

[01:04:41] : [01:04:44]

or both don't, so what theyend up doing is saying,

[01:04:44] : [01:04:46]

okay, so I expect something else.

[01:04:46] : [01:04:48]

I expect you to do certain things for me,

[01:04:48] : [01:04:50]

or I expect you to payfor certain things for me.

[01:04:50] : [01:04:53]

Covert contracts are thesignature of everything bad.

[01:04:53] : [01:04:58]

Overt contracts are thesignature of all things good.

[01:04:58] : [01:05:02]

And I think about this a lot

[01:05:02] : [01:05:03]

because I've seen a lotof examples of this.

[01:05:03] : [01:05:06]

Like anyone, weparticipate in these things

[01:05:06] : [01:05:10]

whether or not we want to or not.

[01:05:10] : [01:05:11]

And the thing that getstransacted the most is,

[01:05:11] : [01:05:16]

well, I should say the things

[01:05:16] : [01:05:18]

that get transacted the most

[01:05:18] : [01:05:20]

are the overt things.

[01:05:20] : [01:05:21]

You'll see money, time, sex,

[01:05:21] : [01:05:25]

property, whatever ithappens to be, information.

[01:05:25] : [01:05:33]

But what ends up happening is that

[01:05:33] : [01:05:36]

when people I believe don't feel safe,

[01:05:36] : [01:05:40]

they feel threatened in some way,

[01:05:40] : [01:05:41]

like they don't feel safein a certain interaction,

[01:05:41] : [01:05:43]

what they do is they starttaking something else

[01:05:43] : [01:05:46]

while still engaging in the exchange.

[01:05:46] : [01:05:49]

And I'll tell you,

[01:05:49] : [01:05:50]

if there's one thing abouthuman nature that's bad,

[01:05:50] : [01:05:54]

it's that feature.

[01:05:54] : [01:05:57]

Why that feature?

[01:05:57] : [01:05:58]

Or is it a bug, or a featureas you engineers like to say,

[01:05:58] : [01:06:02]

I think it's because we were allocated

[01:06:02] : [01:06:03]

a certain extra amountof prefrontal cortex

[01:06:03] : [01:06:06]

that makes us moresophisticated than a dog,

[01:06:06] : [01:06:08]

more sophisticated than achimpanzee, but they do it too.

[01:06:08] : [01:06:13]

And it's because it's often harder

[01:06:13] : [01:06:18]

to deal with, in the short-term,

[01:06:18] : [01:06:22]

to deal with the realsense of this is scary,

[01:06:22] : [01:06:26]

this feels threatening

[01:06:26] : [01:06:27]

than it is to play out all the iterations.

[01:06:27] : [01:06:29]

It takes a lot of brain work.

[01:06:29] : [01:06:32]

You're playing chess andgo simultaneously try

[01:06:32] : [01:06:34]

and figure out wherethings are gonna end up,

[01:06:34] : [01:06:35]

and we just don't know.

[01:06:35] : [01:06:37]

So it's a way I think of creating

[01:06:37] : [01:06:39]

a false sense of certainty,

[01:06:39] : [01:06:40]

but I'll tell you, covert contracts,

[01:06:40] : [01:06:42]

the only certainty isthat it's gonna end badly.

[01:06:42] : [01:06:44]

The question is how badly?

[01:06:44] : [01:06:46]

Conversely, overtcontracts always end well.

[01:06:46] : [01:06:51]

Always, the problem with overt contracts

[01:06:51] : [01:06:52]

is that you can't be certainthat the other person

[01:06:52] : [01:06:56]

is not engaging in a covert contract.

[01:06:56] : [01:06:58]

You can only take responsibilityfor your own contracting.

[01:06:58] : [01:07:01]

- Well, one of thechallenges of being human

[01:07:01] : [01:07:03]

is looking at another humanbeing and figuring out

[01:07:03] : [01:07:07]

the way, their way ofbeing, their behavior,

[01:07:07] : [01:07:11]

which of the two types ofcontracts it represents

[01:07:11] : [01:07:14]

because they look awfullythe same on the surface.

[01:07:14] : [01:07:18]

- That's right.- And one of the challenges

[01:07:18] : [01:07:20]

of being human is thedecision we all make is,

[01:07:20] : [01:07:22]

are you somebody thattakes a leap of trust

[01:07:22] : [01:07:25]

and trust other humans andare willing to take the hurt?

[01:07:25] : [01:07:27]

Or you going to be cynical and skeptical,

[01:07:27] : [01:07:31]

and avoid most interactions until

[01:07:31] : [01:07:33]

they over a long periodof time prove your trust.

[01:07:33] : [01:07:37]

- Yeah, I never liked thephrase history repeats itself

[01:07:37] : [01:07:40]

when it comes to humans

[01:07:40] : [01:07:43]

because it doesn't apply if the people

[01:07:43] : [01:07:47]

or the person is actively working

[01:07:47] : [01:07:50]

to resolve their own flaws.

[01:07:50] : [01:07:52]

I do think that if people are willing

[01:07:52] : [01:07:54]

to do dedicated introspective work,

[01:07:54] : [01:07:56]

go into their subconscious,

[01:07:56] : [01:07:59]

do the hard work, have hard conversations,

[01:07:59] : [01:08:02]

and get better at hard conversations,

[01:08:02] : [01:08:03]

something that I'm constantlytrying to get better at.

[01:08:03] : [01:08:06]

I think people can change,

[01:08:06] : [01:08:08]

but they have to want to change.

[01:08:08] : [01:08:09]

- It does seem like deep down

[01:08:09] : [01:08:13]

we all can kinda tell the difference

[01:08:13] : [01:08:14]

between overt and covert.

[01:08:14] : [01:08:16]

Like we have a good sense.

[01:08:16] : [01:08:17]

I think one of the benefitsof having this characteristic

[01:08:17] : [01:08:21]

of mine where I value loyalty,

[01:08:21] : [01:08:23]

I've been extremely fortunate

[01:08:23] : [01:08:25]

to spend most of my lifein overt relationships.

[01:08:25] : [01:08:28]

And I think that createsa really fulfilling life.

[01:08:28] : [01:08:31]

- But there's also this thing

[01:08:31] : [01:08:32]

that maybe we're in thisportion of the podcast now,

[01:08:32] : [01:08:35]

but I've experienced this-- That just brings us

[01:08:35] : [01:08:37]

this late at night we're talking

[01:08:37] : [01:08:38]

about.- That's right.

[01:08:38] : [01:08:39]

Certainly late for me, but I'm two hours,

[01:08:39] : [01:08:41]

I came in today on, I'mstill in California.

[01:08:41] : [01:08:43]

- And we should also saythat you came here to wish me

[01:08:43] : [01:08:45]

a happy birthday.- I did.

[01:08:45] : [01:08:47]

I did, and-

[01:08:47] : [01:08:48]

- And the podcast is just like

[01:08:48] : [01:08:49]

a fun last minute thing I suggested.

[01:08:49] : [01:08:51]

- Yeah, some close friendsof yours have arranged

[01:08:51] : [01:08:54]

a dinner that I'm reallylooking forward to.

[01:08:54] : [01:08:57]

I won't say which night,

[01:08:57] : [01:08:58]

but it's the next couple of nights.

[01:08:58] : [01:09:00]

You know, your circadian clock

[01:09:00] : [01:09:03]

is one of the most robustfeatures of your biology.

[01:09:03] : [01:09:06]

I know you can be nocturnalor you can be diurnal.

[01:09:06] : [01:09:09]

We know you're mostlynocturnal at certain times

[01:09:09] : [01:09:12]

of the year, Lex,

[01:09:12] : [01:09:13]

but there're very, veryfew people can get away

[01:09:13] : [01:09:16]

with no sleep.

[01:09:16] : [01:09:17]

Very few people can get away

[01:09:17] : [01:09:18]

with a chaotic sleep wake schedule.

[01:09:18] : [01:09:20]

So you have to obey a24-hour aka circadian rhythm

[01:09:20] : [01:09:24]

if you wanna remainhealthy of mind and body.

[01:09:24] : [01:09:27]

We also have to acknowledge that

[01:09:27] : [01:09:29]

it's aging isn't linear, right? So-

[01:09:29] : [01:09:33]

- What do you mean?- Well, I mean,

[01:09:33] : [01:09:36]

the degree of changebetween years 35 and 40

[01:09:36] : [01:09:40]

is not gonna be the degreeof change between 40 and 45.

[01:09:40] : [01:09:43]

But I will say this,

[01:09:43] : [01:09:44]

I'm 48 and I feel better inevery aspect of my psychology

[01:09:44] : [01:09:49]

and biology now than Idid when I was in my 20s.

[01:09:49] : [01:09:53]

Sort of quality of thought, time spent,

[01:09:53] : [01:10:00]

physically I can do what I did then,

[01:10:00] : [01:10:04]

which is probably says moreabout what I could do then

[01:10:04] : [01:10:06]

than what I can do now.

[01:10:06] : [01:10:08]

But if you keep training, youcan continue to get better.

[01:10:08] : [01:10:11]

The key is to not get injured.

[01:10:11] : [01:10:12]

And I've never trained super hard.

[01:10:12] : [01:10:15]

I've trained hard,

[01:10:15] : [01:10:16]

but I've been cautiousto not, for instance,

[01:10:16] : [01:10:18]

weight train more than two days in a row.

[01:10:18] : [01:10:19]

I do a split, it'sbasically three days a week

[01:10:19] : [01:10:21]

and the other days a run,

[01:10:21] : [01:10:22]

take one full day-off, take aweek-off every 12 to 16 weeks.

[01:10:22] : [01:10:25]

I've not been the guyhurling the heaviest weights

[01:10:25] : [01:10:28]

or running the furthest distance,

[01:10:28] : [01:10:29]

but I have been the guywho's continuing to do it

[01:10:29] : [01:10:31]

when a lot of my friends aretalking about knee injuries.

[01:10:31] : [01:10:34]

- Hey!- Talking about (chuckles)

[01:10:34] : [01:10:36]

- Hey, hey, hey. (chuckles)- I'm just...

[01:10:36] : [01:10:37]

But of course, with sport,

[01:10:37] : [01:10:40]

you can't account foreverything the same way

[01:10:40] : [01:10:41]

you can with fitness.

[01:10:41] : [01:10:42]

And I have to acknowledge that, you know?

[01:10:42] : [01:10:44]

Unless one is power lifting, you know,

[01:10:44] : [01:10:48]

weightlifting andrunning, you can get hurt,

[01:10:48] : [01:10:51]

but it's not like skateboarding where

[01:10:51] : [01:10:53]

if you're going for it,you're gonna get hurt.

[01:10:53] : [01:10:55]

That's just, you're landing on concrete

[01:10:55] : [01:10:57]

and with jiu-jitsu likepeople are trying to hurt you

[01:10:57] : [01:11:01]

so that you say stop.

[01:11:01] : [01:11:03]

- No, but it-- So with a sport

[01:11:03] : [01:11:04]

it's different.

[01:11:04] : [01:11:06]

And these days, I don'treally do a sport any longer.

[01:11:06] : [01:11:10]

I work out, stay fit.

[01:11:10] : [01:11:13]

I used to continue to do sports,

[01:11:13] : [01:11:17]

but I kept getting hurt and frankly now,

[01:11:17] : [01:11:19]

like a rolled ankle,

[01:11:19] : [01:11:20]

I may put out a little smallskateboard part in 2024

[01:11:20] : [01:11:25]

because people have been sayingwe wanna see the kick flip.

[01:11:25] : [01:11:28]

I'll say, well, I'll do aheel flip instead, but okay.

[01:11:28] : [01:11:31]

I might put out a little part

[01:11:31] : [01:11:32]

'cause some of the guysthat work on our podcast

[01:11:32] : [01:11:33]

are from DC, I think by now,

[01:11:33] : [01:11:35]

I should at least do it just to show

[01:11:35] : [01:11:38]

like I'm not making itup and I probably will.

[01:11:38] : [01:11:42]

But I think doing a sport is different.

[01:11:42] : [01:11:44]

That's how you get hurt,

[01:11:44] : [01:11:45]

overuse and doing it an actual sport.

[01:11:45] : [01:11:48]

And so, you know, hat tip tothose who do an actual sport.

[01:11:48] : [01:11:52]

- And that's a difficult decision.

[01:11:52] : [01:11:54]

Like a lot of people have to make,

[01:11:54] : [01:11:56]

I have to make with jiu-jitsu for example,

[01:11:56] : [01:11:58]

like if you just look empirically,

[01:11:58] : [01:12:00]

I've trained really hard from all my life

[01:12:00] : [01:12:02]

in grappling sports and fighting sports,

[01:12:02] : [01:12:04]

and all this kind of stuff.

[01:12:04] : [01:12:05]

And I've avoided injury for the most part.

[01:12:05] : [01:12:08]

And I would say,

[01:12:08] : [01:12:10]

I would attribute that to training a lot.

[01:12:10] : [01:12:14]

Sounds counterintuitive,

[01:12:14] : [01:12:15]

but training well andsafely, and correctly,

[01:12:15] : [01:12:19]

keeping good form, sayingno when I need to say no,

[01:12:19] : [01:12:22]

but training a lot andtaking it seriously.

[01:12:22] : [01:12:25]

Now when training is kind ofa side, really a side thing,

[01:12:25] : [01:12:29]

I find that the injury isbecomes a higher probability.

[01:12:29] : [01:12:34]

- But when you're just doingit every once in a while.

[01:12:34] : [01:12:36]

- [Lex] Every once in a while.

[01:12:36] : [01:12:36]

- Yeah, I think you saidsomething really important.

[01:12:36] : [01:12:39]

The saying no, I mean,

[01:12:39] : [01:12:41]

the times I have gotten hurt training

[01:12:41] : [01:12:43]

is when someone's like,

[01:12:43] : [01:12:44]

Hey, let's hop on this workout together

[01:12:44] : [01:12:46]

and it becomes, let's challenge each other

[01:12:46] : [01:12:48]

to do something outrageous.

[01:12:48] : [01:12:49]

Sometimes that can be fun though.

[01:12:49] : [01:12:51]

I went up to Cam Hanes's gym

[01:12:51] : [01:12:53]

and he does these very highrepetition weight workouts

[01:12:53] : [01:12:55]

that are in circuit form.

[01:12:55] : [01:12:58]

I was sore for two weeks,

[01:12:58] : [01:12:59]

but I learned a lotand didn't get injured.

[01:12:59] : [01:13:02]

And yes, we ate bow hunted elk afterwards.

[01:13:02] : [01:13:05]

- Nice.

[01:13:05] : [01:13:06]

But the injury has been

[01:13:06] : [01:13:08]

a really difficultpsychological thing for me

[01:13:08] : [01:13:10]

'cause, so I've injuredmy finger, pinky finger,

[01:13:10] : [01:13:15]

injured my knee.

[01:13:15] : [01:13:16]

- And your kitchen is filled with splints.

[01:13:16] : [01:13:18]

- Splints, I'm trying tofigure out, (chuckles)

[01:13:18] : [01:13:21]

I'm trying-- It's like,

[01:13:21] : [01:13:24]

if you look in Lex's kitchen,

[01:13:24] : [01:13:26]

there's some really goodsnacks, I had some right before.

[01:13:26] : [01:13:29]

He's very good about keepingcold drinks in the fridge

[01:13:29] : [01:13:33]

and all the water has elementin it, which is great.

[01:13:33] : [01:13:35]

I love that.

[01:13:35] : [01:13:36]

But then there's a whole likehospital's worth of splints.

[01:13:36] : [01:13:40]

- Yeah, I'm trying.

[01:13:40] : [01:13:41]

I'm trying to figureout, so here's the thing,

[01:13:41] : [01:13:44]

a finger like pop out like this, right?

[01:13:44] : [01:13:46]

Pinky finger.

[01:13:46] : [01:13:47]

I'm trying to figure out howdo I splint in such a way

[01:13:47] : [01:13:50]

that I can still program,still play guitar,

[01:13:50] : [01:13:53]

but protect this kind of torque motion

[01:13:53] : [01:13:56]

that creates a huge amount of pain.

[01:13:56] : [01:13:58]

And so-- That's you have

[01:13:58] : [01:13:59]

a jiu-jitsu injury.- Jiu-jitsu,

[01:13:59] : [01:14:00]

but it's not the kind of...

[01:14:00] : [01:14:02]

It's probably more like askateboarding style injury,

[01:14:02] : [01:14:04]

which is, it's unexpectedin a silly thing.

[01:14:04] : [01:14:09]

- It's the thing that happens in a second.

[01:14:09] : [01:14:11]

I didn't break my footdoing anything important.

[01:14:11] : [01:14:13]

I'd broke my fifth metatarsalstepping off a curb.

[01:14:13] : [01:14:18]

So that's why they're called accidents.

[01:14:18] : [01:14:22]

You know, if you get hurtdoing something awesome,

[01:14:22] : [01:14:25]

that's a trophy that youhave to work through.

[01:14:25] : [01:14:28]

It's part of your payment to the universe.

[01:14:28] : [01:14:30]

If you get hurt stepping off a curb

[01:14:30] : [01:14:34]

or you know, doing something stupid,

[01:14:34] : [01:14:36]

it's called a stupid accident.

[01:14:36] : [01:14:38]

- Since we brought up Chimp Empire,

[01:14:38] : [01:14:40]

let me ask you about relationships.

[01:14:40] : [01:14:42]

I think we've talked about relationships.

[01:14:42] : [01:14:44]

- Yeah, I only date Homo sapiens.

[01:14:44] : [01:14:46]

- Homo sapiens. (chuckles)

[01:14:46] : [01:14:48]

- [Andrew] It's the morning meditation.

[01:14:48] : [01:14:49]

- The night is still young.

[01:14:49] : [01:14:50]

You are human.

[01:14:50] : [01:14:51]

No, but you are also an animal.

[01:14:51] : [01:14:53]

Don't sell yourself short.

[01:14:53] : [01:14:55]

- No, I always say listen,

[01:14:55] : [01:14:56]

any discussion on the Human Lab podcast

[01:14:56] : [01:14:58]

about sexual health or anything, I always,

[01:14:58] : [01:15:00]

the critical force, consensual,age appropriate context,

[01:15:00] : [01:15:04]

appropriate, species appropriate.

[01:15:04] : [01:15:06]

- Species appropriate.

[01:15:06] : [01:15:07]

Well, can I just tell youabout sexual selection?

[01:15:07] : [01:15:11]

I've been watching "Life inColor" with David Attenborough.

[01:15:11] : [01:15:14]

I've been watching a lotof nature documentaries,

[01:15:14] : [01:15:16]

talking about inner peace,it brings me so much peace

[01:15:16] : [01:15:19]

to watch nature at itsworst and at its best.

[01:15:19] : [01:15:22]

So Life in Color is theseries on Netflix where

[01:15:22] : [01:15:25]

it presents some of the mostcolorful animals on earth

[01:15:25] : [01:15:29]

and kinda tells theirstory of how they got there

[01:15:29] : [01:15:33]

through natural selection.

[01:15:33] : [01:15:34]

So, you know, you have thepeacock with the feathers

[01:15:34] : [01:15:36]

and it's just such incredible colors.

[01:15:36] : [01:15:38]

Like the peacock has thesetail feathers, the male,

[01:15:38] : [01:15:43]

that are like gigantic andthey're super colorful.

[01:15:43] : [01:15:46]

And there're these eyes on it,

[01:15:46] : [01:15:48]

it's not eyes, it's like eye-like areas.

[01:15:48] : [01:15:52]

And they wiggle their asslike to show the tails.

[01:15:52] : [01:15:54]

They wiggle the tails.- The eye spots,

[01:15:54] : [01:15:56]

they're called.- The eye spots.

[01:15:56] : [01:15:57]

Yes, thank you.

[01:15:57] : [01:15:57]

You know this probably way better than me.

[01:15:57] : [01:15:59]

I'm just quoting it

[01:15:59] : [01:16:00]

from David Attenborough.- No, please continue.

[01:16:00] : [01:16:01]

- But it's just, I'm watching this

[01:16:01] : [01:16:03]

and then the female is asboring-looking as po...

[01:16:03] : [01:16:06]

Like she has no colors or nothing,

[01:16:06] : [01:16:08]

but she's standing there bored,

[01:16:08] : [01:16:10]

just seeing this entire display.

[01:16:10] : [01:16:13]

And I'm just wondering likethe entirety of life on earth

[01:16:13] : [01:16:18]

or not the entirety, post bacteria,

[01:16:18] : [01:16:20]

is like at least in part,

[01:16:20] : [01:16:24]

maybe in large part can bedescribed through this process

[01:16:24] : [01:16:26]

of natural selection, of sexual selection.

[01:16:26] : [01:16:29]

So dudes fighting

[01:16:29] : [01:16:31]

and then women selecting,

[01:16:31] : [01:16:35]

it seems like it's justthe entirety of that series

[01:16:35] : [01:16:39]

shows some incredible birdsand insects, and shrimp.

[01:16:39] : [01:16:44]

They're all beautiful and colorful

[01:16:44] : [01:16:45]

and just-- Mantis shrimp.

[01:16:45] : [01:16:46]

- Mantis shrimp, they'rejust, they're incredible.

[01:16:46] : [01:16:50]

And it's all about getting laid.

[01:16:50] : [01:16:53]

It's fascinating, like I just...

[01:16:53] : [01:16:55]

And there's nothing likewatching that and Chimp Empire

[01:16:55] : [01:16:59]

to make you realize, wehumans, that's the same thing.

[01:16:59] : [01:17:03]

That's all we're doing.

[01:17:03] : [01:17:03]

And all the beautifulvariety, all the bridges

[01:17:03] : [01:17:06]

and the buildings, and therockets, and the internet,

[01:17:06] : [01:17:09]

all of that is this kind,is at least in part,

[01:17:09] : [01:17:12]

this kind of a product ofthis kind of showing off

[01:17:12] : [01:17:16]

for each other

[01:17:16] : [01:17:17]

and all the wars and all of this, anyway,

[01:17:17] : [01:17:21]

it's not what I'm asking,oh, relationships.

[01:17:21] : [01:17:23]

- Well, right before youask about relationships,

[01:17:23] : [01:17:26]

I think what's clearis that every species,

[01:17:26] : [01:17:31]

it seems, animal specieswants to make more of itself

[01:17:31] : [01:17:36]

and protect its young.

[01:17:36] : [01:17:38]

- Well, to protect itsyoung is non-obvious.

[01:17:38] : [01:17:41]

- So not destroy enough ofitself that it can't get more

[01:17:41] : [01:17:46]

to reproductive competent age.

[01:17:46] : [01:17:49]

I mean, I think that,

[01:17:49] : [01:17:50]

you know, we have a natural,

[01:17:50] : [01:17:53]

I mean, healthy peoplehave a natural reflex

[01:17:53] : [01:17:57]

to protect children.

[01:17:57] : [01:17:59]

- Well, I don't know that.- And those, that can't-

[01:17:59] : [01:18:01]

- Wait a minute, wait, wait, wait minute.

[01:18:01] : [01:18:03]

I've seen enough animalsthat are murdering

[01:18:03] : [01:18:05]

the children of some other-

[01:18:05] : [01:18:06]

- Sure, there's evensiblicide there're like,

[01:18:06] : [01:18:09]

first of all, I just wanna say that

[01:18:09] : [01:18:11]

I was delighted in your delightaround animal kingdom stuff

[01:18:11] : [01:18:15]

'cause this is a favoritetheme of mine as well.

[01:18:15] : [01:18:18]

But there's for instance,some fascinating data on,

[01:18:18] : [01:18:22]

for instance, for thosethat grew up on farms,

[01:18:22] : [01:18:25]

they'll be familiar with freemartins,

[01:18:25] : [01:18:26]

you know about freemartins?

[01:18:26] : [01:18:27]

This is, they're cows that havemultiple calves inside them.

[01:18:27] : [01:18:32]

And there's a situationin which the calves

[01:18:32] : [01:18:37]

will secrete if there'smore than one inside

[01:18:37] : [01:18:39]

will secrete chemicals thatwill hormonally castrate

[01:18:39] : [01:18:44]

the calf next to them,so they can't reproduce.

[01:18:44] : [01:18:46]

So already in the womb they are fighting

[01:18:46] : [01:18:48]

for future resources.

[01:18:48] : [01:18:50]

That's how early this stuff can start.

[01:18:50] : [01:18:52]

So it's chemical warfare inthe womb against the siblings.

[01:18:52] : [01:18:55]

Sometimes there's outrightsiblicide, siblings are born,

[01:18:55] : [01:18:58]

they kill one another.

[01:18:58] : [01:19:00]

This also becomes biblical stories, right?

[01:19:00] : [01:19:03]

There are instances of cuttlefish,

[01:19:03] : [01:19:07]

beautiful cephalopods like octopuses.

[01:19:07] : [01:19:10]

And that is the plural as

[01:19:10] : [01:19:12]

we made it clear-- Yeah, it's a meme

[01:19:12] : [01:19:14]

on the internet.- Oh yeah?

[01:19:14] : [01:19:15]

That became a meme our little discussion

[01:19:15] : [01:19:17]

two years ago?- Yeah,

[01:19:17] : [01:19:18]

it spread pretty quick.

[01:19:18] : [01:19:19]

And now we just resurfaced it.

[01:19:19] : [01:19:21]

(Andrew laughing)

[01:19:21] : [01:19:22]

- Creating the dismay inyour voice is so amusing.

[01:19:22] : [01:19:24]

In any event, that male cuttlefishwill disguise themselves

[01:19:24] : [01:19:29]

as female cuttlefish infiltratethe female cuttlefish group

[01:19:29] : [01:19:34]

and then mate with them, you know?

[01:19:34] : [01:19:36]

All sorts of, you know, types of covert

[01:19:36] : [01:19:41]

operations.- There we go.

[01:19:41] : [01:19:43]

- [Andrew] So I think that- (chuckles)

[01:19:43] : [01:19:46]

- Callbacks.- It's like a drinking game

[01:19:46] : [01:19:47]

where every time we say covertcontract in this episode,

[01:19:47] : [01:19:51]

you have to take a shot of espresso.

[01:19:51] : [01:19:53]

Please don't do that,you'd be dead by the end.

[01:19:53] : [01:19:56]

- So actually it's just a small tangent,

[01:19:56] : [01:19:58]

it does make me wonder

[01:19:58] : [01:19:59]

how much intelligencecovert contracts require.

[01:19:59] : [01:20:02]

It seems like not much.

[01:20:02] : [01:20:03]

If you can do it in the animal kingdom,

[01:20:03] : [01:20:05]

there's some kind of instinctual,

[01:20:05] : [01:20:07]

it is based perhaps in like fear.

[01:20:07] : [01:20:10]

- Yeah, it could be simple algorithm.

[01:20:10] : [01:20:13]

If you know, if there's some ambiguity

[01:20:13] : [01:20:15]

about numbers and I'm notwith these guys and you know,

[01:20:15] : [01:20:19]

then flip to the alternate strategy.

[01:20:19] : [01:20:21]

Actually, I have a story about this

[01:20:21] : [01:20:22]

that I think is relevant.

[01:20:22] : [01:20:23]

I used to have cuttlefishin my lab in San Diego.

[01:20:23] : [01:20:25]

We went and got them froma guy out in the desert.

[01:20:25] : [01:20:28]

We put them in the lab, it was amazing.

[01:20:28] : [01:20:30]

And they had a postdoc

[01:20:30] : [01:20:32]

who was studying pre-capturing cuttlefish,

[01:20:32] : [01:20:34]

they have a very ballistic,

[01:20:34] : [01:20:35]

extremely rapid strikeand grab of the shrimp.

[01:20:35] : [01:20:38]

And we were using high-speed cameras

[01:20:38] : [01:20:43]

to characterize all thislooking at binocular.

[01:20:43] : [01:20:45]

They normally have their eyeson the side of their head

[01:20:45] : [01:20:47]

when they see something they want to eat

[01:20:47] : [01:20:49]

the eyes translocate to the front,

[01:20:49] : [01:20:50]

which allows 'em stereopsis,depth perception,

[01:20:50] : [01:20:52]

allows 'em to strike.

[01:20:52] : [01:20:53]

We were doing someunilateral eye removals,

[01:20:53] : [01:20:55]

they would miss, et cetera.

[01:20:55] : [01:20:56]

Okay, this has to do with eye spots.

[01:20:56] : [01:20:59]

This was during agovernment shutdown period

[01:20:59] : [01:21:02]

where the ghost shrimpthat they normally feed on,

[01:21:02] : [01:21:07]

that we would ship infrom the gulf down here,

[01:21:07] : [01:21:10]

weren't available to us.

[01:21:10] : [01:21:11]

So we had to get different shrimp.

[01:21:11] : [01:21:13]

And what we noticed wasthe cuttlefish normally

[01:21:13] : [01:21:16]

would just sneak up on the shrimp.

[01:21:16] : [01:21:18]

We learned this by data collection.

[01:21:18] : [01:21:20]

And if the shrimp was facing them,

[01:21:20] : [01:21:22]

they would do this thingwith their tentacles

[01:21:22] : [01:21:24]

of kind of enchanting the shrimp,

[01:21:24] : [01:21:27]

and if the shrimp wasn't facingthem, they wouldn't do it

[01:21:27] : [01:21:30]

and they would ballisticallygrab it and eat them.

[01:21:30] : [01:21:33]

Well, when we got these new shrimp,

[01:21:33] : [01:21:35]

the new shrimp had eyespots on their tails.

[01:21:35] : [01:21:38]

And then the cuttlefishwould do this kind of attempt

[01:21:38] : [01:21:40]

to enchant regardless of theposition of the ghost shrimp.

[01:21:40] : [01:21:43]

So what does that mean?

[01:21:43] : [01:21:44]

Okay, well, it means thatthere's some sort of algorithm

[01:21:44] : [01:21:46]

in the cuttlefish's mind that says,

[01:21:46] : [01:21:49]

okay, if you see two spots,

[01:21:49] : [01:21:51]

move your tentacles.

[01:21:51] : [01:21:53]

So it can be, as you pointed out,

[01:21:53] : [01:21:54]

it can be a fairly simple operation,

[01:21:54] : [01:21:56]

but it looks diabolical.

[01:21:56] : [01:21:58]

It looks cunning, butall it is, is strategy B.

[01:21:58] : [01:22:02]

- Yeah, but it's still somehow emerged.

[01:22:02] : [01:22:08]

I mean, I don't think thatcalling it an algorithm doesn't,

[01:22:08] : [01:22:12]

I feel like-- Well, there's a circuit

[01:22:12] : [01:22:14]

there that gets implementedin a certain context,

[01:22:14] : [01:22:17]

but that circuit had to evolve.

[01:22:17] : [01:22:19]

- You do realize a super intelligent AI

[01:22:19] : [01:22:21]

will look at us humans andwe'll say the exact thing.

[01:22:21] : [01:22:24]

There's a circuit in there that evolved

[01:22:24] : [01:22:27]

to do this algorithm A and algorithm B.

[01:22:27] : [01:22:31]

And it's trivial.

[01:22:31] : [01:22:32]

And to us humans, it's fancy and beautiful

[01:22:32] : [01:22:34]

and write poetry about it,

[01:22:34] : [01:22:35]

but it's just surreal.- Because so

[01:22:35] : [01:22:36]

we don't understand the subconscious

[01:22:36] : [01:22:39]

because they want thatAI algorithm cannot see

[01:22:39] : [01:22:41]

into what it can't see.

[01:22:41] : [01:22:42]

It doesn't understand the under workings

[01:22:42] : [01:22:45]

of what allows all of thisconversation stuff to manifest.

[01:22:45] : [01:22:48]

And we can't even see it.

[01:22:48] : [01:22:49]

How could AI see it?

[01:22:49] : [01:22:50]

Maybe it will, maybe AI will solve

[01:22:50] : [01:22:54]

and give us access to our subconscious.

[01:22:54] : [01:22:55]

Maybe your AI friend or coach,

[01:22:55] : [01:22:59]

like I think Andreessen and others

[01:22:59] : [01:23:01]

are arguing it's gonna happenat some point it's gonna say,

[01:23:01] : [01:23:03]

Hey, you know, Lex,

[01:23:03] : [01:23:05]

you're making decisions latelythat are not good for you,

[01:23:05] : [01:23:08]

but it's because of this algorithm

[01:23:08] : [01:23:11]

that you picked up in childhood

[01:23:11] : [01:23:13]

that if you don't stateyour explicit needs upfront,

[01:23:13] : [01:23:17]

you're not gonna get whatyou want, so why do it?

[01:23:17] : [01:23:20]

From now on, you needto actually make a list

[01:23:20] : [01:23:22]

of every, absolutely, outrageous thing

[01:23:22] : [01:23:24]

that you want no matter how outrageous

[01:23:24] : [01:23:27]

and communicate that immediately.

[01:23:27] : [01:23:29]

And that will work.

[01:23:29] : [01:23:30]

- We're talking aboutcuttlefish and sexual selection,

[01:23:30] : [01:23:33]

and then we went intosome, where do we go?

[01:23:33] : [01:23:36]

And you said you were excited.

[01:23:36] : [01:23:38]

- Well, I was excited

[01:23:38] : [01:23:39]

where you were just saying whatabout these covert contracts

[01:23:39] : [01:23:42]

and animals do them, I thinkis simple contextual engagement

[01:23:42] : [01:23:45]

of a neural circuit, whichis not just nerd speak

[01:23:45] : [01:23:47]

for saying they do a different strategy.

[01:23:47] : [01:23:49]

It's saying that therehas to be a circuit there,

[01:23:49] : [01:23:52]

hardwired circuit, maybe learned,

[01:23:52] : [01:23:54]

but probably hardwiredthat can be engaged, right?

[01:23:54] : [01:23:57]

You can't build neuralmachinery out of, in a moment,

[01:23:57] : [01:24:01]

you need to build that circuit over time.

[01:24:01] : [01:24:04]

What is building it overtime? You select for it.

[01:24:04] : [01:24:06]

The cuttlefish that did not have

[01:24:06] : [01:24:08]

that alternate context-driven circuit,

[01:24:08] : [01:24:11]

didn't survive when there was a,

[01:24:11] : [01:24:14]

when all the shrimp that theynormally disappear in the,

[01:24:14] : [01:24:17]

the eye-spotted shrimp showed up

[01:24:17] : [01:24:19]

and there were a couplethat had some miswiring,

[01:24:19] : [01:24:22]

this is why mutation, right?

[01:24:22] : [01:24:23]

X-Men type stuff is real.

[01:24:23] : [01:24:25]

They had a mutation thathad some alternate wiring

[01:24:25] : [01:24:28]

and that wiring got selected for,

[01:24:28] : [01:24:30]

it became a mutation that was adaptive

[01:24:30] : [01:24:32]

as opposed to maladaptive.

[01:24:32] : [01:24:33]

This is something peopledon't often understand

[01:24:33] : [01:24:35]

about genetics is that

[01:24:35] : [01:24:37]

it only takes a fewgenerations to devolve a trait,

[01:24:37] : [01:24:41]

make it worse,

[01:24:41] : [01:24:42]

but it takes a long time toevolve an adaptive trait.

[01:24:42] : [01:24:46]

There are exceptions to that,

[01:24:46] : [01:24:47]

but most often that's true.

[01:24:47] : [01:24:50]

So a species needs a lot of generations.

[01:24:50] : [01:24:52]

We are hopefully, stillevolving as a species

[01:24:52] : [01:24:55]

and it takes a long time,

[01:24:55] : [01:24:57]

but to evolve more adaptive traits.

[01:24:57] : [01:25:00]

But doesn't take long todevolve adaptive traits

[01:25:00] : [01:25:04]

so that you're getting sicker

[01:25:04] : [01:25:05]

or you're not functioning as well.

[01:25:05] : [01:25:07]

So choose your mate wisely.

[01:25:07] : [01:25:09]

And that's perhaps a goodsegue into sexual selection

[01:25:09] : [01:25:11]

of humans.- I could tell

[01:25:11] : [01:25:13]

you're good at this.

[01:25:13] : [01:25:14]

(Andrew chuckling)

[01:25:14] : [01:25:15]

We said why did I bringup sexual selection?

[01:25:15] : [01:25:17]

It's relationships, sosexual selection in humans.

[01:25:17] : [01:25:20]

I don't think you've donean episode on relationships.

[01:25:20] : [01:25:24]

- No, I did an episode on attachment,

[01:25:24] : [01:25:28]

but not on relationships.

[01:25:28] : [01:25:31]

The series with Conti includesone episode of the four

[01:25:31] : [01:25:35]

that's all about relational understanding

[01:25:35] : [01:25:38]

and how to select a mate basedon matching of drives and-

[01:25:38] : [01:25:43]

- All the demons inside the subconscious?

[01:25:43] : [01:25:47]

How to match demons that theydance well together or what?

[01:25:47] : [01:25:49]

- And how generative two people are.

[01:25:49] : [01:25:52]

- [Lex] What does that mean?

[01:25:52] : [01:25:52]

- Means that how, theway he explains it is,

[01:25:52] : [01:25:56]

how devoted to creatinggrowth within the context

[01:25:56] : [01:26:00]

of the family, the relationship with work.

[01:26:00] : [01:26:02]

- Well, lemme ask you about mating rituals

[01:26:02] : [01:26:04]

and how to find such a relationship?

[01:26:04] : [01:26:07]

I mean, you're really big on friendships,

[01:26:07] : [01:26:09]

on the value of friendships.

[01:26:09] : [01:26:10]

- I am.

[01:26:10] : [01:26:11]

- And that I think extends itself into

[01:26:11] : [01:26:15]

one of the deepest kinds offriendships you can have,

[01:26:15] : [01:26:19]

which is a romantic relationship.

[01:26:19] : [01:26:21]

What mistakes,

[01:26:21] : [01:26:25]

successes and wisdom can you impart?

[01:26:25] : [01:26:30]

- Well, I've certainly made some mistakes.

[01:26:30] : [01:26:32]

I've also made some goodchoices in this realm.

[01:26:32] : [01:26:34]

First of all, we have to define

[01:26:34] : [01:26:39]

what sort of relationshipwe're talking about.

[01:26:39] : [01:26:41]

If one is looking for a life partner,

[01:26:41] : [01:26:43]

you know, potentially somebodyto establish family with,

[01:26:43] : [01:26:46]

with or without kids, withor without pets, right?

[01:26:46] : [01:26:48]

Families can take different forms.

[01:26:48] : [01:26:50]

I mean, I certainlyexperienced being a family

[01:26:50] : [01:26:53]

in a prior relationshipwhere it was the two of us

[01:26:53] : [01:26:55]

and our two dogs.

[01:26:55] : [01:26:56]

And it was like, it was family.

[01:26:56] : [01:26:58]

Like we had a little family.

[01:26:58] : [01:26:59]

I think based on myexperience and based on input

[01:26:59] : [01:27:09]

from friends who themselves

[01:27:09] : [01:27:13]

have very successful relationships.

[01:27:13] : [01:27:15]

I must say, I've got friendswho are in long-term,

[01:27:15] : [01:27:20]

monogamous, very happy relationships

[01:27:20] : [01:27:25]

where there seems to be a lotof love, a lot of laughter,

[01:27:25] : [01:27:30]

a lot of challenge and a lot of growth.

[01:27:30] : [01:27:35]

And both people it seemsreally want to be there

[01:27:35] : [01:27:39]

and enjoy being there.

[01:27:39] : [01:27:41]

- Just to pause on that,

[01:27:41] : [01:27:42]

one thing to do, I think, by way of advice

[01:27:42] : [01:27:47]

is listen to people who are

[01:27:47] : [01:27:48]

in long-term successful relationships.

[01:27:48] : [01:27:50]

That's like, it seems dumb,

[01:27:50] : [01:27:53]

but like we both know andare friends with Joe Rogan,

[01:27:53] : [01:27:56]

who's been in a long-term,really great relationship

[01:27:56] : [01:27:59]

and he's been an inspiration to me.

[01:27:59] : [01:28:01]

So you take advice from that guy?

[01:28:01] : [01:28:03]

- Definitely.

[01:28:03] : [01:28:04]

And several members of my podcast team

[01:28:04] : [01:28:06]

are in excellent relationships.

[01:28:06] : [01:28:08]

I think one of the thingsthat rings true over

[01:28:08] : [01:28:13]

and over again in the adviceand in my experience is,

[01:28:13] : [01:28:18]

you know, find someonewho's really a great friend.

[01:28:18] : [01:28:22]

Like build a really greatfriendship with that person.

[01:28:22] : [01:28:25]

Now, obviously, not just a friend

[01:28:25] : [01:28:26]

if we're talking romantic relationship,

[01:28:26] : [01:28:28]

but, and of course,sex is super important,

[01:28:28] : [01:28:32]

but it should be a part ofthat particular relationship

[01:28:32] : [01:28:37]

alongside or meshed with the friendship.

[01:28:37] : [01:28:39]

Can it be a majority ofthe positive exchange?

[01:28:39] : [01:28:45]

I suppose it could,

[01:28:45] : [01:28:46]

but I think the friendshippiece is extremely important

[01:28:46] : [01:28:48]

because what's required in asuccessful relationship clearly

[01:28:48] : [01:28:51]

is joy in being together.

[01:28:51] : [01:28:54]

Trust,

[01:28:54] : [01:28:57]

a desire to share experience both,

[01:28:57] : [01:29:03]

you know, mundane and moreadventurous, support each other,

[01:29:03] : [01:29:08]

acceptance, a real, maybe even admiration,

[01:29:08] : [01:29:14]

but certainly delight inbeing with the person.

[01:29:14] : [01:29:18]

You know, earlier wewere talking about peace,

[01:29:18] : [01:29:20]

and I think that that senseof peace comes from knowing

[01:29:20] : [01:29:22]

that the person you're in friendship with

[01:29:22] : [01:29:24]

or that you're in romanticrelationship or ideally both

[01:29:24] : [01:29:27]

'cause let's assume healthy relation,

[01:29:27] : [01:29:28]

the best romantic relationship includes

[01:29:28] : [01:29:30]

a friendship component with that person.

[01:29:30] : [01:29:32]

It's like you just reallydelight in their presence,

[01:29:32] : [01:29:35]

even if it's a quiet presence

[01:29:35] : [01:29:36]

and you delight in seeingthem delight in things, right?

[01:29:36] : [01:29:43]

That's clear.

[01:29:43] : [01:29:44]

The trust piece is huge,

[01:29:44] : [01:29:47]

you know, and that's where people start,

[01:29:47] : [01:29:51]

you know, we don't wannafocus on what works,

[01:29:51] : [01:29:52]

not what doesn't work,

[01:29:52] : [01:29:53]

but that's where I think people start

[01:29:53] : [01:29:56]

engaging these covert contracts.

[01:29:56] : [01:29:58]

They're afraid of beingbetrayed, so they betray.

[01:29:58] : [01:30:00]

They're afraid of givingup too much vulnerability

[01:30:00] : [01:30:05]

so they hide their vulnerabilityor in the worst cases,

[01:30:05] : [01:30:09]

they feign vulnerability.

[01:30:09] : [01:30:11]

Again, that's a covert contract

[01:30:11] : [01:30:14]

that just simply undermines everything,

[01:30:14] : [01:30:16]

it becomes one, both one equalstwo minus one to infinity.

[01:30:16] : [01:30:19]

Conversely, I think if people

[01:30:19] : [01:30:22]

can have really hard conversations,

[01:30:22] : [01:30:24]

this is something I'vehad to work really hard on

[01:30:24] : [01:30:26]

in recent years that I'mstill working hard on,

[01:30:26] : [01:30:28]

but the friendship pieceseems to be the thing

[01:30:28] : [01:30:31]

that rises to the topwhen I talk to friends

[01:30:31] : [01:30:34]

who are in these great relationships.

[01:30:34] : [01:30:37]

It's like they have somuch respect and love,

[01:30:37] : [01:30:40]

and joy in being with their friend.

[01:30:40] : [01:30:43]

It's the person that they wanna spend

[01:30:43] : [01:30:45]

as much of their non-working,

[01:30:45] : [01:30:46]

non-platonic friendship time with

[01:30:46] : [01:30:50]

and the person they wantto experience things with,

[01:30:50] : [01:30:52]

and share things with.

[01:30:52] : [01:30:53]

And it sounds so kindacanned and cliche nowadays,

[01:30:53] : [01:30:57]

but I think if you step backand examine how most people go

[01:30:57] : [01:31:00]

about finding arelationship, sort of like,

[01:31:00] : [01:31:02]

oh, like am I attracted, ofcourse, physical attraction

[01:31:02] : [01:31:05]

is important and otherforms of attraction too,

[01:31:05] : [01:31:07]

and they sort of enterthrough that portal,

[01:31:07] : [01:31:10]

which makes sense.

[01:31:10] : [01:31:11]

That's the mating dance, right?

[01:31:11] : [01:31:13]

That's the peacock situation.

[01:31:13] : [01:31:15]

That's hopefully not thecuttlefish situation where the,

[01:31:15] : [01:31:18]

(chuckles) but I think that

[01:31:18] : [01:31:21]

there seems to be ahistory of people close

[01:31:21] : [01:31:26]

to me getting into great relationships

[01:31:26] : [01:31:28]

where they were friends for a while first

[01:31:28] : [01:31:30]

or maybe didn't sleep together right away.

[01:31:30] : [01:31:33]

That they actuallyintentionally deferred on that.

[01:31:33] : [01:31:36]

This has not been myhabit or my experience,

[01:31:36] : [01:31:40]

you know, I've gone themore I think typical

[01:31:40] : [01:31:43]

like, oh, there's anattraction like this person,

[01:31:43] : [01:31:46]

there's an interest, youkinda explore all dimensions

[01:31:46] : [01:31:48]

of relationship really quickly,

[01:31:48] : [01:31:49]

except perhaps the moving inpart and the having kids part,

[01:31:49] : [01:31:52]

which ideally because it's a bigger step,

[01:31:52] : [01:31:54]

harder to undo withoutmore severe consequences.

[01:31:54] : [01:31:58]

But I think, the whole take it slow thing,

[01:31:58] : [01:32:02]

I don't think is about gettingto know someone slowly.

[01:32:02] : [01:32:05]

I think it's about that physical piece

[01:32:05] : [01:32:07]

because that does change thenature of the relationship.

[01:32:07] : [01:32:10]

And I think it's because it gets right

[01:32:10] : [01:32:12]

into the more hardwiredprimitive circuitry

[01:32:12] : [01:32:15]

around our feelings ofsafety, vulnerability,

[01:32:15] : [01:32:20]

you know, there's something about

[01:32:20] : [01:32:22]

romantic and sexual interactionswhere it's almost like,

[01:32:22] : [01:32:27]

it's like assets and liabilities, right?

[01:32:27] : [01:32:31]

Where people are trying to figure out

[01:32:31] : [01:32:32]

how much to engage theirtime and their energy,

[01:32:32] : [01:32:36]

in multiple people, I'mtalking about from both sides,

[01:32:36] : [01:32:38]

you know, male, femaleor whatever it sides,

[01:32:38] : [01:32:41]

but where it's likeassets and liabilities,

[01:32:41] : [01:32:43]

and that's where it starts getting

[01:32:43] : [01:32:45]

into those complicatedcontracts early on, I think.

[01:32:45] : [01:32:50]

And so maybe that's why ifa really great friendship

[01:32:50] : [01:32:53]

and admiration is established first,

[01:32:53] : [01:32:56]

even if people are romanticallyand sexually attracted

[01:32:56] : [01:32:58]

to one another, then thatpiece can be added in

[01:32:58] : [01:33:00]

a little bit later in a way that

[01:33:00] : [01:33:02]

really kinda just sealsup the whole thing.

[01:33:02] : [01:33:05]

And then who knows,

[01:33:05] : [01:33:06]

maybe they spend 90% of theirtime having sex, I don't know,

[01:33:06] : [01:33:09]

that's not for me to sayor decide, obviously.

[01:33:09] : [01:33:13]

But there's somethingthere about staying out

[01:33:13] : [01:33:17]

of a certain amount of

[01:33:17] : [01:33:19]

risk of having to engage covert contract

[01:33:19] : [01:33:26]

in order to protect oneself.

[01:33:26] : [01:33:29]

- But I do think like,

[01:33:29] : [01:33:30]

love at first sight, thiskind of idea is in part

[01:33:30] : [01:33:37]

realizing very quicklythat you are great friends.

[01:33:37] : [01:33:42]

Like I've had that experienceof friendship recently.

[01:33:42] : [01:33:46]

It's not really friendship,

[01:33:46] : [01:33:47]

but like, oh, you geteach other, with humans,

[01:33:47] : [01:33:50]

not in a romantic setting.

[01:33:50] : [01:33:52]

- Right, friendship.- Yeah, just friendship,

[01:33:52] : [01:33:53]

but not-- Well, but dare I say,

[01:33:53] : [01:33:54]

I felt that way about you when we met,

[01:33:54] : [01:33:56]

right?- But we also-

[01:33:56] : [01:33:57]

- I was like, this dude's cool

[01:33:57] : [01:33:58]

and he's smart, and he'sfunny, and he's driven,

[01:33:58] : [01:34:02]

and he's giving, and he'sgot an edge, and like,

[01:34:02] : [01:34:06]

I wanna learn from him,wanna hang out with him.

[01:34:06] : [01:34:10]

Like, I mean, that was thebeginning of our friendship

[01:34:10] : [01:34:12]

was essentially, you know,

[01:34:12] : [01:34:14]

that set of internal realizations.

[01:34:14] : [01:34:17]

- Just keep going, just keep going.

[01:34:17] : [01:34:18]

Keep going with compliments.- And a sharp dresser.

[01:34:18] : [01:34:19]

- Yeah, yeah, it just looks great.

[01:34:19] : [01:34:20]

Shirtless on a horseback, yes.

[01:34:20] : [01:34:22]

- No, no, no.

[01:34:22] : [01:34:23]

Listen, I mean, despitewhat some people might see

[01:34:23] : [01:34:25]

on the internet, it's apurely platonic friendship.

[01:34:25] : [01:34:28]

- Somebody said, somebodyasked if Andrew Huberman

[01:34:28] : [01:34:31]

has a girlfriend, andsomebody says, I think so.

[01:34:31] : [01:34:33]

And the third comment was,

[01:34:33] : [01:34:35]

this really like breaks my heart,

[01:34:35] : [01:34:38]

like that Lex and Andrew are not an item.

[01:34:38] : [01:34:42]

- We are not, we are greatfriends, but we are not an item.

[01:34:42] : [01:34:45]

Yeah, it's true, it's official.

[01:34:45] : [01:34:46]

I hear over and over again from friends

[01:34:46] : [01:34:52]

that have made great choicesand awesome partners,

[01:34:52] : [01:34:55]

and have these fantastic relationships

[01:34:55] : [01:34:58]

for long periods of time thatseem to continue to thrive.

[01:34:58] : [01:35:01]

At least that's what they tell me,

[01:35:01] : [01:35:02]

and that's what I observed.

[01:35:02] : [01:35:03]

Establish the friendship first

[01:35:03] : [01:35:06]

and give it a bit of time before sex.

[01:35:06] : [01:35:11]

And so, you know, Ithink that's the feeling.

[01:35:11] : [01:35:16]

That's the feeling.

[01:35:16] : [01:35:17]

And these are, we'retalking micro-features

[01:35:17] : [01:35:21]

and macro-features.

[01:35:21] : [01:35:22]

We're talking, you know,

[01:35:22] : [01:35:23]

and this isn't about perfection,

[01:35:23] : [01:35:24]

it's actually about the imperfections,

[01:35:24] : [01:35:25]

which is kind of cool.

[01:35:25] : [01:35:26]

I like quirky people, I like characters.

[01:35:26] : [01:35:28]

I'll tell you where I've gone badly wrong

[01:35:28] : [01:35:30]

and where I see otherpeople going badly wrong.

[01:35:30] : [01:35:32]

If there is no rule that saysthat you have to be attracted

[01:35:32] : [01:35:38]

to all attractive people,

[01:35:38] : [01:35:39]

by any means, it's veryimportant to develop

[01:35:39] : [01:35:43]

a sense of taste in romantic attractions.

[01:35:43] : [01:35:46]

I believe what you really likein terms of a certain style,

[01:35:46] : [01:35:50]

you know, a certain way of being,

[01:35:50] : [01:35:53]

and of course, that includessexuality and sex itself,

[01:35:53] : [01:35:58]

the verb.

[01:35:58] : [01:36:00]

But I think it also includesthere's just general way

[01:36:00] : [01:36:03]

of being, you know?

[01:36:03] : [01:36:05]

And when you really adore somebody,

[01:36:05] : [01:36:07]

you like the way they answer the phone.

[01:36:07] : [01:36:09]

And when they don'tanswer the phone that way,

[01:36:09] : [01:36:11]

you know, something'soff and you wanna know.

[01:36:11] : [01:36:13]

And so I think that

[01:36:13] : [01:36:14]

the more you can tune-upyour powers of observation,

[01:36:14] : [01:36:20]

not looking for things that you like,

[01:36:20] : [01:36:22]

and the more that stuffjust kinda washes over you,

[01:36:22] : [01:36:26]

the more likely you are to,quote-unquote, "fall in love."

[01:36:26] : [01:36:28]

As a mutual friend of ours said to me,

[01:36:28] : [01:36:31]

"You know, listen, when itcomes to romantic relationships,

[01:36:31] : [01:36:33]

if it's not a hundred percentin you, it ain't happening."

[01:36:33] : [01:36:38]

And I've never seen aviolation of that statement

[01:36:38] : [01:36:43]

where it's like, yeah,

[01:36:43] : [01:36:45]

it's mostly good andthey're this and this,

[01:36:45] : [01:36:46]

like the negotiations.

[01:36:46] : [01:36:48]

Well, already, it's doomed.

[01:36:48] : [01:36:51]

And that doesn't meansomeone has to be perfect.

[01:36:51] : [01:36:52]

The relationship has to be perfect,

[01:36:52] : [01:36:53]

but it's gotta feel ahundred percent inside.

[01:36:53] : [01:36:56]

Like, yes, yes, and yes.

[01:36:56] : [01:36:59]

I think Deisseroth, when hewas on here, your podcast,

[01:36:59] : [01:37:03]

mentioned something that, you know, like,

[01:37:03] : [01:37:05]

I think the words were you,

[01:37:05] : [01:37:06]

or maybe it was in hisbook, I don't recall.

[01:37:06] : [01:37:08]

But that, you know, loveis one of these things

[01:37:08] : [01:37:10]

that we story into with somebody.

[01:37:10] : [01:37:12]

We create this idea ofourselves in the future

[01:37:12] : [01:37:15]

and we look at our past time together

[01:37:15] : [01:37:18]

and then you, you story into it.

[01:37:18] : [01:37:20]

I mean, there are veryfew things like that,

[01:37:20] : [01:37:21]

I can't story into, youknow, building flying cars.

[01:37:21] : [01:37:25]

I have to actually go do something.

[01:37:25] : [01:37:27]

I mean, and love is alsoretroactively constructed.

[01:37:27] : [01:37:32]

I mean, anyone who'sgone through a breakup

[01:37:32] : [01:37:35]

understands the grief of knowing,

[01:37:35] : [01:37:36]

oh, like this is somethingI really shouldn't be in,

[01:37:36] : [01:37:39]

for whatever reason,

[01:37:39] : [01:37:39]

'cause it only takes one.

[01:37:39] : [01:37:41]

If the other persondoesn't want to be in it,

[01:37:41] : [01:37:41]

then you shouldn't be in it.

[01:37:41] : [01:37:43]

But then missing so many things,

[01:37:43] : [01:37:45]

and that's just the attachmentmachinery really at work.

[01:37:45] : [01:37:49]

- I have to ask you aquestion that somebody

[01:37:49] : [01:37:51]

on our amazing team wanted to ask.

[01:37:51] : [01:37:54]

He's happily married,

[01:37:54] : [01:37:56]

another like you mentionedincredible relationship.

[01:37:56] : [01:37:58]

- Are they good friends?

[01:37:58] : [01:38:00]

- They're amazing friends.- There you go.

[01:38:00] : [01:38:02]

- But I'm not saying who itis, so I can say some stuff,

[01:38:02] : [01:38:06]

which is they, it started outas a great sexual connection.

[01:38:06] : [01:38:10]

- Oh, well there you go.

[01:38:10] : [01:38:11]

- But then became veryclose friends after that.

[01:38:11] : [01:38:13]

- Okay, listening-- There you go.

[01:38:13] : [01:38:16]

- So speaking of sex-- Many paths to Rome.

[01:38:16] : [01:38:18]

- He has a wonderful son

[01:38:18] : [01:38:20]

and he is wanting to have a second kid,

[01:38:20] : [01:38:21]

and he wanted to ask thegreat Andrew Huberman,

[01:38:21] : [01:38:24]

is there like sexualpositions or any kinda thing

[01:38:24] : [01:38:29]

that can help maximize the chance

[01:38:29] : [01:38:32]

that they have a girl versus a boy?

[01:38:32] : [01:38:34]

'Cause they had a wonderfulboy, they want a girl.

[01:38:34] : [01:38:37]

Is there a way to control the gender?

[01:38:37] : [01:38:39]

- Well, this has beendebated for a long time

[01:38:39] : [01:38:41]

and I did a four and a halfhour episode on fertility.

[01:38:41] : [01:38:45]

And the reason I did a fourand a half hour episode

[01:38:45] : [01:38:46]

on fertility is that, first of all,

[01:38:46] : [01:38:48]

I find it that reproductivebiology be fascinating.

[01:38:48] : [01:38:52]

And I wanted a resource for people that

[01:38:52] : [01:38:55]

were thinking about orstruggling with having kids

[01:38:55] : [01:39:00]

for whatever reason.

[01:39:00] : [01:39:01]

And it felt important to me to combine

[01:39:01] : [01:39:02]

the male and female componentsin the same episode.

[01:39:02] : [01:39:05]

It's all timestamped,

[01:39:05] : [01:39:06]

so you don't have tolisten to the whole thing.

[01:39:06] : [01:39:07]

We talk about IVF, in vitro fertilization

[01:39:07] : [01:39:10]

and we talk about natural pregnancy.

[01:39:10] : [01:39:11]

Okay, the data on positionis very interesting.

[01:39:11] : [01:39:16]

But let me just say a few things.

[01:39:16] : [01:39:17]

There are a few clinics now in particular,

[01:39:17] : [01:39:19]

some out of the United Statesthat are spinning down sperm

[01:39:19] : [01:39:24]

and finding that they canseparate out fractions

[01:39:24] : [01:39:26]

as they're called, you know,

[01:39:26] : [01:39:27]

that can spin the spermdown at a given speed

[01:39:27] : [01:39:29]

and they'll separate out at different

[01:39:29] : [01:39:32]

sort of depths within the test tube

[01:39:32] : [01:39:34]

that allow them to pullout the sperm on top

[01:39:34] : [01:39:38]

or below and bias the probability

[01:39:38] : [01:39:41]

towards male or female births.

[01:39:41] : [01:39:42]

It's not perfect.

[01:39:42] : [01:39:43]

It's not a hundred percent.

[01:39:43] : [01:39:44]

It's a very costly procedure.

[01:39:44] : [01:39:45]

It's still very controversial.

[01:39:45] : [01:39:47]

Now with in vitro fertilization,

[01:39:47] : [01:39:50]

you can extract eggs, you cando introduce a sperm directly

[01:39:50] : [01:39:54]

by pipette and it's a process called ICSI

[01:39:54] : [01:39:56]

or you can set up a sperm race in a dish.

[01:39:56] : [01:39:58]

And if you get a numberof different embryos,

[01:39:58] : [01:40:01]

meaning the eggs getfertilized to duplicate

[01:40:01] : [01:40:05]

and start form a blastocyst,which is a ball of cells,

[01:40:05] : [01:40:08]

early embryo, then you can do karyotyping.

[01:40:08] : [01:40:11]

So you can do, look forXX or XY, select the XY,

[01:40:11] : [01:40:14]

which then would giverise to a male offspring

[01:40:14] : [01:40:16]

and implant that one.

[01:40:16] : [01:40:17]

So there is that kind of sex selection.

[01:40:17] : [01:40:19]

With respect to position,there's a lot of lore

[01:40:19] : [01:40:25]

that, you know, if the woman is on top

[01:40:25] : [01:40:28]

or the woman's on the bottom,

[01:40:28] : [01:40:29]

or whether or not thepenetration is from behind,

[01:40:29] : [01:40:32]

whether or not it's gonnabe male or female offspring.

[01:40:32] : [01:40:34]

And frankly, the data arenot great as you can imagine

[01:40:34] : [01:40:38]

'cause those would be interestingstudies to run, perhaps.

[01:40:38] : [01:40:43]

- But there is studies, there is papers.

[01:40:43] : [01:40:45]

- [Andrew] There are some-

[01:40:45] : [01:40:46]

- But they're not, I guess.

[01:40:46] : [01:40:48]

there's more lore than sciences.

[01:40:48] : [01:40:49]

- And there are a lot of other variables

[01:40:49] : [01:40:51]

that are hard to control.

[01:40:51] : [01:40:52]

So for instance, if it'sejaculation during intermission,

[01:40:52] : [01:40:57]

during sex penetration, et cetera,

[01:40:57] : [01:40:59]

then you can't measure, for instance,

[01:40:59] : [01:41:03]

sperm volume as opposed to when it's IVF,

[01:41:03] : [01:41:05]

and they can actuallymeasure how many milliliters,

[01:41:05] : [01:41:07]

how many forward motilesperm, it's hard to control

[01:41:07] : [01:41:10]

for certain things.

[01:41:10] : [01:41:11]

And it just can vary between individuals

[01:41:11] : [01:41:13]

and even from one ejaculation to the next.

[01:41:13] : [01:41:15]

And, okay, so there's too many variables.

[01:41:15] : [01:41:17]

However, the position thing is interesting

[01:41:17] : [01:41:20]

in the following way.

[01:41:20] : [01:41:23]

And then I'll answerwhether or not you can bias

[01:41:23] : [01:41:24]

towards a female.

[01:41:24] : [01:41:25]

But as long as we're talking about sexual-

[01:41:25] : [01:41:28]

- [Lex] I have other questions

[01:41:28] : [01:41:29]

about sexual-- But as long

[01:41:29] : [01:41:29]

as we're talking about sexual position.

[01:41:29] : [01:41:31]

There are data that support the idea

[01:41:31] : [01:41:35]

that in order to increase the probability

[01:41:35] : [01:41:38]

of successful fertilization,

[01:41:38] : [01:41:42]

that indeed the woman shouldnot stand upright after sex

[01:41:42] : [01:41:47]

and should right after theman has ejaculated inside her

[01:41:47] : [01:41:52]

and should adjust her pelvis,say 15 degrees upwards.

[01:41:52] : [01:41:56]

I mean, you know, someof the fertility experts,

[01:41:56] : [01:42:00]

MDs will say, that's crazy, you know,

[01:42:00] : [01:42:02]

but others that I sought out,

[01:42:02] : [01:42:06]

and not specifically for this answer,

[01:42:06] : [01:42:08]

but for researchingthat episode, said that,

[01:42:08] : [01:42:11]

yeah, you know what? You're talking about

[01:42:11] : [01:42:12]

is trying to get themaximum number of sperm

[01:42:12] : [01:42:14]

and it's contained in semen andyes, the semen can leak out.

[01:42:14] : [01:42:17]

And so keeping the pelvistilted for about at 15 degrees

[01:42:17] : [01:42:21]

for about 15 minutes,

[01:42:21] : [01:42:22]

obviously, tilted in the direction

[01:42:22] : [01:42:24]

that would have things runningupstream, not downstream,

[01:42:24] : [01:42:26]

so to speak.- Yeah, gravity.

[01:42:26] : [01:42:28]

- Gravity, it's real,

[01:42:28] : [01:42:30]

you know, so for maximizing fertilization,

[01:42:30] : [01:42:35]

you know, the doctorsI spoke to just said,

[01:42:35] : [01:42:38]

look, given that if peopleare trying to get pregnant,

[01:42:38] : [01:42:42]

what is spending 15 minutes on their back,

[01:42:42] : [01:42:44]

you know, this sort of thing.

[01:42:44] : [01:42:46]

Okay, so then withrespect to female getting

[01:42:46] : [01:42:51]

a female offspring or XX,female offspring, selectively,

[01:42:51] : [01:42:56]

there is the idea thatas fathers get older,

[01:42:56] : [01:43:01]

they're more likely to havedaughters as opposed to sons.

[01:43:01] : [01:43:04]

That's a,

[01:43:04] : [01:43:05]

from the papers I'veread is a significant,

[01:43:05] : [01:43:08]

but still mildly significant result.

[01:43:08] : [01:43:11]

So with each passing year,

[01:43:11] : [01:43:13]

this person increases the probability

[01:43:13] : [01:43:16]

they're gonna have a daughter, not a son.

[01:43:16] : [01:43:18]

But look, so that's interesting.

[01:43:18] : [01:43:19]

- But the probability differencesare probably tiny as you-

[01:43:19] : [01:43:22]

- I mean, it's not, youknow, it's not trivial,

[01:43:22] : [01:43:27]

it's not a trivial difference.

[01:43:27] : [01:43:28]

But if they want toensure having a daughter,

[01:43:28] : [01:43:33]

then they should do IVFand select an XX embryo.

[01:43:33] : [01:43:37]

And when you go through IVF,

[01:43:37] : [01:43:39]

they genetically screenthem for karyotype,

[01:43:39] : [01:43:41]

which is XX, XY.

[01:43:41] : [01:43:42]

And they look at mutations,

[01:43:42] : [01:43:46]

genotypic mutations for things like,

[01:43:46] : [01:43:48]

you know, trisomies and aneuploidies,

[01:43:48] : [01:43:52]

all the stuff you don't want.

[01:43:52] : [01:43:54]

- But there is a lot of lore if you look

[01:43:54] : [01:43:55]

on the internet.- Sure, different foods-

[01:43:55] : [01:43:57]

- [Lex] So there are a lot of variables-

[01:43:57] : [01:43:58]

- There's a lot of variable,

[01:43:58] : [01:43:59]

but there haven't been systematic studies.

[01:43:59] : [01:44:00]

So I think probably the best thing to do,

[01:44:00] : [01:44:04]

unless they're gonna doIVF is just, you know,

[01:44:04] : [01:44:07]

roll the dice and you know,

[01:44:07] : [01:44:09]

and I think with eachpassing year they increase

[01:44:09] : [01:44:12]

the probability of gettinga female offspring,

[01:44:12] : [01:44:14]

but of course, with each passing year,

[01:44:14] : [01:44:17]

the egg and sperm quality degrade,

[01:44:17] : [01:44:20]

so, you know, get after it soon.

[01:44:20] : [01:44:23]

- So I went down a rabbit hole.

[01:44:23] : [01:44:25]

There's like sexology,there's journals on sex.

[01:44:25] : [01:44:29]

- Sure.

[01:44:29] : [01:44:30]

- Okay, so-- And some of them,

[01:44:30] : [01:44:32]

some of them, not all quite reputable.

[01:44:32] : [01:44:34]

And some of them reallypioneering in the sense that

[01:44:34] : [01:44:38]

they've taken on topics that are,

[01:44:38] : [01:44:41]

you know, considered,

[01:44:41] : [01:44:43]

you know, outside the mainframe of what people talk about,

[01:44:43] : [01:44:46]

but they're very important.

[01:44:46] : [01:44:48]

We have episodes coming outsoon with, for instance,

[01:44:48] : [01:44:51]

the head of male urology, sexual health

[01:44:51] : [01:44:55]

and reproductive health atStanford, Michael Eisenberg,

[01:44:55] : [01:44:57]

but also, you know,

[01:44:57] : [01:44:59]

one with a femaleurologist, sexual health,

[01:44:59] : [01:45:01]

reproductive health, Dr. Rena Malik,

[01:45:01] : [01:45:05]

who is on, has a quiteactive YouTube presence.

[01:45:05] : [01:45:07]

She does these really like dry,

[01:45:07] : [01:45:10]

like scientificpresentation, but very nice.

[01:45:10] : [01:45:14]

She has a lovely voice and she,

[01:45:14] : [01:45:16]

but she'll be talking about, you know,

[01:45:16] : [01:45:18]

erections or squirting, or like all this,

[01:45:18] : [01:45:20]

like she does like very kindof internet type content,

[01:45:20] : [01:45:23]

but she's a legitimate urologist,

[01:45:23] : [01:45:25]

reproductive health expert.

[01:45:25] : [01:45:27]

And in the podcast, we did talk about

[01:45:27] : [01:45:30]

both male and female orgasm.

[01:45:30] : [01:45:33]

We talked a lot about sexualfunction, dysfunction.

[01:45:33] : [01:45:35]

We talked a lot about pelvic floor.

[01:45:35] : [01:45:37]

One interesting factoid is that

[01:45:37] : [01:45:40]

only three, only 3% ofsexual dysfunction is

[01:45:40] : [01:45:46]

hormonal endocrine in nature.

[01:45:46] : [01:45:49]

It's more often relatedto some pelvic floor

[01:45:49] : [01:45:53]

or vasculature blood flowrelated, or other issue.

[01:45:53] : [01:45:58]

And then when Eisenberg,he came on the podcast,

[01:45:58] : [01:46:00]

he said that far less sexual dysfunction

[01:46:00] : [01:46:04]

is psychogenic in origin

[01:46:04] : [01:46:06]

than people believe that farmore of it is pelvic floor,

[01:46:06] : [01:46:09]

neuro and vascular.

[01:46:09] : [01:46:11]

So, you know, there are the myths of,

[01:46:11] : [01:46:13]

I mean, it's not saying

[01:46:13] : [01:46:14]

that psychogenicdysfunction doesn't exist,

[01:46:14] : [01:46:17]

but that a lot of sexualdysfunction that people assume

[01:46:17] : [01:46:20]

is related to hormones or that is related

[01:46:20] : [01:46:22]

to psychogenic issuesare related to vascular

[01:46:22] : [01:46:26]

or neural issues.

[01:46:26] : [01:46:27]

And the good news is that

[01:46:27] : [01:46:28]

there are great remedies for those.

[01:46:28] : [01:46:31]

And so both those episodes detail some

[01:46:31] : [01:46:34]

of the more salient pointsaround what those remedies are

[01:46:34] : [01:46:37]

and could be, I mean, one ofthe kind of, again, factoids,

[01:46:37] : [01:46:42]

but it was interesting that, you know,

[01:46:42] : [01:46:43]

a lot of people have pelvic floor issues

[01:46:43] : [01:46:45]

and they think that their pelvic floors

[01:46:45] : [01:46:47]

are quote-unquote, "messed up."

[01:46:47] : [01:46:49]

So they go on the internet,

[01:46:49] : [01:46:50]

they learn about Kegels, you know,

[01:46:50] : [01:46:52]

and it turns out thatsome people need Kegels,

[01:46:52] : [01:46:55]

they need to strengthen theirpelvic floor, guess what?

[01:46:55] : [01:46:58]

A huge number of people withsexual and urologic dysfunction

[01:46:58] : [01:47:03]

have pelvic floors that are too tight

[01:47:03] : [01:47:06]

and Kegels are gonna make them far worse.

[01:47:06] : [01:47:08]

And they actually need to learnto relax their pelvic floor.

[01:47:08] : [01:47:10]

And so seeing a pelvic floorspecialist is important.

[01:47:10] : [01:47:12]

I think in the next 5, 10 years,

[01:47:12] : [01:47:14]

we're gonna see a dramaticshift towards more discussion

[01:47:14] : [01:47:17]

about sexual and reproductive health

[01:47:17] : [01:47:18]

in a way that acknowledges that,

[01:47:18] : [01:47:20]

yeah, the clitoris comesfrom the same origin tissue

[01:47:20] : [01:47:23]

as the penis.

[01:47:23] : [01:47:24]

And in many ways, the neuralinnervation of the two,

[01:47:24] : [01:47:27]

while clearly different, hassome overlapping features

[01:47:27] : [01:47:31]

that you know, that there'sgonna be discussion around

[01:47:31] : [01:47:35]

kind of anatomy andhormones, and pelvic floors,

[01:47:35] : [01:47:38]

and in a way that's gonna, you know,

[01:47:38] : [01:47:41]

erode some of the kind oflike cloaking of these topics

[01:47:41] : [01:47:46]

'cause they've beencloaked for a long time

[01:47:46] : [01:47:48]

and there's a lot of like,

[01:47:48] : [01:47:49]

well, let's just call it what it is,

[01:47:49] : [01:47:51]

there's a lot of bullshitout there about what's what.

[01:47:51] : [01:47:54]

And now the hormonal issues, by the way,

[01:47:54] : [01:47:56]

just to clarify, can impact desire.

[01:47:56] : [01:48:00]

So a lot of people who have lack of desire

[01:48:00] : [01:48:02]

as opposed to lack of anatomical function,

[01:48:02] : [01:48:06]

this could be male or female,

[01:48:06] : [01:48:07]

that can originate witheither things like SSRIs,

[01:48:07] : [01:48:10]

or hormonal issues.

[01:48:10] : [01:48:12]

And so we talk about that as well.

[01:48:12] : [01:48:13]

So it's a pretty vast topic.

[01:48:13] : [01:48:15]

- Okay, you're one of themost productive people I know.

[01:48:15] : [01:48:18]

What's the secret to your productivity?

[01:48:18] : [01:48:22]

How do you maximize the numberof productive hours in a day?

[01:48:22] : [01:48:25]

You're a scientist, you're a teacher,

[01:48:25] : [01:48:27]

you're a very prolific educator.

[01:48:27] : [01:48:30]

- Well, thanks for the kind words.

[01:48:30] : [01:48:32]

I struggle like everybody else,

[01:48:32] : [01:48:34]

but I am pretty relentless about

[01:48:34] : [01:48:39]

meeting deadlines.

[01:48:39] : [01:48:43]

I miss them sometimes,

[01:48:43] : [01:48:44]

but sometimes that means cramming.

[01:48:44] : [01:48:45]

Sometimes that means starting early, but-

[01:48:45] : [01:48:48]

- Has that been hard, sorry tointerrupt, with the podcast,

[01:48:48] : [01:48:50]

there's certain episodes,

[01:48:50] : [01:48:52]

I mean, you're like taking justincredibly difficult topics

[01:48:52] : [01:48:58]

and you know, there're going to be,

[01:48:58] : [01:48:59]

there's going to be a lotof really good scientists

[01:48:59] : [01:49:02]

listening to those with a veryskeptical and careful eye.

[01:49:02] : [01:49:06]

Like how hard,

[01:49:06] : [01:49:06]

do you struggle meetingthat deadline sometimes?

[01:49:06] : [01:49:09]

- Yes, so we've pushed out episodes

[01:49:09] : [01:49:11]

because I want more time with them.

[01:49:11] : [01:49:13]

I also, I haven't advertised this,

[01:49:13] : [01:49:15]

but I have another fully tenured professor

[01:49:15] : [01:49:19]

that's started checking my podcasts

[01:49:19] : [01:49:24]

and helping me find papers.

[01:49:24] : [01:49:27]

He's a close friend of mine,

[01:49:27] : [01:49:27]

he's an incredibleexpert in neuroplasticity

[01:49:27] : [01:49:30]

and that's been helpful.

[01:49:30] : [01:49:32]

But I research all my all, Ido all the primary research

[01:49:32] : [01:49:34]

for the episodes myself.

[01:49:34] : [01:49:35]

Although, my niece has beendoing a summer internship

[01:49:35] : [01:49:39]

with me and finding amazing papers.

[01:49:39] : [01:49:40]

She did last summer as well,she's really good at it.

[01:49:40] : [01:49:44]

Just seek that kid on theinternet and she gets great stuff.

[01:49:44] : [01:49:47]

- Can I ask you justgoing on tangents here,

[01:49:47] : [01:49:50]

what's the hardest, finding the papers

[01:49:50] : [01:49:53]

or understanding what a paper is saying?

[01:49:53] : [01:49:56]

- Finding the best papers.

[01:49:56] : [01:49:59]

'Cause you have to, you know,read a bunch of reviews,

[01:49:59] : [01:50:02]

figure out who's getting cited.

[01:50:02] : [01:50:04]

Call people in a field, makesure that this is the stuff.

[01:50:04] : [01:50:06]

I mean, you know, I didthis episode recently

[01:50:06] : [01:50:08]

on ketamine, about ketamine.

[01:50:08] : [01:50:10]

I wasn't on ketamine and you know,

[01:50:10] : [01:50:12]

there's this whole debateabout S versus R Ketamine

[01:50:12] : [01:50:14]

and S/R Ketamine.

[01:50:14] : [01:50:15]

And I called two clinicalexperts at Stanford.

[01:50:15] : [01:50:18]

I had a researcher at UCLA help me.

[01:50:18] : [01:50:20]

Even then, you know, a fewpeople had gripes about it,

[01:50:20] : [01:50:22]

that I don't think theyunderstood a section

[01:50:22] : [01:50:24]

that I was perhaps couldhave been clearer about.

[01:50:24] : [01:50:27]

But yeah, you're alwaysconcerned that people

[01:50:27] : [01:50:32]

either won't get it or I won't be clear.

[01:50:32] : [01:50:34]

So the researching is mainlyabout finding the best papers,

[01:50:34] : [01:50:36]

and then I'm looking forpapers that establish

[01:50:36] : [01:50:39]

a thoroughness of understanding

[01:50:39] : [01:50:42]

that are interesting, obviously,

[01:50:42] : [01:50:45]

it's fun to get occasionallylook at some of the odder

[01:50:45] : [01:50:48]

or more progressivepapers that are, you know,

[01:50:48] : [01:50:50]

what's new in a field and then

[01:50:50] : [01:50:52]

where there are actionable takeaways

[01:50:52] : [01:50:53]

to really export those witha lot of thoughtfulness.

[01:50:53] : [01:50:57]

I mean, I think that goingback to the productivity thing,

[01:50:57] : [01:51:01]

you know, I do, I getup, I look at the sun.

[01:51:01] : [01:51:04]

I don't stare at the sun,but I get my sunshine.

[01:51:04] : [01:51:07]

It all starts with areally good night's sleep.

[01:51:07] : [01:51:09]

I think that's reallyimportant to understand.

[01:51:09] : [01:51:11]

So much so that if I wake upand I don't feel rested enough,

[01:51:11] : [01:51:13]

I'll often do a non-sleepdeep rest, yoga nidra,

[01:51:13] : [01:51:16]

or go back to sleep fora little bit, get up,

[01:51:16] : [01:51:18]

really prioritize one, you know,

[01:51:18] : [01:51:20]

the big block of work for thething that I'm researching.

[01:51:20] : [01:51:23]

I think a little bit of anxietyand a little bit of concern

[01:51:23] : [01:51:26]

about deadline helps.

[01:51:26] : [01:51:27]

Turning the phone off helps.

[01:51:27] : [01:51:30]

Realizing that those peak hours,

[01:51:30] : [01:51:34]

whenever they are for you,

[01:51:34] : [01:51:35]

you do not allow those hours to be invaded

[01:51:35] : [01:51:38]

unless there's a, you know,a nuclear bomb goes off.

[01:51:38] : [01:51:41]

And a nuclear bomb is just a,you know, a phraseology for,

[01:51:41] : [01:51:47]

you know, it could be familycrisis, would be, you know,

[01:51:47] : [01:51:51]

would be good justification

[01:51:51] : [01:51:52]

if there's an emergency, obviously.

[01:51:52] : [01:51:53]

But it's all about focus.

[01:51:53] : [01:51:56]

It's all about focus in the moment.

[01:51:56] : [01:51:58]

It's not even so much abouthow many hours you log.

[01:51:58] : [01:52:01]

It's really about focus in the moment.

[01:52:01] : [01:52:02]

How much total focus canyou give to something?

[01:52:02] : [01:52:05]

And then I like to takewalks and think about things

[01:52:05] : [01:52:08]

and sometimes talk aboutthem in my voice recorder.

[01:52:08] : [01:52:11]

So I'm just always churningon it all the time.

[01:52:11] : [01:52:14]

And then of course,

[01:52:14] : [01:52:18]

learning to turn it off andengage with people socially

[01:52:18] : [01:52:20]

and, you know, not bepodcasting 24 hours a day

[01:52:20] : [01:52:23]

in your head is key.

[01:52:23] : [01:52:24]

But I think I lovelearning and researching,

[01:52:24] : [01:52:27]

and finding that thosepapers and the information,

[01:52:27] : [01:52:29]

and I love teaching it.

[01:52:29] : [01:52:30]

And these days I use awhiteboard before I start.

[01:52:30] : [01:52:34]

I don't have any notes, no teleprompter.

[01:52:34] : [01:52:36]

Then the whiteboard that I used beforehand

[01:52:36] : [01:52:38]

is to really sculpt out thedifferent elements and the flow,

[01:52:38] : [01:52:41]

get the flow right,and move things around.

[01:52:41] : [01:52:44]

The whiteboard is such a valuable tool.

[01:52:44] : [01:52:46]

Then take a couple pictures ofthat when I'm happy with it,

[01:52:46] : [01:52:49]

put it down on the desk andthese are just bullet points

[01:52:49] : [01:52:51]

and then just churn through,and just churn through.

[01:52:51] : [01:52:54]

And nothing feels better than,

[01:52:54] : [01:52:56]

you know, researchingand sharing information.

[01:52:56] : [01:52:58]

And as you did, you know,grew up writing papers

[01:52:58] : [01:53:02]

and it's hard.

[01:53:02] : [01:53:03]

And I like the friction of a, (grunts)

[01:53:03] : [01:53:06]

can't, you know, I wanna getup, wanna use the bathroom.

[01:53:06] : [01:53:08]

When I was in college,

[01:53:08] : [01:53:10]

I was trying to make up deficiencies

[01:53:10] : [01:53:12]

from my lack of attendance in high school.

[01:53:12] : [01:53:15]

So much so that I would set a timer.

[01:53:15] : [01:53:17]

I wouldn't let myself get upto use the bathroom, even.

[01:53:17] : [01:53:20]

Never had an accident,

[01:53:20] : [01:53:21]

but I was, you know,

[01:53:21] : [01:53:22]

I mean, it was like, I listenedto music, classical music,

[01:53:22] : [01:53:25]

Rancid, a few other things.

[01:53:25] : [01:53:27]

Some Bob Dylan maybe thrown in there

[01:53:27] : [01:53:30]

and just study and just...

[01:53:30] : [01:53:34]

And it felt, and then, you know,

[01:53:34] : [01:53:35]

hit the two-hour mark and you're in pain,

[01:53:35] : [01:53:37]

and then you get up,like use the bathroom.

[01:53:37] : [01:53:39]

Like, that felt so good.

[01:53:39] : [01:53:40]

There's something about the human brain

[01:53:40] : [01:53:42]

that likes these kind of friction points

[01:53:42] : [01:53:44]

and working through them

[01:53:44] : [01:53:45]

and you just have to work through them.

[01:53:45] : [01:53:46]

So yeah, I'm productive

[01:53:46] : [01:53:48]

and my life has arrangedaround it and you know,

[01:53:48] : [01:53:51]

that's been a bit of a barrierto personal life at times,

[01:53:51] : [01:53:55]

but my life's been arranged around it.

[01:53:55] : [01:53:57]

I've set up everything so thatI can learn more, teach more,

[01:53:57] : [01:54:00]

including, you know, some of my home life.

[01:54:00] : [01:54:05]

But I do, you know,still watch Chimp Empire.

[01:54:05] : [01:54:09]

Still got time to watch Chimp Empire.

[01:54:09] : [01:54:11]

Look, the great Joe Strummer, right, Clash

[01:54:11] : [01:54:14]

or my favorite Mescaleros, he said,

[01:54:14] : [01:54:16]

this is a famous Strummerquote, "no input, no output."

[01:54:16] : [01:54:20]

So you need experience, youneed outside things in order

[01:54:20] : [01:54:24]

to foster the process.

[01:54:24] : [01:54:27]

But yeah, just noses thegrindstone man, I don't know.

[01:54:27] : [01:54:32]

And that's what I'mhappy to do with my life.

[01:54:32] : [01:54:35]

I don't think anyone shoulddo that, just because,

[01:54:35] : [01:54:38]

but this is how I'm showing up.

[01:54:38] : [01:54:40]

And, you know, if youdon't like me, then scroll.

[01:54:40] : [01:54:43]

Why do they say swipe left, swipe right?

[01:54:43] : [01:54:45]

I don't know.

[01:54:45] : [01:54:46]

I'm not on the apps, the dating apps.

[01:54:46] : [01:54:47]

So that's the other thingI keep waiting for when

[01:54:47] : [01:54:50]

listens to Lex Fridmanpodcast is a check box

[01:54:50] : [01:54:54]

on like Hinge or Bumble,or whatever it is.

[01:54:54] : [01:54:56]

But I don't even know arethose that are field is,

[01:54:56] : [01:54:57]

I don't know what are the apps now?

[01:54:57] : [01:55:00]

- Well, I've never used an app,

[01:55:00] : [01:55:02]

those foul troublesomehow little information

[01:55:02] : [01:55:05]

is provided on apps.

[01:55:05] : [01:55:07]

- Well, they're the onesthat are like a stocked lake.

[01:55:07] : [01:55:09]

Like Raya, you know?

[01:55:09] : [01:55:11]

They sort of like, companieswill actually fill them with,

[01:55:11] : [01:55:15]

you know?- Oh, interesting.

[01:55:15] : [01:55:17]

- People that look a certain way and-

[01:55:17] : [01:55:18]

- Well, soon it'll be filled with AI.

[01:55:18] : [01:55:20]

- Oh yeah.

[01:55:20] : [01:55:22]

- That's the way you said, oh.

[01:55:22] : [01:55:23]

- Oh, that's interesting.- A heartbreak within that.

[01:55:23] : [01:55:25]

- Well, you know, I'm guilty

[01:55:25] : [01:55:27]

of liking real human interaction.

[01:55:27] : [01:55:29]

- Have you tried AI interaction?

[01:55:29] : [01:55:32]

(Lex and Andrew chuckling)

[01:55:32] : [01:55:34]

- No, but I have a feelingyou're gonna convince me to.

[01:55:34] : [01:55:36]

(Lex and Andrew chuckling)

[01:55:36] : [01:55:37]

- One day.

[01:55:37] : [01:55:38]

Yeah, I've also struggledfinishing projects that are new,

[01:55:38] : [01:55:43]

that are something new.

[01:55:43] : [01:55:46]

Like for example,

[01:55:46] : [01:55:47]

one of the things Ireally struggled finishing

[01:55:47] : [01:55:49]

is something that's in Russianthat requires translation

[01:55:49] : [01:55:52]

and overdub, and all that kind of stuff.

[01:55:52] : [01:55:54]

The other project I'vebeen working on for like,

[01:55:54] : [01:55:56]

over at least a year,

[01:55:56] : [01:55:59]

off and on, but trying to finish

[01:55:59] : [01:56:03]

is something we've talkedabout in the past is,

[01:56:03] : [01:56:05]

I'm still on it project onHitler and World War II.

[01:56:05] : [01:56:08]

I've written so much about it

[01:56:08] : [01:56:10]

and I just don't knowwhy I can't finish it.

[01:56:10] : [01:56:11]

I have trouble, like really...

[01:56:11] : [01:56:14]

I think I'm terrified beingin front of the camera.

[01:56:14] : [01:56:18]

- Like this?

[01:56:18] : [01:56:19]

- Like this.- Or solo?

[01:56:19] : [01:56:20]

- Well, actually, no, no, no.

[01:56:20] : [01:56:21]

Solo, basically.- Well, if you wanna do solo

[01:56:21] : [01:56:24]

and seriously, 'cause we'vedone this before, right?

[01:56:24] : [01:56:26]

Our clandestine study missions.

[01:56:26] : [01:56:29]

I'm happy to sit in thecorner and work on my book

[01:56:29] : [01:56:31]

or do something if youwanna, if it feels good-

[01:56:31] : [01:56:33]

- Just for the feeling of somebody else.

[01:56:33] : [01:56:35]

- Definitely.- What do you,

[01:56:35] : [01:56:36]

I mean, how do you...

[01:56:36] : [01:56:37]

You don't seem to,

[01:56:37] : [01:56:38]

you seem to have been fearless,

[01:56:38] : [01:56:42]

to just sit in front ofthe camera by yourself

[01:56:42] : [01:56:46]

to do the episode.

[01:56:46] : [01:56:48]

- Yeah, it was weird.

[01:56:48] : [01:56:48]

I mean, the first year of the podcast,

[01:56:48] : [01:56:50]

it just spilled outta me.

[01:56:50] : [01:56:51]

It was just, I had all thatstuff I was so excited about.

[01:56:51] : [01:56:54]

I've been talking toeveryone and who would listen

[01:56:54] : [01:56:56]

and anyone even when, who they'd run away,

[01:56:56] : [01:57:00]

I'd keep talking, you know,

[01:57:00] : [01:57:01]

before there was ever acamera wasn't on social media.

[01:57:01] : [01:57:04]

In 2019, I posted a littlebit, 2020, as you know,

[01:57:04] : [01:57:06]

I started going on podcasts.

[01:57:06] : [01:57:07]

But yeah, I just...

[01:57:07] : [01:57:11]

The zest and delight in this stuff.

[01:57:11] : [01:57:13]

I was like, circadian rhythms,

[01:57:13] : [01:57:15]

I'm gonna tell you about this stuff.

[01:57:15] : [01:57:16]

Just felt like, here's the opportunity

[01:57:16] : [01:57:18]

and just let it burst.

[01:57:18] : [01:57:19]

And then as we've gotten into topics

[01:57:19] : [01:57:21]

that are a little bit furtheraway from my home knowledge,

[01:57:21] : [01:57:25]

you know, like I still getsuper excited about it.

[01:57:25] : [01:57:30]

It's music in the brainepisode I've been researching

[01:57:30] : [01:57:33]

for a while now, I'm just so hyped,

[01:57:33] : [01:57:35]

I keep thinking about it.

[01:57:35] : [01:57:36]

It's so interesting.

[01:57:36] : [01:57:37]

There's so many facets.

[01:57:37] : [01:57:39]

Singing versus improvisational,excuse me, music

[01:57:39] : [01:57:43]

versus I'm listening tomusic versus learning music.

[01:57:43] : [01:57:47]

I mean that, it just goes on and on.

[01:57:47] : [01:57:48]

There's just so much,that's so interesting.

[01:57:48] : [01:57:51]

I just can't get enough and I think,

[01:57:51] : [01:57:54]

I dunno, you put a camera in front of me,

[01:57:54] : [01:57:56]

I sort of forget about it andI'm just trying to just teach.

[01:57:56] : [01:58:01]

- Yeah, so that's thedifference, that's interesting.

[01:58:01] : [01:58:02]

I mean-- Forget the camera.

[01:58:02] : [01:58:03]

- Maybe I need to find that joy as well,

[01:58:03] : [01:58:05]

but like for me, a lot ofthe joys in the writing,

[01:58:05] : [01:58:09]

and the camera, there's something-

[01:58:09] : [01:58:11]

- Well, the best lecturers, as you know,

[01:58:11] : [01:58:13]

and you're in a phenomenal lecturer,

[01:58:13] : [01:58:15]

so you embody this as well.

[01:58:15] : [01:58:17]

But when I teach at Stanford,

[01:58:17] : [01:58:18]

I was directing thiscourse in neuroanatomy

[01:58:18] : [01:58:20]

and neuroscience for medical students.

[01:58:20] : [01:58:22]

And I noticed that the bestlecturers would come in

[01:58:22] : [01:58:25]

and they're teaching the material

[01:58:25] : [01:58:26]

from a place of deep understanding,

[01:58:26] : [01:58:29]

but they're also experiencingit as a first-time learner

[01:58:29] : [01:58:33]

as at the same time.

[01:58:33] : [01:58:34]

So it's just sort ofembodying the delight of it,

[01:58:34] : [01:58:36]

but also the authorityover the, not authority,

[01:58:36] : [01:58:38]

but the sort of mastery of the material.

[01:58:38] : [01:58:41]

And it's really the delight in it

[01:58:41] : [01:58:43]

that the students are linking onto it.

[01:58:43] : [01:58:45]

And of course, they need and deserve

[01:58:45] : [01:58:47]

the best accurate material,

[01:58:47] : [01:58:48]

so they have to know whatthey're talking about.

[01:58:48] : [01:58:50]

But yeah, just tap intothat energy of learning

[01:58:50] : [01:58:53]

and loving it, and peopleare long for the ride.

[01:58:53] : [01:58:56]

Or you know, I get accusedof being long-winded,

[01:58:56] : [01:58:58]

but, you know, thingsget taken outta context

[01:58:58] : [01:59:01]

that leads to greater misunderstanding.

[01:59:01] : [01:59:03]

And also I look at,

[01:59:03] : [01:59:04]

listen, I come from a lineageof three dead advisors,

[01:59:04] : [01:59:07]

three, all three.

[01:59:07] : [01:59:09]

So I don't know when thereaper's coming for me.

[01:59:09] : [01:59:12]

I'm doing my best tostay alive a long time.

[01:59:12] : [01:59:14]

But whether or not it's abullet or a bus, or cancer,

[01:59:14] : [01:59:17]

whatever, or just old age, I mean,

[01:59:17] : [01:59:20]

I'm trying to get it allout there as best I can.

[01:59:20] : [01:59:24]

And if it means you have to hit pause

[01:59:24] : [01:59:26]

and come back a day or two later, like,

[01:59:26] : [01:59:28]

that seems like areasonable compromise to me.

[01:59:28] : [01:59:30]

I'm not gonna go longer than I need to

[01:59:30] : [01:59:34]

and I'm trying to shorten them up.

[01:59:34] : [01:59:35]

But again, that's kinda how I show up.

[01:59:35] : [01:59:39]

It's like Tim Armstrong wouldsay about writing songs.

[01:59:39] : [01:59:42]

I asked him, do you write,how often do you write?

[01:59:42] : [01:59:43]

Every day?

[01:59:43] : [01:59:44]

Every day.

[01:59:44] : [01:59:45]

Has Rick ever stopped creating? No.

[01:59:45] : [01:59:47]

Has Joe ever stopped preparing for comedy?

[01:59:47] : [01:59:48]

Are you ever stopping tothink about world issues

[01:59:48] : [01:59:51]

and technology and who you can talk to?

[01:59:51] : [01:59:53]

I mean, it seems to meyou've always got a plan,

[01:59:53] : [01:59:57]

the insight.

[01:59:57] : [01:59:58]

The thing I love aboutyour podcast the most,

[01:59:58] : [02:00:01]

to be honest these days, is the surprise

[02:00:01] : [02:00:04]

of like, I don't know whothe hell's gonna be there.

[02:00:04] : [02:00:06]

It's almost like, I get alittle nervously excited

[02:00:06] : [02:00:10]

about when a new episodecomes 'cause I have no idea.

[02:00:10] : [02:00:14]

No idea.

[02:00:14] : [02:00:14]

And you know, I mean, I have some guesses

[02:00:14] : [02:00:16]

based on what you toldme during the break.

[02:00:16] : [02:00:17]

I mean, you've got somepeople where it's just like,

[02:00:17] : [02:00:20]

whoa! Lex has went there? Awesome.

[02:00:20] : [02:00:24]

Can't wait, click.

[02:00:24] : [02:00:26]

You know, I think that's really cool.

[02:00:26] : [02:00:28]

Like, you're constantly surprising people.

[02:00:28] : [02:00:30]

So you're doing it so well.

[02:00:30] : [02:00:33]

Like, it's such a high-level.

[02:00:33] : [02:00:34]

And I think it's also importantfor people to understand

[02:00:34] : [02:00:38]

that what you're doing, Lex,there's no precedent for it.

[02:00:38] : [02:00:42]

Sure, there have been interviews before,

[02:00:42] : [02:00:43]

there have been podcasts before.

[02:00:43] : [02:00:44]

There are discussions before,

[02:00:44] : [02:00:46]

but it's not like, how manyof your peers can you look to,

[02:00:46] : [02:00:48]

to find out how best todo the content like yours?

[02:00:48] : [02:00:51]

Zero.

[02:00:51] : [02:00:52]

There's one peer, you.

[02:00:52] : [02:00:54]

And so, you know, thatshould give you great peace

[02:00:54] : [02:00:59]

and great excitement

[02:00:59] : [02:01:00]

because you're a pioneer.

[02:01:00] : [02:01:02]

You're literally the tip of the spear.

[02:01:02] : [02:01:04]

I don't wanna take an unnecessary tangent,

[02:01:04] : [02:01:06]

but I think this might thread together two

[02:01:06] : [02:01:08]

of the things that we've beentalking about, which are,

[02:01:08] : [02:01:10]

I think of pretty key importance.

[02:01:10] : [02:01:12]

One is romantic relationships,

[02:01:12] : [02:01:14]

and the other is creativeprocess and the work.

[02:01:14] : [02:01:16]

And this again, is somethingI learned from Rick,

[02:01:16] : [02:01:18]

but that he and I havegone back and forth on.

[02:01:18] : [02:01:20]

And that I think is worthelaborating on, which is,

[02:01:20] : [02:01:24]

earlier we were saying,

[02:01:24] : [02:01:25]

you know, the bestrelationship is gonna be one

[02:01:25] : [02:01:28]

where it brings you peace.

[02:01:28] : [02:01:29]

I think peace also can betranslated to, among other things,

[02:01:29] : [02:01:33]

lack of distraction.

[02:01:33] : [02:01:36]

So when you're with your partner,

[02:01:36] : [02:01:38]

can you really focus onthem and the relationship?

[02:01:38] : [02:01:42]

Can you not be distracted by things

[02:01:42] : [02:01:47]

that you're upset about from their past

[02:01:47] : [02:01:49]

or from your past with them or their,

[02:01:49] : [02:01:52]

and of course, the sameis true for them, right?

[02:01:52] : [02:01:54]

They ideally will feelthat way towards you too,

[02:01:54] : [02:01:56]

they can really focus.

[02:01:56] : [02:01:58]

Also, when you're not with them,

[02:01:58] : [02:02:01]

can you focus on your work?

[02:02:01] : [02:02:02]

Can you not be worried aboutwhether or not they're okay?

[02:02:02] : [02:02:05]

'Cause you trust that they're an adult

[02:02:05] : [02:02:07]

and they can handle thingsor they will reach out

[02:02:07] : [02:02:08]

if they need things?

[02:02:08] : [02:02:09]

They're gonna communicatetheir needs like an adult,

[02:02:09] : [02:02:13]

you know, not creatingmessage just to get attention

[02:02:13] : [02:02:16]

and things like that.

[02:02:16] : [02:02:17]

Or disappearing, youknow, for that matter.

[02:02:17] : [02:02:21]

So peace and focus are intimately related,

[02:02:21] : [02:02:26]

and distraction is theenemy of peace and focus.

[02:02:26] : [02:02:31]

So there's something there, I believe,

[02:02:31] : [02:02:34]

because with people that havethe strong generative drive

[02:02:34] : [02:02:38]

and want to, you know,

[02:02:38] : [02:02:39]

be productive in theirhome life in the sense

[02:02:39] : [02:02:42]

have a rich family life orpartner life, whatever that is.

[02:02:42] : [02:02:45]

And in their work life,

[02:02:45] : [02:02:47]

you know, the ability toreally drop into the work

[02:02:47] : [02:02:49]

and like, okay, you mighthave that sense like,

[02:02:49] : [02:02:51]

I hope they're okay or, you know,

[02:02:51] : [02:02:53]

need to check my phone or something.

[02:02:53] : [02:02:54]

But just know like, we're good.

[02:02:54] : [02:02:57]

So peace and focus, I thinkbeing present are so key.

[02:02:57] : [02:03:01]

And it's key at every levelof romantic relationship from,

[02:03:01] : [02:03:04]

you know, certainly presenceand focus, you know,

[02:03:04] : [02:03:07]

everything from sex to listening to,

[02:03:07] : [02:03:09]

you know, raising a family,

[02:03:09] : [02:03:12]

to tending to the house and in work,

[02:03:12] : [02:03:16]

it's absolutely critical.

[02:03:16] : [02:03:17]

So I think that those thingsare kind of mirror images

[02:03:17] : [02:03:21]

of the same thing.

[02:03:21] : [02:03:22]

And they're both importantreflections of the other.

[02:03:22] : [02:03:25]

And when you start tojust, you know, when work

[02:03:25] : [02:03:26]

is not going well, then thefocus on relationship can suffer

[02:03:26] : [02:03:31]

and vice versa.

[02:03:31] : [02:03:33]

- And it's crazy how important that is.

[02:03:33] : [02:03:35]

How incredibly wonderfulit could be to have

[02:03:35] : [02:03:40]

a person in your life that kind of enables

[02:03:40] : [02:03:45]

that creative focus.

[02:03:45] : [02:03:46]

- Yeah, and you supply the peace and focus

[02:03:46] : [02:03:50]

for their endeavors,whatever those might be.

[02:03:50] : [02:03:53]

I mean that symmetry there,

[02:03:53] : [02:03:55]

because clearly, peoplehave different needs

[02:03:55] : [02:03:58]

and the need to just really trust,

[02:03:58] : [02:03:59]

you know, like when Lex is working,

[02:03:59] : [02:04:01]

he's in his generativemode and I know he's good.

[02:04:01] : [02:04:06]

And so then they feel surethey've contributed to that,

[02:04:06] : [02:04:11]

but then also what you'redoing is supporting them

[02:04:11] : [02:04:13]

in whatever way it happens to be.

[02:04:13] : [02:04:15]

And I think that sometimesyou'll see that people

[02:04:15] : [02:04:17]

will pair up along creative,creative or musical, musical,

[02:04:17] : [02:04:20]

or computer scientists.

[02:04:20] : [02:04:22]

But I think, again, goingback to this Conti episode

[02:04:22] : [02:04:25]

on relationships is thatthe superficial labels

[02:04:25] : [02:04:29]

are less important itseems than just the desire

[02:04:29] : [02:04:32]

to create that kind of homelife and relationship together.

[02:04:32] : [02:04:36]

And as a consequence, the work mode.

[02:04:36] : [02:04:40]

And for some people they'reboth people aren't working.

[02:04:40] : [02:04:43]

And sometimes they are.

[02:04:43] : [02:04:43]

But I think that's thegood stuff, you know?

[02:04:43] : [02:04:47]

And I think that's thebig learning in all of it,

[02:04:47] : [02:04:49]

is that the further alongI go with each birthday,

[02:04:49] : [02:04:52]

I guarantee you're gonna be like,

[02:04:52] : [02:04:54]

what I want is simpler and simpler,

[02:04:54] : [02:04:56]

and harder and harder tocreate, but oh, so worth it.

[02:04:56] : [02:05:01]

- The inner and the outer peace.

[02:05:01] : [02:05:04]

It's been over two years,

[02:05:04] : [02:05:07]

I think since Costello passed away.

[02:05:07] : [02:05:10]

- [Andrew] It still tears me up.

[02:05:10] : [02:05:12]

- You mentioned him still.- I cried about him today,

[02:05:12] : [02:05:15]

I cried about him today.- Still?

[02:05:15] : [02:05:18]

- It's proportional to the love.

[02:05:18] : [02:05:21]

But yeah, I'll cry about itright now if I think about it.

[02:05:21] : [02:05:22]

It wasn't putting him down,

[02:05:22] : [02:05:24]

it wasn't the act ofhim dying any of that.

[02:05:24] : [02:05:26]

Actually, that was a beautiful experience.

[02:05:26] : [02:05:28]

I didn't expect it to be,

[02:05:28] : [02:05:30]

but it was in my place whenI was living in Topanga

[02:05:30] : [02:05:32]

during the pandemic wherewe launched the podcast

[02:05:32] : [02:05:34]

and I did it at home.

[02:05:34] : [02:05:36]

And he hated the vets, I did it at home.

[02:05:36] : [02:05:39]

And it was, he gave outthis huge (deep sigh)

[02:05:39] : [02:05:43]

right at the end.

[02:05:43] : [02:05:45]

And I could just tell he had been in just

[02:05:45] : [02:05:47]

not a lot pain, fortunately,

[02:05:47] : [02:05:48]

but he had just been workingso hard just to move at all.

[02:05:48] : [02:05:52]

And the craziest thing happened,Lex is, was unbelievable.

[02:05:52] : [02:05:55]

I've never had an experience like this.

[02:05:55] : [02:05:57]

I expected my heart to break.

[02:05:57] : [02:05:59]

And I've felt a broken heart before.

[02:05:59] : [02:06:00]

I felt it, frankly, when my parents split,

[02:06:00] : [02:06:04]

I felt it when Harry shot himself.

[02:06:04] : [02:06:07]

I felt it when Barbara died

[02:06:07] : [02:06:09]

and felt it, when, you know,when Ben went, so as well.

[02:06:09] : [02:06:14]

And so many friends, likeway too many friends.

[02:06:14] : [02:06:17]

I mean, the end of 2017,my friend Aaron King,

[02:06:17] : [02:06:20]

Johnny Farer, John Eckelberry,

[02:06:20] : [02:06:24]

stomach cancer, suicide, fentanyl.

[02:06:24] : [02:06:27]

It's like, whoa! All in a freaking week.

[02:06:27] : [02:06:30]

And I just rememberthinking like, what the?

[02:06:30] : [02:06:32]

But when Cost...

[02:06:32] : [02:06:34]

And it's just heartbreaking,you just carry that.

[02:06:34] : [02:06:36]

And it's like, (grunts)

[02:06:36] : [02:06:37]

and that's just a short list, you know?

[02:06:37] : [02:06:40]

And I don't say that for sob story,

[02:06:40] : [02:06:42]

it's just for a guy thatwasn't in the military

[02:06:42] : [02:06:43]

or didn't grow up in the inner city,

[02:06:43] : [02:06:44]

like it's an unusualnumber of like deaths,

[02:06:44] : [02:06:47]

like close people.

[02:06:47] : [02:06:48]

When Costello went, thecraziest thing happened.

[02:06:48] : [02:06:54]

My heart warmed up, like heated up.

[02:06:54] : [02:06:57]

And I wasn't on MDMA andjust the moment he went,

[02:06:57] : [02:07:01]

it just went whoosh!

[02:07:01] : [02:07:02]

And I was like, what the hell is this?

[02:07:02] : [02:07:05]

And it was just like asupernatural experience to me.

[02:07:05] : [02:07:08]

I just never had that.

[02:07:08] : [02:07:09]

I put my grandfather on the ground,

[02:07:09] : [02:07:11]

I was a pallbearer at the funeral.

[02:07:11] : [02:07:12]

I've like done that more times than I'd

[02:07:12] : [02:07:14]

like to have ever done it.

[02:07:14] : [02:07:17]

And it just heated up withCostello and I thought,

[02:07:17] : [02:07:20]

what the fuck is this?

[02:07:20] : [02:07:22]

And it was almost like, andwe make up these stories

[02:07:22] : [02:07:25]

about what it is,

[02:07:25] : [02:07:26]

but it was almost likehe was like, all right,

[02:07:26] : [02:07:28]

I have to be careful

[02:07:28] : [02:07:29]

'cause I will cry hereand I don't want to.

[02:07:29] : [02:07:32]

It was almost like, hewas like, all that effort

[02:07:32] : [02:07:37]

'cause I had been puttingso much effort into him,

[02:07:37] : [02:07:39]

it was like, alright, you get that back.

[02:07:39] : [02:07:41]

It was like the giant freaking thank you.

[02:07:41] : [02:07:44]

And it was incredible, you know?

[02:07:44] : [02:07:46]

And I'm not embarrassed toshed a tear or two about it

[02:07:46] : [02:07:48]

if I have to, I was like, holy shit!

[02:07:48] : [02:07:50]

Like that's how closeI was to that animal.

[02:07:50] : [02:07:53]

- Where do you think,

[02:07:53] : [02:07:54]

where do you think you canfind that kind of love again?

[02:07:54] : [02:07:57]

- Man, I don't know.

[02:07:57] : [02:07:58]

I mean, when, and excuseme for welling up,

[02:07:58] : [02:08:01]

but it was just, I mean,it's a freaking dog, right?

[02:08:01] : [02:08:03]

I get it.

[02:08:03] : [02:08:04]

But for me, it was thefirst real home I ever had.

[02:08:04] : [02:08:09]

But when Costello went, it was like,

[02:08:09] : [02:08:13]

we had had this home in Topanga.

[02:08:13] : [02:08:15]

We had set it up and we're like,

[02:08:15] : [02:08:16]

and he was just so happy there.

[02:08:16] : [02:08:17]

And I think it just...

[02:08:17] : [02:08:19]

I don't know, it was like this weird

[02:08:19] : [02:08:22]

like victory slash massive loss.

[02:08:22] : [02:08:26]

Like we did it 11 years.

[02:08:26] : [02:08:28]

Freaking did everything

[02:08:28] : [02:08:31]

to make him as comfortable as possible.

[02:08:31] : [02:08:33]

And he was super loyal, beautiful animal,

[02:08:33] : [02:08:35]

but also just funny and fun.

[02:08:35] : [02:08:37]

And I was like, I did it.

[02:08:37] : [02:08:39]

Like, you know,

[02:08:39] : [02:08:41]

I gave as much of myselfto this being as a human.

[02:08:41] : [02:08:44]

I felt I could withoutmaking it, you know,

[02:08:44] : [02:08:47]

like, you know, detractingfrom the rest of my life.

[02:08:47] : [02:08:51]

And so I don't know,

[02:08:51] : [02:08:52]

when I think about Barbara especially,

[02:08:52] : [02:08:55]

I well up and it's hard for me,

[02:08:55] : [02:08:59]

but I mean, I talkedto her before she died

[02:08:59] : [02:09:01]

and that was a brutal conversation.

[02:09:01] : [02:09:02]

Saying goodbye to someone,

[02:09:02] : [02:09:04]

especially with kids.

[02:09:04] : [02:09:06]

And that was hard.

[02:09:06] : [02:09:09]

I think that really flipped aswitch in me where I'm like,

[02:09:09] : [02:09:15]

I always knew I wanted kids.

[02:09:15] : [02:09:17]

I'd say I want kids, I want a lot of kids.

[02:09:17] : [02:09:19]

That flipped a switch in me.

[02:09:19] : [02:09:20]

I was like, I want kids.

[02:09:20] : [02:09:21]

I want my own kids.

[02:09:21] : [02:09:22]

- [Lex] You might be ableto find that kind of love.

[02:09:22] : [02:09:24]

- Yeah, I think becauseit was the caretaking,

[02:09:24] : [02:09:26]

it wasn't about what hegave me all that time.

[02:09:26] : [02:09:29]

And the more I could takecare of him and see him happy,

[02:09:29] : [02:09:31]

the better I felt, it's crazy.

[02:09:31] : [02:09:34]

And, I don't know.

[02:09:34] : [02:09:36]

So I miss him every day, every day.

[02:09:36] : [02:09:40]

I miss him every day.

[02:09:40] : [02:09:42]

- You got a heart that's so full of love.

[02:09:42] : [02:09:45]

I can't wait for you to have kids.

[02:09:45] : [02:09:48]

- Thanks man.- For you to be a father.

[02:09:48] : [02:09:50]

- Yeah, well,

[02:09:50] : [02:09:51]

- I can't wait to say-- when I'm ready for it.

[02:09:51] : [02:09:52]

When, you know, when God decidesI'm ready, I'll have 'em.

[02:09:52] : [02:09:57]

- And then I will still beat you to it.

[02:09:57] : [02:10:01]

As I told you many times before.

[02:10:01] : [02:10:03]

- I think you should absolutely have kids.

[02:10:03] : [02:10:07]

I mean, look at the people in our life

[02:10:07] : [02:10:10]

'cause we're kind of the...

[02:10:10] : [02:10:12]

In case you haven't realized it already,

[02:10:12] : [02:10:13]

like we're the younger of the podcasters,

[02:10:13] : [02:10:17]

but you know, like Joeand Peter, and Segura,

[02:10:17] : [02:10:21]

and you know, and the rest, right?

[02:10:21] : [02:10:26]

They're like the tribal elders, right?

[02:10:26] : [02:10:29]

And we're, you know,

[02:10:29] : [02:10:31]

we're not the the youngest in the crew,

[02:10:31] : [02:10:32]

but if you look at all thoseguys, they all have kids.

[02:10:32] : [02:10:37]

They all adore their kids

[02:10:37] : [02:10:41]

and their kids bring tremendousmeaning to their life.

[02:10:41] : [02:10:43]

Like we'd be morons if,

[02:10:43] : [02:10:46]

you know, if you didn'tgo off and start a family,

[02:10:46] : [02:10:50]

I didn't start a family.

[02:10:50] : [02:10:52]

And yeah, I think that's the goal.

[02:10:52] : [02:10:55]

I mean, I think-

[02:10:55] : [02:10:56]

- The kids.- of the goals,

[02:10:56] : [02:10:57]

that's one of them.

[02:10:57] : [02:10:58]

- Kids not only make themtheir life more joyful

[02:10:58] : [02:11:01]

and brings love to their life,

[02:11:01] : [02:11:03]

it's also makes 'em more productive,

[02:11:03] : [02:11:04]

makes 'em better people, all that.

[02:11:04] : [02:11:06]

It's kind of obvious.

[02:11:06] : [02:11:09]

- Yeah, I think that'swhat Costello wanted.

[02:11:09] : [02:11:11]

I think I have this story inmy head that he was just like,

[02:11:11] : [02:11:13]

okay, like take this.

[02:11:13] : [02:11:14]

Like you could, yeah.

[02:11:14] : [02:11:16]

- And don't fuck this up.

[02:11:16] : [02:11:17]

- And don't, (chuckles)

[02:11:17] : [02:11:19]

Lord knows, don't fuck this up.

[02:11:19] : [02:11:21]

- Andrew, I love you brother.

[02:11:21] : [02:11:23]

This is incredible.- Love you too, thank you,

[02:11:23] : [02:11:25]

I appreciate you.

[02:11:25] : [02:11:26]

- As we will talk oftenon each other's podcast

[02:11:26] : [02:11:29]

for many years to come.

[02:11:29] : [02:11:30]

- Yes.- Many, many years to come.

[02:11:30] : [02:11:32]

- Thank you, thanks for having me on here.

[02:11:32] : [02:11:34]

And there are no wordsfor how much I appreciate

[02:11:34] : [02:11:37]

your example and yourfriendship, so love you brother.

[02:11:37] : [02:11:40]

- I love you too.

[02:11:40] : [02:11:40]

Thanks for listening to this conversation

[02:11:40] : [02:11:43]

with Andrew Huberman.

[02:11:43] : [02:11:45]

To support this podcast,

[02:11:45] : [02:11:46]

please check out oursponsors in the description.

[02:11:46] : [02:11:48]

And now lemme leave you withsome words from Albert Camu.

[02:11:48] : [02:11:52]

"In the midst of winter,

[02:11:52] : [02:11:54]

I found there was, withinme, an invincible summer.

[02:11:54] : [02:11:58]

And that makes me happy.

[02:11:58] : [02:11:59]

For it says that no matter how hard

[02:11:59] : [02:12:01]

the world pushes against me, within me,

[02:12:01] : [02:12:04]

there's something stronger,

[02:12:04] : [02:12:06]

something better, pushing right back."

[02:12:06] : [02:12:10]

Thank you for listening andhope to see you next time.

[02:12:10] : [02:12:12]





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