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June 28, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
52:03
1098 Enthusiasm - A Convo

What do do when it evaporates?

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So, how do you want to start?
Well, I guess that's up to you.
I guess I'll tell you what's been going on recently.
Sure. Okay, so I got this new job, as you know.
It's basically, they wanted, like, a college student to do...
Sorry for the damn bus.
They wanted a college student to do their IT work one day a week.
It's a pretty small company.
It's only like 27 people.
And their managing director has been doing all of the IT work since the company started.
And obviously now they're up to the number of people where it's no longer attainable for him to do all the IT stuff himself.
So, hence me.
The problem is that there's such a mountain of stuff that I've been going in there like three and four days a week to do all this stuff.
And it's not really beyond my skill set, because I've done most of this stuff before, but it's more difficult for me in that there's nobody else to help.
There's no one else that I can really ask.
And, you know, my introduction was, hi, here are the IPs to our servers, figure it out.
Right. Yeah.
And so... This has happened on like every, well, I wouldn't say every job, but like the more technical jobs that I've had, you know, there will be like this little...
Start-off period where, in my mind, the first time that I can't, or the first time that I don't know how to do something and have to, like, figure it out on my own, this voice at the back of my head starts saying, you know, they're just gonna figure out that you're a complete screw-up.
You can't do this.
You know you can't. You just had better quit now before you embarrass yourself.
Right, okay. And so I've been feeling really tense, like, the last few times I've been at work.
And I've talked about this with my therapist and all of this, but it's...
I think it goes a little bit deeper than just, like, anxiety about work, because this isn't something that just happens at work.
Right, so it's something that shows up in a variety of areas.
Right, absolutely. So the other day I was talking with Nathan and I know that he has some of the same issues about, you know, thinking the same things when he's at work and, you know, something goes wrong.
And so we were talking about it.
And, you know, we were making conversation.
There were a bunch of people in the chat room, and I started talking about how I was feeling really tense and anxious, and how I didn't really want to be at work.
And he said, well, I don't want to be at work either.
You know, I hope that the recruiter's going to call me back soon.
Sorry, who's the name? Yeah.
Okay. And, you know, my reaction, the reaction in my head, I didn't say anything to him, you know, the reaction in my head was, like, completely disproportionate to what had actually happened.
The thought in my head was, sure, yeah, it's all about you.
Don't ask me what I'm feeling at all.
I had to leave the chat room for a minute until I figured it out and I came back in and we talked it over a little bit and we eventually figured out that he had asked me a question before that I hadn't seen and so I didn't reply and he thought that I wasn't keen on talking and all of this stuff so we worked that out but we weren't able to get very far on the whole roots of anxiety thing Right.
Right. Well, I mean, is your question sort of how to mitigate the anxiety?
Not, well, how to mitigate the anxiety, but more like, you know, how do I figure out where it came from and what I'm reacting to.
Because it's not just about making the anxiety go away, right?
You know, if I start thinking, oh, well, you know, I can do this.
All I have to do is look it up and all this stuff.
I mean, that's wonderful, but that's not what I'm looking for.
Well, I mean, the first question that I would ask is, are your feelings an irrational response to the situation?
Um... Yeah, they are.
What I mean by that is that if somebody said to me, like over the phone, you have to do an emergency tracheotomy, but I'm going to talk you through it, I would feel pretty tense, right?
Right. And I had to do that and it's likely to go wrong and so on, right?
Right. So my anxiety around that kind of situation would not be irrational, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, if the pilot dies and you have to grab the joystick of a plane, or whatever, the controller of a plane, and be talked down by the tower, that's not a very relaxing situation, right?
So there are situations in which anxiety over performance makes perfect sense, right?
Yeah. So is this one of us?
No, because with me the anxiety goes something like, I put myself in an impossible situation.
I think if I actually asked my boss for help, he would do something to help me.
But the thought is also, I can't ask him for help.
I'm going to look stupid. I can't ask for help.
I have to figure it out on my own.
I'm all alone here.
That's it. Can't ask for help.
I'll look stupid. And do you have, because sometimes we can't really ask for help, right?
And so far as, you know, we ask for help and someone says, oh, for Christ's sake, just figure it out yourself, right?
What do you think I'm paying you for?
I'm not paying you so I can hold your hand, right?
Right. And I say that it's irrational in this situation because, you know, there are people that I can ask and there's like a consultant on call specifically to help me with stuff.
And, you know, in my last job where I was feeling this, I mean, I was literally a noob and they knew that I knew nothing and they would have helped me if only I'd asked them and understood why I was asking for help.
And I still felt the same thing.
Like, can't ask for help where you look stupid.
Right. Okay. Okay.
Got it. And so you don't have any empirical evidence that they would look at you as stupid if you asked for help.
No, not at all.
Now, it certainly is true that if you can struggle through, are you being paid hourly or at a fixed rate?
Hourly. Right, so there probably would be times where economically it would be advantageous for them if you asked someone for help.
Yes. Right, okay.
And, uh...
So it's not even like, I don't want to ask for help because I want to get a full-time gig here and I want to appear hyper-confident and competent and so on.
Right. Okay.
Well, let me ask you this.
How are you with other people when they ask you for help?
Um... Generally, and I say this in like the most general way possible.
I mean, generally, I want to do what I can to help them.
Okay. Do you ever feel the urge or the feeling or the need or exasperation with other people and their lack of knowledge?
Ever? Yeah. Okay.
Perhaps we can go on a little bit with that.
Generally, it's when something else has happened to me and my impatience with them is not a reaction to them, but a reaction to something else.
So, you know, if I snap at someone, I'll figure it out yourself.
It's not about them, really.
Well, I know. I understand that.
But, sorry, go on. I'm not sure what else to say.
Well, I mean, just things that we've talked about, you and I have talked about before in terms of you have this, you used to have, it's not such a big deal now, this habit in the chatroom of bringing up obscure references.
Yeah. Um...
Well, generally, when anybody would ask, you know, well, what is that?
What do you mean? I'd be happy to explain it to them.
Sometimes I... But when you bring up the obscure references, when you know that there's no chance that people are going to know what you're talking about.
Right. I mean, again, it's not something that I've seen much lately, which is great, but we're just looking at historical patterns that may have led you to this place.
Sometimes I did it so that they would ask me what it meant.
I would say that was most often the case.
And you're dealing with some pretty important personal issues at the moment, right?
Right. And one of the things that I noticed was, I don't know if you remember, but someone posted on the board and said, if you had ten topics to write about, what would you write about?
Yeah, none of them was about personal stuff.
It was all about medieval history.
Yeah, it was all kind of pompous, blowhardy kind of stuff, right?
Not that that stuff's not fun and interesting, but that's not actually what you're working on at the moment, right?
Right. Well, not in any real way.
Yeah, and I noticed that just, and it's not just you, nobody posted anything about personal stuff.
On that thread.
It seemed kind of, um...
I don't know. I don't know.
What's a good word? It's coming and going for me.
I can't think of it. Oh, um...
Yeah, I see what you mean.
I'm not sure of the word for it.
Yeah. Pompous...
Again, I don't want to oversimplify it, but I was just a little bit surprised because your list in particular was, you know...
It's very much about obscure history references that nobody would really understand, right?
Right. Yeah, it was all that those were, like, the first ten things that I thought about is history that nobody studies except me, sometimes it feels like.
Right, right. So, I think, and this, you know, I sympathize with this, right, because it comes out of a very lamentable insecurity that was fostered upon you as a kid.
But... Given where you are in the conversation, which is, you know, at a pretty advanced place, given where you are in the conversation and in terms of self-knowledge, the first place that I would look now is not...
You're at the sort of point where the transition occurs, just in sort of my opinion, right?
Maybe you are, maybe you are, but it's just my opinion.
Is to say, not who has made me feel stupid in the past, But, do I have a habit of making people feel less than intelligent in the present?
Okay. Right? Because that which we inflict, we inflict upon ourselves, first and foremost, and only upon other people, secondarily.
Right. That makes a lot of sense.
So, yeah, go ahead. Well, you know, if I was doing it to other people, it would make sense that I would think that people also would be doing it to me.
And I certainly do it to myself, you know.
For instance, I built a computer on Friday and, you know, the thing, they never turn on when you first build them.
You always screw something up.
Everybody does. I've never known anyone who's built a computer that's worked perfectly the first time they press the button, right?
Oh yes, like computer code, it never works the first time.
In fact, I can think of like maybe a dozen times my whole career where it did everything I wanted just right the first time.
Never, right? So yeah, I can understand.
Yeah, so I pressed the button and everything spun up just fine, but the machine didn't boot.
And I was like, in my head, you know, why?
You know, you can't...
You read the bloody manual.
You have one that works sitting right here.
What the hell is wrong that you can't just copy the one that you have and make it work?
What the hell is the issue?
Right. So I do that to myself, absolutely.
Right, and you know, when...
This is a pretty advanced topic, but...
I mean, obviously, you're ready for it, but...
You know, when I see people, and this doesn't mean you in particular, and it doesn't even mean you that much at all, but when I see people who are being, like, snarky to others, and again, this is not particular to you, it's just that, and I don't think it's a huge issue for you, but I just want to point it out.
Okay. When I see people who are being snarky or superior to other people, you know, we see those people in the chat room, right?
They're kind of pompous, they're Kind of snarky and so on.
Oh yeah, they know everything in the world.
Yeah, they know everything.
You know, just do it like this.
It's simple. Just do X, right?
Whatever. Those kinds of people.
Right. I don't...
I mean, I see pretty clearly, of course, the harm that they're doing to others.
I mean, that's all clear. Right.
But what I see much more particularly and grievously is the harm that they're doing to themselves, right?
Right. Because if they set up a world where the answers are easy and anyone who doesn't get the answers right away is an idiot, then the people they inflict that on, they may feel bad for a little bit or whatever, but then they just wander off and say, well, that guy's kind of a dick, right?
Right. But the people who do that to others, They're actually creating a world for themselves that is really scary, right?
Yeah. They're alone in it.
They can never, ever, ever ask for help, really.
Right, right. I mean, the cages that we build for others, they can always get out, but we can't, right?
Right. Like, they have a key out.
We don't, right? That's why, you know, when I'm tempted, and I certainly am, like everyone, I'm tempted to be, you know, snarky or annoyed or whatever, right?
It's that basic, and I mean, I don't always succeed, and sometimes it's appropriate not to, but that basic reality that I'm aware of, which is, if I create a world that's hostile or scary for other people, they can just leave, but I can't, because it's the world that I've made, right?
It's me. Right.
And this is something that I've noticed as I sort of get older, that That it always comes back.
It always haunts the people most to do it, right?
And again, I'm not sort of pointing you out and just saying this is a core issue or whatever, but I think that it's important to look at if you have a habit of doing this to others and to yourself and so on, and we've talked about your vanity and so on, right? Then it is going to be something that is going to create that world For you, right?
And obviously it has to do with your history and we should be sensitive to that.
But there's nothing that we can do to undo your history.
But the real challenge of history is to change the recreation of that world in the present for others, right?
Right. Yeah.
And that's why a lot of people don't stop being able to be managers, right?
Right. Absolutely.
I mean, who wants to work for an asshole like that, right?
You know, when they get power, all they end up doing is reproducing their own trauma to other people, right?
That Simon the Boxer thing, and they end up not being the kind of people that people want to work for and so on, right?
So, I mean, the price of vanity is insecurity, right?
I guess I could say it that simply, but why would I ever want to?
Yeah. For some reason, I think I'm paid by the minute, and I'm not paid at all, but...
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I mean, the boss that, you know, I still look up to as, like, best boss ever in the world was somebody who would, you know, drop anything and help you.
And he never said the words, well, it's easy.
Just figure it out.
You know, he wouldn't. I mean, he would point something out so that you could do it yourself.
He wouldn't do it for you, but he also wouldn't say, you know, you're an idiot for not understanding that.
Right, and of course, I face that same challenge, as you've heard a million times in the listener conversation, where it's screamingly obvious to everyone except the person who it actually happened to, right?
Whatever the issue is. Yeah, absolutely.
And the last thing I ever want to do is to make people feel stupid, because then, not just for them and compassion for them, but if I create a world where things that I do not know make me stupid, I will feel less secure about exploring the unknown, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Because everything that you don't know is just one more piece of evidence that you're an adult.
Right, and of course, there's so much that we don't know, right?
I mean, I don't even know Patrick Dempsey's middle name.
That's what I'm talking about.
Yes. So, I mean, I was sort of thinking about this as a possibility.
I mean, there's a lot of knowledge in the FDR community.
A lot of smart people know a lot of great stuff, right?
You're certainly in that number, if not at the forefront of that number.
And Of course, when we have knowledge and we have things that we love, it's like a beautiful piece of music or a great piece of literature.
We want to share it with other people, right?
Yeah. So, I was sort of thinking of creating sort of a knowledge bank, right?
And a knowledge bank is like interviews with SDR listeners who want to share their knowledge, where it's not about me or my theories of history or anarchism or whatever.
But it's just about, you know, things that people know and love and just ask them about it.
Because I think that would be a good way for us to start to combat some of this history stuff, right?
Or some of the stuff around our history.
Well, we actually do get a venue where...
I'm sorry? I said you're making me cry, Steph.
Why is that? Well, I was thinking about this last night.
It's like... I don't want to do IT. It's getting to be something that I physically can't do, even now.
I was thinking, you know, what else do I want to do?
What else is there for me to do that I can do and can continue to do?
And you know, the answer kept coming back, right?
I want to teach.
That's all. You know, that's really all that I've ever wanted to do.
And, you know, it feels like I'm not...
Able to do that.
I mean, the reason why I wanted to be a professor is not because of the sabbaticals or the salary or whatever.
I mean, I'd teach for free if somebody gave me an office and brought me a sandwich once in a while, you know?
Right, right, right.
So, the whole job thing, I guess that's wrapped up in that as well.
So just when you mentioned about creating a knowledge base and letting people talk about the things that they love, that just makes me really sad for some reason.
Well, I think you have a great passion for and knowledge of particular areas of history.
And boy, wouldn't it be great If you didn't have to approach these topics in an oblique manner with people, right?
Yeah. You can kind of talk about them up front, right?
And see what people's response is to how you communicate about them.
Yeah. I've done a couple, like, historical recordings and stuff on my blog.
And people listen to them, Greg especially.
I mean, he loves listening to them.
I mean, I like making them, but it really depresses me too, you know?
Right. Because you feel that there's not much of a listenership.
It's not just that.
It's like... You know, here's a chance to do what I want to do, and it's always going to be a hobby.
Right, right, right.
Sorry, can I call you back in a sec?
Yeah, sure. Okay.
Hello! Sorry about that.
No problem. Yeah, so I mean, I would like to, I mean, this is a pretty procedural response to your issue, but I think I sort of noticed that for myself, when I was sort of done with IT, I started to feel less and less competent and secure.
And the reason for that was that I kind of got that fundamentally, I didn't care about it anymore.
Yeah. And because I didn't care about it, I had to sort of replace my former motivation with paranoia, if that makes any sense.
What did that mean for you?
I'm not quite tied in.
I'm particularly good, right?
Right. Most of our processing as competent thinkers, in whatever field, right?
Professionals or whatever, whether you're in IT or philosophy or academics or whatever, most of our competent thinking occurs at a pretty automatic level.
I mean, you know, when I'm going through those trippy lists of words in podcasts and sort of describing something, I don't sit there and come up with those and write those down ahead of time.
They just kind of come to me, right?
And if podcast topics and ideas, if they come to me, all is well.
And if they don't, I can't create them, right?
Right. I mean, otherwise, who wouldn't do what I do, right?
It's a lot of fun. Exactly.
I mean, it's like songwriting, right?
Every time you would sit down, you would do what the Beatles did, and every time you'd sit down, you'd write a number one single.
Right. But you can't make that stuff happen for you.
In the same way that you couldn't make yourself want to write exams that you didn't want to, and You couldn't make yourself do something that you didn't want to.
So, the reason that you probably are feeling less than competent in IT is that, emotionally, you're probably not that engaged, right?
Not at all. Right, so you're not sitting there enjoying the problem solving, you know, thinking about it, not even unconsciously, but just kind of thinking about it in general.
You know, mulling it over and you know, like you wake up with a solution or a solution just comes to you and that's what is generally meant by competence.
It's kind of like inspiration, right?
Yeah, that used to happen to me all the time before I took a year off to go back to school.
I was a systems analyst for a software company.
I couldn't think of anything more or better than I wanted to do.
I went to bed thinking about it.
I dreamed about it. I woke up thinking about it.
And, you know, I would wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning thinking, that's what I forgot to do, you know?
Right, right. That's called confidence, and that's what gives us confidence.
It's being able to rely on the automatic processing of our body, right?
Right. Like in the same place, if you're an athlete, you don't sit there and say, I'm going to do this with my arm and then this with my leg, right?
Yeah, exactly.
It's got to just happen, right?
Yeah, it's not coming anymore, at least in the IT world.
That's right. I mean, that's right.
And I think it's...
I don't know why it occurred for you, although I can guess.
Certainly, why it occurred for me was I just didn't care about it anymore.
Right. I just could not devote my brain to creating or selling another piece of interesting software...
That would be obsolete in a year or two.
Yeah. It's the curse of the big picture, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, I understand that one.
If you had to take a guess about me, what would you say?
Well, you just don't care.
Right? This is the problem.
When we ditch the false self, which you're head over heels in the process of doing, right?
But when we do it ourselves, we just don't care about a bunch of stuff that we used to care about, right?
Yeah. I mean, we have bigger fish to fry.
We have more important things to do with our mental energies rather than say, you know, how do I configure this outlook server?
Yeah, exactly.
Right? And in our life, we wanted to, you know, we realized that we've been missing certain kinds of meaning.
Because we've been focused on things like vanity or things like status or things like, you know, just sex or socialization or drinking or, you know, whatever, right?
Whatever it is that we've been focusing on that's been sort of false self-gratification time, we just don't care about that stuff that much anymore.
We don't care that much about money anymore.
I, you know, when I was first in the sort of executive world, I was like, hey, I get to stay and $400 a night hotels, and I get to fly all over the world, and I get to meet with big companies, people, and I get to speak at conferences, and you know, all that kind of stuff like that.
Like in terms of like, that's what I thought was making me a valuable human being.
You know, that's what I thought was important.
I remember the first time I started getting into trading stocks, oh my god, it was sad.
Sad! I mean, I would literally sit there with the paper and hold it open on the stock page and hope that people would notice that I was doing this really cool thing called being in the stock market.
Oh, jeez, yeah.
It's embarrassing, right? But that's all we're taught in terms of value when we're young.
Right. Yeah.
And so you have this thing where it's like, well, you know, I can figure this stuff out, it's important to me, it's a good use of my time, it's engaging, it's stimulating, and so on.
Now, it's just like, eh.
Yeah. Before, it was like, yes, let me consume nine shots of espresso and stay in the office all night upgrading Oracle.
Awesome! I was like, no, you could not pay me.
I'm sorry. You literally could not pay me to do it.
Yeah, no, I used to have the thing like, wow, if I can shave this processing time of this algorithm down by 50%, I mean, I'd get like a A hit of endorphin heroin that would be wonderful.
Oh, yeah. But then after a while, it's like, I don't care.
I have a fundamental care.
I mean, it's not like I don't care at all.
I just don't care that much.
Right. And if you don't have that motivation, it's hard to be good at your job.
Yeah. Because you feel like going through the motions, right?
Right. Yeah, I mean, I want to do a good job, because obviously these people are paying me, and they've put a lot of trust in me, and they've let me spend $50,000 on new equipment, and that's great, you know, woohoo, I'll do a good job, because, you know, that's what you do, but I don't think about the job anymore when I leave.
Right, right, and...
Of course, I think it also goes back to another thing which would be more related to your past, which was that we all face this problem, at least those of us who come from these kinds of histories, we all face this problem that we kind of don't like our families and never really did, right? Right.
And yet, we weren't allowed to show that, right?
I think you were on the call last night with the guy where I just said, well, why didn't you tell your family you were bored?
Right, yeah. Imagine the backlash, right?
Yeah, it's like, well, that's not allowed, right?
A lack of enthusiasm is punishable, right?
Right, exactly. Right, and so a lot of our motivation or enthusiasms When we sort of get into the working world or into the professional world, has that sort of hangover of like, well, we had to be enthusiastic or we were punished in the past, right? Yeah.
But as you get more self-directed, as you become more authentic, as you become more who you are and you define and live by more rational values, then praise doesn't matter as much anymore, right?
Yeah. Success!
Doesn't matter as much anymore, right?
Not really. Mastering a new skill, it's nice, but we get that it doesn't make us a better human being.
It's not like I'm a better human being if I know Ajax, right?
Right, exactly.
It's not like you're a better human being if you figure out how to configure or how to make a computer.
It's not like it's a bad thing to do.
But what happens is we just no longer ego-identify with this nonsense, right?
Right. It's like, hey, I can pop some components into a case.
Excellent! Eh, no.
It's like, I have nice hair, you know?
Yeah. But we get, we get that it doesn't really matter.
And that doesn't mean that it's bad, it doesn't mean that it's useless, or whatever, right?
It just means that we get that it doesn't make us better people, right?
Yeah. So, what's happening is, as your false self begins to decline in power, artificial stimulants just don't work that well anymore, right?
Yeah. And that exposes us to fears of retribution because that's how it always was in the past, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you know, that's...
There's this horrific scene playing out in my mind.
What if I actually did walk into my boss's office and say, you know what?
I don't know what I'm doing here.
I'll figure it out.
Could you give me some direction?
Just imagine the look on his face as being...
What? You know, we hired you for X, Y, and Z. You're supposed to be able to do this stuff.
I'm imagining swift and thorough justice falling upon my head, you know?
Sure, and that's going to result from increased confidence, right?
Because the reason that you're feeling more anxiety is that you actually feel a desire to do that, whereas beforehand you probably wouldn't have even felt that desire subconsciously, right?
Right. But even if you do go and do that and you get rid of the problem of feeling like you're going to get humiliated if you ask for some help, it's still not going to solve the problem that you just don't really care about what you're doing, right?
Right, exactly.
I'm not sure...
How to figure out what I want to do or what I should be doing.
I don't even know if I can yet.
Yeah, I mean, and again, this is the messed up part about the ecosystem, right?
It's that we don't know.
I mean, it'd be great if we did, right?
It'd be great if we just woke up one morning and said, I want to be a chiropodist, you know, or...
That's all I live for.
And that society took hold of us and sustained us and kept us healthy and sane for the rest of our lives.
But that's not how things work.
We can't command ourselves to be enthusiastic.
Right. I mean, there's a lot of things that I can think of that I'd like to do, but nothing that just takes hold of me and says, you must do this, you cannot ever do anything else.
This is it.
You know? Nothing that I can think of right now is that.
Right. Right.
And what that means is that the former absolutes that you had, which had some stuff to do with Insecurity and some of your temper and your need for approval and your need for social domination and so on.
And again, we all have this, so I'm not sort of trying to point any fingers, but what that means is that that stuff is falling away, right?
Yeah. Which means that you don't have a compass.
Because formerly you had a compass, right?
Which was, well, I'm going to do X, I'm going to do Y, this is enthusiastic.
You know, you had a certain kind of thing which is like, this makes me cool, right?
Right. Yes.
And now, you don't have that as much anymore, right?
Not at all, no.
Well, not as much.
So, that's good. You know, when you're going in the wrong direction, feeling lost is a huge improvement.
Right, exactly, because it makes you try to reorient yourself and go the right way.
Right, and this is, you know, I've always nagged and annoyed people, well, about many things, but one of the things is humility, right?
Yeah. And the humility is, I had a lot of ego invested in being a successful professional, right?
And, uh...
You can hear the sort of tip of the hat to myself stuff that went on in the earlier podcast as well.
Yeah. Yeah, so when you kind of give up on that, and you say, well, being a successful professional surely doesn't make me a better human being.
Right. So, what does, right?
Yeah. Because I want to be a better human being, but clearly that's not An answer.
So what is, right? And I can't make that up.
That has to be something that I negotiate with myself, if that makes any sense.
Right. And it seems as I, as I kind of, not to say I'm the be-all and end-all of philosophy, good God, but as I sort of go on, it seems to be, that goal seems to be progressing from being like an external state of having X stuff to more like an internal state of like a person I want to be rather than like having X money in the bank or whatever.
Well, I mean, I think that's an excellent way of putting it, yeah.
I mean, what we want then is virtue and integrity and love and all of those non-material things, right?
Yeah. And it's a punishing transition, right?
Absolutely. It's disorienting, it's disconcerting, it's fearful, it brings up a lot of old crap, right?
Because this is the state that we were never allowed to have as children, right?
Which is curiosity about the self.
Right. And self-trust.
Like, I don't know where I'm going to go, but I do know that where I'm going to be is fine.
Right. In fact, it's great.
I mean, that's just not a state we were allowed to have as children, right?
Not at all. I mean, because if we had that state, I think that was fundamentally threatening to other people who didn't.
Well, sure. I mean, if we say, I'm not a good person, I'm not a better person, If I make a lot of money, or I'm good looking, or I'm thin enough, or whatever, if I'm not a good person because of that, then, you know, mommy and daddy, you're not good people for having sex, right?
Right. Exactly.
And they're... In that state, for sure.
Right. You know, they actually have to do something to earn, like, real virtue, versus, you know, well, we've always provided for you, and back.
They wanted you, you know? Right.
Oh, yeah.
And of course, I mean, that's why people avoid this phase, right?
Because it's uncomfortable.
Yeah, absolutely. It feels like you're kind of dying.
It feels like, who am I? And how on earth am I? If I'm out of steam at the age of 22, what the hell am I doing for the next 70 years?
Yeah, that's pretty much been thought.
Oh, it's horrible. It's like, what, I peaked when I was 20?
Give me a break! Exactly.
It's like, oh my god, I have to find something to do for the rest of my life, something that not only interests me, but something that I can continue to physically do for the next however long I need to make money and stuff like that.
It's like there's such a pressure like, oh my god, time's running out!
Right, right, and this is part of this weird trust, and I'm in no way mystical, but, I mean, the only thing that worked for me was I finally said, well, what does the world want me to do?
Oh. You know, like, assuming that I have a knowledge of virtue and a knowledge of the truth and so on, it's kind of like, what does the future want me to do?
What does the world want me to do?
Not... What do I want to do that's going to satisfy my ego?
But what can I devote myself to?
What can I surrender myself to that will do the most good for the world, right?
Yeah. What can I enslave myself to that will be of the most benefit to the world in the future?
Yeah. I've just, I was thinking about, I took a little walk today over to get an envelope to mail you your coffee.
And I was thinking about this, that, you know, all of the careers that I've ever envisioned for myself, starting, you know, when I was like five and I wanted to be an FBI profiler and kept serial killers using psychology.
Ever since, you know, the age of five, the careers that I've envisioned for myself have always been like Oh, I'll get a lot of praise for this, you know, people will love me, things like that, you know?
And I guess getting away from that is a good thing, I mean, because wanting a career solely to get praise is definitely not a false self thing, I think.
Yeah, that's the famous rich and beautiful thing that we all dream of, right?
Right. If I were famous or I were rich or I were beautiful...
I would have value, right?
Right. It's not true, of course, but it's so tempting, right?
Oh, yeah. Just like that article Greggie posted on the board.
It's like, God, I know this guy is absolutely not running on all cylinders, but I want his arguments to be valid, you know?
It'd be so much easier.
I could just go into the professorate and feel good about it.
Oh, this block article about make $1,100 an hour by being a professor and have sabbaticals?
Yes. I don't even need the $1,100 an hour.
I just want a nice cozy little office with 400 books like my academic advisor, my favorite professor.
You know, I just want walls lined with books and a comfortable chair and time walk every summer to write.
But the thing, though, Charlotte, is that being a professor might be the right thing for you.
It might be. But being a professor out of ego is not.
Right. Right, because if you sort of wake up one day and you say, you know what?
I have decided or I have discovered that I love this obscure historical stuff Because of the lessons it holds for humanity in the present.
And that's why I think interviewing you would be interesting, because I don't know why you love this obscure historical stuff.
Is it because it makes you feel smarter because nobody else knows about it?
I don't know. Is it because there's lessons in there that can really help humanity in the present and the future?
Right? But if you find that, or if you wake up one day and say, if I am devoting myself To the service of humanity, which is, as far as research says, the only guaranteed way to make you happy, right? If I devote myself to the service of humanity, and it's not about me, it's not about how smart I am, and it's about how smart I can make the world, how wise I can make the world.
If you wake up one day, and if you keep mulling that over, you will know what it is that the world, in a sense, wants you to do with your skills and abilities, which are considerable.
Then being a professor might be just the right thing.
Even with academia as it is?
Yeah, even with academia as it is.
If that's what you're called to do, so to speak, with your gift to make the world a better place, then...
because you don't know, right? Right, right.
But you have to...
this is what... you just have to throw yourself open To whatever is going to arise within you and negotiate with that, right?
But you don't want to have any, at this point in the transition, you don't want to have any rules.
I can't do this. I must do that.
This is bad. This is good.
Right. Absolutely.
I don't know what I want to do, and I'm open to everything, right?
One of the reasons it feels like as I've been mulling this over, one of the things that got to me in the spring was just, you know, I saw the rest of the course of my academic career just mapped out because there are like five schools that you can go to to get your master's and then you have to go to one of two schools to get your PhD if you want to get work in any decent place.
And it's just like...
I have no choice here, you know?
It just felt like walls were closing in on me.
And I guess, you know, doing that to myself is like even less than sub-optimal, you know?
Well, but you see, if, right, this is the old thing, right?
Give a man a how and he can bear almost any why.
I think that applies to chicks, too.
If for you, the calling, so to speak, was to serve the world through teaching people about medieval history?
Then I can go to one of five schools for my master's and one of two for my doctorate.
Yeah, this is the eye on the prize thing, right?
Like, what's your eye on the prize?
I mean, if that is the way that you can best serve the world, then you'll find a way to do it.
Right. Yeah.
And it won't even be that you'll find a way to do it like willpower.
It's just like, like it's ridiculous.
I mean, I have all this stuff about free will, but it's like, if a book is in me and wants to come out, I just don't get to sleep until I'm finished.
Right. Right?
It's just like, okay, I guess it's like trying to walk a dog that's 12 times bigger than you are.
Right. I won't do it.
It'll do me. Something like that.
Oh, we're going this way, right?
And sometimes it'll call to you, but other times it's like, no, we're going this way.
That's part of the self-negotiation, right?
Right. And so if it turns out that that's where your greatest use is to the world, then you just find a way to do it.
And it won't be just like willpower good, but it was like, well, what else can I do?
Right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
But I certainly wouldn't push yourself with regards to IT, and I would just recognize that you're facing a difficult challenge in that you feel like you have to win a sailboat race, but the wind is dying down.
Only for you, right?
Right. For everybody else, it's just great.
Yeah, so it's like, shit, what do I do next?
Very nice. Well, I think if you, yeah, just recognize where you are.
I think that you can go and ask for help if you want in terms of that.
But it's, you know, it's a band-aid solution, right?
Because, you know, if your motivation is diminishing, then your motivation is just diminishing.
And what are you going to do?
Well, who knows? For sure, it's going to be something very likely to be different.
Yeah, I've always known that in my last job they let me work with all the legacy systems and left the other people who actually wanted to be in IT for the rest of their lives to work with the newer stuff because it looked better on their resume, right?
So it's like, yeah, we know you're not staying in IT for the rest of your life, so here you configure Exchange 5.5.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
And so they understand that and You know, the only thing that's sadder than being where you are is being content working in IT for the rest of your life.
Oh, God, that would be the worst kind of stagnation.
Right, right. So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a tough place to be for sure, but this is just part of the challenge of authenticity, right, of just becoming who you really are, which is you just can't get that impressed by a bunch of nonsense that you don't care about.
Yeah. Thank you, Steph.
Oh, you're very welcome. I will obviously send you a copy of this because it's, I mean, I think you're not alone in this, right?
So I would definitely, we can maybe release this, but you can have a listen and let me know what you think.
Okay, will do. Thank you so much.
All the best. Talk to you soon.
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