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July 28, 2023 - Viva & Barnes

01:31:29

Saad's Guide to Happiness! Viva Frei Interviews AND MORE!

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	Okay, we got another one here.
	Put your hand flat down and get it.
	Okay, you got it?
	Yeah.
	Okay, let's see it.
	Let's see it.
	Okay, now hold on.
	I kind of wanted to pinch you.
	Yeah, there you go.
	Let me see.
	Let me see.
	Okay, so...
	You're gonna make go of me.
	Oh, God.
	Okay, put your hand under the...
	Okay, let go.
	Put it under the water.
	What did you learn?
	I didn't learn anything.
	What did you learn?
	All right.
	I started that.
	Look, it's fitting that we should start with that video because it relates to happiness.
	And also, if we were to start a stream in which we're going to talk about Gadsad's new book, The Sad Truth About Happiness, if we had started that stream with Justin Trudeau's vomitous voice, it would have been an ironic and a very unpleasant way of starting a stream.
	Good afternoon, everybody.
	I am in, I think I'm in West Virginia.
	I'm in like the tri-state area.
	West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland.
	Just outside of Harper's Ferry.
	That was at Harper's Ferry this morning.
	And crayfish everywhere.
	And, oh, if you didn't see it, Andrew Skinkson, you're going to have to watch it.
	There are crayfish everywhere on the Potomac River.
	And we played with crayfish all morning.
	Alright, I'm not going to do too much of an intro.
	Didn't want to start with Justin Trudeau.
	Because that would make everyone sick instead of happy.
	Got Gadsad for an hour talking about his new book.
	And it's going to be amazing.
	So, everybody, share the link around.
	We're going to do this live.
	We're going to talk about it.
	I have not read it.
	And I have not listened to it yet.
	Because it is on audiobook.
	But it must be relatively newly released on audiobook.
	The book is called The Sad Truth.
	Sad's Guide to...
	Oh, we're going to get it.
	It's called Happiness.
	Gadsad, you ready?
	Three, two, one.
	Sir.
	How goes the battle?
	How are you?
	It's so good to be with you again.
	It's totally circular, almost cosmic.
	We did the first interview, or we did one of our interviews as I was driving from Florida to Montreal.
	Spent the summer in Montreal.
	Now I'm driving back and we're doing the updated release of your book.
	It's cosmic.
	But you've been doing the tour all week now, hitting up one interview after another to promote the book.
	For those who don't know, look, everybody knows who you are.
	Who are you?
	And what's going on with you this week?
	Well, my name is Gad Saad.
	I'm a professor still in Canada at Concordia University.
	I apply evolutionary psychology in the behavioral sciences in general and in consumer behavior in particular.
	I've written many books, the most recent of which just came out this past Tuesday, called The Sad, S-A-A-D, my last name, The Sad Truth About Happiness, Eight Secrets for Leading the Good Life.
	And as you said, I left on Monday, just the day before the official release of the book.
	And I just got back about three hours ago.
	Did many, many shows in Texas and in New York City.
	And then I had done a whole bunch of shows the week before, remotely, all of which were also released this current week.
	So people are joking that everywhere they're turning, they're seeing Gatsai, which I guess is a good thing.
	People don't fully appreciate.
	You write a book and you want people to buy it.
	You want people to read it.
	It doesn't sell itself.
	It requires, call it promotion, but awareness.
	So this week you did, I know you did Rogan.
	I listened to that on the drive up here and it was fantastic.
	I think we're going to talk about a few of the things you talked about with Rogan today.
	Who else have you done this week?
	So then I did Greg Gutfeld, the late night show on Fox.
	He's incredibly, Greg Gutfeld has now become the The king of late-night TV.
	He outranks better ratings than Kimmel, than Fallon, than Colbert.
	And so I did his show, which is a unique kind of platform in that Greg is the host.
	There are four other guests.
	There are five different blocks.
	Each block, there's a different topic, and then you've got a couple of minutes to say something hopefully interesting and engaging.
	I did his show, and then I had one show cancelled because of the trials and tribulations of having had my flight from Texas to New York cancelled, which is going to be rescheduled for next week.
	That's the show with Clay Travis and Buck Sexton.
	They replaced the Rush Limbaugh show.
	Then I did the Brian Kilmeade show on Fox, a one-hour national radio show with a guest host called Mary Walter.
	Then I did the Epoch Times American Thought Leaders.
	So I did that.
	So yeah, it's been nonstop.
	It's nuts.
	I mean, we'll get into the sad guide to happiness, but how do you keep the sad guide to happiness?
	Authenticity, when you do one interview after another, first of all, do you forget where you are?
	And does it become difficult to maintain the same level of energy when you're doing...
	I mean, I guess they're not identical interviews.
	Certainly not when you do a three-hour marathon with Rogan to a one-hour with...
	How do you maintain the energy and, say, the wherewithal to keep doing this?
	Well, I think the fact that you never know which part of your work is going to resonate with a particular host so they can...
	A few of the questions might be similar across most shows.
	What is the mechanism by which you choose an ideal spouse and so on?
	But every show has a million curveballs, so it's really not that repetitive.
	And as I said earlier, when I talked about the format of Greg Gutfeld, each of these shows is quite unique in its format, which in a sense really requires a completely different set of...
	You know, skills, right?
	Having an organic three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan is very different than having three-minute chunks to say something creative and powerful and impactful with Greg Gutfeld.
	And so because of all of that variety, which is, by the way, something that I talk about in the book, Variety Seeking, it always keeps it exciting.
	And so luckily, even though I might have been physically tired, mentally I was fully engaged.
	Fantastic.
	Now, I think I asked you this the last time.
	First of all, the books that you've already written, you have academic books and you had The Parasitic Mind, which is the one.
	I'd say if books go viral, that book went viral.
	It's a term now.
	Well, they're not variations of that term existed prior to.
	That has become sort of a go-to term on the interwebs.
	You go from a parasitic mind to the sad truth about happiness.
	Is that sort of like Michael Malice's white pill?
	Like you wrote a book about the fall of Western society.
	Now you've got to bring people back.
	What's the book about?
	Right.
	So the book, so the way I came about to even think about writing that book, I didn't have sort of this grand plan.
	Let me first talk about how minds are parasitized and then I'll talk about, you know, how minds can, you know, can adopt winning mindsets.
	The way I had the idea of writing this last book is I noticed that a lot of people would write to me saying things like, you always seem to be Having fun and playful and you always have a smile on your face, even when you're tackling serious subjects.
	And, you know, I've got all these skits, Viva, as you know, I'm hiding under the desk in full fear.
	I'm self-flagellating to, you know, to mock the self-loathing of the progressives.
	I don a pink wig.
	And so even though I can be a very serious, austere professor, I can also...
	Be self-deprecating.
	I could have fun.
	And so people would say, well, what's your secret?
	How do you do it?
	So that's number one.
	And I would get that from many, many people.
	How do you maintain this kind of joie de vivre?
	The second thing is, whenever I would post something that was prescriptive in nature.
	So in psychology, you have a difference between descriptive, which is what I spend most of my time doing.
	I conduct research to describe human behavior.
	Whereas...
	Prescriptive is me telling you, here are the four ways you should do this, right?
	And I never thought about really being a prescriptive guy.
	You know, I never thought about writing a self-help book.
	I'm not a clinician.
	But then whenever I would post something on social media where I would offer some advice, that would be some of the most personally impactful stuff that people would feel, right?
	They'd write to me and say, oh my God, when you wrote about, you know, get off the couch or whatever, which to me sounded like...
	No kidding.
	Of course, you should have personal agency and so on.
	That would really touch people.
	And so because of all of that feedback I was getting from people, I said, you know what?
	Why don't I write a book where I share people, you know, my views on how to live a good life, how to be smiley, how to be content.
	And so the book is really a mixture of three elements, if you'd like.
	It's my personal experiences coupled with ancient wisdoms.
	And backed up by contemporary science.
	Put it all together, you hopefully have a good recipe for happiness.
	Okay, so we're going to get into it.
	When you say that there's a scientific method of measuring happiness, this is something that I might have a bit of difficulty understanding or accepting because it might be a little bit of projection.
	It might be too much cynicism.
	I sometimes find that the people who pretend or who purport to be the happiest sometimes tend to be the least happy, and I look at stand-up comedians, actors, so on and so forth.
	And so I say, good, they can give the advice, but they can't follow it, in which case, how good is the advice?
	Before we even get into that, what is, according to you, the scientific method of establishing, measuring, valuing, or evaluating happiness?
	Well, it's interesting what you said about the stand-up comics and so on, because I have found that some of the most miserable people are happiness researchers.
	And I say this, this is not a scientific statement.
	It's one laden with personal anecdotes.
	So as I was doing my research and writing the book, I became familiar with...
	Many of the most frequent names that arose in the happiness literature.
	And so I would write to them saying, hey, I'm currently conducting some research for my forthcoming book on happiness.
	And I host a show.
	I would love to have you come on and let's discuss it.
	And then some of the answers that I got from these leading happiness researchers were baffling in how rude, obnoxious, miserable they seemed.
	Not to be too psychoanalytic, maybe they decided to get into happiness research to try to explain why they were such miserable miscreants.
	But in any case, there are different ways that you could measure happiness.
	So it's not as, you know, just like any psychometric scale in psychological and behavioral sciences, there are ways by which you can validate a scale, right?
	So for example, if I want to measure envy, if I want to measure dogmatism.
	If I want to measure intellectual curiosity as a psychometric trait, how would I go about doing that?
	And so there is a formal way by which you develop a scale that actually validates that you are actually measuring that construct.
	So, I mean, we can get into those technical details, but I think most people would be bored.
	Now, there are debates in the literature as to what constitutes...
	Happiness?
	How do you define happiness?
	Is it different from contentment?
	Is it different from well-being?
	That's not very useful for what we're talking about.
	I mean, we can get into all sorts of arcane...
	Happiness, in the way I define it, for the purpose of our conversation, it's long-term contentment, right?
	So if you imagine the endocrinological system, it's not the dopamine hit, which is short-term, right?
	If you watch a porn movie or eat a juicy burger or even buy a Ferrari, you're getting a short-term tickling of your pleasure center.
	That's not what I mean by happiness.
	Happiness...
	In that framework would be serotonin.
	It would be contentment.
	It's me sitting on my porch and saying, you know, I really have a good life.
	I have a wonderful wife.
	I have a job that has a lot of purpose and meaning.
	I've got great kids.
	I've got wonderful friends.
	So it's that long-term view of happiness.
	Does that generally answer your question?
	Yeah, it's interesting.
	The first two examples, the porn and the burger.
	The burger, at the very least, would probably leave me more.
	Loathing myself.
	Maybe both, actually, instead of short-term happiness.
	But the dopamine hit versus the long-term contentment.
	Okay.
	Interesting.
	Now, what was the methodology in terms of who you studied for this book?
	Who were the contemporary ones and who were the historical ones?
	Sure.
	So the historical ones come from many traditions.
	I mean, it is literally true that if you looked at what is...
	The topic that has been most studied by philosophers across many different traditions, whether it be the Buddhist tradition or ancient Egyptian tradition or, of course, ancient Greeks, the number one philosophical quest that people have gone on is how to live the good life.
	It was quite challenging to write a book that would honor all those great...
	So what would be examples of ancient thinkers on this topic?
	The large majority of them were ancient Greek thinkers, many of whom were Stoics, but not necessarily all of them.
	If I may stop there, you might have to explain the term Stoics for those who may not be familiar with it.
	Right.
	So there are different...
	Schools of philosophical schools in ancient Greeks, the Stoics would be guys like Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius.
	Some people have recently heard increasingly more about him.
	So it's a philosophical school.
	So there are several tenets within Stoicism, one of which, for example, is it's not the event.
	It's the pain that you might experience.
	That comes more from how you react to the event than to the event itself.
	So if you alter the way you respond to that event, then hopefully you could react better.
	Which, by the way, is exactly what cognitive behavior therapy does, right?
	Because in cognitive behavior therapy, you have an incorrect cognition about something that is ailing your mind.
	And so the therapist is going to help you alter your cognition about that.
	So that hopefully the downstream behavioral manifestations would be more conducive to a healthy mindset, right?
	And so a lot of the Stoic principles are really the, I mean, the perfect precursors to CBT, cognitive behavior therapy.
	So I talk about all these guys, and I give, you know, many, many examples of how incredibly illuminating some of those guys were.
	So I tell the story in the book of...
	My friend, I think many of your listeners would know him, who's also a Lebanese author, Nassim Talib, who once jokingly said to me, this was maybe 10 years ago, he said, I don't know what you guys study in psychology, God, because everything that there is to say about human nature, the ancient Greeks have already covered it.
	And, you know, I laugh, haha, funny, Nassim.
	But then as I was doing my research for this book, I sort of stopped and I said, I think Nassim might be onto something, because every single time...
	I thought I had a unique, brilliant new insight.
	I would then go search the literature and I'd say, oh, Seneca has already said this.
	Oh, Epictetus has already said that.
	So that covers kind of the ancient, guys.
	Well, let me stop you with Nassim Taleb.
	I had to double check while you were talking just to make sure.
	He's blocked me on Twitter.
	Oh, no.
	I don't remember what I did.
	I don't really...
	I remember I criticized him.
	And now that I'm just Googling, I'm trying to find my tweet.
	There seems to be a lot of people who say...
	You get automatically blocked by Nassim Daleb if you disagree with him.
	So I don't want to say it's another example of, you know, maybe his happiness results from blocking people that irritate him.
	I don't know what I did.
	I'm sure I deserved it.
	Well, it could well be that you had, I'm completely speculating, I have no idea, but you may potentially have had different views on COVID-related matters.
	And if you had intimated any position that might have been contrary to his, that could have resulted in a block.
	I can't expect that.
	I'm going to go find it if I can.
	All right.
	But in any case, I also...
	So just to continue with the ancient wisdoms part of the book.
	So let me give you a specific example, say, from Seneca.
	And it actually speaks to Nassim Taleb.
	Because Nassim Taleb has a book...
	That introduces the term anti-fragility, right?
	Anti-fragile, which is basically the idea that for some system to be optimally functioning, it has to be exposed to stressors because those stressors then make it less brittle and hence it's anti-fragile.
	But of course...
	What Nassim did is he came up with the unique term, but the concept has existed for thousands of years.
	Even the saying, squeaky doors don't break, is exactly that, right?
	And it existed way before Nassim.
	Well, it turns out that Seneca, and I have a quote, an epigraph in one of the chapters, where Seneca is talking about how strong trees that have deep roots are those who are exposed to a lot of wind stressors.
	So Seneca had already explained antifragility several thousand years ago.
	So now those are all Stoics.
	Then I talk about Aristotle when I discuss, I have a chapter in the book where I basically argue that the most fundamental law of nature, and this is a big statement to make, is what I call the inverted U-curve.
	The inverted U-curve basically, in colloquial words, is that Too little of something is not good.
	Too much of something is not good.
	And Aristotle called it the golden mean.
	I called it find the sweet spot.
	And what I show in that chapter is that every conceivable thing that you could think of at the cellular level, neuronal level, individual level, economic level, societal level follows that inverted U. So alcohol consumption follows the inverted U. Fish consumption follows the inverted U. The exercise intensity with which you should exercise follows an inverted U. I give the example from my personal life of perfectionism.
	The trait of perfectionism follows an inverted U. How?
	If you're not in the least bit perfectionist...
	As an author, for example, your work will suffer because you don't have enough attention to details.
	If you are like me, on the opposite end of the curve, you're too much of a perfectionist.
	You're a maladaptive perfectionist.
	You spent 4,000 hours rereading your work.
	Because, God forbid, there might be one comma that's out of place.
	Well, that's a misallocation of your time, right?
	So what if there was one comma out of place?
	I could have saved all those hours doing something else.
	So in that case, I am on the too much end of the curve.
	And so I argue that much of happiness in life is finding the sweet spot across different domains.
	And so I know it's a long-winded answer, but here I just gave you examples of how I used the ancient wisdoms of the Stoics and of Aristotle to situate some of the prescriptions I offer.
	Go ahead, go ahead.
	One question on the golden meme.
	It's a joke that I've made, but I actually think there might be truth to it as well.
	Everything in moderation, although I have a theory that even moderation to excess itself becomes a problem.
	So there have to be times where you have even a violation of the rule of moderation.
	So don't drink too much alcohol.
	Or if you don't drink any alcohol, you might be, I say might, it might have isolative, uh, Drink the perfect amount, you're fine.
	Drink too much, social problems, health problems.
	If you're always moderate, you might be a very boring person, in which case there has to be violations of moderacy at some time as well.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, your intuition is correct because I demonstrate in that chapter that even the pursuit of happiness follows.
	The inverted U-curve.
	You understand what I mean?
	But I mean, that speaks, what you just said speaks to the universality of the inverted U-curve, right?
	Even the inverted U-curve should be pursued as an inverted U-curve.
	That's what you're saying.
	Yes.
	I'm just going to remove, I'm getting a pop-up.
	I don't know why.
	Hold on a second.
	By the way, I found the tweet that I think got me blocked by Nassim.
	He said...
	I blocked people for strawmanning, and then I said, do you block people for Conor McGregor memes?
	And it was Conor McGregor saying, who the oomph is that guy?
	And that might be the last tweet that I put out.
	And yeah, okay.
	Twitter is a place where you might want to...
	Yes.
	So then, in terms of contemporary science, I mean, I cite all kinds of, I mean, endless amount of research to make different points.
	So let me give you an example.
	If you have a certain budget, so...
	As someone who studies consumer psychology, I'm very interested in how people allocate their budgets and which strategy is most likely to yield long-term happiness, right?
	And so two pursuits have been pitted against each other in the research, either the collecting of material possessions or the collecting of experiences and...
	I'm sure it will not surprise a single person listening to this show that the research consistently finds that the collecting of experiences results in much, much greater bang for your buck when it comes to your downstream happiness.
	To my earlier point, buying another pair of stiletto shoes that oftentimes women will collect such things.
	It gives you that immediate rush, that immediate dopamine hit.
	But, you know, going to Namibia on a safari and then going and visiting Portugal with the family, as I just did with my family, is a much better way to be spending your money in terms of seeking ultimate happiness.
	So I do all kinds of literature reviews of contemporary science looking at what people can do to make them happy.
	Now, the interesting idea, stoicism is sort of the original CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy, which is associating new brain reactions to certain stimuli that trigger otherwise negative reactions.
	Oversimplified, but what do you say to the idea, and how do you respond to the idea that happiness is...
	Almost innate, almost biological to the person, and there will be people who are just fundamentally incapable of happiness, despite the good things that they go through, and those that are incapable of feeling sorry for themselves, despite all of the trials and tribulations that they go through.
	Yeah, that's a fantastic question, and I address it right off the bat at the start of the book, precisely because I want to, well, deal with this really important question, because if someone says, look, I don't have a sunny disposition, there's no prescription you can give me that's going to solve it.
	Well...
	So let me address that.
	About 50% of individual differences in happiness scores is due to genes.
	So on the one hand, that might sound, uh-oh, it's genetically determined.
	No, that means there's 50% up for grabs, right?
	So imagine, notwithstanding the earlier questions you asked me about how to measure happiness, believe me, there have been very methodologically...
	So you and I can fall at different starting points on the happiness continuum.
	I have a maybe, I don't mean literally us, but I may have a very sunny disposition.
	You may have a very sullen and morose disposition.
	Okay, fine.
	But notwithstanding those starting points, we could both improve our lot.
	So there's still 50% that we could play with.
	And so what I argue in the book is that there are several life choices that you could make and several mindsets that you can adopt that, statistically speaking, are much more likely to increase your ability to summit Mount Happiness.
	All right, now, without getting into all of them, because you still want people to read the book, what are a few of them?
	I mean, I could think of easy ones.
	Exercise, eat well, and don't do stupid things that will necessarily lead to unhappiness, like drunk driving.
	But give us a few.
	Yeah, okay, sure.
	So let's first do some of that, because remember, I distinguished between...
	Choices that you could make versus mindsets that you could adopt.
	So let me discuss two choices and I'll discuss a few of the mindsets.
	Choosing the right spouse and choosing the right profession.
	is the surest way to either impart the most amount of misery or the most amount of happiness on a person.
	Now, you might say, but how can you know how to choose the right spouse or the right profession?
	Well, there is no guarantee, but there's certainly some clear prescriptions that have been tested scientifically that can increase.
	Again, the book is a statistical argument, right?
	It's not...
	So I have the humility...
	To admit that it's not follow these eight rules and I guarantee you'll be happy.
	What I can say is follow these eight rules and you have a much greater likelihood of being happy.
	So that's a softer statement, okay?
	So let's do choosing the right spouse.
	In evolutionary psychology, we've got two opposing maxims, if you'd like, in terms of how you should go about choosing a spouse.
	There's the opposites attract maxim, and then there's the birds of a feather flock together maxim.
	Well, it turns out, I'm not sure if this will surprise you or not, it turns out that for long-term happiness of a union, it is overwhelmingly and unequivocally that birds of a feather flock together as the operative mechanism.
	Now, the next question might be, but birds of a feather flock on which feathers?
	They assort on what?
	Is it height?
	Is it eye color?
	It is on...
	Concurring belief systems, life goals, fundamental values, right?
	So if I am a staunch practicing Catholic and you are a caustic atheist, notwithstanding all the love that we have between us, it's probably not going to work, okay?
	So choosing someone that shares your values increases the probability of success of your union astronomically.
	Let's do...
	Choosing the right profession.
	I argue that there are two ways that we can really increase the chances of us being happy in our profession.
	And I'd be curious to know how we might link what I'm about to say to the departure that you had in your career, which is...
	Go ahead.
	I'm even, for the first one, choose your spouse, ideologically aligned.
	Look, I've had my own life experience with it.
	Not to say we've been married, now it's 2007, so going on 16 years.
	And we've been dating since 1999 to 2000.
	So we've been together for a long time.
	And we had an early, not an ideological test, but rather an ideological assurance that we were aligned on certain things that would materialize and how we would go about raising kids, if and when.
	And it's an amazing thing.
	The opposites attract, I presume, would make for good one-night stands.
	Exactly.
	Beautifully said.
	And I'll say, full disclosure, I've never had one.
	And maybe that pleasure is really good, but my neuroses far outweighs any pleasure I might get from that.
	And I've never had one.
	And I also have this theory that like too many one night stands when you're single will make for, you'll feel very bored if you have to settle down in what is expected to be married life of fidelity.
	But yeah, so opposite track great for short term spontaneousness, Everything that you just said has actually been backed up by science.
	So the idea that if you've had fewer sexual partners, you're more likely to have a happy marriage has been established.
	The idea, I just failed to mention it, but you beat me to it.
	Opposites attract as a maxim works very well for short-term dalliances.
	You're right.
	I am sexually restrained and I am shy and introverted.
	You're the exact opposite.
	Those opposites can complement each other.
	You bring me out of my shell.
	That's great.
	One night stand, not long-term reunion.
	So you're exactly right.
	Want me to move on to profession?
	Yeah, well, and the profession I think I'll be able to relate to as well.
	Oh, you're going to like it.
	Get ready.
	So I argue, Viva, that there are...
	I mean, I discussed many different things, but let me just do the two main ones.
	A job that allows you to instantiate your creative impulse is a direct pathway to having purpose and meaning.
	But now I define creative impulse very broadly.
	So I can be a chef.
	I can be an architect.
	I could be a podcaster.
	I could be a professor and author.
	I could be a stand-up comic, right?
	Each of those professions, very, very different, but they are all defined by the act of creation.
	I create jokes.
	I create content online as a podcaster.
	I create new plates of culinary delight as a chef.
	I create new structures as an architect.
	I create new books and theories as an author and professor.
	Anything that immerses you in the creative landscape is all other things equal going to give you more purpose and meaning.
	The second one is anything that allows you to have maximal temporal freedom in your job is also going to make you happier.
	So example, I work very, very hard.
	I'm always working.
	But I almost feel like I'm never working because it's always driven by how I feel.
	Right now, I feel like going to a cafe for four hours and working on the book prospectus for my next book.
	Great.
	Now I want to chat with Viva.
	Great.
	So I'm almost never bound, short of when I'm teaching, right?
	When I'm teaching, I have to be in class from 7 to 10. It's set.
	I have to go to a departmental meeting.
	But that defines very little of my day-to-day, and yet I probably work.
	More than most people, and yet I don't feel as though I'm working because I'm like a vagabond.
	Contrast that at the other end of the scale to someone who has to have a union-mandated time as to when they can go to the bathroom, right?
	They are really constrained, right?
	So if you can, now...
	Your next question might be, but what about all the people who can't do that because of practical realities?
	And then we can talk about that.
	But if you can, if you choose a profession that allows you those two things, you really are increasing your chances to be professionally happy.
	And we'll get to the...
	Have you seen the movie A Bronx Tale?
	Robert De Niro...
	I cite it in the book, man!
	Wake up!
	Dude, I didn't read the book yet.
	I know, I know.
	I'm being facetious.
	And that's the bus driver.
	That's Robert De Niro's bus driver analogy, right?
	He drives the bus every day.
	How does he find meaning in his life when he has a tedious job like that?
	God, I could have written this book, I think.
	But before we even get into the person who has no choice but to have a tedious job, I'll relate it to my life as a lawyer.
	Everybody says, you know, being a lawyer is great.
	You get to use your brain.
	You get to show how smart you are.
	You get to draft briefs.
	You get to go to court, convince judges.
	When you don't...
	Like that which you're creating, it's not even as though you're not creating anything.
	It's as though you're creating something destructive.
	And forget the fact that you'd have to be in court at nine in the morning and it's just living by someone else's schedule.
	That's fine.
	I remember sitting in my office back at Borden, Ladner, Gervais.
	It was either early morning or late at night because I remember the sun was either rising or setting.
	And I'm looking at these papers on my desk and the shadows that they're casting.
	And I'm saying, what am I creating?
	I'm creating nothing of value.
	Not...
	Anything related to BLG as a firm, just what I believe is the practice of law.
	And despite the fact that it paid well, they say the easiest way to make a hard living or the hardest way to make an easy living, I forget which one it is, it was beyond empty.
	It was soul-crushing to do this day in and day out, despite the promises of the practice.
	And I learned that and then took a wild chance and happened to have gotten very fluky lucky.
	But what about those who don't have that opportunity, that luxury, or...
	That spirit of wandering off into risky freedom.
	Right.
	But I'm glad that you see the connection to you because as I was saying those two things, I said, boy, does that capture exactly Viva's trajectory from where he was to what he became.
	So let's suppose...
	You don't have the capacity for whatever reason.
	You've got three kids.
	You're not willing to take any risks.
	You are the bus driver.
	And you simply can't afford to put to practice what I'm saying here.
	Okay, well, how about then you pursue those things outside of your job?
	So, for example, I am a bus driver, but I've always been very, very interested in ceramic art.
	I mean, that's what I would have wanted to do if I had the chance.
	But I know that my...
	Parents told me that I should get a union job, it gets the benefits, and I'm seven years from retirement.
	What about then when you finish your bus route, your eight-hour shift, instead of going home and watching four hours of TV, why don't you sign up at the Adult Lifelong Learning Center and take that ceramic class?
	Which, by the way, leads me to the next point, which is one of the mindsets that you asked me to tell us about some of these mindsets.
	So I have a chapter on life as a playground.
	Basically, I argue that even in my very serious academic career, when I do scientific research, I view that as the highest form of cerebral play, right?
	Because what is it to be a scientist?
	Solve puzzles.
	But instead of a 1,000-piece puzzle that you do with your 11-year-old kid, you're looking at thousands of variables and you're saying, well, let me see whether this variable actually has a causal relationship with this variable.
	That's an exciting puzzle to solve.
	And so even, for example, when I went through the Lebanese Civil War, I was desperate.
	To engage in play.
	So my parents would tell me, this is in the middle of the most violent civil war imaginable.
	They would tell me when I would go out to play with my cousin outside, don't pass this particular imaginary line because if you do, then that puts you within the eyesight of the sniper standing on top of that building and they'll blow your brain.
	So that's...
	The extent to which we have a deep desire to play.
	Life is Beautiful, the movie that won the Oscar in 1997, was about a father in the concentration camps telling his son that the whole thing that they're going through is just one make-believe game.
	It was a form of play.
	So the play instinct is everywhere.
	So if you can't instantiate your play and creative impulse at work, then find a way to do it outside of work.
	It's interesting.
	I even think with the bus driver, I think I could be a truck driver, not because driving itself is so interesting, although just seeing the world is beautiful.
	To the extent that I could continue absorbing information, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks, that could make any physically tedious job tolerable.
	It's the ones that are psychologically tedious that you can never make tolerable.
	Sorry, finish your point.
	No, no, that was it.
	The difference between physically tedious, you can still get the intellectual stimulation.
	Intellectually or psychologically tedious, there's no saving from that.
	Perfectly stated.
	Just one point, one comment about the bus driver, and then I want to, since you mentioned Bronx Tale, I want to talk about how I discuss the Bronx Tale in the book.
	So, I once was coming, I can't remember if I was coming from...
	New York City or from, I think it was from Albany.
	So I did my PhD at Cornell, which is in Ithaca, New York.
	So it's a couple of hours away.
	It's in central New York.
	And so I was taking a bus back from, I think it was Albany, back to Ithaca, New York, where Cornell is.
	And I sat next to the bus driver, it's a several hour ride, and we...
	We're engaged in this incredibly deep and personal and intimate conversation.
	And I remember at the end, when I got off, a lady came up and said, I have to tell you, I was so moved by the way you two were interacting with each other.
	Now, contrast that situation with other cases where I've tried to engage another driver who was very sullen and was not willing to have a conversation with me.
	Well, that speaks exactly to your point about you being a truck driver and then...
	You know, stimulating your mind.
	The former driver did not see his job as just going from A to B. He saw it as an opportunity also to connect with people in a very meaningful way.
	And so that bus driver actually has a potentially meaningful job because he's open to the world, okay?
	So that's story one.
	Can you guess in any way how I might have used the Bronx tale?
	In the context of the choosing the right spouse.
	Anything comes to mind.
	I don't see that on the spot.
	Okay, I'm trying to think.
	Well, there's the two lasting lessons from the Bronx tale that I remember is when Chaz Palminteri locks the door after all the...
	Oh!
	We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen.
	Now you can't get out and then the look on all their faces.
	No, no, no.
	You're mixing them up.
	Now you can't get out is in the bar.
	It's not the...
	I thought you meant the locking of the car door.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	No, no, no.
	I meant locking of the bar.
	Okay.
	No, so we don't have a winner.
	We have a loser.
	Damn it.
	I was so happy for a second.
	No, because that story is not mating related, right?
	No.
	Do you remember?
	There was a racial component where the young kid was dating a black girl and that was the issue among the Italian community that they were having.
	He tells him about how to establish whether that girl...
	Is worthy of his affections or not?
	You don't remember?
	Son of a gun.
	I'm going to remember it in about two seconds.
	I'm sorry, but if you were in my course right now, I'm giving you a D minus, and I'm not even grading the curve.
	I think I would deserve it.
	They're in the car.
	They get in the car.
	It's leaning over to unlock the door.
	Yes!
	But hold on.
	Okay, refresh my memory.
	I remember it vaguely.
	So what he tells her, so for those of you who are not...
	45 and older.
	Oh, and hold on.
	Spoiler alert, people.
	We're going to ruin a Bronxdale for you.
	By the way, one of the all-time greatest movies.
	It's a great movie.
	It's unbelievable.
	And the music, by the way, the soundtrack is unbelievable.
	But anyways, Chaz Palminteri, who plays the local mob leader.
	Takes as a protege this young kid.
	Robert De Niro plays the straight-laced bus driver that Viva was talking earlier about.
	So the young kid is about to date this girl, and Chaz Palminteri tells him, here's what you're going to do to decide if she's a good girl or not.
	What you're going to do is you're going to...
	When you get into the car, you're going to open the door for her.
	She's going to get in.
	And then you're going to come around the car and you're going to wait to see.
	Remember, the reason why...
	It all came back.
	And he looked through the back mirror.
	Right?
	Because remember, there's no automatic doors in these old cars in the 60s, right?
	So you have to physically open the lock of the door.
	Now, if she goes over and opens it for you, she's a considerate person.
	And therefore, you've got a good girl.
	If she doesn't...
	I remember he said something very colorful.
	She's a pig.
	Run away and don't look back or something to that effect.
	Now, I tell that story in the context of saying that, look, when you date someone, there are these really important cues that we often are blind to because we're driven by lust, because we're driven by all the things that don't matter for long-term stability.
	And then I describe a situation with how I met my wife.
	That's very similar to that door test.
	So when I met my wife, I was giving some executive education classes at a company, and she happened to be one of the executives.
	And around the third lecture, I think I gave six different classes every Saturday, a different topic, you know, psychology of decision making, consumer psychology, advertising, whatever.
	And around the third class, I had...
	I was stricken with a really bad bout of bronchitis.
	So these were like, I think, three-hour classes.
	So it's very hard when you're coughing like a monster to be lecturing for three hours.
	And so at one point, I had called for a break.
	Everybody go to the bathroom, go get food, whatever.
	And I'm sitting there coughing like a maniac.
	So my wife-to-be, my eventual wife, goes down.
	To whatever, some store, and then comes back with a T for me and says, you know, this is for you, Professor.
	I noticed that you were like gasping for air.
	And I thought, oh boy, she's something, right?
	I mean, she's a very, I mean, I think, well, I think you've met her.
	She's a very beautiful woman and so on.
	But that's not what I was thinking about there.
	I was like, oh, that's, it's so considerate.
	It's so lovely.
	It's so kind.
	She might be something there.
	But, you know, I'm very professorial then.
	Even though it wasn't in the context of the class, there were no ethical issues.
	This is outside the classroom.
	But I did pick up that she was kind.
	And so the moral of the story here is when you're dating someone, don't just focus on how beautiful they are on the outside.
	Look at some of these micro cues.
	And I was going to make the joke.
	Another key to happiness.
	Don't comment on the attractiveness or unattractiveness of other people's poses.
	That's a surefire way to avoid.
	That is true.
	Okay, that's fantastic.
	Was it in the podcast with Rogan, or am I mixing up podcasts now, in terms of getting to know someone?
	Like, how you actually get to know the short-term versus the long-term aspects of a character, personality, to know if there's going to be long-term compatibility with that person?
	I mean, I don't think I specifically answered that question on Rogan's, but I'm happy to answer it if you like.
	Yeah, give us the insights of this.
	I think this is valuable.
	One of the fundamental things that you study in evolutionary psychology is human mating preferences.
	And then one of the things that you differentiate when you're studying human mating preferences are the types of attributes that men and women look for as a function of whether they're looking for a long-term or short-term mate.
	The idea is that in many cases, that which I find very attractive in a short-term mate, I find abhorrent in a long-term mate.
	You seem to be distracted.
	Are we good?
	Or is there like a fire in the hotel?
	The kid's microwaving.
	We're in a hotel.
	He's microwaving macaroni and cheese that we have left over from last night.
	So he's got to make sure he doesn't do it for like five minutes.
	Okay, no problem.
	He's good.
	Okay, sorry.
	Okay.
	Okay, sorry, guys.
	Will you be quiet?
	We got you.
	Okay, quiet.
	That's part of the charm of the Viva show.
	Well, God, the dogs haven't distracted us yet.
	I know there's poop somewhere in this hotel room.
	I just haven't found it yet.
	Quiet, quiet.
	Okay, sorry, guys.
	Yeah, so I may find it very desirable for a woman to be, to put it in fancy terms, sexually unrestrained as a short-term mate.
	I might find that abhorrent in a long-term mate, right?
	And so the temporal context of the relationship is really important when you're talking about mating preferences.
	Now, some attributes are important irrespective of context, temporal context.
	But in many cases, that which I find attractive in one context is exactly what I don't find attractive in the other.
	So example, the height of a man is important But it even is more important when a woman is shopping for good jeans, but it takes on lesser value when she's looking for the full package for a long-term mate, right?
	Both you and I are not tall men, but hopefully we compensate for those shortcomings with other qualities that we can compensate with, whether it be intelligence, whether it be looks, whether it be charm, whether it be...
	You know, creativity, whatever it is, right?
	So in any case, so I don't necessarily get into a deep dive into the short-term, long-term mating issues in this book, but you're exactly right that that's a fundamental feature of human mating.
	I think the podcast that I might have heard it on, you know who David Buss is?
	Are you familiar with him?
	You mean David Buss, who wrote the preface to this book, Consuming Instinct?
	Oh, yeah.
	No, I don't know who it is.
	Well, that was the podcast I was listening to where he was talking about, to some extent, evolutionary tendencies.
	Oh, he is literally the guy.
	So the stuff that I just said, he's the pioneer of that stuff.
	So it's called Sexual Strategies Theory.
	It's work that he's done with one of his...
	I mean, he's not the only one to have done that, but he's certainly a pioneer of that field.
	So you're exactly right.
	It must have been David Buss.
	Now, without getting to the punchline or the crux, how does the book end?
	I have other questions, so we're not ending it on this.
	How does the book end, and what's the next step of your career?
	So I go through all those eight secrets, right?
	And at the last chapter, where I'm kind of bringing it all home, I actually discuss two stories.
	I mean, real cases.
	You know, we're a storytelling animal, right?
	So oftentimes, we learn best by hearing captivating stories.
	And so I try to also do that in the book, demonstrating some phenomenon or some concept by highlighting it with a vivid...
	Case study.
	So in the last chapter, I want to demonstrate that it's really important to always contextualize your lot in life to where it could be and that that then affords you the possibility to actually be grateful for what you have.
	So the two stories are the following.
	Story one, David McCallum.
	He's a guy who came on my show and I've...
	I've repeatedly said that he's arguably one of the most remarkable guys I've had on my show, and that's saying a lot because I've had a lot of incredibly accomplished, brilliant, fascinating people on the show.
	David McCallum was arrested at the age of 17. And accused and convicted of a murder.
	He then spent the next 29 years in prison and eventually exonerated.
	So he comes out, comes on my show.
	He's now in his 46, 47, 48. And we're having a chat.
	And as we're chatting, Viva, I look at him.
	You can go watch the chat on my channel.
	I look at him and I say something to the effect of, you know, you must be the reincarnation of Buddha because your ability to...
	To respond to what's been thrown at you in life with such grace, without any sense of vengefulness, without any sense of, you know, existential retribution is unbelievable.
	I mean, you're a much better man than I am because I would want to burn the world down.
	I would be so angry.
	And then his answer speaks to the issue of gratitude.
	He said, well, you know...
	I have a sister who has cerebral palsy and she's been bed-stricken for much of her life and yet she still finds a way to be happy and to smile.
	So from that perspective, whatever I went through is not such a big deal.
	So imagine that even...
	I mean, there are very, very few things that we could ever complain about and that can bring us down more than having 30 years of your life stolen from you.
	I said it last week.
	I forget the exact context.
	It was about wrongfully convicted or at least wrongfully detained the Coutts Four out of Canada that having time stolen is the most egregious of theft, which includes having a life stolen because it's not something you can ever get back by way of compensation.
	Money, house, cars, everything that's material can be compensated.
	Loss of time.
	You can throw money at it, but you never get it back, period.
	Exactly.
	Sorry, and yet he found a way to be graceful and kind and accepting and so on.
	So that's number one.
	Number two, this guy called Bijan Gilani.
	I'm trying to remember his last name.
	I think that's where it was.
	It's a guy that I met through the magic of happenstance, the serendipity of life.
	I was sitting at a cafe.
	I was a professor at University of California, Irvine.
	I was working on some paper, and I had a whole bunch of books, you know, all over my table at a cafe.
	And he comes over to me.
	I never met the guy.
	And he says, oh, you look like you have some really interesting books here.
	You know, what do you do?
	So on.
	So we start talking.
	Oh, I'm a professor, blah, blah, blah.
	He tells me that I'm a...
	He's speaking now.
	I'm a doctoral student at UC Irvine, University of California, Irvine.
	I'm studying the homeless.
	And so he immersed himself in the homeless community.
	There's a reason I'm telling all these details.
	He came from a wealthy family.
	Several years later, through various reasons, he ended up himself, the irony and tragedy of life, of becoming homeless.
	And so fast forward 10 years, he was tracked in a...
	By some reporters who did an expose on him where they were talking about his life story.
	Here's a guy who finished a PhD.
	He was studying the homeless.
	He became homeless, lost all his money.
	He was living out of his car.
	And so they asked him, Viva, are you happy?
	Are you sad?
	He goes, what do I have to be sad about?
	I've got a card so I can use the gym that allows me to keep a healthy body, to your earlier point about eating well and so on.
	And I've got...
	A library card to the Newport Beach Library where I can go and nourish my mind.
	I've got nothing to be unhappy about.
	A guy is living in his car.
	He's homeless, yet he still found a way to celebrate the magic of life.
	And so I think that's how I end the book, which is, you know, these powerful stories of, you know, no matter how bad your life is, you know, just be grateful for the fact that you exist.
	Life is beautiful.
	Live every moment like it's your last.
	I don't know if you saw on Rogan as well, this guy, Bruce Bryan, who I thought you were talking about when you're talking about a guy who was wrongfully convicted in jail for 29 years and comes out.
	I don't know if there's lingering or suppressed resentment and anger, but sounds more reasonable, rational than you can ever imagine.
	He says, you know, the situation can either make you better.
	Sorry, he said it can either make you bitter or better, or you can either you can take the situation and let it make you bitter or better.
	And he says, I'm in jail.
	I let it make me better.
	I got degrees.
	I read.
	I found purpose.
	I helped others.
	That's stoicism, by the way.
	That's the fundamental feature, right?
	The event happens.
	How you react to it is what determines, which is CBT, right?
	So that story is exactly what the Stoics taught us thousands of years ago.
	I'll ask you my own personal question right before we end.
	And I know...
	I'm not going to ask you to criticize your publisher.
	You did an audiobook and they did not let you do it in your own voice, which I will go out and criticize any publisher who says, it's not that you have a great voice, you have a distinctive voice and it's pretty good.
	But you, it's inconceivable.
	Imagine the guy from Princess Bride making an audiobook and they say, yeah, we're going to let, I don't know, Brad Pitt narrate your book and not you with your patented trademarked lisp.
	The idea that the book would be read in anyone else's voice other than yours is shocking, and it's a strategic mistake for any publisher, whoever thinks about doing that again in the future.
	You don't need to say anything, Gad.
	You don't want to burn bridges with your publisher.
	In our locals community, we've got two tip questions.
	Pam Walker says, I will buy your book, Gad.
	Do you have any quick recommendations for a person that lives with constant pain and fatigue?
	That completely destroys my ability to engage in more than the smallest things.
	We'll go with stoicism, but what do you have for advice?
	Well, it's difficult to offer concrete.
	That's one of the things of having epistemic humility.
	I don't want to offer BS prescriptions.
	I would have to know a lot more about what the source of your pain is and so on.
	So I really...
	It's not that...
	I'd rather not answer it than give you some facile BS answer that pretends as though I know what I'm talking about.
	I'd have to know a lot more about your case in order to offer you some help.
	All right.
	And there's another question from Tamper that says, has Dr. Saad interviewed any people diagnosed with Williams syndrome?
	Dr. Saad, and I don't know if you're familiar with it.
	I'm just Googling it.
	It says, Williams syndrome is characterized by developmental delay, intellectual disability, usually mild, a specific cognitive profile, unique personality characteristics, cardiovascular disease.
	Connective tissue.
	It actually sounds a little bit like...
	What's the word I'm looking for?
	Down syndrome, a little bit.
	I'll look into that.
	I've never heard of that.
	I've never interviewed someone, no.
	All right, now the question is this.
	What do you do next?
	I mean, what is left for you to do?
	You're looking already to write another book?
	Oh, sorry, before that, what goes into writing a book for those who don't know?
	How long did this take you?
	How much do you obsess over saying...
	How do I know when it's done?
	How do you know when it's done?
	A mystical journey to write a book.
	You know, when you write academic papers, scientific papers, the content of the paper changes, but the template is always the same, right?
	There is the introduction to the problem, there is the literature review, there is the positing of the hypotheses, there's the methodology that you use to collect the data, there's the data analysis, and then there's the conclusion.
	So that structure, whether it's a chemistry paper or a psychology paper or whatever, is always the same.
	When you write a book, not only is the content not clear, but the template is not clear, right?
	There are many things that I ended up writing about that came up organically that I hadn't thought that I would be writing about when I first pitched the idea of the book.
	What you absolutely need to have is a general structure of what the general roadmap is.
	This is the main topic of my book.
	Eight points that I'd like to make.
	And therefore, this is how the chapters are going to be broken.
	So you basically have kind of, imagine how you were taught in English class how to create a table of contents with Greco-Roman numerals and subsection ABC.
	And then the writing of the book becomes filling in those sections, okay?
	But even then, as you said, you really never know, you know, should I write more?
	Should I not?
	So for example, for the parasitic mind, My first draft that I submitted was, I think, 93,000 words.
	And then the only feedback that I got from my publisher was, you need to cut about 20-something thousand words.
	And so imagine now how hard it is when you've toiled over every syllable of this book to now go and chop 23...
	1,000 words from your book, right?
	So it's very hard.
	So there is no singular strategy.
	I tell you what it does require, which is something that I talk about in the happiness book.
	It requires resilience, grit, persistence.
	So every single day, no matter how tired I was, no matter if I had a headache or not, it doesn't matter if I was teaching that night or not.
	I would have to write at least, for example, 500 words, no matter what.
	Because if not, I could never meet the deadline set by the publisher.
	You know, when you get an advance, especially if it's a sizable advance, the publisher really wants you to meet certain...
	It's not like, oh, you know, just submit it whenever you feel like it, Professor Sat.
	And so if you agree contractually to submit it by day X, you better submit it by day X. And so it requires a lot of persistence, doggedness to get the words out.
	Andrew Skinson, who had a few interesting chats, said, the happiest people I know are poor, devoutly religious simpletons who do instead of think fact.
	What do you say about that?
	In a non-judgmental way, a lot of people say a lot of today's malaise, unhappiness, comes from the luxury of not having to fight for your existence anymore.
	Right.
	So I talk in the book about different correlates to happiness.
	How does personality affect happiness?
	How does culture affect happiness?
	How does political orientation affect happiness?
	But to this gentleman's question, I do have a section on religiosity and happiness.
	And the research shows that there is a moderate positive correlation between...
	Religiosity and happiness, meaning the more religious I am, the happier I am.
	Now, there could be very earthly reasons for that, right?
	It doesn't have to be couched in a supernatural narrative.
	Being religious provides me purpose and meaning.
	It creates communality.
	It creates cohesion.
	It creates a greater likelihood of cooperation within the in-group.
	So there are all sorts of very earthly reasons why my being religious might end up making me...
	Feel happier.
	But that said, right away after I described that research, because I want people who are not religious to also feel that they're not doomed to unhappiness because they're not religious, because I argue that to identify the divine, to identify spiritual experiences does not require that we be religious in the least bit, right?
	So when I had that...
	Impromptu conversation with the bus driver coming back from Albany or wherever I was coming from.
	That itself was a spiritual experience.
	It was an impromptu thing that happened where two strangers were able to have this very intimate interaction.
	When I go to Portugal with my family and we even bond more than we ever have in the past.
	That's a spiritual experience.
	The love that I have for my Belgian shepherds is a manifestation of the divine.
	So there are many ways by which we can have spiritual experiences and awe-inspiring experiences without necessarily believing in a supernatural narrative.
	And not to get back to the Greeks, but there is a difference between being religious and being hedonistic.
	There is a middle ground where you can sort of be spiritual or at least think there's more to this without it having to be the...
	Some sort of embodiment of a literal God.
	Gad, one question here.
	It's a super chat from Pastor Moyer.
	It sounds like your theory of profession fits in well with the Peter Principle.
	Do you have any thoughts about that?
	I was trying to Google the Peter Principle, but...
	Isn't the Peter Principle you keep working up to the level of your incompetence or something to that effect?
	The Peter Principle is a concept in management developed by Lawrence Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to a, quote, a level of respective incompetence.
	I guessed that exactly that.
	I don't know.
	I've never heard.
	I'm going to look that up because I like it.
	I don't see how that's the same.
	I mean, I'm talking...
	It's got nothing to do with what I said.
	I know you have to go somewhere because you've got something else after this.
	I'm going to ask you my question, which is my struggle with happiness.
	It's not a question of feigning anything.
	It's not a question of being fundamentally unhappy.
	My struggle with happiness is, on the one hand, guilt for feeling happy and also just the general fear that it'll get worse or it'll get bad.
	I guess it is, on the one hand, a fear for it getting worse for myself, and also the shame or the feeling that it's wrong to feel happy when you know that others are not, and then sort of the guilt-shame in thinking that you're happy and somehow entitled to it.
	So how do you resolve those two internally?
	I don't know.
	I mean, I understand the pen, but it seems very sort of Christian self-flagellation to...
	So then I shouldn't have a house because there are people who are homeless.
	I shouldn't have children because there are infertile people.
	I shouldn't have sex with my wife because there are people who are unable to find a maid.
	So why don't I just go buy a gun and blow my brain?
	That way I can avoid guilt.
	That can't be a healthy way to live life, Eva.
	Well, nobody said it was healthy.
	The question is, how do you get over it or how does one cope with it?
	You have a right.
	You are not trampling on the rights of other in seeking your existential happiness.
	If you did that, then I would say, wait a minute, let's explore how you walking over the homeless guy gives you orgiastic existential happiness.
	But you have a right.
	To the dignity of your happiness.
	You're entitled to that, right?
	You're not trampling over other people's rights to do it.
	So I would say to you, get over that sense of guilt.
	You have a right to your happiness.
	All right, get over the guilt.
	How do you get over the anxiety?
	I'm very familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy.
	How does one get over the anxiety that, again, it's one of my earliest memories.
	Bursting into tears because I realized that one day I was going to die.
	And all of this, I was sitting in the bathtub with my brother and I was so happy.
	And I looked in the mirror and I caught the gaze.
	I was like, one day this is all going to be over for an eternity.
	How does one get over the continual angst that it ends one day?
	And it ends for an eternity.
	Well, that in a sense speaks to our...
	Just a few moments ago, we spoke about religion.
	That's why religion, in a sense, makes you happy.
	Well, not in a sense.
	That's why it does make you happy.
	Because religion offers you the, quote, solution to the most fundamental existential problem we face, which is recognition of our mortality.
	As far as we know, no other animal...
	So, Robert Sapolsky wrote a very famous book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
	What is he arguing there?
	He's basically saying the zebra doesn't go around saying, my life sucks.
	I'm surrounded by all sorts of really nasty predators.
	Here I am grazing nicely with my little calf.
	But in any moment now, I could be torn apart by a bunch of lions.
	It just goes about happily about its life.
	And then if the lions come, it tries to outrun them.
	If it does, it lives another day.
	If it doesn't, well, it makes for a good meal.
	Whereas, unfortunately, because of this prefrontal cortex, we have the angst that you mentioned.
	So, in a sense, religion does offer you a solution because certainly the Abrahamic religions, many of them offer you the eternal life after.
	Now, the other way that you could solve that is, and this is not going to satisfy you, Viva, is that I can be immortal.
	And I have actually written an article on this, and I do discuss it in the book very briefly, in the happiness book.
	I can be immortal, not literally in the way you'd like, but I can be immortal in two ways.
	Through genetic immortality, by having children.
	When I have children, I am literally becoming immortal in that half of my genes are being propagated.
	Via those vehicles called my children, right?
	The second way that I can be immortal viva, which speaks to my earlier point about instantiating your creative impulse, right?
	My ideas, my thoughts, the content of this conversation, the books that I've written, are my pathway to mimetic immortality, right?
	By creating knowledge, by creating things that hopefully people will consume, I am, quote, I'm infecting their brains with my ideas, and therefore my ideas live on.
	So there is a way for me to be immortal, but unfortunately we haven't found the literal way for us to have the party last forever.
	Well, Elon is working on it, I'm sure.
	Okay, Gad, I'm not going to hold you much longer at all.
	First of all, thank you very much.
	Thank you so much.
	I like talking, too.
	I feel a little bit more relaxed right now.
	I don't know what it is.
	It's your voice.
	If I listen to the book in your voice, I feel even more relaxed.
	Before I let you go, thank you.
	Those are very, very lovely words.
	Yesterday, I was sitting with a gentleman who hosted me for one of the shows.
	He invited me to lunch.
	And I'm sorry, I don't mean to be tooting my own horn, but I thought it was so touching.
	To your point about your feeling, he looked at me, he goes, you know, I just had to have lunch with you.
	Because, I don't know, I just really like you.
	You know what I think it is, Viva?
	I think it's maybe because I have a smiley face.
	Notwithstanding that people think, oh, I can be ornery on social media and combative and I go after someone, honey badger.
	I really am a happy assassin warrior.
	How about that?
	Happy assassin warrior.
	Oh, if you could find a K at the end of that, you'd have a hawk.
	Now I just thought of a K at the end of that.
	We probably don't want at the end of that hawk.
	Gad, thank you.
	We did not meet up over the summer, unfortunately, in Montreal time.
	And the next time we're going to do it, it's going to have to be Florida time.
	So you have a place to stay whenever you want to come down.
	From your lips to God's ear.
	So good to talk to you.
	You're always such fun.
	Thank you very much.
	Go.
	Enjoy the day.
	Cheers.
	Take care.
	Bye-bye.
	Bye-bye.
	Everyone else out there, we're not going to end just yet.
	Although now, son, you can come and say hi to the world.
	We're going to go over to Rumble.
	I'm going to end this on YouTube.
	Come over to Rumble, people, because I'm going to try to do a few things and then hope.
	That Jason Levine, who is in court now in Lethbridge, Alberta, covering the coups for, can make it in.
	Apparently he had his phone taken away from him because there's no more live tweeting at court.
	So hold on.
	Here's the link to Rumble.
	I'm going to end this on YouTube.
	Come on over to Rumble.
	We're going to continue this on for a bit until someone in the room loses their temper.
	Okay.
	Ending on YouTube.
	Three, two, one, now.
	And there were two super, there were Rumble rants.
	There were two Rumble rants, which I forgot to get to.
	Hold on.
	Come say hi.
	Come show them what you got.
	Get over here.
	It's very hot in here.
	I had to turn off the air conditioning in this room so that it wouldn't make too much noise.
	Share.
	We all get to live with Gad for a few more minutes here.
	Fiona is my B-I-T-C-H.
	There's a child in the room.
	Says, checking since I can't super chat on another live feed.
	You're good, Fiona.
	And I don't know if that's from the movie Euro Trip.
	Fiona!
	What's up?
	Come show the slingshot that we got.
	Come here.
	Give me five more minutes.
	All right.
	And we got Love Your Interviews, Heart Canada.
	So let me see if Jason Levine can get in to give us a little update on the coots.
	I'm going to play one video in a second.
	Hold on.
	Just see if Jason's here.
	I'm going to DM him.
	Can you pop in now?
	Question mark.
	Hold on a second.
	Hold on a second.
	We got a slingshot today.
	You want to show the slingshot?
	Give me the slingshot.
	Let me show them.
	Yes, you can.
	We got a slingshot.
	A slingshot is a dangerous thing to get a kid.
	I figured out exactly what a kid can shoot with a slingshot.
	It would be very, very hard to hurt somebody.
	Wet toilet paper.
	All right.
	Now, hold on.
	We're going to go over to Rumble.
	We got The End.
	$4 Tips is beautiful.
	I love Heart, Dr. Gadsad, and Viva Frye.
	Thank you very much.
	All right.
	By the way, tonight I'm going to be on TimCast.
	This was something that was sort of like short notice planning.
	It just happened to work out timing-wise because we're driving through.
	I said, eh, driving from Montreal to Florida.
	I could pass through Virginia.
	I don't know what state it's even in.
	Pass through the tri-state area and we're going to do it.
	Tonight is going to be fantastic.
	Get the slingshot.
	Show them.
	He says hi.
	What did we do today?
	That's what we did today.
	Okay.
	Oh, he's got the slingshot.
	While he brings the slingshot, we'll see what the news is of the day.
	The thing is, we're going to talk about the news tonight, so I don't want to talk about it too much today.
	We were out on the Potomac River this morning catching crayfish.
	Show, show, show, show.
	Oh, he's going to show you.
	I want to shoot your computer.
	Okay.
	He's going to see if he can shoot the computer with the slingshot.
	What's the latest news of the day, people?
	Let me just see if Jason's going to be able to make it.
	Go for it.
	Go for it.
	Not too hard.
	Not too hard.
	Go.
	Yeah?
	That was too hard.
	Alright, I hope Jason...
	I'm going to try to just go through a few stories until...
	Okay, on Timcast tonight, I said as a joke in a tweet, it would be a shame if someone asks a question about that member of provincial parliament who lied about being the victim of a fake hate crime at a protest in Ottawa.
	Go for it.
	I don't know how they control the subject matter or what we're going to talk about tonight.
	I think it's obviously going to involve Hunter Biden.
	It's going to involve Hunter Biden plea deal.
	It's going to involve the new charges against Donald Trump.
	It's going to involve a world that's gone bat-she-at crazy.
	But I said I'm going to have to make a time.
	I'll elect a segment on all of the Canadian injustices that are currently going on right now.
	I had on Tamara Leach earlier this week.
	She was talking about her new book, Hold the Line, which apparently is a statement that is tantamount to mischief in Canada.
	Get out of here.
	Tantamount to mischief in Canada.
	We've got the Coots Four, who are now having hearings all week about an attempt to...
	I think disclose or unseal information which might reveal egregious prosecutorial misconduct.
	And what are the other ones that are going on there?
	Sheila Lewis, who seemingly resolved her dispute with Alberta Health Services after having been taken off the organ donor list because of her refusal, unwillingness to get the COVID jab.
	No.
	So that's it.
	Now let's see.
	I don't know.
	Jason Levine, I think, is in court and they're no longer allowing him to do live tweets.
	I want to make my stick shiper.
	Okay, so go, go, go, go.
	Can I do it?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, go, go.
	All right.
	Okay, I think that's it.
	So we'll give it another five minutes.
	Let's take some questions in the chat.
	Let's take some questions in the chat.
	Everyone, get in there with some questions.
	Ludie says, I miss having a kid that age.
	Nine are...
	Nine?
	Oh, mine.
	I guess that might mean mine are all grown up.
	Put it back in the bag.
	Look, having kids, it's a great distraction.
	Who was I listening to talk about life with kids?
	And basically saying, you have your head.
	It's no longer in one place.
	It's no longer in your place.
	You got your head in five, however many kids you have, different places.
	You are now worrying about three other humans day in and day out endlessly.
	And it's like your brain is being torn in three, four, five different directions, which I believe accounts for why parents have terrible, terrible memory.
	Question, what are you going to eat for dinner?
	This is from iLers.
	What am I going to eat for dinner?
	I don't know.
	I had a big breakfast.
	Eating food on the road is so impossible to eat decent food.
	Last night we had a good dinner, just a piece of meat and salad.
	Okay, let me just say, I don't want to read any chats that are bad here.
	Randy Hillier is in court today.
	Oh, speaking of Canadian injustices.
	Randy Hillier, a sitting member of provincial parliament, arrested on mischief charges and alleged assault on a police officer.
	Let's see if I can find the tweet.
	Randy Hillier, Eva Frye tweet assault.
	Randy Hillier was arrested on assault on a police officer.
	A very serious charge.
	And I think I found the video that was...
	Ow!
	I think I found the video that was the evidence of the alleged assault on a police officer.
	Let me see if I can't find it right now.
	Spoiler alert.
	It's grade A bullplop.
	Is this the video?
	No, that's Randy Hillier talking about it.
	The video of his alleged assault on a police officer was him moving a barricade and allowing for protesters to go up to Parliament to protest.
	Moving the barricade was allegedly the assault on the officer.
	I don't know if the barricade hit the officer or if the officer claims it did.
	Talking about...
	Talking about Canadian injustices and serious charges.
	Imagine charging a sitting member of provincial parliament with assault on a police officer and then releasing that sitting member of provincial parliament with all sorts of bail restrictions that prohibit him, preclude him from openly discussing political matter on social media.
	This is Canada, people.
	And too many people don't know about it.
	A lot of people in Canada know about it and don't care about it.
	Let me see if I really want to find the tweet.
	Hold on a second.
	Not the tweet, but the video.
	Assault.
	Let's do a video here.
	I'll see if I can get Randy Hillier turning himself in.
	That's the video that I already saw.
	So.
	Oh, here we go.
	I think I found it.
	Please let the video...
	I'm not going to be able to find it.
	I won't be able to find it in time.
	So let's see any more in the chat.
	Randy Hilliard is in court.
	So that's Uncle Kenny reminding us of the alleged injustices going on in Canada.
	Political persecutions.
	Tamara Leach still has restrictions on her bail.
	Say it again.
	Yeah, I'm almost on the stream.
	Oh, well, okay.
	T.S. Money says get you.
	I've had James Top on multiple times.
	We had him as he was doing updates as he was marching across Canada.
	Let's see what they were...
	Oh, they were demanding he resign his seat.
	Of course, the process is the punishment.
	Oh, sorry, who said that?
	Honor234.
	Zink and Ivy says, Viva equals, can you practice being joyful in your blessings?
	Is that what I am?
	I know what my problems are.
	It's anxiety.
	It's fear of the uncontrollable or fear of which that I cannot control.
	I'm very bad.
	At the Serenity Prayer, I've got a kid now who's carving.
	We're going to go back down to the Potomac River.
	We're going to go down to the Potomac River and we're going to go hunt for dinner.
	Who said what's for dinner?
	You know what's going to be for dinner?
	A bass from the Potomac River.
	Continue with this.
	It's very sharp.
	I can't!
	We're going to go spearfish down at the Potomac.
	Real Fringe says catch a fish.
	We can't.
	We went down.
	We actually bought worms, and then we went down, and I felt guilty, so we released some of the worms and then fed some fish with some of the worms.
	Please have Tony Heller on for the climate scan.
	I don't know who Tony Heller is.
	So that's it.
	Now, I'm trying to...
	Look, people, I'm trying to actually kill the time until we can get Jason Levine on for an update.
	So let's just see if I'll take some...
	Locals!
	Let's take...
	Real-time people, we're in Locals.
	I'm going to go to the chat there and see if I can't see any questions from chats in Locals.
	VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com Spinnaker says, is Gad Sad the guy behind the Twitter competitor?
	Gad, the one Barnes doesn't like.
	Just kidding.
	No!
	Natalie McClendon says, climate boiling.
	It's flippin' hot here today.
	I had a joke.
	I was going to tweet it out, but I don't want to...
	I don't want to, you know, get called out as being that guy, but I was like, my goodness, it's really hot today.
	If only we had paid more in carbon taxes.
	None of this would be happening.
	The funny thing is, the climate debate, it's sort of why I'm inclined to, you know, agree with RFK Jr.'s perspective, or at least position on this.
	He might believe things that I don't believe, but we all agree that pollution is bad, that we shouldn't pollute, period.
	Went down to the Potomac River today.
	We picked up garbage.
	Why?
	Because it's better off the garbage not be there.
	Fishing line in water is very irritating to me because I know it gets caught in seagulls' feet, birds, and if I see fishing line, I take it.
	And plastic bottles, just because.
	But the idea is, pollution is bad.
	That being said, if only we had been paying Trudeau government more in carbon taxes, none of this would be happening.
	The irony.
	Pollution is bad.
	If we believe pollution is bad, if we even subscribe to the belief that carbon emissions are the ultimate pollutant that are causing global warming, you should shut down the economy in Canada that accounts for 1.5% of all global emissions and not be hard on China.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Pasha Moyer says, Viva, it's so fun to see E taking advantage of the trip and the experience he is having.
	Go E!
	Before we left, he found...
	There's poo?
	Thank you.
	Oh.
	Before we left, we found a little pouch that I had of all of my old camping knives.
	Can I have the cricket?
	No, no.
	Give me the cricket.
	I'm going to show you my favorite camping knife that I ever had.
	Oh, it's in my pocket.
	Never mind.
	It's right here.
	Let me just make sure I can see this.
	So, I've got this.
	It's called the Spyderco Cricket.
	And it's the most beautiful little pocket knife.
	You know, it's got the thing that you open it with your thumb.
	It locks.
	It's got a beautiful blade.
	I once broke this knife and I sent it back to Spyderco to fix.
	This is like 25 years ago.
	And the knife disappeared.
	This is back in the day.
	I guess we had tracking.
	The knife disappeared and I was like, oh crap, my favorite knife is gone.
	Six months later, the knife shows up at my door and it went to an address in CA California instead of an address in CA Canada.
	And I got the knife back after all that time and I've still had it.
	It's just the most beautiful little pocket knife ever.
	We got ArmyBrat1969 says, I too worry about possibilities of everything.
	Not think I'm negative, but instead prepared.
	And don't do it onto the couch because you'll break it.
	So now I'm just...
	Okay, let's see here.
	Viva, we start camping Thanksgiving weekend through March.
	Bring drone Natalie McClendon.
	Then we got...
	Satoshi Ape.
	Oh, Satoshi Ape says CO2 is no more pollutant than H2O.
	Satoshi, at the risk of having this taken down from YouTube whenever I put it back up there, it's so preposterous.
	The idea that, not phytoplankton, algae and trees consume CO2 to therefore emit oxygen.
	There's a lot of things which have become the new religion of the day.
	When people say, I don't believe in religion, and I'm atheist, and therefore, what I have found is people have replaced religion with government, and they've replaced God with political leaders, because people have religious tendencies of thought, of behavior, and if it doesn't materialize with actual historical religion, it's going to materialize with cults, or with other equally Harmful behavior.
	Goodgrief2008 says, good thing you didn't fly, a knife would be confiscated.
	No, no, for sure, dude.
	That's one of the reasons why they stayed in Canada, because we fly in and out, but we drove down this time, so I was able to bring my old, trusty camping knives, and we picked...
	We were in a shop here in...
	What's the place where we're at?
	We were in Harper's Ferry, and...
	We were going to buy a pocket knife.
	I'm not buying a made-in-China pocket knife, so we found an Oppenelle pocket knife made in France.
	I'm not sure how good they are anymore, but whatever.
	At least we found it.
	What else?
	Chat.
	Let's go to Rumble here.
	Nancy Spence.
	Well, there was a tip, but there was no comment with it.
	Viva, any chance?
	Okay, so this is the...
	He wants to show you.
	This is the Oppenelle camping knife that we got.
	It's got a little twist top, so it stays locked.
	Opens up.
	Put it back.
	Lock it.
	Oh, shave yourself with it.
	I'm not shaving myself with it.
	Get out of here.
	I have two bald patches on my arm now because we were testing the sharpness of the knives.
	Can I try this one?
	No, no, no.
	Let's see here.
	Viva, any chance with Victor or Ben?
	There's a chance with everybody.
	There's very few people who I would just say no interview with.
	Okay.
	You would say no interview to me.
	I would interview my kid.
	The coots for day 529, court coverage July 29. His live chat yesterday explained that there is a new information ban.
	Okay, so Jason did message me that.
	He said there is a new...
	Let me just see if I can find it.
	He said there is a new information ban.
	Yeah, so it's an amazing thing, by the way.
	The trials, you know, public court hearings used to be the rule.
	Now it's the...
	Well, I won't say it's the exception.
	I won't be that hyperbolic.
	Now the new rule is we can have justice in darkness.
	Horse crap.
	Democracy dies in darkness and so does justice.
	You know, in the...
	Okay, another beautiful pocket knife made by Spyderco.
	These go back 20...
	How old am I?
	I'm 44 years old.
	These go back 25 years.
	27 years.
	That one I like.
	Yeah, this is a...
	So, it's a quadruple riveted...
	I used to work at a camping shop.
	Open it!
	No, no, no, get out of here.
	I used to work at a camping shop.
	I'll show them.
	No, get out of here.
	I used to work at a camping shop.
	You know, a metal handle, quadruple riveted, blades that are made.
	One of the blades is made in Seki City, Japan, on that one.
	One of the blades is made in Seki City, Japan, where they make wonderful blades.
	Another one was made in Golden, Colorado.
	These knives, I don't know that they make pocket knives like they used to anymore, just to sound like an old person.
	But I used to work at a place in Montreal called Black's Camping, a place in Montreal called La Carde.
	I used to make money and then blow my salary on the very gear that I was selling to customers.
	Yeah, so apparently there's a new publication ban in the Coots 4, and we've just gotten used to publication bans.
	When Sheila Lewis had filed her charter violation lawsuit against Alberta Health Services and the doctors who were taking her off an organ donor list, there was a publication ban on the name of the doctors, the name of the medical institution, the organ that she needed for her transplant, because the organ apparently would allow people to easily determine who the doctors were, what the medical institution was.
	This is the new Canada.
	This is the new America.
	Publication bans, hearings in darkness.
	I mean, even in North Korea, when they had the trial for Otto Warmbier, the kangaroo trial that that was, and as much as other trials have been kangaroo trials, hey, they had it.
	It was public-ish.
	You can have it back.
	Thank you.
	Can I use the...
	Not the orange one.
	Can I use the gray one?
	Japan made awesome blades.
	Yes.
	Don't get high on your own supply, says ZF5.
	I used to work at a bike shop.
	When you're at that stage of life, it all looks so beautiful.
	You love it.
	I don't know if Jason Levine is going to come on or be able to get out for a break.
	Let me give everybody his Twitter handle.
	Everybody can go follow him.
	How do I do this?
	Jason Levine.
	And be sure to watch Timcast tonight.
	And then we continue on the journey tomorrow.
	Here, everybody.
	This is Jason Levine's Twitter feed.
	I'll go to locals and give it there as well.
	Oomshakalaka.
	Scott Ritter interview anytime soon.
	Tampered.
	Not sure about that.
	It's so nice that Ethan is your traveling buddy.
	Oh, let's get this.
	Hey, Pudge, come on.
	No, forget it.
	Winston is down in the corner.
	Okay, put that away, please, before you do that.
	Let's see here.
	Pam Walker.
	RFK Jr. was denied Secret Service protection, yet Hunter had a whole detail take him to court.
	That's from Spinnaker.
	Oh, no, that was Pam Walker.
	Spinnaker in our local community says, based on what we've seen from the Secret Service, I think he's better off with private protection.
	Viva, need a license to fish.
	That's the other thing.
	I think you need a license to fish.
	Come here.
	Oh, she's so gross.
	Here she is, people.
	She doesn't smell particularly good.
	Pudge is doing very good.
	I love this dog.
	Look at those eyes.
	Alright, get out of here.
	And the other one's down there.
	I think we're going to end this because I don't think Jason's coming on.
	Let's go down here.
	We'll see you tonight.
	Keeps posted from the road, kids.
	Thank you, Natalie.
	Ethan Pudge, Winston, cuteness overload.
	Hold on.
	Number two.
	Here we go.
	He's going to do the paw.
	Winston, what do you have to say?
	Don't speak.
	Don't speak.
	Okay.
	So, that's it.
	I'll share a...
	You know, it's better.
	I'll save all of the good Canadian...
	Rubbish for tonight, and I'm going to go catch up on the news.
	Bourbon with Barnes yesterday, he was talking about the Hunter plea deal being put on pause, what it means going over the DeSantis campaign, not going the way some people want.
	I think that's it.
	Okay, so Jason, we'll give him one more minute, one more minute, and I'll just take a few questions.
	Great interviews.
	Viva says...
	The kid just looked at me and said, it's not a question.
	Get off the stream.
	Okay, it's been an hour and a half, so I think the kid has been very, very patient.
	What do we do?
	Crawfish.
	We're going to go...
	I'm going to go hunting for crawfish.
	We're going to go hunting for crawfish.
	I want to find a place that serves crawfish.
	I've never eaten crawfish, and I think I've tasted...
	Just get one over there!
	Crawfish out of the Potomac.
	Apparently the Potomac is much less polluted now than it was.
	It's a rated B. Up from a B-.
	Ten years ago it was a D. But they still don't recommend swimming in it or eating the fish out of it.
	So that'll be a hard no.
	Alright everybody, go.
	So that's it.
	I'll catch up with Jason Levine later on.
	I don't know what time Timcast starts.
	I know I'm supposed to be there 6.30 to 7 o 'clock.
	It's going to be good.
	And then tomorrow back on the road to our...
	State of the Free.
	The Free State of Florida.
	Everybody, thank you all for being here.
	Like, share, subscribe.
	Download the app from Rumble.
	I've been told to say this every time and I keep forgetting to say it.
	Download the app.
	Turn on...
	You can.
	Put that down and you can come say it.
	Okay, we're ending.
	You've all been waiting for it.
	Where can you find us?
	You can get merch at Viva Fry or you can follow us.
	Hold on, hold on a second.
	Hold on.
	Practice.
	This is your moment.
	Where can you find us, Ethan?
	VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com Okay, wait.
	One more time.
	VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com It's VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com Hand in the air.
	Go.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	What's the point that I'm missing?
	VivaBarnesLaw.locals.com Wait, what is it?
	Get out of here.
	I'm getting trolled by a kid.
	What is it?
	You say it.
	Say it.
	Go.
	We've got to end it.
	I'm hitting end.
	Where can they find us?
	VivaBarnsLot.Locals.com Perfection!
	Perfection!
	Get out of here!
	That's us.
	Okay, good.
	Perfection.
	Alright, everybody, go.
	Enjoy the day.
	We're going to find a place to get some exercise.
	I don't think it's going to be outside.
	It's too hot, but enjoy the day.
	See you all tonight.

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