Based Camp: Why Do So Many Self-Help Gurus Have Terrible Lives?

In this thoughtful discussion, Malcolm and Simone analyze what makes some self-help and life advice useful versus dangerous or ineffective. They break down the incentives and blindspots of different types of gurus, warning against advice tied too closely to an ideology or a guru's identity. The couple emphasizes focusing on your own values and life goals first. They argue happiness is a byproduct of pursuing meaning, not an end in itself. Overall they advocate philosophical inquiry to determine your purpose, combined with pragmatic steps towards efficacy.

Simone: [00:00:00] Hello, Malcolm Collins. Hello,

Malcolm: Simone Collins. Are we going to try to use our names even though we're married?

Simone: Yes. Mr. Malcolm Collins.

Malcolm: I don't know. Branding. I don't like it. Maybe we'll just do Malcolm and Simone going forward. But there are a lot of people out there on the internet who are like life advice gurus, and we definitely do not style ourselves as life advice gurus. That said a lot of these people seem to be giving very bad advice. And as people who aren't life advice gurus, but who seem to have their lives together more than, a lot of society these days, this is what always gets me about the life guru space.

Malcolm: And I also see this within the dating guru space, is that many of these people don't have successful relationships. Or they don't seem to really have their lives together. And I actually was [00:01:00] talking to, I remember a long time ago somebody in the dating guru space. And I was like, why are you giving people, like, why is your job this was her job, giving people dating advice?

Malcolm: And I was like, When you don't have a good relationship or even have a partner right now, and she goes I date more than any other dating coach I know and I'm like that does seem true. That does seem true. But I don't know. I think, and then this could be a cultural perspective as well.

Malcolm: That some cultures when they're trying to decide who to trust as a source of information, what they'll do is they'll look towards the crowd, right? They'll say, who is the crowd looking to as a source of information, or they'll look to some sort of External certifying agency, right? So yeah, this people might have had 10 terrible marriages, but they do have their Ph.

Malcolm: D. in relationship counseling. Whereas I think our cultural perspective places [00:02:00] a huge amount of weight on what the individual has been able to achieve within their own life. And the belief that you can't really make it past that point.

Simone: Yeah. So if you are getting advice from someone, keep in mind that it will get you to exactly where they are now. So if you really like where someone is getting life advice for them is. is pretty good. But just doing it because they are famous or they're telling you things that sound or feel good probably not the best course of action to take.

Malcolm: And this can be a problem with it was in what we call the the viral life coach sort of meme. When we talk about memetic clusters, it began to grow accidentally. I remember in the Bay area I was adjacent to this community. Where it started was one life coach and then everyone they were coaching ended up becoming life coaches.

Malcolm: No, which makes

Simone: perfect sense because what, like what does the life coach have figured out how to do? They figured out how to be a life coach. So they're probably going to [00:03:00] lead people in that general direction.

Malcolm: But it's I don't think that's what they went. If you had been able to take them aside at the beginning and said, is your goal was this to become a life coach?

Malcolm: They might've said no. And then this is the thing. Not all life coaches are like this. Some life coaches are like specifically very good at preventing this. And I think that there's a way that you can sort for this, look at their other clients who have worked with them for a while. Did they end up becoming more successful or did they end up becoming less successful?

Simone: This is, there's something that's really interesting about this. Actually, this might be too much of a tangent, but we were introduced at one point to a company that would take law firms and lawyers and actually show you their outcomes vis a vis specific judges, for example, and in certain courts.

Simone: And What you realize after looking at this data, there's this profound disconnect in the legal industry, at least in the United States, between like expensive law firms, prestigious law firms, famous lawyers, and actually good court records. And you could see on the graphs, like the track record [00:04:00] of different lawyers.

Simone: Against certain judges in certain districts. So if your case is likely to end up in front of this particular judge, often what you're doing is if someone's Oh yeah, like this lawyer sees this judge, like all the time, they know them really well. You're like, you're going to be in really good hands.

Simone: And then you look and you see there's all these judges that like, or sorry, lawyers, there are all these lawyers who see certain judges, a ton. But they like always lose, they always lose and no one knows that going into it because unfortunately the system isn't set up in a way where people are looking at outcomes. Instead, they're looking at prestige. They're looking at signaling. They're looking at how people choose to market themselves. And I think this is not just something that's a problem in the legal industry.

Simone: It's a problem. Also look at teaching, like where are teachers going to get you? They're going to get you where they are. And that's why many people, when they're young, want to be a teacher when they grow up, of course.

Malcolm: And I think that it's critical, something to note was the lawyer example is this was a company.

Malcolm: I don't even know if the company is still around, but like this data was out there in public and not that [00:05:00] many people were using it. The vast majority of people, when choosing a lawyer, we're not looking at this, data that's out there about how frequently they won cases like theirs, but we're looking at the prestige of their firm or like marketing

Simone: materials.

Simone: And what blew our minds too, is that there seemed to be zero correlation. Between what you paid for and what you got in terms of outcomes.

Malcolm: Oh my God, this is just a lawyer, right? This is just hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's young people who go out there and take advice. from gurus just because they're like famous within their ideological circles and they're like this guy is ideologically approved or this girl is ideologically approved therefore their advice must be efficacious and it's important to remember that just because someone is smart it doesn't mean that they have great So when a person rises to fame within sort of life advice circles, there's typically three reasons that's going to happen, okay?

Malcolm: One, [00:06:00] that person is telling people what one specific ideological group wants to hear. But they're telling it to them in a way that like sounds smarter or more sophisticated than they're used to hearing it or edgier than they're used to hearing it or something it's what they already want to hear, but with some sort of spin put on it, some sort of flavor agent added.

Malcolm: The next is people telling people that. None of their problems are actually their fault. And that they're all actually everyone else's fault, and they're actually should be totally happy doing nothing. Basically, this group is just trying to convince you to be happier with whatever you're doing right now.

Malcolm: The first group typically is more oh, your traditions are actually all right. All of your instincts on how to handle this are right. And then another deviation of this second group. Are people who will tell you, okay, actually you do have problems, but you can solve it with wishy thinking.

Malcolm: Wishy thinking coaches are really big. Wishy thinking. We, I named this after the great skit [00:07:00] on this from the it crowd. But it's basically. It's actually a psychological trick, which is really fascinating and it's prevalent throughout history as like a scam. The best modern example is the secret. But there's been lots of examples. It basically pops back up every 20 years or so. The secret was from my generation.

Malcolm: There's been probably some new generation. Like as soon as I describe it, you'll be like, Oh, I know what you're talking about. So the way it works is this is the guru will tell you, if you. Really wish for something, it will become more likely to become true. And then they'll add, there's some ways that the formula is typically altered as well to make it work a bit better.

Malcolm: They'll say it works better if you forgot that you were wishing for that thing. So they'll say like first really wish for something, write it down. Then throw that thing away and forget that you wish for it as hard as you can. Or they'll do some other things like, like wish for a thing [00:08:00] and then perform some ritual around that.

Malcolm: Like maybe masturbation or something like that. Something they see as these gathering spirits or something, but what they're really doing here is , they're building something for which you can build confirmation bias around, which is to say, if things move a bit in the direction of that thing, you'll be like, ah, yes, this was all correct.

Malcolm: The reason some iterations have evolved culturally, this tendency of saying, oh, you need to forget about it is because through forgetting about the thing. It's harder to remember it if it doesn't end up becoming true. So you don't remember that it didn't work, but that if it does end up becoming true, you will almost certainly remember that you tried to forget about it in this whole ceremony that you pulled.

Malcolm: And so you're like, Oh, something definitely happened there. And so it's, yeah, it's just a confirmation bias cycle.

 More specifically, it allows the guru to say.

 Oh, you remembered it. That's, that's why it didn't work. But then if, it works and you remembered it, they say, well, you remembered it because it worked. And so there's always an excuse, which is actually really clever.

Malcolm: Do you have any thoughts on what she's [00:09:00] thinking,

Simone: Simone? It is also known what as manifesting vision boards postulating. It's shown up in both like really woo circles, but also I would say like more hard line, like preying on it to, pranks for something.

Simone: I think it shows up there. So don't think that your cultural group is immune to it somehow.

It is because the vast majority of public intellectuals who are sort of gurus around life advice. Rise to fame for the three above reasons, either they're promoting, was she thinking they are telling people something that the person already wants to believe

 Because it aligns with their cultural predilections around how the world works or should work. , but they put some sort of new flavor on it, or they are telling people that their problems aren't their fault.

Is actually why disproportionately you see these public gurus living these terrible lives and so unable to make things work for themselves.

Life advice that leads to [00:10:00] fame

And that sells. is specifically adversarial often to life advice, which is beneficial to the individual. Uh, it's just fascinating to us that this doesn't disconfirm their expertise. To most of the general public.

Malcolm: Yeah. And then the final group. Is unfortunately usually only accessible to rich people and these are people who actually help people and people who generally have their own lives together And the reason they're typically only available to rich people is like consider financial advisors, right?

Malcolm: If someone, if a financial advisor guru they wouldn't need to do that if they were actually really good at investing, right? Most of them. And so it's much rarer for them to go into financial advising unless they're just like actually altruistically motivated. That's why when I'm taking crypto investing advice, I look for the most autistic people out there because I know they're doing it because they're like just obsessed with the numbers.

Malcolm: And that's why they continue to broadcast, even though they have enough money, they don't need to do it anymore. But that's a good thing, but it's also true with like relationships or other aspects of your life. Generally, if somebody has [00:11:00] some like base level of competence, they've got some other career path laid out for them.

Malcolm: And if they've been able to succeed with the masses, they likely like efficacious advice actually does very poorly with the masses. Obvious reasons. It's not palatable. Like it doesn't tell them what they already want to believe. It doesn't tell them that everything's not their fault. And it takes a while before it's realized.

Malcolm: And even though it takes a while before it's realized once it is realized then the person's likely too successful or is stuff going on in their life. So they're not out there proselytizing to whatever the next group is. Whereas people who, undergo this sort of sunk cost fallacy, they end up proselytizing these other systems, especially systems that build dependency, and that's where you really need to be careful.

Simone: So let's dive into signs that we think someone. Does give legitimate advice that we listen to aside from the fact that they're like living the life that we want to live, tell me if you hold this intuitively as well, or if I am completely off base with this, but I often give extra [00:12:00] points to someone if they.

Simone: They have something I value or I'm trying to get right so I can trust that sort of their heuristics will get me there, but they're also not obsessed with that thing. So for example, if they're not obsessed with finding a spouse that they love, but they just happened to be in a really loving relationship and they did so intentionally and it wasn't just luck, then I trust that more, or if they are not obsessed with wealth.

Simone: But they are wealthy and they didn't, get that through luck or chance, obviously, which a lot of people have, right. They inherited their wealth or they were in the right place at the right time, et cetera. Then I listened to them extra because I do think that there is also a dangerous signaling effect where if someone, for example, like really has to see themselves as being in an amazing relationship, they might falsely signal how good their relationship is.

Malcolm: Yeah. So I think what you're saying here, which is really true is if it's an aspect of their self identity. Their identity is, I am good at relationships. I am good at being happy. [00:13:00] I am good at finance. They're much more likely to falsely signal in a way that could lead you to over trusting their advice.

Malcolm: That's a really good signal that I hadn't considered. But now

Simone: Also it dovetails with our philosophy on like how to actually get happiness, even if you really care about happiness, but we don't. Which is, I don't know, you give the pitch, Malcolm. What do you think our secret to happiness is?

Malcolm: Well, I mean, happiness is a reward for a life of efficaciously lived.

Malcolm: If you set goals for yourself and those are goals that you believe to some extent have real value, are actually. Moving you towards some sort of intrinsic truth as you achieve those goals, your body rewards you with happiness meaningful happiness, not the cheap kind of happiness, which ends up hurting you in the long run.

Malcolm: I think that the worst thing you can do in regards to any sort of positive emotional state is to chase the emotional state for its own sake[00:14:00] more broadly, I'd say the actual big question. When somebody is okay, how do I live a good life or something like this? And this is why we wrote the pragmatist guide to life.

Malcolm: The goal of that book was to try to help people come to their own answers to why do I exist without biasing them towards any answer? Because I think that once you've answered that question, once this is why I think I exist, this is like my purpose in the universe. Or this is what I think is like an intrinsically good action in the universe.

Malcolm: That action will give me a sort of list of things that I know when I've accomplished them, I've done something meaningful. And then when I go out and accomplish those things. Our biology is such that it rewards us with a very meaningful, long lasting, and in no way bittersweet reward.

Malcolm: Whereas I think most forms of pleasure, if they're gotten through almost any other mechanism it typically caused more damage in the long run when

Simone: I would add to that. So I think that there are other underlying mechanisms to this [00:15:00] that really matter. Like if you, let's say that you really want to be happy and you don't pursue this path, and instead you pursue whatever is going to make you happiest.

Simone: I think there's a genuine risk of the hedonic treadmill with pretty much anything that you can find that can give you happiness. You're going to adjust to it. It is going to lose its luster and then you're going to find yourself back to where you were when you started. And I also think that we've seen across I can't point to one peer reviewed study on this, unfortunately, but across many different domains, both anecdotally, historically, when we're looking at populations, but then also in terms of studies that like, there's this sort of ennui that comes.

Simone: from being comfortable, from having all your problems solved, maybe from being really wealthy, maybe just from, being comfortable and bored and surrounded by comfort and surrounded by pleasure that actually leads to a sort of deep emptiness and depression where it's not necessarily a hedonic treadmill [00:16:00] problem.

Simone: It is a nothing really matters because nothing's really hard problem. And I think that's, that could be one of the most depressing states to ever be in. And I think it's one reason why many people do suffer from depression because while many people have tons and tons of problems in life, in the end, A lot of those problems are self inflicted.

Simone: It's like anxiety. They're not like potential problems. Yeah, they're not.

Malcolm: They're not starving to death. And where they are worried about like potential death, it's from like overeating or something like that. Yeah. Self inflicted to a large extent, but more than that, they're not even really worried about death.

Malcolm: If you don't have people depending on you, in a big way, you're not really worried about death. You're worried about, what you might lose, like throwing something away that you like, but there, there's not the same genuine fear, the same way that there, there isn't genuine hardship often in the lifestyle of developed country.

Malcolm: And I think you're right that does cause a level of ennui, but I think another thing that really causes that is that these people aren't [00:17:00] taught to look for what genuinely matters in life. They are told by society, this is what's good. This is what's bad. And they incorrectly, like most people in history have incorrectly assumed that they were at the moral nexus of history which is to say whatever society thinks is moral is what's moral.

Malcolm: And we. are definitely not at the moral nexus of history. Everyone has always thought that. Okay, our society now has finally figured things out. And, sometimes you'll talk to progressives and they're like yeah. But society becomes more moral as it moves into the future. And I was like, what are you talking about?

Malcolm: Like you, as a progressive. Obviously believe that LGBT rights are a moral thing. We have those multiple times throughout history and they'd had them stripped away and then they became even a sign of immorality to future generations. That the Zeitgeist says something is moral does not mean it is.

Malcolm: And I think that they know this, and this is where the Ennui comes from. They don't believe what the Zeitgeist is telling them is moral, but they do see it as a sign for status signaling. And [00:18:00] almost nothing will sap your personal vitality. Like, We're not the types who believe in souls, but I do believe that humans have a vitality to their sentience that can be feasted upon and drained from them.

Malcolm: And one of the things that just drains it faster is a life dedicated To status signaling. And there are many ways an individual can do this. You'll see pictures of somebody at a beach being like, haha, not wasting my time, buying fancy cars, hashtag whatever, or it's like, what that's just a different form of status signaling.

Malcolm: You're signaling the free time you have, you're signaling the things you can do. Or and where we see this now and where I would really encourage people to not focus on this is a new form of status signaling I've seen in both the far right and the far left is body status signaling.

Malcolm: So people have convinced themselves. That their physical presentation is their identity. Oh, I see. The most important part of their [00:19:00] identity and where this plays out in the left, I think is very obvious, but that's not to say that we don't have the same problems on the far right in terms of body dysmorphia.

Malcolm: I see these young people who are doing, surgeries to themselves, who are trying to look like the perfect male or trying to look like, I guess what they think the perfect female looks like. And. Why, like, how could that be a thing of intrinsic value? How could what you physically look like matter other than in how it makes your significant other feel?

Malcolm: I just, and once you have a significant other who cares for you. I can guarantee whether they're male or female, they might be like, Oh, you could edit this or this, but they're definitely not min maxing your body unless they're min maxing you for a status signal themselves. And then that's probably a problem.

Malcolm: And by that, what what's a trophy wife, right? You look at these trophy wives, I've been in communities where some people had trophy wives. It's a wife that's not chosen [00:20:00] because the individual thinks that they're maximally attracted. Cause I know these people, they cheat on their wives.

Malcolm: I've seen who they're cheating on their wives with. They're not like supermodels it's a woman who you have modified in a way that you think positively augments your own status when you go to a party or online or in social media. Just broadly, this is the most basic of takes, yet it is something that I think so many people, they see other people's status signaling, and they don't see status signaling in themselves and they don't see that they have optimized their lives around a form of status signaling, and that is hurting them in the same way forms of status signaling that they see as vapid.

Simone: Here's a question though. Because , to repeat what we think will make you really happy is successful pursuit of your values. And I actually think that someone can live an extremely happy life and successful pursuit of optimizing around a certain character.

Simone: I genuinely think that, and I [00:21:00] want you to try to refute this. Let's say that like my whole life is around being this like quirky artist who like hosts my little salons and like creates really cool art and has cats that I paint to be like zoo animals, Oh, weird stuff.

Simone: But I'm really good at doing it. It's what I care about.

Malcolm: So you've set an easy goal and you've accomplished simple things related to that goal. Keep in mind that the level of deep satisfaction you're going to get from accomplishing any goal. Is directly proportional to how challenging you believe that goal was. Now, if you believe these goals were actually very challenging, you'll get a lot of reward from

Simone: Views are oriented, around maximizing a certain self image of yourself, there is no ceiling to how well you can maximize it, and you can spend your entire life In pursuit of that and really struggle because obviously like the ultimate version of whatever it is your world famous for being that person, right?

Simone: You get just more famous and there's a reality TV show about you or or, you just [00:22:00] become even more entrenched in this community, even higher in a dominance hierarchy. I actually think that someone could spend an entire life investing in this and really feel like there's still a lot more they could do.

Malcolm: I agree with that. If you move high with it, yes, you could get good emotional reward. But then I think the second thing to remember is there's a part of your brain that I think recognizes whether or not what you are doing is something you genuinely believe has value. And some of these people might believe that living this archetype does have value.

Malcolm: Okay. If you can convince yourself of that, and if the only thing that matters is feeling good in life, you'll do okay. However, I think that's a really weird way to structure your life, and I can't imagine recommending somebody to do that. I'd be like, if you are just absolutely convinced that nothing matters in the world, and only your happiness matters, then you might be able to structure your life in the way that this model would suggest.

Malcolm: I'm not saying that you can't find meaningful happiness through other avenues. I just can't imagine... [00:23:00] Why you would chase them when instead you could, do some deep philosophical inquiry into what you think has genuine meaning in the world and what you think an actual life well lived looks like.

Simone: Yeah, but I think some people don't believe there's genuine meaning in the world. And they really want to maximize how happy they feel. And they think that what they can be best at is being a character. No,

Malcolm: and that's true. And I'm not saying. Fine. Do that. I think the type of person you're talking about is an incredibly small portion of the population.

Malcolm: So much so that it's a trivial portion of the population.

Simone: Maybe. I think you are overestimating how willing people are to like really think through deep philosophical subjects and then commit to them. And I think we'll spend a lot of time thinking about what character am I and what is my persona and how do I get people to see me that way and that society spends a lot more time elevating and valorizing people [00:24:00] who are, amazing, colorful characters that everyone knows about than they do people who are extremely thoughtful and their philosophical underpinnings and dedicated to their faith.

Simone: Come on. No.

Malcolm: I'm not saying that people aren't bombarded by this stuff. I'm just saying it won't, it may fulfill this happiness quota, but I don't think it'll leave them feeling fulfilled in the same way that you are selling it. I think it may for a sliver of the population. And I think that you are underestimating the average person. I think that the only reason why genuine philosophical inquiry isn't that common in our society today like what's actually right and wrong, is our school system has been terrified of teaching people to ask those questions. First, because they were afraid of pissing off religious people, and then because they were afraid of pissing off progressives but both sides, like whoever the dominant group in society at the moment, or whoever the dominant group is within any local community, they have a vested interest in making sure kids never learn how to ask,

Malcolm: what is good? And what is evil? [00:25:00] How do I determine this for myself? Because if a person doesn't know how to do that, then they're going to believe what the people around them say, which generally benefits whatever the socially dominant group is at the moment.

Simone: Maybe I think, had I not met you I, again, I think you underestimate just how hard it is to find people who are willing to broach these conversations and push people into.

Simone: Making these tough decisions. And I think had I not met you, I would've totally chosen some kind of shallow pursuit and totally loved it . Really?

Malcolm: Yeah. I actually, I'm gonna push back hard here. I think you would've hit 30, 40. You would've started wanting kids. You didn't

Simone: expect that? No. I'm way too hormonally imbalanced to go through that and you know that.

Simone: Oh,

okay.

Malcolm: You know that. Okay. Okay. Delta, you changed my mind. You specifically, the one person who didn't get a chance to fully hormonally normalize you wouldn't feel this. You'd be totally happy living in your house with your 30 cats and being an artist. No, I wouldn't

Simone: have 30 cats. [00:26:00] Gross. No knocking on people who do, but that's not my thing.

Simone: It's unsanitary. But no, Malcolm I really, I don't think that suddenly wanting kids is something that makes people get philosophical either. I think it just

Malcolm: No, I'm not saying suddenly wanting kids. I want to be clear about this. People go through different life stages where different things fulfill basic, there's a like we're talking about like deep fulfillment here in terms of what this conversation is about.

Malcolm: But I think there's a lower level pond of fulfillment, which is like basic fulfillment to not feel like everything's falling apart and your life is a wreck. Okay? That basic fulfillment pool changes as you age your biology changes and it changes what it tells you. You need, when you are a toddler, your desires are going to be different from when you're in middle school and when you're in high school and when you're an adult of childbearing ages, because your ancestors who survived were doing different things during their different age ranges.

Malcolm: I think what you're missing is when you are either not a parent or not [00:27:00] taking on certain roles in your community. At a certain age, and I'm not saying you necessarily having kids or not having kids, you are going to feel a type of unfulfillment that you may not be able to point out, that you may not be able to articulate, but every single person you are a descendant of.

Malcolm: Who is one of your ancestors had and raised kids, except for a few rare cases where somebody was adopted or something like that that you don't think that would imprint itself on to how you relate to the world, I think is just. unrealistic even outside of your weird hormonal profile.

Simone: I don't know.

Simone: People in the comments can, I don't know, chime in on, I guess probably our viewers are more thoughtful philosophically than the average person by a long shot, but still, I question. I question because even people that we encounter who are very philosophically deep, we ask them like, okay, then what is your objective function?

Simone: Where do [00:28:00] you maximizing for? And they're like, Oh, I just want to learn a lot, or I want to be happy. And I respect that. And they're logically consistent in that conclusion. Again, I think if that's what you're, and we know people in our lives whose objective functions more or less optimize around looking a certain way or wanting to be an interesting character.

Simone: What matters to them is like how interesting their narrative. They're looking at themselves like a character in a book and they want to look cool. I just, I think this is way more pervasive than you want to let out. Yeah,

Malcolm: my, my takeaway would be for people, when you're looking at people who you're getting advice from, okay the advice they give you No matter how famous they are, no matter how recommended they come, we'll only get to you to where they are in life.

Malcolm: Don't expect it to take you further than that. So do invest a little bit of time into finding out the actual life circumstances of the people who you are using to shape your world perspective. The other thing I would [00:29:00] suggest is that our listeners. ask themselves, why do you exist? And if you don't have a good answer to that question, then that's literally the most important thing for you to do every day.

Malcolm: Like more important than feeding yourself, because if you don't know why you exist, if you don't know why you want to exist then you don't know what the function is. You're optimizing your life around. You can say, I just go with the.

Malcolm: But at that point, then you're optimizing around going with the flow. And the question is, why are you optimizing around that? If you don't have any logic with that, then it's just to survive. And I understand a lot of people are just interested in surviving, but I don't know, I was like, and it's okay to have your vices.

Malcolm: Look in this video, I am drinking beer. This does not move me towards any of my goals, doing things that don't lead you toward the things that you think have longterm value in the world. [00:30:00] doesn't make you an evil person or it makes you a person in as evil as any human is and that we are all wretched and fallen.

Malcolm: Except I think it's important that people learn to accept that are out themselves and not try. To be perfect, but try to be the best they can at doing the things they matter in the world or doing the things they think matter in the world.

Simone: So there's one final hitch in this that I think is really important and that I think there's a gradient of sensitivity people have. I think probably being on the spectrum, I'm way more sensitive to stuff like this where I could be in successful pursuit of my goals, but want to die because.

Simone: Various proclivities I have are not being met. And by that, like there are some environments in which like based on the schedule or the amount of control I have over my day or the setting I'm in, it doesn't matter if I'm living in alignment with my goals, I am miserable.

Simone: And I think that is something that. Maybe dovetails with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and maybe doesn't, but there are [00:31:00] some things essentially that you need to have in order if you are to function properly, not just be happy or unhappy, but like basically be able to function and that can differ pretty significantly from one person to another.

Malcolm: So I think Lazlo's Hierarchy of Needs is pointless. It just points out what Simone is saying. Sometimes, for some people, you need one thing before you can clearly focus on something else. And that is true, and that changes between individuals what those things are. However, it's also very important that you don't become indulgent in what those things are.

Malcolm: Because at the end of the day, the only person you have to be responsible to is yourself. And so it's very easy to use these things to create justifications to the people around you around why you're not living the life, you should be living. So I almost worry if that knowledge is dangerous, but I think you're right because it helps people understand that they are going to fail to be perfectly efficacious in many ways.

Malcolm: And that's a natural part of being human.

Simone: Yeah. I [00:32:00] think the key is to know. What your minimum needs are, but also like to orient around those, because I think there's a lot of people who are like, Oh, first I have to get to like these levels and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. They're like, first I have to, create my retirement fund and do all these other things.

Simone: And then I can focus on the meaning of life. And if you get caught up trying to go with like societal default or cultural default foundations. Before you start focusing on whatever it is that gives you meaning and true happiness, you are really screwing yourself over. Because first there's a lot of these things that are fundamental for either like societal defaults or Maslow's hierarchy of need defaults, or even like your friend and family's defaults that really don't matter to you.

Simone: For example, there are some people who are like, listen, I have to have a certain level of income and wealth to feel comfortable. There are other people who like, honestly. Just really don't need it and really don't care. Some people need to have their house like really clean and really nice. Other people like, don't like, Oh, for example, you and me, Malcolm, like when we each live independently, we live in so [00:33:00] different environments.

Simone: Like you just need like a mattress on the ground and like a small, like the smallest possible place. Doesn't matter if there's any natural light, if there's wifi and like a little bit of privacy, right? Like you're good.

Malcolm: I have something soft to sleep on and it's. It's got Wi Fi, that's all I care about.

Simone: Yeah. Whereas I'm like, is it pretty? Is it clean? Is it in a neighborhood that makes me feel nice? What's the natural light situation like? So I think really understanding that is important. Because it But

Malcolm: many of those are indulgences. You were quite efficient and you knew why you existed, even in environments where you didn't have those things.

Malcolm: I think the question as to why you exist is not a question that has precursors, unless you're literally burning to death in a fire right now. Because it determines everything else that you are prioritizing and it is not a question you put off.

Simone: Yes, although there were periods in my life where I was deeply depressed and verging on suicidal [00:34:00] and mostly as soon as I changed my setting away from these things that really bothered me it was not a problem.

Simone: Gone. I don't know.

Malcolm: Maybe this is an autistic person thing. I think that might be because you're autistic. And you're in very unique circumstances. And you might feel really... But that may be a situation that someone's in. And if they haven't tried changing their situation, that is something that they can try if they're feeling that way.

Malcolm: I just don't know if that's the...

Simone: Yeah, I just think that there are... Two really important parts to the equation, right? Like one important part is do you have the basic things you need to not be artificially depressed in your life? And then aside from that, it's about successful pursuit of whatever you think intentionally has value.

Malcolm: Oh, and the final thing that I'd note here to not forget this. is that maintaining the aesthetics of a specific lifestyle once you're at a level where you have everything else handled. So don't aspire to the aesthetics of a lifestyle until you have [00:35:00] everything else handled, but doing that can add a layer on top of everything else.

Malcolm: About right here is how to get your daily sugar. This is a, how do you add flavoring agents to it? And aesthetics of a lifestyle can be a very planned thing. Like I am going to do X or Y because it fits this aesthetic goal that I have for myself. But I think that's very different than aesthetics as an end goal.

Malcolm: Or aesthetics as a status signaler.

Simone: Yeah, and let me just add to this to illustrate what you mean. Which is sometimes we will do things that we won't enjoy in the moment. Because we know it creates happy narratives and memories and images. That tell us all something about our lives about us, enjoying the moment and whatnot.

Simone: So it might be like a really hot summer day and none of us really wants to go out and take a walk somewhere beautiful, but we do it anyway and we take photos of it and we act happy and we just do it. And then in the end, we're really happy [00:36:00] that it happened. And we're probably on average a little bit more happy because we.

Simone: are playing out that narrative. So there is and it's funny because when you flip that away like when you make that happen independent of someone having values and you make that just like the person who's taking the Instagram vacation and it's miserable and they're just there and they're snapping photos and they're not enjoying anything.

Simone: It's terrible. It's dystopian. It is like exactly the opposite of any advice that you'd give to people and yet Somehow on the flip side of this, like when you add it, like you say, is like the cherry on top. It really does add this sparkle and luster that genuinely

Malcolm: makes us, But it needs to be time efficient.

Malcolm: It needs to be the type of thing you're not doing a whole vacation to do. 100%, yeah. Which reminds me, Simone, we still have some blackberries we haven't picked in the yard. Time to do that. And, the chickens. We just got little baby chicks for the kids. I need to go pick up the kids to introduce them to them.

Simone: Oh my gosh, they're gonna be so excited. Alright, let's do this. I'm so stoked. Chicken time. Love you, Malcolm.[00:37:00]

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