Speaker 1Hey, what's going on? Welcome back to the James Kennedy podcast. Thanks for joining us. Hope you guys have all had an awesome week, and I hope you've been digging the new tune that James Kennedy and the Underdogs dropped last month called Revolution, featuring the mighty Benji Webb from Skindred. If you haven't yet checked it out, head to YouTube and type in James Kennedy and the Underdogs Revolution, and you get it in you. We're dropping a new tune of our forthcoming new album Rebel, which will be out later this year, every few weeks over on our YouTube channel at James Kennedy and the Underdogs, so get over there and get on board. And also, I was doing a little bit of a deep dive into the analytics for this show last week, and I noticed that most of you listen to this thing on Apple Podcasts. By far the biggest platform listenership for this particular show, but it's also the place where I've got the least reviews and the least likes, so what the hell are you guys playing at, man? Come on. You know all our nonsense is the life and death of these shows, so please, if you're listening to this show right now, smash that like button, hit the follow button or however it works over there, and help a brother out. Subscribe, shares, likes, reviews, all that good stuff really does help the health of the show. You know, within the algorithmic hunger games in which we all must spend our lives these days, so I appreciate you throwing me a bone. But now, all that being said and done, we have got a stellar guest for you guys today. I have been chasing... I've been chasing this guy for a long time, and today he's finally with us. I managed to nail him down. I'm talking about the prolific author and clinical psychologist, Dr. Frank Tallis. We're going to be talking all about his amazing new book, Wise, Finding Purpose, Meaning, and Wisdom Beyond the Midpoint of Life, and loads of other stuff, too. So, Dr. Tallis, thank you so much for taking time out to spend with us today. How are you doing?
Speaker 2I'm doing very well, and thank you for having me.
Speaker 1It's an absolute pleasure, honestly. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, so thank you for writing it. In order for us to talk about some of the themes within the book, you know, finding purpose and meaning in life, talking about life and how we live it, we need to talk, I think, about death. Because, as you explain in the book, death plays a pretty omnipresent role in how we live our lives. How so is that?
Speaker 2Well, I suppose the starting point is really that we don't engage fully in life because we have the illusion. We have the illusion of being immortal. I mean, Freud actually said that nobody really believes in their own death. And other writers have actually taken up this particular theme. We can conceptualize other people's deaths, but we find it very, very difficult to conceptualize our own. I mean, it's an interesting question. Why might that be? And I guess a simple answer to that would be that every day ends with you losing consciousness. And in the morning, you're resurrected. You come back. And that is your experience throughout the entirety of your life, with the exception of one day. And that is the day, of course, that you die. So we're very, very resistant to accepting our own mortality. And there was a very fine writer and existential writer, Ernest. Becker, who in the 1970s wrote a very famous book called The Denial of Death. And he said that, to some extent, again, we don't engage in life because we are always trying to involve ourselves with immortality projects. And also, because we never accept our own mortality, we don't make the most, really, of the time that we have.
Speaker 1Well, I mean... I'm glad you mentioned immortality projects this soon into the conversation, because I love that concept. I think it's such a powerful idea, which really does sum up pretty much what all of us spend our lives doing, isn't it? But I wanted to ask you, is it a bad thing? You know, it seems to me that our immortality projects, whether they're having children or having a career or taking over the world or creating art or whatever it might be, they're the things that give us our life's purpose, our memories, our growth. They're the things that give our lives its definition and its character that are unique to us, our unique lived experience. Even if it is, without us consciously being aware of it, basically our own individual attempts to escape our inevitable death. Is it a bad thing to have an immortality project?
Speaker 2Okay, I think we need to make a distinction between sort of a positive aspect of this and a negative aspect of this. So you can, you know, look upon certain types. You can look upon certain types of legacy as immortality projects, and that's fine. But if for the individual, the immortality project is unrealistic, it kind of detaches them from reality. So when you get sort of people who go to the gym, and that's great. It's great to be healthy, but do it in an obsessional way because they're seeking to effectively avoid the prospect of dying, which does happen. You know, as I say, there is. It's difficult in conceptualizing one's own death. And so, yeah, from that point of view, it can be negative. And Becker said something also very, very interesting about immortality projects. I mean, he said that they have a very, very dark aspect. And what we call wars are, in fact, clashing immortality projects. So if you look at the absolute fundamentals of why wars happen. And what's at the basis of a war. Well, you often have two groups, and both of them want their way of life to continue. They want their immortality that way. They want their religion to last for eternity. You know, they want all of their art. They want everything that they are to continue immortally. And I think that's quite an interesting idea. Because if you just think about wars, they're so complex. But fundamentally, why do people want to win wars? And Becker's idea was that what we're looking at, really, is clashing immortality projects. So it does have a dark aspect. And in the same way that if you look at it like that, you can see it as quite a dark thing. Well, then you can also look at it that way for the individual. You know, that the individual's wanting, hanging on, wanting to kind of prevail too much. And excessively. And so I think, you know, there's a point there. Something certainly worthy of reflection.
Speaker 1100%. Yeah, that's such a fascinating point. And I totally agree as well. I mean, there's a whole host of adjacent questions that can come out of that. I mean, similarly or conversely, you know, I think immortality projects are probably the things that drive most art and existential inquiry, perhaps. People having children, people having careers, running businesses, trying to leave legacies, trying to survive. Beyond their death. Is there a balance there? You know, are there good and bad immortality projects or is there a spectrum?
Speaker 2Sure. There's always a balance. I mean, you know, nobody would object to, I suppose, the immortality project element of art. You know, because we all benefit from it. You know, it's really, you know, the way we understand ourselves. It's, you know, it gives us joy. It takes us to places that. I suppose crude reality doesn't. So, of course, it has a positive side. And I suppose, really, as with all things, there's a balance. And if you can acknowledge, you know, the good while facing the bad, because often we don't face the bad because we're defended against it. And, you know, if you can get the balance right, then sure. There's nothing wrong when the desire for immortality manifests as, you know, love of children or artistic endeavors.
Speaker 1Love it. Yeah. For me personally, I just find it such a fascinating concept because it is the thing that defines the activities of all of our lives in various ways, the good and the bad. Sure. I mean, you also post some really interesting thought experiments in the book as well about on the issue of immortality and how thoroughly unbearable and boring it would be. Surely the alternative to dying is much worse, you know, living forever as you as you pose in the book. So I think rather than trying to avoid death. We should embrace it as a as a reason to enjoy the life we've got whilst we've got it.
Speaker 2Sure. It's really interesting how writers have thought this through, because often when you have immortals described in fiction, you know, like vampires who don't die.
Speaker 1Highlander. Yeah.
Speaker 2They're often just infinitely bored. And, you know, I mean, as you get older, I think it's interesting no matter how positive you are. You realize. The limitations that exist, I suppose, in terms of what your options are, you know, I mean, there's only so many, you know, classic jazz albums you can collect and, you know, and after you've listened to them, you know, several thousand times, you know, it's it it isn't quite the same as that initial excitement. You know, it isn't like, you know, oh, I've just discovered Miles Davis. This is really, really exciting. You know, it, you know, you've been around the block a few times. You know, there are only so many kind of. Rather like artists, you can sort of like collect, you know, that there's, there's a sense that these things have a sort of a natural limit. I don't want to, I don't mean that in a negative way. Of course, life is always kind of, you know, exciting. and always has potential but to some extent we're limited by who we are you know there are things you like there are things that are are your thing and they are in a sense exhaustible and so you have this idea that's picked up in fiction that you know immortals are are bored and you know that that you know they've done everything yeah yeah and perhaps i suppose the the idea here is that in a particular form so you know we are limited by our biology we are limited by reality perhaps there are uh perhaps there's an optimal time to be alive beyond which life becomes perhaps less enjoyable even if one is sort of you know physically healthy and of course um i suppose a way around that as well is um for many people is spiritual belief the idea that maybe you can uh find you know eternal sources of pleasure but of course again we're talking about something transcendent there going beyond the body um and that doesn't acknowledge what may be a sort of a harsh reality that this is all there is and
Speaker 1you know this is who we are yeah yeah yeah i mean are there opportunities in the second half of life as as we've as we've spent the first half you know running on the uh the so-called hedonic treadmill you know we've experienced a lot of our first loves and first heartbreaks and you know first jazz albums and things like that and the world becomes less colorful because we've seen it and done a lot of stuff by that point and as we get closer to facing the specter of death and it becomes much more of a reality in the second half of life are there opportunities there that come from that that growth and experience and wisdom and self-awareness
Speaker 2oh sure absolutely um i suppose a key figure here is uh carl gustav jung the the psychoanalyst and um i'm summarizing um i mean he said that perhaps the the first half of life is really characterized by an external focus we have um obvious practical goals to achieve people you know learn they get qualified they do jobs they form you know their first meaningful relationship and then so on and then continue to develop maybe they have kids their responsibilities and so the person is outward looking but you get to a kind of midpoint and maybe there's a feeling and this is a notional midpoint so i'm not talking about a mathematical midpoint because you know none of us know when we're going to die we don't know we can't put a figure on it but there is a notional midpoint whereby perhaps the individual feels that all of those things that were working before aren't quite working anymore aren't quite leading to what was experienced previously as as a kind of satisfaction and jung said that you know it is necessary then to kind of turn inward and to actually begin i suppose a path of of reflection and development as a person where you're looking for things that are perhaps those that have been neglected in the first part of life it may be things that are spiritual and may be things that are to do with meaning and here then we get to the idea that there's a whole kind of exciting phase in which we're going to be able to get to the exciting phase of life because it is an exciting phase of life where you're perhaps getting the rewards of you know a more spiritual a more deep approach to existence and it does have rewards and i suppose really what we're talking about is finding wisdom but we're also finding meaning and meaning does have you know some some tremendous benefits i mean if you um think of uh say a a existential uh writer like um victor frankel i mean victor frankel was um a psychiatrist who was put in a concentration camp during the war with several concentration camps and he noticed that those people who were in the concentration camp who were able even under those circumstances to find meaning tended to to survive they tended to live longer and um you know if you if meaning is actually really really important in the broadest possible sense in terms of enriching a life um and you know only recently uh the first study uh was done looking at um the effects on longevity of either meaning or happiness and um you know we're all told in our society you know be happy pursue happiness you know if you're if you're happy that's fine you know the conquest of happiness and you know the conquest of happiness and you know the conquest of happiness and you everything but you'll actually find is that meaningfulness has an advantage there is in fact uh it's not a massive advantage but there is an advantage there that if you lead a meaningful life um you have the potential to live longer than a merely happy life so there are all kinds of things to discover in the in the second half of life this notional second half that have practical benefits and of course massive benefits um psychological benefits and i think another aspect of jung's thinking that's worth highlighting here is that you know we're living through a mental health uh epidemic um virtually everything is is getting worse depression anxiety um eating disorders loneliness you know just just about everything and of course the approach is the one that has been you know around for a very very long time has been to to try to treat it to try to solve the problem and and jung said something very interesting uh that relates this whole idea of personal development and it was more mortables the the end of his life uh you know he was suggesting that really what you need to do is not engage in some kind of massive profitless difficult hard struggle with your problem but rather to develop as a person and outgrow them and it's a really nice gentle idea um you know it's it's a very compassionate idea in terms of self-compassion and it also makes a lot of sense because it doesn't involve self-denial i mean you know depression you can see it as a clinical condition but you can also see it as a kind of social sensitivity that you look at the world you see terrible things happening and it's depressing so in other words it's a part of you you wouldn't under certain circumstances uh want to not find certain things you know depressing that's part of who you are and so all wrapped up in this is a practical consideration of um better mental health but approaching it in a slightly different way through through personal development and i guess we have to think about what that might mean and for for jung and for many other thinkers um and i found this the case if you look at the history of psychology philosophy this idea keeps on coming up again and again and again there's this idea that if the person is better integrated this is related to better uh mental health so there's a principle here that we can follow so we know that when there are divisions within the self people often experience uh mental illness stress discomfort but when a person is better integrated when they're more whole then it's associated with better mental health and better outcomes and so what we're talking about in terms of integration i mean it sounds quite woolly in a sense but you know you can tighten it up and you can think of a human being as being um well a set of polarities you know there's mind body the conscious mind the unconscious division of the mind there's you know um rationality intuition there are these polarities that uh if they're harmonized if they're better integrated um seem to produce a person who is more content and indeed perhaps you know wise so jung's suggesting that you know if you if you achieve integration then that's really good for your uh mental health and it's also um uh better for you in general as as a person and um this this idea again i say it sort of sounds quite woolly but there's a lot of now um modern uh neuroscience that supports it so for example you know there's an optimal relationship between the degree of connectivity uh between the the way the left hemisphere and white hemispheres of the the brain connect i mean there's a uh fantastically erudite thinker on this uh called ian mcgillchrist and he's written about uh how the hemispheres relate now this is really really important to have an optimal sort of integration if you like between the the hemispheres and there are other neuroscientists who've come to similar conclusions so although although you know if you take a step back and look at this kind of thinking it has a perhaps a a sort of a new age equality that maybe you know for for for rationalists feels a little bit uncomfortable and i think that's a really good idea and i think that's a really good idea and i think that's a really good idea and i think that's a really good idea um you know it feels a bit maybe parked too too close to you know crystal and tarot cards but in fact if you look at the neuroscience the neuroscience is actually fairly solid and entirely consistent with these ideas and you know i've been talking about jung but as i say you can go back through through history and look at many many other thinkers and the whole history of psychotherapy and it seems to return to this principle you know that divisions within the self are problematic whereas integration and wholeness is a good thing and so it can be used as a as a sort of well a guiding star i mean if you think about it if you just ask yourself the question you know how how do i want to live what's good for me there are many many many things you can do i mean you know for example if you look at the standard advice you know the diet exercise sleep um have a good social life remain intellectually stimulated usually a kind of solid intimate relationship helps and avoid toxins it's it's extremely good advice um but we kind of we kind of all all know it yeah it's not it's not it it won't be you know a discovery to to anybody who is kind of alive in our society because you you know you're familiar with these things and so i think most people when they're asking that question about how to live what they're looking for is something a little bit deeper a little bit more philosophical um a little bit more like you know how do i live wisely and what we have here is a principle this business of integration wholeness and the attraction of that is that it's singular you know you don't you don't need to keep on running around like saying okay i need to do this i need to do this i need to do this you can just say i will follow this principle and do any thing that's consistent with that principle which might be different for different people so in in psychotherapy when it means you know i'm retired now but i was a clinical psychologist for a very long time and um you know you there might be things that one could try with a patient and say okay do this and it will work with one person and not with another you know everybody is different and so it's very very difficult to be prescriptive to say you should do this or you should do that or you know i think this is going to be helpful maybe it won't be but if you as an individual try to follow this principle you know if whatever it is that you're doing whether it's something a creative project you know whether it's something that's physical you know in terms of i don't know tai chi yoga integrating mind and body whatever it might be providing it's to do with this basic principle of achieving integration and wholeness then it'll probably be beneficial for you and i like that simplicity i like the clarity of it and um and i suppose you know just as a as a general reader um i was tiring of a market saturated with books that had definitive answers and i don't think there are definitive answers um you know it feels you know to me uh that's a slightly sort of conceited um sort of position say look i have the answers it smacks too much follow me yeah exactly it's you know it's a bit too much like a you know being a guru and you know we've got a plague of celebrity gurus no i like them i like the modesty of it of just okay here's this principle just try it out yourself see how your life corresponds with that principle what you can do in your life that assists the execution of that principle and see how you go and i i you know it's it's it's a it i think it's a it's a relatively modest claim um which i think is a good thing rather than the yes you know i'm a guru i've got i've got the answers if you do this everything will be great by my course
Speaker 1i love it yeah you you covered so much ground there and that makes so much sense on so many levels i suppose the second half of life makes some of that integration a bit easier because you know yourself a bit better by that point you've made some mistakes you know who you are perhaps a bit more at that point and just the beginning of this integration or move towards wholeness that you're describing uh could that be kind of some summarized by was it socrates aristotle that said simply know thyself uh yeah certainly that's that
Speaker 2that that's the kind of spark that can you know kindle the interest start the journey but i mean one of the things i write about is being sensitive to i suppose indicators that maybe it's time for for change right these indicators can be quite subtle it's very interesting there was um like a i suppose a narrative anthropologist uh joseph campbell who's interested in different societies different cultures and their stories and um campbell uh had this idea that if you look at all myths and legends they are in fact it's like frozen wisdom they they teach you something and there's one thing that you know globally internationally all of these ancient myths tell us um you know the bottom line is what he called the monomyth that to some extent they can all be boiled down to this sort of central idea and what you have is a hero um that hero gets a call um they go on some kind of journey which usually involves descent going into the underworld which is a kind of a stand-in for the unconscious in a way there are trials and they overcome those trials they return with a gift and usually that's a kind of um we can think of it as a kind of a perhaps as as wisdom so if you look at all of these um myths legends and again you can try it you can you can look up you know whatever whatever it is i mean you know things like you know the divine comedy descent into hell return star wars many of the you know sort of major sort of greek legends there's a kind of like a diversion into the underworld and return and this is across cultures and so what what campbell was saying was that in a sense all of this all of these legends all of these narratives are distilled wisdom and it suggests that okay there's a there's a great deal to be gained from an inner journey which is you know consistent with a lot of you know what the philosophers and psychologists like i i've been talking about you know what they said and um so it's really important in terms of a beginning to be sensitive what to what um uh campbell called the call so if you look at all of these legends there is a kind of a calling um and then you know there's a kind of a call link um and then you know there's a kind then that call is followed not always sometimes people refuse the call and and and you know what might that call be well of course you know we live in the real world that doesn't you know you know sort of uh animals don't talk to us and say you know let's go you know let's go through a wardrobe and and and go to another dimension or portals don't open these these kind of things don't don't happen but certainly things do happen to us that have enormous significance calls that are sometimes ignored so i think there are often very very subtle shifts in in the psyche but because of modern living we do ignore i mean emotional shifts i mean sudden feelings of joy sudden feelings of sadness or maybe you know just standing in front of a painting and suddenly feeling tearful just the the sort of and one of the one of the basic tenets of is that you know small things are really important so you know you could be maybe having a shower and you remember uh something from childhood now usually these kind of things that we just dismiss but maybe they mean something yeah maybe maybe you maybe it's worth reflecting on those and and often these things are very very difficult to articulate which is one of the reasons why people don't do it and particularly if you're in the company of other people because if you try to kind of you know free associate what's going on you know i suddenly feel sad you know i'm just sitting going for a walk um and and there's a kind of feeling of sadness a sort of a sense of something quite deep sort of changing in some way um and the very nature of all of this is it's difficult to describe that's why people don't do it as i say if you're with someone and you try to express these things it takes a little bit of time to kind of work it through um and but i think it's it's difficult to describe that's why people don't do it as i say if you're with someone and you try to i mean you know um freud's sort of instruction to his patients was just come in and say the first thing that comes into your head and whatever comes into your head however silly it sounds and however ridiculous um because he thought those things were really important and and i do think they're important now of course you can't you know reflect on everything that pops into your head at random but i think that people tend to have an indication some kind of you know emotional sense a kind of intuitive sense that you know or a kind of a need to ask the question why did i think that you know what why did that memory come in and you know i haven't thought about that person for you know 10 20 years why am i thinking about that person now so this this these things are these subtle elusive emotions uh thoughts impressions uh responses to our all these all of these kind of things are what i'm talking about as as potential callings as potential points of departure for your own personal monomyth that kind of okay now i've got to have a deep dive into my unconscious and find out you know things that need to be integrated things i've been neglecting that need to be addressed and see if i can actually do some work to to achieve um you know this goal of
Speaker 1of wholeness and benefit as a consequence i love it man you cover so much in the book with this kind of journey through all of these philosophers from the ancient greeks that joseph campbell and one of my favorites as well and mr albert camu uh my yeah yeah heavyweight i have my picture taken with him in nice just the other week he was in stone form at the time but i love camu and he um kind of alluded to something similar to what you're saying in the opening of the famous myth of sisyphus where he says you know if we accept that in a in a in a world with a god-shaped hole you know in a post-religious world or whatever um where we rationally accept the meaninglessness of our lives within it why not just kill ourselves then and immediately you pull back to that and then that forces you to to connect with the innate thing within you that is worth living for
Speaker 2yeah absolutely i mean and it's uh yeah it's a it's a very powerful passage and a very famous passage for that reason you know that that that there that you know there has to be a reason to live otherwise there is no point in living yeah and it is a a very kind of brutal and powerful statement but it does actually kind of pull you up as you say and you kind of think about it and and and you know there is there is such a lot of um value i think to the pursuit of meaning and you know existential psychotherapy existential um philosophy has shown that and as i was referring to earlier that you know we're beginning to get research which is showing that the pursuit of meaning is is a very powerful thing in terms of one's mental health um you know it it it has many many sort of ramifications for just being and being alive there's a i suppose there have been some sort of interesting developments recently where perhaps people are seeing the project of finding meaning maybe being a little bit more complex than uh was previously thought i mean you can't i mean what i argue is that you know you can't just say all right meaning is important i'm going to find meaning um you know meaning rather evolves from something else and some you know existential psychotherapists have been suspecting this for some time and what i would argue is that yeah i mean meaning is massively important but it is kind of hard just to say right i'm going to find something meaningful in my life i mean you know it's got to kind of evolve from the person so really meaning evolves out of the kind of things i've been talking about integration you know wholeness and as you become more evolved as a person it becomes clearer what meaning might mean to you and it becomes clearer what you know meaningful objectives are for you to to pursue i mean as i say this this whole idea is based on it's a kind of precondition for other stuff integration and wholeness i mean so i mean you know another example of of perhaps where we're told to do things that perhaps are really difficult to follow uh without having got this right i mean there's there's been a you know a lot of books about time management you know we have limited time so how to make the best of of your time you know just in work environments but also in a broader philosophical sense you know you're you have a finite life what do you do to make the most of your time but of course a lot of this advice is kind of meaningless unless it's contextualized i mean you know what you need to you need to know you know what you want yes you can't you know you can't just you can't just sort of say okay we'll manage time in this way better we'll optimize time and and life will be better i mean it's it's you know it's an idea that seems to be borrowed from industry and then there's confusion of kind of profit you know if we're efficient there will be profit but a human being isn't a kind of business and there are all kinds of things that can be that don't appear to be profitable like sitting and watching the sunset and doing nothing um you know you you there are times when doing nothing or seemingly being unproductive are highly profitable and often are paradoxically profitable at a later stage because you've moved or changed in some way so i think you know there is this idea all the way through this way of thinking that there is something that needs to be right and from this rightness other things follow that are beneficial for the individual i love it i love it how do you
Speaker 1feel about nihilism then because that's i feel quite a rational conclusion to come to you know that in a meaningless universe nothing we do really matters anyway um i know kids now who've never heard of michael jackson you know so his his immortality project didn't last very long you know i mean i i feel like nihilism is something that i personally struggle with sometimes because i feel like it is based in reason and rationality but it doesn't lead to a very interesting or fulfilling life or fun life if you just think oh what's the point i'll just watch telly um what are your thoughts on nihilism because i feel like that is a barrier to a lot of the things that
Speaker 2you're talking about for some people sure well well first of all i can come at it clinically it's not it's not very helpful with a patient you know if you have a you know a suicidally depressed patient and part of your discussion is you know there's no point to anything that's that's not a great that's that's not very helpful um there are there are other conversations one can have that are are you know much much more helpful for such a person and to some extent you know mental illness is a sort of um metaphor for the human condition we all have problems and so we look for kind of more productive um solutions my feeling about nihilism is that there are ways around it without succumbing to escapism um you can face reality but you can face it in a different way and the the main uh thinker i think to reference here is william james so william james was the uh father of uh american psychology uh brother of the novelist henry james and um around about 1900 he wrote an extraordinary book the varieties of religious experience in which he looked at i suppose really and i'm summarizing here the the the potential benefits of religious experience now the thing about james was that he was an absolute pragmatist so he was wasn't really interested in absolutes he was just interested in outcomes and i suppose to cut a long story short he believed that there was evidence that having a if you like a spiritual outlook was beneficial for the person and so being a pragmatist he suggested that well there are kind of spiritual objectives that you might incorporate into one's life you might do them in different ways that are non-religious and that's fine there is a kind of spirituality that can be contrasted with the dogma of religion and that's fine but there is a kind of spirituality and if you pursue those in a completely sort of rational way because it has benefits that is a good thing and in modern times um i suppose from about the 1950s onwards within psychology maybe a little bit earlier maybe not the 1940s um there was a growing awareness that yeah there is a kind of rational spirituality um and that is good for you and so we're talking about personal development in a in a very very broad way so what you know what's different about you know what's what do i mean what's the difference between spirituality and religion well religion is often a dogma a code something you're asked to follow it's often got some of you know notions of sin these kinds of ideas so we're just parking that that's that's nothing to do with what i'm talking about you know spirituality is about questing asking questions about life and meaning it's about connectivity with with nature with others it's about or you know feeling or being in the universe uh but you know it's it's and i suppose if you extend it people do have um transcendent experiences um i mean abraham maslow um studied this and he you know he found that there were people who he described as transcenders um who people who do or very often have um spiritual experiences and again coming right up to the present there are you know people doing research into altered states of consciousness which show that you know many people do have spiritual experiences uh experiences of experiences of raised consciousness they get it in meditation uh they get it um feeling or presented with the majesty of nature they get it um they get it in i mean actually in art music it's one of one of one of the big triggers people do have kind of like altered states that are triggered uh by music and and again one can see how this corresponds Neuroscience. Because music is one of those things that curiously activates pretty much everything in the brain at once. And so you can see, ah, right, integration. It's all being sort of integrated. So, yeah, I mean, you know, so I think, again, going back to your point, nihilism, you can accept that maybe, you know, the world is full of brutal truths and difficulties. You don't have to kind of escape that, but you can embrace an aspect of being human that we can call spiritual, that is really, really good for you, and that can help you to live in a brutal and often sort of cruel and difficult world.
Speaker 1What a beautiful, beautiful way to get towards the end of the conversation. I want to bring us to the modern age, the times that we live in. How challenging is some of what? What you're describing from these great thinkers that goes back through the ages, going to be in a time like we live in now, the internet, the digital age of everything is quick fixes, fast content, low attentional engagement with everything. As you said earlier, you know, mental health is, you know, mental ill health is on a rapid increase everywhere. I don't see any chance of that changing anytime soon. We've got AI coming, you know, the new technology is coming thick and fast. Things are changing. But a minute. How is. What is the pursuit of personal identity and meaning and a life's purpose? How are we going to find that in the brave new world that we're confronting?
Speaker 2It's a very good point. And it is very, very problematic. Let me just give you just an example of something that's important that we don't do as much now because of the internet and super connectivity. So, you know, before the internet, before mobile phones. There were gaps in the day. There were there were points where people did nothing. You know, they would. Maybe there was a point at work where there was nothing to do. Well, people would just sort of usually just sort of sit, think, you know, maybe sort of five, 10 minutes. There was no point in starting anything. They just sit and be with themselves. And actually, a lot of life prior to super connectivity. Did have these little gaps. And if you look at what happens in those little gaps, what used to happen, what happens now when people do have gaps is they they introspect. They they reflect. They do a kind of mental housekeeping, which is really, really relevant to personal development. And these issues of finding meaning you, you know, you, you, you, you do some tidying up of your sort of, you know, mental garbage. You know, you, you, you reflect on yourself. And some of those things I was talking about earlier, it's a space in that space. You might feel an emotion. You might feel some kind of subtle change, something that merits reflection. And maybe this is the only opportunity in the day for that particular emotional shift to to register. And we know that, as I say, a lot of kind of reflection is necessary for mental health. But if you've got a mobile phone in your pocket, you will take that phone out and you will, you know, look at what's happening on X. You will go on social media. You will do stuff. And so there's there's there are just fewer spaces in life to do the kind of self work that people used to do just as a matter of course. And there's some evidence to suggest that. Because of this, people aren't sleeping as well as they did. So, you know, you kind of did your mental housekeeping during the day in these gaps. But if you don't have any gaps anymore, then the only time a gap begins to emerge is when you turn the light off and go to sleep. And all of this stuff that you haven't processed, you haven't thought about starts to kind of surface and keep you awake. And it's unfinished business stuff you haven't. And there might be a kind of a sort of, you know, a debt with this that, you know, each, you know, every day you're you're dealing with less and less doing less and less sort of mental housekeeping, less and less emotional processing. You know, you know, emotional things that need to be kind of integrated into the self in some way made sense of and that they're building up, thus making kind of sleep more and more difficult. So, yeah, I mean, the the the the accelerated rate of change. Is is really very important and our our lack of attention and distraction, because you can say, OK, there's a, you know, obviously the Internet sort of giants and companies. We have an attention economy that they're grabbing our attention. And so they want to grab our attention and shift it in particular directions algorithmically. In other words, they capture our attention and move it in certain directions. It's almost no longer our attention. But attention is not only something. Something that goes outwards is like a torch. You can shine outwards, but also a lot of the time you've got to shine it inwards to bring yourself into being. So if if if your attention has been messed up by social media and, you know, your your sort of iPhone and just, you know, the whole information technology environment, then, you know, you're you're not attending also to yourself and you don't have the ability to focus on yourself to bring yourself into being, which is really, really important. So I think, yeah, I mean, some of the things I'm talking about are particularly difficult for digital, digital natives and people existing in the in the modern world.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's concerning for sure. And as you said, you know, the evidence is all around us that it's an urgently necessary thing that we need to address. But what you're describing there is, you know, the act of simply just taking rest is a simple fix. I know it's not as simple as that, you know, these platforms. It's designed to make us all addicted to them. And God knows we are. But really, in essence, doing nothing should be the easiest thing to do. Right. So, I mean, you know, the solution does exist. It's just not as easy as it sounds.
Speaker 2I mean, it's more of a kind of a natural sort of evolution. Not often you get sort of Eastern philosophies are better at this. You know, the idea of just sitting with yourself.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2You know, actually achieving more by doing less. Yeah. I think that's probably true.
Speaker 1Yeah. Well, I had Joseph Ciappelli, the neuroscientist on the podcast. And he's got that book, you know, The Brain at Rest. And we did a whole hour on that. The actual measurable benefits of letting your brain just sit and stare and daydream like we used to do before we had TikTok to look at, you know. So, yeah. I mean, it's easy for people to do, but whenever they will, like you say, we're up against some formidable enemies on that front who pull a lot of tricks to keep us looking at those phones. But, Frank, there are so many things I could ask you. Honestly, I've got another hundred questions that have come out of the thing. Things you said today. But we want people to read the book because the book is a real rollercoaster ride through the whole history of philosophy and psychoanalysis. And, you know, all these great thinkers from different disciplines throughout the ages. You know, you've kind of consolidated all of it into what I think is quite a concise and easy to read. I mean, I ripped through it in a weekend and I learned so much. And it's a real history lesson as well, you know, into the minds of the greats as well as a consolidation of all of that wisdom in one place. So. So, personally, I want to thank you for the book. I would encourage everybody to rush out and buy a copy of Wise. It is out now. Available everywhere. I'll put a link directly to it in the show notes. Please go and buy a couple of copies. It is also, the audio book is also out, which is very good as well. Frank, thank you so much for stopping by. I'm blowing all of our minds with all this incredible wisdom. Like I said, there is so much more in the book. And Frank is also a massively prolific author. How many books do you own now? Is it 36 or something?
Speaker 2Oh, I don't know. Do you know I've lost count? I don't count.
Speaker 1I've done two. I'm on two. So, I'm hot on your heels.
Speaker 2Well, thanks very much for inviting me to have this conversation. I've enjoyed it immensely.
Speaker 1Anytime. I'll be happy to have you come on and just bathe in your wisdom anytime, Frank. So, thank you so much for taking the time out. We appreciate you. I will put links in the show notes. Please check out Frank's other books. And I'm sure you've got another one coming really soon. So, hopefully, we'll be able to cross paths and find out what you're up to next time. Thank you so much, Frank. Great to meet you, man. Thank you. Take care, man. Bye-bye. Frank Tallis, ladies and gentlemen. What a dude. My God, there is about a lifetime's worth of knowledge in that conversation. Well, there's about a few thousand years' worth of knowledge in that conversation. Covered a lot of ground, man. And honestly, I'm not lying when I tell you that the book Wise is a real concise, easy-to-read, kind of rollercoaster romp through the whole history of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, and all these great writers and great thinkers throughout the ages seeking to answer the big questions. And Frank's consolidated all of it into one really accessible book. So, I honestly would highly recommend you go and check out the book Wise by Frank Tallis. And if you like fiction, he's also got a gazillion books in the fiction genre as well. He's written tons and tons of books, man. So, plenty to delve into and enjoy. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and got something out of it. I hope you find it interesting. If so, don't forget these episodes do go up on YouTube. I don't think anybody listens to them there. But it's a good thing. It's a good place for people to jump in the comments section and let us know what you thought. And as I said at the start of the episode, if you are listening to this on Apple, which most... If you are or Spotify, I would really, really, really appreciate it if you just took a few seconds to go and click on the subscribe, the follow, the like, the review, the star button, whatever it is you've got to click there just to give a little bit of weight to the podcast on the platform. I'd really appreciate that. Keep your eyes peeled for the next James Kennedy and the Underdogs tune, which will be dropping really soon. And as always, if you're on X or Instagram or Facebook, you can hit me up at JamesKennedyUK. Thanks for listening. I'll be back next week with another awesome guest. And as usual, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and have a great week. Love you.
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