Snake Oil or Self-Help?, Minimalism’s Real Value, and Atheists Who Go to Church

Drew I cannot wait for the day that we can finally get rid of these chairs. Oh yeah, I not help but slouch in these chairs And I've noticed with guests too. They've been yeah, it's on the footage. Yeah, they're they're they're on the struggle bus when they come in It gives us a bad reputation Well, I have to I have to use this pillow because my legs are short too if I don't my legs stick out Yeah, we got to fix this. We are gonna fix it. Oh soon. Oh Stay tuned Things are gonna change around here for shadowing It's the subtle art of not giving a fuck podcast with your host Mark Manson What are we talking about? Oh Mark, we're giving a huge fuck this week about our own industry and what we do Self-help or when self-help is not helpful. I think that's the tagline I can okay. Is that a good tagline? I don't know that's pretty good. It's not too bad. Yeah, that's pretty good. There was About 12 years more than 12 years ago now back in 2012 you wrote this article called five problems with the self-help industry Uh-huh, and came up with these five points about you know, what's wrong with your own industry that you're kind of self-critiquing it Yeah, and some of the stuff we do it's interesting because in 2012 I was like the the feisty upstart yeah that nobody had heard of and I'm like sticking the middle finger to every you know All the biggest established people in the industry and now I am one of those biggest happened Yeah, so yeah, I'm very curious to actually go through these see if I still agree with maybe turn the spotlight on ourselves a little bit here Through all of this. I don't know is this is this gonna be our what's it called when you like There's a word for it. Were you like Audit yourself am I making never mind? I don't know we're self-owning or so. I don't know No, it isn't there like a process like in Catholicism or something where you like a catacatic catacitism Oh, is that what that means? I've never known what that word means It's like where you like audit yourself and like you like real like admit to all of your faults Like your confessions and that you do it, but there's like a whole process. Yeah, I wasn't imagining things. It's something like that I don't know. Well, I mean, okay, and the way you start this article out though. Yeah, it is a little bit like that Where it's the self-help but industry is a multi-billion dollar industry still true. Yeah It fills up bookstores and conference rooms still true It's made media celebrities out of people and capitalized wildly off the growing self-conscious self-consciousness of recent generations Still true still true, and all those change millions of lives of people mostly for the better It still lacks a certain credibility still true. Yeah, yeah, it could be is it snake oil is it you know There's a lot of that going on some of that. Yeah a lot of people think it's just kind of a laughing stock of an industry which you know I can't blame them for that. I can't blame for that either. So you introduced these five ideas I forgot this of like kind of five problems that you've seen and I want to see how much you think you still hold up I think most of them still do and maybe if you'd have any changes maybe add additions. Yes, maybe turn them on ourselves a little bit to critique ourselves and yeah, I'm gonna jump right into it. Okay. Let's do it All right, the first one is self-help reinforces perceptions of inferiority and shame to kind of set that up. We've talked about this on the podcast before too though. There's what you call the bad to okay and the okay to great Yes, that come to self-help lay that out for us first I think and I think I think what a lot of people misses that self-help is secretly two different industries, right? So I I've always thought of it a two-classification So there's like people who are in a really bad place in their life and they're really struggling and suffering and they just want to feel okay again You know, it's just like just make the pain go away and then there are people who their lives okay But you know, they're kind of like things are stagnant or they feel like they're missing out on something or things could be better or they're not You know living up to their potential and I call those the okay to great people, right? It's like my life's fine, but I really would love to be doing something amazing that I'm excited about right and Those two groups those two cohorts of people often get completely mixed up and and treated the same way, which is from I guess an intervention point of you Corrible like for example somebody who's in the okay to great camp You it might be good to be hard on them. It might be good to be like you know what like Pick your ass up get get your shit together like stop stop being such a lazy lazy asshole and you know you deserve more in this blah blah if you take somebody who's like very deep Indipression and has struggled with mental health issues for many many years and you say that same thing like you might push them over the edge, right? So the messaging is actually very different between those two groups the goal is very different between those two groups, but Because the same kind of marketing appeals to those two groups They often get lumped together in in audiences and customer bases and so For a long time. I've always felt Just a lot of mixed feelings over Just the responsibility that Quoting-poke gurus or you know thought leaders in this space have to recognize the sensitivities that come with the bad to okay group Like you you have to treat them differently. You can't you can't it. There's no one-size-fits-all right and the point you were making in this section about The industry reinforcing perception perceptions of shame and guilt. Yes. Are really are really pertinent for that okay or the bad okay people Yes, because like you read a you read a book on happiness or something like that I think this is an example you gave in the article actually read a book on happiness the the good The okay to great people are like okay. Yeah, I can do this cool But the bad to okay people are like well shit. These are all the things I'm not doing right and I'm a loser and I can't yes Wrap my head around this event and I just may as well give up and I'm a piece of shit I think the simplest way to sum it up is that you you can an okay to great person You can tell them that they're fucking up And you'll probably that'll probably create a good result right because they want to hear that they want to know what they're doing wrong They want to know what they could be doing better because they have a baseline self-esteem and self-worth and they can handle it Right, whereas if you say if you tell a bad the okay person that they're fucking up That's part of the reason they're in such a hole is like they feel guilt guilt and shame and just Absolutely awful about themselves because they feel like they've wasted their life And so if you show up and start saying well, you know what you're fucking all this up Because you should be doing this and that and the other thing and like They're just going to hear that as like a validation of what they already feel about them So the worst problem about that is that it's those bad the okay people that tend to Like let's say one of these people who's like in a very very dark place goes to a Generic self-help seminar, right and starts hearing these messages and obviously it makes them feel worse That person the nature of being a person in that that dark spot is that you think you're at fault for everything Right, so it's like if they go to the seminar and and the guru is giving all this advice and that advice isn't working and it's making them feel worse There assumption isn't gonna be oh this guru sucks. I should go somewhere else. There assumptions gonna be Wow, I really am a loser even the self-help seminar is not fixing me, right? Like because that's just how their brain works That's where their mind is at that moment. It's just it makes me feel icky. No, yeah, yeah Do you think there's also a risk of developing kind of like a codependent relationship there? Yes, you're you're especially with those bad okay people. They're going to develop this kind of codependency with a A figure or guru or whoever right absolutely and it's it's especially because it's like okay Let's say you've nothing's worked and then you go to the seminar and and that seminar makes you feel good for the first time in five years, right Uh, and then you leave the seminar and you start feeling bad again, which is usually what happens It's logical that you start assuming like well, okay, this guy's got the answer I need to follow him everywhere and do all the stuff and sign up for all the things and spend all my savings because it's like This is the only thing that's working and It's it's part of I think this is the thing that the general Population into it's about self-help that makes them squirm a little bit Which is that the best customers tend to be the most hopeless people So a lot of marketing gets optimized to take advantage of those people and A lot of the money comes from those people and so it just it feels really Gross and and in my business and our business like I've always been very careful of like a Making sure the messaging is like clear like differentiates between those two groups within a Single piece of content whether it's an article or a book, you know, just making sure it's Hey, I'm addressing the the okay to great people now. Okay. Now if you're like in a really dark place This is different. So I'm gonna address that now Um, but also I just I don't think I'm qualified or credentialed to be dealing with bad to okay people for the most part Yeah, right? So I get emails all the time from people who are deeply depressed suicidal have like A pretty severe anxiety disorders, right? And it's like my response is You need to go find a professional. Yeah, like I'm just the guy with a podcast, you know, so Like if you want to if you want to like figure out how to be 10% More effective in your career or your relationship like I'm your guy If you want to know how to get over a breakup like yeah, I got tips for you if you are So depressed you can't get out of bed. You should probably go talk to right somebody more serious than I am Yeah, that said there's have been I Mean probably dozens of people over the years who've come to you and said hey, I was actually thinking about Getting myself or you know harming myself in some way. Yeah, and it does help so they can't break through sometimes But that's that's the exception and I get that you can't plan on that. Yeah. Yeah, I can't think on that for sure. Yeah. Okay. We'll get to kind of what the, what we can maybe do about that, and another step here, we'll keep moving through this. We're getting a little ahead of ourselves, not really. Okay. The next one though, you said, self-help is often yet another form of avoidance. This one is near and dear to my heart. Well, I mean, what I've noticed is that a lot of people, a lot of self-help content is subtly specialized to make you feel as though you were having a transformation rather than actually having a transformation. Yes, it's exactly. It's the cable news of growth. You watch cable news, you feel like you're being informed, but you're actually not being informed. It's a lot of self-help. You feel like you're growing, but you're not growing. You're literally doing all the same things and making the same mistakes you always made. And what I notice is that there are some people that actually get hooked on that feeling of transformation because they always feel like it's just around the corner. It's the next step, like I'm a new person. Oh my god, I did this other thing, and now I'm a new person again. And it's, meanwhile, their life's still a mess and they're taking no responsibility, and can't figure any of their shit out. So there's a lot of that that goes on. And I do think some of that kind of addictive quality to the feeling of transformation is another, like any addiction, is it's a way to avoid the discomfort of actually confronting your own issues. Right. Why does this bug you so much? Well, I think one of the thing, like one of my just kind of core values in life or whatever reason almost didn't even choose it myself is learning. And it's just like this, I like psychology and I like human behavior and I like learning about myself. And you can just get caught in that, just like to learn. And there's a lot of information in this space. So you can learn and tell you, you can not do anything but learn. Yeah. And that's what, that's what bothered me so much about it. I think it's just I get too much in my head. I've talked about this before over intellectualized everything. I analysis paralysis kicks in at that point too, where you just, you have all this information. You don't even know where to start. Yeah. So I would agree that the industry itself, especially around, you know, there's so many books and just content that you can passively absorb that, that without taking any action. And so yeah, that's, that's been my problem. Learning is a smart person's favorite way to procrastinate. That's what I've found. That hits home. And it's, it's funny because I honestly think most, most of these problems are actually very, they're intellectually simple. They're just emotionally very difficult. Right. And so, I think the tendency is that when something feels emotionally difficult, we assume that it must be intellectually complicated. And so we set ourselves like, okay, I need to like buy a couple books about this. And you know, maybe I should, maybe I should watch this lecture on YouTube to like really understand this and, and take notes and like journal for a few weeks. And before I can like, no exactly how to break up with my girlfriend or ever, right? And it's like, no, you just fucking break up with your girlfriend. It's not going to make it any easier. But that's the avoidance you're talking about. Yes, which is the emotional avoidance. And you do that through intellectualizing all this content or whatever. Yes. Yeah. I will say for my over intellectualizing brain, what helped was just realizing that experience and action is the best teacher. You want to learn? Oh, okay, you're motivated to learn. Then get your ass off the couch and go do something. Right. So I don't know if that helped me anyway. So yeah, okay, speaking of you've already mentioned marketing. Yeah, once in this next point, you say self out marketing creates unrealistic expectations. I think, oh, that's been driven home. Most people know that by now. Yes. But what were some of those back then and now that you see the over promising under delivering? There's a, there's a short version of this, which I think most people kind of implicitly understand, which is it's just a magic bullet marketing, right? Like it's this idea that you can go to a seminar or read a book and, you know, a lightbulb is going to go off and everything's going to change overnight. Like that is so, so intensely rare of an experience. Yet that that I think most consumers in this market assume that that's the baseline. And I think there's a lot of self delusion that people try to go through to convince themselves that that has happened. You know, I talked earlier about how people will, you know, go do all this stuff and go to retreats and seminars and do all these new practices and stuff and claim they're a new person. And meanwhile, it's like they're they're still unemployed, their relationships falling apart. They're broke. Like they still have terrible habits. Like nothing, nothing of substance has changed. It's like all of the, you know, fun, sexy stuff is changing. In my experience, and this is very much reflected in the literature or psychological literature and behavioral, like the literature around behavioral change is that the vast majority of change and is small, tiny iterations over a long period of time. Boring. Right. It's like adding one little thing every couple of weeks that like you nobody's going to notice and you might not even notice the benefits, but it's like once you do like eight or 10 of those things over a long period of time, you suddenly look back and you're like, oh, wow, I'm like, I'm actually a very different person than I was a year ago or six months ago, you know. But you certainly can't, you can't write a marketing campaign for that. And you certainly can't cram that into a weekend and charge $5,000 for that. Exactly. Like like an honest pitch in self help would be like, try these 17 small iterative changes over a long period of time to maybe be able to perceive a significant growth in your life. You know, and it's like Mark Manson. Yeah. There it is. That's the title. And you probably put an asterisk there with a bunch of fine friends like clarifying like what change means, what growth means, what iteration means. So like that's that's the honest truth. And it's not a sexy message. I mean, I will say again, the biggest thing I can say since that I wrote that article is like things have gotten much better. You know, all the bullshit is still there. It's still very prevalent. There's still a bunch of like really shady, creepy people in this industry. There still are absolutely like frauds and charlatans making a lot of money. But the science base side of the industry, the evidence base side of the industry, the realistic side of the industry has grown substantially. And I do see that message of just like consistent, small, unsexy things is actually what moves the needle. That is becoming more prevalent. Yeah. There's at least a market for that. Yes. For sure. Which is good. Yeah. I would agree with that too. Yeah. Okay. I want to keep keep moving here. You already you mentioned this one a little bit already too. Self-help is usually not scientifically validated. So just. Yes. Coming right off of that. Yeah. You noted that most of the self-help practices, especially back then. And I would say in the like the 90s, 2000s was the case, they're just more backed by scientific evidence. There was some evidence coming out around them, but like meditation journaling. That was kind of starting back then. It was like, oh, these things are actually helpful. Gratitude practices, stuff like that. There are some some of that. And I think that's that has come online a little bit more as long as you're not using it as a form of avoidance. Right. Yeah. What's your take on that now? Again, I think it's gotten a lot better. What's interesting about all that stuff, you know, you mentioned meditation and journaling like both of those kind of had their heyday of like, you know, all these studies came out. It's like, oh my god. This is like the big new thing. It's everybody should be doing this. And of course, you see that effect is more people start doing it. The milder the benefits become. Right. And I guess one thing that like I've kind of, I don't know if I've changed my views on this, but it's more like my views have evolved on this, which is that most things work a little bit. Yeah. Nothing works completely. And the things that work for each individual are going to be completely different. And so really like if you approach this, this industry or this project of improving your self improvement, really like the right framework you should be working from is just treating everything as like an endless series of small experiments. Right. I'm going to try journaling every morning for 30 days. And I'm going to see and I'm just going to note like if I feel better, if I don't feel better, if it's useful, if it doesn't feel useful, everybody's mileage is going to vary. Like me personally, I, I've messed with journaling on and off, you know, my entire adulthood. I discovered relatively early that like I'm what I call a crisis journaler. So I don't journal every day. I journal when shit hits the fan. Okay. You know, it's like when something is like a huge mess in my life or something is like I have a really stressful problem that I need to work through a journal of shit out of out of my right to the blank. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've like, I'll go through like 10 pages in my journal, but they don't sit there for eight months and not be touched. And I've just found that like that's what works for me. And I think I think if more people understood how I don't want to say flimsy the researches, but like how mild the effects sizes are in most of the research and most of the interventions, they would probably take that approach as well. Like just understanding that like even even the tried and true things like therapy and like pharmaceutical interventions, like even those like don't have massive hit rates. Right. Even those like people people's mileage varies drastically from person to person. So it's like, take everything as a small experiment, be very conscious of like, I'm gonna do this for X amount of days or X weeks, and I'm gonna see how I feel at the end compared to the beginning, and I'm gonna try to be really honest with myself, of like, is this moving the needle at all? Is this worth it? Am I gonna keep doing it? And like, and if not, that's fine. That's still information. Like you didn't lose anything. You journal for 30 days and it didn't do anything for you. That's not a loss. That's actually, that's still a win because now you know that that's just not a thing that works for you. So you go try something else. - Yeah, and I think over the last, like, decade or so, to you and I have both. We've, we've seen this, the replication crisis in psychology, especially. And at first, I was very disillusioned by that. I was like, oh no, this whole field's in trouble. But when I, if you step back and you think about it, I'm still, I'm not giving up on the scientific project here at all because that's how it goes. It's just a long time. And then when you try to, but when you try to apply that to an individual life, right, that's a shorter time span we need to deal with. Whereas the arc of scientific discovery is much longer and we have to still believe in that, I think, just on principle. But it's like you're saying, take it with a grain of salt. Be a skeptic in your own mind. Be a scientist in your own mind. Be like, well, let's see if this works for me. Totally. So I wrap it the same way that you do. And just to give context for listeners who aren't aware, like the replication crisis is, it's happened on most of the social sciences. But basically, it's somewhere around 60%. When they run a psychological study, it's usually with a bunch of college students in the US. And at some point, around 10, 15 years ago, they started taking some of these common psychological experiments and running them in like Indonesia and the Amazon rainforest. Or sometimes in the US again. Or sometimes in the US again, and they find that it doesn't replicate. You get totally different results. And so there's been roughly around 60% of what was considered like scientifically true in psychology is does not replicate. And so it's actually been called in the question. And so a lot of, I would just say this. Like if you've read a lot of science-based books on like happiness and motivation and improving your life that were written, say, in the 2000s, the early 2010s, there's a good chance that a lot of that does not hold on. So, yeah. So yeah, being a scientist on the personal level though. Good, that's-- - Yes. - Experimentally around, that's where I end up with that too. - Absolutely. - Okay, last one. Self-help is a contradiction. And this goes back to the bad, okay, and okay, to great people. You say that the fundamental, kind of the fundamental project of improvement is self-acceptance. And that, you can't get that by definition. You can't get that externally. - Yeah. - And so, self-help ends up being the most useful for the people who need it the least. You've kind of already mentioned this a little bit. What, so what does someone do if they are in that? Like you said, of course, therapy and do all of those kind of things too. But what's the project? Is that the project, I guess? Is with your bad, okay, for your really bad spot, just getting yourself to the point where-- - Yeah. - You could use these things. - This is the only one I don't know if I stand by this anymore. I think this, it's interesting hearing this 12 years later in my 40s. That one, I think the first four are totally legitimate, especially for the time. That one kind of sounds like a guy in his 20s trying to sound really smart. - Okay. - It's not that he's wrong. But it's just like, I think it's overstating the case a little bit, like it's true. The goal is to achieve a level of self-acceptance, but like you're not gonna get there overnight. And there are, I do think there are a lot of things that you can do to help guide people in that direction or help teach them the tools to develop that in themselves without demeaning them, without robbing them of their agency or preventing them from taking responsibility for themselves. There is a lot of stuff in the self-open the street that does those things to people. But there's a lot of healthy ways to go about it as well. So, yeah, I think that's overstated. - Okay. I think there is a healthy path to help people get to a place of self-acceptance. - Yeah. - So yeah, I mean, overall, I'm optimistic. Like, I am-- - We're still here. I mean, we're still here. - We're still here. We're still doing this. - Still doing it. - I mean, the industry is bigger and it's ever been. And the demand, I mean, what's interesting is that it really has become mainstream. It's almost like, you know, the same way people listen to sports and weather and read the news like headlines for the day, they've got their little inspiration practice or the person they listen to or the, you know, whatever, Facebook account they follow, you know. - I used to kind of hide my self-help books and, you know, kind of-- - Yeah, you've got to bear them now. They're up on my bookshelf. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I mean, obviously they are, but yeah, yeah, yeah. That's changed a lot. - Cool. - Which is good. - Yep. - All right, we'll be right back. (upbeat music) - And we're back. - What are we, what are we called bullshit on today, Drew? - Oh, brilliant bullshit this week. Mark minimalism here and here to our hearts. - We really are digging into the old man's and our guy. - Well, this one, it's like, kind of, this one I've thought a lot about. I mean, you and I will get into our stories. I think a little bit here, but we've been-- - We should define minimalism first, where people have not heard of it. - We'll define minimalism. The core premise of minimalism, let's just say, is owning fewer things will create less stress and more freedom in your life. - Yes. - Right, okay. I think even you wrote an article about this, I think it was in 2012 as well, so it's been 12, 13 years, all right. - Yeah. - So, it's a strong man's in here. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was still a very, kind of in the zeitgeist fight club was still, right? Like the things you end up owning you, that famous line from Chuck. So, and you and I both were at one point in our lives, a very staunch minimalist, we no longer are. - Right. - So maybe we can go through your experience with it first and I can pepper in mine as well, and what you learned from that. - Well, just to zoom out, I really, in hindsight, I really do think minimalism was kind of a cultural trend. That probably hit, it was probably some combination of two things. One is I think our generation grew up, like I don't know about you, but like my parents, our parents, our generation's parents, you know, it was all about the beautiful house and the white picket fence, and you know, yeah, I'm like going to the mall and getting all this shit on sale and having all these like beautiful things, you know, outside and around, and the garage has got boxes piled, you know, to the ceiling with extra stuff, and I grew up around that. I was like a little bit disillusioned by it, but it was a little bit ridiculous. They just growing up with the amount of consumerism that we grew up with, I think there was kind of a natural propensity to rebel once we hit young adulthood. So I think that was a huge part of the trend. I also think part of it was great financial crisis. You know, you basically had this generation of 20 year olds who, A, had no money or possessions already, and then B, had no immediate opportunities for financial advancement. And so of course they like come together and create a owning nothing as a status symbol. Right, you know, it kind of makes sense. Maybe that's a cynical way to look at it, but at that time in my life, you know, I was living as a nomad. I was young, self-employed, worked off my laptop. I didn't really need a whole lot, right? Like to be happy, I really just needed some clothes, my computer, an internet connection, and, you know, that was kind of it. A few bucks to buy beers here and there, and yeah. Exactly, exactly. So it was an easy, again, this is not to like discount it as a philosophy, and I do think they're, I'll get to some principles that I do think are valuable that came from it, but again, looking back at who I was when I was 25, it was, I was not risking a whole lot. Like there was not much down. That was a conclusion I came to, too. Yeah, I was not like I was like selling my cars and like moving into a tiny studio apartment with like no furniture. It's like, I didn't have anything to begin with. So of course it was easy to like give everything away. As I got older, you know, I met my wife. I settled down. I started developing a career. I started taking my writing way more seriously, which meant that like, okay, I actually want to have a comfortable office chair. I want to have a desk with like stuff on it that I like. I want to have pictures on the wall of like things that make me happy because I'm going to spend 10 hours a day in this room, like staring at this wall. So might as well be something really nice on it. You start seeing the reason why you will like certain possessions are nice to have like they add value to your life. That said, the principle that I try to hold from the minimalism days that I do think is true is that owning a possession is not always in that positive. Like I think our parents generation and like earlier generations that grew up with very little, it was just kind of implicit that like owning something is going to add value to your life. Whereas I think we were the first generation that had the experience of like recognizing that like just because you own something doesn't mean it's a net positive. can actually make your life more difficult than-- than not. So I try to remember that and I try to really ask myself, you know, before any major purchase or, you know, when accumulating junk, I just try to like, do I really need this? Is this adding anything in my life? You know, the Marie condo blew up 10 years ago. You know, she had this great phrase, which she said, like, does it bring joy? Great question. Like, you should ask that about everything in your life. And if it doesn't bring joy, you should probably consider getting rid of it because the core principle of minimalism that owning less gives you more freedom and alleviates stress, I do think is true. Yeah. And I mean, there's, there's tons of benefits from minimalism as well. You get that a few that I've come across and came up with, cognitive clarity, cluttered environment. It's your brains all over the place, decision for fatigue. Yep. You know, there was a classic. This was like, like early 2010s, you know, the CEOs who wore the same thing every day, you know, that was touted. Obviously the financial benefits, you're going to save money. Totally. You have more time and freedom. Sure. You have less maintenance of things and stuff like that, mental health benefits, where you just don't, some people anyway, like you already mentioned, don't just have a relief when they don't have all these things. Like a paradox of choice, I would say. Like a paradox of choice that goes definitely goes with the decision fatigue type bucket. It's just less wasteful to that too. You know, yesterday we were, we're talking about, you know, the studio is kind of a mess right now, right? And I was talking about getting rid of something and our social media manager, Jess said, you American, she's Australian. So in her cute little Australian actions, you Americans just always throw and shit away. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, that's true. Yeah. We're throw away society at this point. So there's all those benefits. Sure. Some of the downsides I came up with though as well. You can take it like anything. You can get way too far into it. Just dress of minimalism. Like, Oh, my God, I have 10 things and I swear I was only going to have, you know, nine or whatever it is. So there's that there, there was also, and I think I fell into this trap that minimalism equals happiness. So like, well, if possessions don't make you happy, then no possessions will make you right? Right, right, right. And that's just a false dichotomy that comes to bear. And you already mentioned to your minimalism as a status symbol too. Yes. That was that can get to be like, Oh, I look how few things I can own. Yeah, becomes a status symbol or, or it can even turn into the things I own need to be, you know, really good quality, whatever. And you end up spending $300 on a plain white t-shirt or something. Yeah. Come on. Yes. Right. Yeah. And there's, there's times where more is better. Right? Like you said, we were young 20 year old stupid dudes, right? Yeah. If I was a parent, there's no way I would know it. What do you, you can't argue for that. You can argue with intent that you need to be more intentional with the things you buy your kids, the toys, the clothes, that all of that. Sure. But, you know, hobbyists too, they get a lot of joy out of things they make or whatever, and they need lots of like tools. Like my, you know, my, my wood shop has tons of tools in it. Right. Collectors, just people who like just having things to, is there anything inherently wrong with that? I don't think so. As it goes back to the joy thing. Yeah. Marie condos. I buy books compulsively. Like now I do too. Yeah. I like, for every book I read, I like own probably five love books to physical books. I have a beautiful library. It's awesome. I love it. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I honestly, I think minimalism is probably a little bit of a misnomer. Like really the, what it should have been called is just anti-consumerism. You know, it's just like, don't just buy shit compulsively. Don't buy shit that you don't need. Don't buy shit for stupid status reasons. Right. You know, be conscious of what you're purchasing. Be conscious of what you own. Make sure it's adding value to your life and not detracting it. And do your thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But beyond like the loss of version and the maintenance costs and all that, I think there's even kind of more insidious attachments that we have to our things. And you mentioned in the article again, the identity investment. When you start attaching your identity to your possessions, that can be a big problem too, right? Like, and you say, or if you attach your identity to the lack of possessions. Oh, God shit. 25 year old Mark. You fucking punk. We were definitely not thinking about that because that was for me. That was it. I prided myself. I was in bags for two years. And I didn't own a car. Yep. I left the one thing I left my guitar like at my friend's house and like everything else. That was my, and I went around telling that I was an evangelist, badge of honor. Evangelist. Yeah. It's very. I live out of a suitcase. I thought everybody should live this way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got so attached to that identity. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. It's the same thing as a person who's like entire identity uses car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Same shit. Yeah. You did mention though, okay. The sentimental, the sentimentality around some objects and stuff like this. This is what I've come around on quite a bit too. My grandmother is a very sentimental person around objects, especially. And I just never, never understood it. Until recently, I think I started getting a little older too. And what I realized is that she connects those objects to a person or a place or a time or something like that. And I realized that because when my grandfather passed away, her husband, my grandpa passed away, she gave me some of his clamps and I used them in my shop sometimes. And every time I pull those out, I think about my grandpa now. And I'm like, they're, they're not great clamps. They're not fancy expensive ones or anything like that. But I'm like, Oh, shit. Yeah. I love those fucking clamps. I got to set a chisels from one of my uncles who passed away too. And I'm, they're crappy little chisels. But I think about him every time I pull those out, you know? Yeah. Totally. That to me is like, Oh, okay, I get that now. It's not, that is not like a, you're not attaching your identity or something, but you are to just like this little story around it that you can connect to emotionally and remember people and honor them in a way that's like, okay, that's pretty cool. Yeah. It is absolutely. It's the attachments to relationships. It's also attachments to certain period of your life. It's interesting. Next week, we have Randy Blythe on who is the lead singer, one of my favorite bands ever. And it's interesting because I, one of the first times I hung out with him, I kind of, I was like, I was backstage with him at one of his shows. And I got into this very philosophical conversation with him about like, what is fandom? Like, why are you a fan of somebody or something of like art or whatever? And, and as we were talking, I told him, I was like, you know, it's funny. Like your band, when I was in college, your band is like the soundtrack to my university experience. Oh, I, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, and he like immediately was like, that's it. That's it. And I was like, don't get me wrong. Like, I like all the stuff you guys have done since. But like, there's like a four year period in my life that you were like, the sound, if my life was a movie, you were the soundtrack during those scenes. And, and it's like, there is just this emotional attachment that is there. The same way I'd be emotionally attached to like, you know, as a stuffed dog I grew up with or, you know, a dish that my grandmother used to make. You know, and it is, it is super fascinating. That emotional attachment that we develop at certain times and, and with certain people in certain places. That is, that is what, that's the value of an object, right? Yeah. That is other than the utility, right? Like that is, that is what makes it valuable. Yeah. I had a very similar experience that recently I dug up an old playlist that I made. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. When I was living in Chile and like, it took me straight back. I'm walking through the streets of Santiago while I'm listening to it. Is there, is there nothing better than like rediscovering music that you loved like 10 or 15 years ago? And then forgot about. Yeah. And it just, it takes you, right? Exactly. It takes you right back. It's insane. Yeah. No. And, and this, that's what I, that happened with music. That's happened with music with me before or even like movies and stuff like that. Yeah. I, I didn't make that connection with physical objects for the longest. I think some people are more prone to do that than others. Yeah. Yeah. Like my grandmother definitely is. Sure. But she also grew up with nothing too. You know, so like the things in her life meant a lot. And I think that's another point we forget too, is that for some people, there is like a psychological security around their things. And if it doesn't get into your identity, I think that's okay too. Well, I'll add this is that some people really struggle with waste. And so I, it's for, my wife is, she also is very interested in kind of minimalist philosophies. But her inspiration is completely different. For me, it's very much, it's like a very Buddhist, like I don't want to be attached to it. Yeah. For her, she really struggles with wasting this. Yes. That's my grandma too. Yeah. Yeah. It tortures her. Yeah. And so she is, for her, the cost of wasting an object is so high that like she is really, she thinks very, very, very hard before she gets something for that reason. And it's funny because there have been times in our relationship where like for months, I'll keep telling her, I'm like, you know, we really need to get one of these things. And like she's like, yeah, I know, I know, I know. And then like six months go by. I'm like, why have we not bought this thing yet? And she's like, well, I don't want to get the wrong one. And then we have to throw it out or like sell it. And you know, I'm just like just buy the fucking thing. Right. So some people, some people really struggle with the idea that like they have not taken full advantage of, you know, what they've spent their money on. And then that kind of tortures them. And so then they, they would rather just not buy it at all. Right. Right. Yeah. And there's this is somewhat related. I guess there's this minimalist principle. Some people call it the 1010 rule or there's a 2020 rule. If it can be replaced for $20 within 20 minutes, just get rid of it now. Yeah. That's a very wasteful mindset though, too, if you think about it. It's like, well, do we, you know, I mean, now we'll now we're getting into like sub philosophy, sub philosophies of minimalism, like, because there is kind of a middle, there's like the sustainability of minimalism. And then there's the, the, I guess like that. ego attachment, minimalism, which I was always the latter. Yeah. Yeah. Same. I would throw stuff away all the time. No, same for sure. For sure. I'm very American. No, yeah. Again, yeah. My dad always said this growing up. It's like we've become, we've transferred from a fixed society to a throwaway society. And I think that's where we need to get. We do need to, you do need to be more attentional around what you own for all sorts of reasons. And that's, I mean, that's one of them. We can, like, being so wasteful, they say something like if, uh, if everybody on the planet lived like Americans, we'd need like 20 planets or something like that. You know, and if it's a, if it was the equivalent in France, we'd need like six, you know, or something like that. It's insane. So there is that argument around which I totally get into. Yeah. We'll be right back. All right. We're back. What is the listener question of the day? Yes. This one comes from Tyler, not Tyler Durden, but Tyler, just Tyler. Okay. This is an interesting one. And it actually came up in a recent episode. So we, I'd like this one. Is it okay for an agnostic person to go to church with the intent to learn and socialize if they do not intend to convert? Being respectful applies throughout. Sorry. What's that condition? I really like this question. Okay. I feel like this question came up because of the Arthur Brooks episode. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. And it's interesting because I've been thinking about this ever since that episode. And it was funny too, because I saw we got some comments who like kind of trashed him for trying to convert me. Yeah. Right. Right. I didn't feel like he was trying to convert me, but I mean, it was good. I mean, he was very, he was very respectful, but there was definitely like some like nudges. I mean, I kind of called him out on it. Yes. Yeah. But there was one you said in there, something along the lines, you said like as an atheist, I could argue with God is not real. And he said, and you could be right. Yes. Which I thought was, oh, okay. Yeah. Even he said about Catholic and he acknowledges doubt as part of faith. I did not think he crossed any lines, but it was funny because he was definitely kind of like nudging like, hey, you should go go to church, go see what it's about. He recommended that to be. He said, go. And he's like, people will, you know, they'll engage you for the most part. You'll run into his zealots and assholes just like you will. And yeah, pick the right church for sure. What do you think about this as a? I don't know the context. It's a short question. And he doesn't give a whole lot of context. And he just wants to learn and socialize as what he says. I think if you've never been exposed to Christianity or church, I think it's a great exercise. I would definitely recommend it to anybody who's curious to do it at least once. Just go see what it's about. See what a church service is like. See what they talk about. Listen, you know, listen to the Bible versus. It could be temple or synagogue or whatever. Yeah. Actually, one of my favorite things that I did, I had a really cool youth group leader when I was a teenager. Great guy. And one of the things he did for us is we took a, I think there was a month and it was every Sunday we went to a different religious service. So we went to a Jewish temple one week and then we went to like a mosque one week. And then we went to, I think we went to like a Mormon church one week. And it was really cool. Like just, and like he had called ahead of time. He's like, hey, I'm just going to bring a bunch of these like Christian kids and it's just to learn about your religion and just like see, be exposed to different beliefs. It was really cool. It was like very, yeah, it was awesome. And so I, I think just from a purely like educational perspective and empathetic perspective of like learning and understanding different types of people and different philosophies and religions. Like I think it's a great exercise. Should you go regularly and try to become part of that community while not while being atheist or agnostic? I don't know. So that's the question I struggle with. It's actually funny because I actually live two blocks from a church. And since my wife and I moved here, we like make jokes that we're going to like, oh, it's Sunday morning time to go to church. We'll walk past like go get our breakfast or something and we're like, yeah, we should stop in and go to church. We kind of laugh about it. After the Arthur Brooks episode, I had a conversation with her. I was like, maybe we should go, we should go sit in church. I don't know. Like it is, I do agree with him that like you and I, we've done so many episodes on the loneliness epidemic on the atomization of society, how people are like seem to be getting worse at maintaining community and relationships. And like that is such a huge problem. It's a problem that I experienced my own life. And, and I, I can't help but look at it and just see a church size hole in society. Like that, it's just all this stuff. Like church was kind of the, and not just church, but religion in general. It was like the binding force that like solved all these problems. And, and so I lament that. And I, there, and I mentioned on that episode, like I think back to my parents church community when I was a kid. And, you know, as an adult now, I, I, I remember it with envy. Like I'm like, man, I, I wish I had a group of friends like them that I got to see every Sunday and do all these cool things with. And, um, that I could rely upon and that would show up, you know, at all times, all hours and pitch in and help with whatever was needed. I get the draw. I'm just very, very skeptical that you can synthetically recreate that. Yeah. Without the buy-in to the Jesus stuff. Right. And also to try to embed myself or oneself into that community without that buy-in, on some level feels disrespectful. Right. Right. But yeah. And so it like initially, I think the question is like initially going to learn and socialize. Yeah. Sure. That's okay. Yeah. One of the things I like about this question, though, is that somebody who's intentionally putting themselves in a situation with people that they disagree with. And I think like a lot of the comments we got to the, Arthur, as a polarizing episode, it did really well. Like the people liked it loved it. The people who didn't had a lot to say about it. And it just, it kind of shows you how uncomfortable people are sitting with ideas that they disagree with and don't want to engage with. And I just, I commend Tyler here for just being so proactive about being like, I'm going to, I'm going to go see what this is all about. That's, go check it out. Go check it out. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, there was, there was this period, like 15 years ago, you know, in the late 2000s, early 2010s, where there was kind of this, this violent atheism, you know, it was like Sam Harris was bursting out to see dockens, dockens was doing his thing. And, and Hitchens was still alive. And, and so it became very fashionable to be not militant atheists, but like uncompromisingly atheists. Because before that atheists were just kind of chill. They're just like, yeah, just don't make me go to church. Right. But then in the 2000s, it became like kind of like a not only in my atheists, but I think religion is bad. And that never sat right with me as somebody who grew up in a religious community. It's like just because I've seen firsthand how beneficial it is. There's so many people's lives. And again, from the community aspect, the social aspect, the emotional support aspect. So I think for people who have never been exposed to a religious community, it's probably a useful exercise to go check one out. See what it's all about. See what the people are like. Chances are, unless you find a real shitty denomination with a bunch of assholes, chances are you're going to meet the nicest people of your fucking life. You're going to be blown away by how friendly they are. Right. And that's something that gets missed, I think, a lot in the secular side of society. Right. Right. And to be sure, there are downsides in these assholes. And they're, yeah, the dogma can get in and hook its claws into you and stuff like that. And yeah, sure, there's that. There's that side of it. That can happen without religion too. Totally. So, you know, you see those political movements now, which are basically like you talked with Arthur Brooks. They're basically religious movements now. And we see the fallout from that. And that's what we're trying to replace this church size hole. Yeah. You talk about we're replacing it with things that could be scarier. And Tim Urban said that too. And there's another polarizing episode there too. Tim Urban said that too. He was like, yeah, there's a lot about religion. He doesn't like. And he's agnostic atheist as well. But he's like, what are you replacing that with? Right. Because it could be a lot worse than than what we've done for the last 2000 years or more. Actually. So, yeah, to be curious and you don't, you know, you don't have to, you're sure, you don't have to sign up. You don't have to drink the cruel aid. Yeah. I don't think it's such a bad idea. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think about like, you know, like unitarians or like these, do you think anything like a like a almost pseudo-religion could replace that? You have already kind of noticed that or mentioned that. Probably not. You know, there's a theory. And they've actually found this in the research that is basically like the more strict the belief system of a movement, the the more binding it is, like the more the stronger the community is. Yeah. And the more resilient the community is because there's just a higher bar to entry. And then there's more, you lose more by failing and and everybody's behaviors kept in check through accountability. I don't know. I think there's some threshold of like, you need to buy in the something. That's like hard to buy into, right? Like you can't just show up and be like, uh, well, maybe we believe the same thing. Maybe we don't. But it doesn't matter because we're all just here to hang out like no group based on that ever rests or sticks around. Like it's it's when people have skin in the game by believing something that is potentially embarrassing or punishing in some way sets them apart, right? That sets them apart. Like that's also the glue that binds them together, right? And then that's where you get the benefits, all the social and emotional benefits of like having a community and relying on each other. And so I don't think you can recreate it. I think it's interesting because I think a lot of, there's a lot of, I guess, secular organizations that are behaving more like religions, right? If you think about things like CrossFit or yoga studios or veganism, or the effective altruism, like there's all these secular movements that are like trying to are being like religious, and it doesn't really work. Yeah, it doesn't really work. It's actually, it's funny. You kind of get the worst aspects of religion, which is like you get the zealotry and the judgment, but you don't get the good aspects. You don't get the community and the like the reliance and all the good vibes and stuff. So it's hurting cats a lot of times, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know, maybe we should create a religion, Drew. Called Bernie is. I mean, you tried to do that in an article a long time ago. Remember that? I love that article. I know you did. A lot of people did it. I was like, I don't know. You hated it. This is mine. Honestly, it, it, that was not my best article. A lot of people did not like that article. Okay. All right. What's the, I got some wisdom of the week for you. Yeah. What's the, what's the quote? This one's it's going back to the self-help stuff and the self-acceptance, the great Karl Rodgers, the humanist psychologist. He said, the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change. Mike drop moment. Mm-hmm. All right. We'll be back next week folks. The subtle art of knocking the fuck podcast is produced by Drew Bernie. It's edited by Andrew Nishimura. Jessica Choi is our videographer and sound engineer. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.