Good Life Project - Jesse Kornbluth: Curating Culture And Creating A Life

Episode Date: September 4, 2014

Jesse Kornbluth is a force. Engaging, smart and deeply-invested in exploring life, ideas, people and art. Not just the art you hang on the wall, but the art of living. Full contact. Totally engaged. Life.If you ask him what he does, he may tell you he founded HeadButler.com. But that's really just a label that makes starting a conversation easier.In truth, he devours existence, curates conversations, experiences and media, filters them through the lens of his intellect and emotion, then shares them with the world. The form his creative output takes spans nearly every medium and has landed him on nearly every media channel over a career defined by ruthless honestly, relentless service and pursuit of something bigger than "just" a paycheck.In this wide-ranging, provocative conversation, Jesse and I dive into his fascinating life (I was about to use the word "journey," but in the episode, you'll see why I may never use that word again, lol). We explore creativity, greatness, community, scaling, fascination, writing and so much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Good Life Project, where we take you behind the scenes for in-depth, candid conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, makers, and world shakers. Here's your host, Jonathan Fields. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. We'll be right back. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10.

Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Hi, I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project. My guest today is Jesse Kornbluth, who writes and founded HeadButler.com. It's sort of this incredible cultural concierge website. And he also is an author, former contributing editor to Vanity Fair, contributor to New York, a whole bunch of amazing

media outlets, editorial director for a number of years at AOL, and all-around cool person. So great to be hanging out. I'm extremely happy to be right here. It's so much better than all those things you talked about. Why? Well, people say, oh, head butler. But, you know, the point is, after a certain age, you can't say freelance writer. It's just like, no one wants me, right? Well, that's like me saying entrepreneur. Right. You have to have a brand, right?

You have to make it easy. I mean, I once asked John Cheever, I said, what does the Pulitzer Prize mean to you? And he said, absolutely nothing. But it makes you into shredded wheat. It makes it easier for other people. So people say, oh, Head Butler, and they ask you the things and they try and get in. And I thought, you know, if you knew, right, if Head Butler were what I did, we'd be living in the park. Head Butler is what I do because I can't help myself, because I went to a school where you wrote a daily theme. And I believe in that.

And also, as I said, because I fell in love as a kid with a guy named Pico della Mirandola, known to all of your viewers. A Renaissance scholar who, at age 23, said, I will write about all human knowledge in 900 essays. And I thought, that is so cool. And did he? Yes, he did. He did. And I thought, so I'll write, he yes he did he did and I thought so all right oh maybe I can like like nine hundred books movies music uh and then I'll stop and now I'm at like two thousand and there's no end to it you're like damn it's just gonna go on forever and ever

but what what you don't have in all those things you've described yeah is real communication I mean I'm really good virtually, right? I mean, I've got that personality that's good on the page, and I'm responsive to my readers. But there's a hierarchy, which is, for me anyway, virtual relationships, good.

Phone, you're already on the downhill slope, and then you meet. And where can it go from there? I mean, it can go up, but it generally will also go down. Because people can be so annoying. But when they're at a remove, I mean, I have these best friends I've never met.

It's great. And a lot of them. Enough of them. But it's nice to be with you, right? Because it's so vivid for me. It's so much But it's nice to be with you, right, because it's so vivid for me. It's so much, it's so unusual. And so, already I'm loving this.

Well, as am I. But it's a really interesting sort of jumping off point because I, like you, spend a ton of time online. Like I write,

I do other stuff, but a huge amount of my conversation, my interaction with people is, you know, digits. And it's a radically different

experience when you get in a room with somebody. And I think we're losing that to a large extent. I know you have mixed feelings with being face-to-face with people, but there's a certain amount of humanity that I think is going out the window because so much of our default conversation is not face-to-face anymore. We are. I mean, look, for everything you gain, you lose something else. I mean, a poet I love wrote, how bright a light there must be to cast so dark a shadow. So for everything you're given, something is taken away. So yes, for me, the problem is that this is so, as I say, so vivid that my enthusiasm for it is often inappropriate. I mean, you say, well, what's this guy's problem? Has he been in like a jail for 20 years? But it's like, go, you know, I used to say, you say, what's this guy's problem? Has he been in like a jail for 20 years?

But it's like, go. You know, I used to say, you know, let's go out and eat some people. And eat some people? Yeah, because, I mean, they don't know. They're going through their day. I mean, when I worked in an office, which I did only once, I mean, a non-recurring phenomenon, if ever there was one, I didn't know when you got work done. You're either flirting or in meetings, right? I'd start to work at five.

This was not what I wanted to do. It is a little bit of a bizarre thing. So you've been out of, was that one office setting? Was that the AOL thing? Yeah, which was immense fun the first year because there was no adult supervision I could create. And you remember at the end of Butch Cassidy, I know you do, when they go to Bolivia and they're trying to get hired on this wagon train to protect the gold. And the guy says, can you shoot? Sundance says, yeah,

maybe I can shoot. And he tosses it up in the air and he misses the bottle. Ah, you can't shoot. Sundance says, can I move? And they got to toss it up in the air. And Sundance jukes around like, you know, a tight end who just scored his first touchdown. And he shoots the hell out of the thing. It's just shards of glass. Right.

He says, I'm better when I move. So for me, the absence of adult supervision was great. And then the second year, as I say, a Taliban of white male MBAs swept in. And that was the end of it. So what's, because that was 2002-ish? No, I was there for the golden years. And for five splits, five stock splits.

But I was there from 97 to 2002. And I was brought there to help transform a tech company into a media company. Note to self, can't be done. Well, and apparently, as we all see in the public, too, it's been an interesting time there. Well, but it was so interesting because it was the exact thing we're talking about. We had the magic sauce, which was a community,

and we walked away from it. I remember being in a meeting where we had a group called Jewish Singles. It's 70,000 of them. And so we need to kick them off the service. Why? We don't know how to monetize this. To monetize this, we have 70,000 people paying 24 hours a month.

What more do you want? But that's not how MBAs think. So it was very instructive, but I also wouldn't generalize from the experience. I mean, there are better companies than this. Yeah. I mean, it's also interesting because it brings a conversation to this idea of,

and we were just talking about this before, and you were asking, like, how do you monetize this? And how do you monetize conversations online? How do you monetize building community online? As more and more people are, I think, striving to find community online, or they're having trouble, I think, striving to find community online or they're having trouble finding it locally and they're going online.

And then you have people trying to figure out, well, if this is what I'm doing a lot of the times, how do I actually thrive? How do I flourish doing this? Which kind of circles around to an interesting question about you. So headbutt. I just interrupted.

That's a spectacularly bad idea. Right. Monetizing people spectacularly bad idea. Right. Monetizing people's dreams and hopes. I mean, there's no, I mean, there are greater degrees of exploitation, you know, white slavery and, you know, the sex trade, but really, people that are most vulnerable reaching out to

other people and you are thinking, okay, how can I take this to a VC? I mean mean if that's what your aim is right right then i hope you fail i mean there may be a way to monetize it but i haven't seen it and i'm not particularly looking for it sorry to interrupt no go ahead because it's a really interesting conversation right so then how how do you take somebody and inspire them to devote their heart soul and potentially resources to building the container even to create that gorgeous flourishing community and take time money and energy away from something else like what's the I mean let's go deeper in the conversation well curiously this is the

book I'm writing next with two very bright women. Okay. So I can't tell you the answer. You have to pay me for the answer. That'll be $24.95. Oh, my hopes, my aspirations. You're going to charge me for that? But the answer is, all you can do is empower them to be where they are and do what they need to do. They don't have to do it in your space. What ferocious ego is that to say, I want to own this conversation.

Right. I mean, it's like, as long as I'm ranting, people say, my daughter. No, no, our daughter. Right. And it's like, I have my friends. What is this ownership? I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, greed at every level. And, you know, I'm very sensitive to it. I mean, it's just, I mean, you know, greed at every level. And, you know, I'm very sensitive to it. I mean, my poor daughter, our poor daughter. Not meaning our. I mean, the word journey drives me crazy. Journey, you're not on a journey, you're having a life. Right?

Journey is a word that should be used by best supporting actresses as they're getting the award. I'd like to thank all the people who helped me get here on my journey, right? Fine, I would have called it a career, but, you know, you can call it a journey. So it's like, I think the language, I mean, the question you posed is a good one because everybody poses it. It's just a bad question. Journey. There's some others, too. Don't just a bad question. Journey. There's some others, too. Don't warm me up here.

The bigger thing for me is you obviously have a fierce interest in the impact of language. On a level that most people just don't think about it. Wittgenstein. The limits of language are the limits of life.

Anything that can be said can be said clearly. Sure, language is how people screw us up. They make us do things that are against our interests or confuse us or dazzle us or paralyze us. I mean, mass media is one big bedazzlement. And if you know anything about anything and you watch a new show on TV, it's just like you're screaming at the set. I mean, it's like back in the days when you would watch, you know, Nixon talk or Bush talk, you know,

you think, no, no, no. It's like, you know, better. And like you see Joe Scarborough, you say, really, are you that stupid? No, you're not that stupid. You're being paid to be stupid. So, yeah, words are really important and saying what you mean are important. I mean, a producer once told me, there's always more money, you only have one name. Stupidly, I believe that. I don't think a ton of people do. Well, it's interesting because words, I mean on so many levels both on a on a protection level but also on a um words can there's such a powerful source of creation um and direction and misdirection and i think a lot of what you were just talking about also is words as manipulation to a certain extent or words as trying to move people to a point of view regardless of,

maybe not regardless of consideration of like what the impact of that would be, but because of that, but not so much in the context of wanting, for lack of a better term,

the greater good to unfold. Well, this is why I like the web, particularly. I mean, my version of the web. I mean, what I do in Head Butler is the best version to me. I mean, obviously you can only have to be with me for a few minutes to know I'm slipper than snail snot.

Right? I mean, I can do this. I have a little Jesse bot. He can go out and be great. And people say, wow, that guy is so smart. He knows all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. Sort of an asshole, but you know, whatever. But what I'm doing

on Butler is, I never do bad reviews unless I'm really disturbed about something, and then I do consumer warnings, and they're very short. No, I think everyone wants better. Everyone wants more light. Everyone wants to have a fuller life, and that's

what I'm about. So essentially, when I'm doing the things I, I mean, look look some things you're just writing about this or that but the things that really grab me you know I want you to want them because and I basically you know you end up touching subjects where you're you're you know you're holding people's hearts in your hand and they're holding yours and that's so cool I don't have message boards because I don't really want to have that the trolls and the conversation but I have a vibrant relationship with people who write to me and I know when certain things come up I mean I did a piece usually I can sell

these pieces at the time so couldn't it? It's called Here Comes the Night. And I have four friends who died last year in their 60s. And I'm in my 60s, and I thought, pay attention. And I wrote this piece. And it was like I'd never written a piece before. You know, whew. And other people have had this experience, right? Suddenly the march of death comes across, and there's the guy with the scythe.

So those were amazing days, right? For a couple of days afterwards, just dealing with it. So yeah, I love that. That's incredible. But if my intent is bad, that's not going to work. Because as you know, your readers are smarter than you are. The people who watch this show readers are smarter than you are. The people who watch this show collectively are smarter than we are. And so

you've really got to be your best. I don't mean to go on, but do you know the Salinger story about shining her shoes? The Glass family in the short stories have this show called It's a Wise Child.

They're all very bright Jewish children from New York. And the youngest one says, I'm not going on. I don't want to go on. And the oldest brother, the one who will commit suicide, says, you will go on. And you will not only go on, you will shine your shoes. He says, why do I have to shine my shoes? It's radio. He said, you shine your shoes because there's a woman who listens to the show.

And she sits on her porch in Kansas. And it's hot. And she's sweaty. And she could be overweight. And she could have a fatal disease. You do it for her. And from then on, he shines his shoes. And so that's how I, you know, when I sit down at the Jewish piano or the Jewish keyboard or whatever it is I call it, you know, this computer, and I'm about to hit that first

note, I mean, I just sort of, you know, throw it up and say, hold my hand. Yeah. Which, I mean, it's so powerful. It's amazing. It's so powerful for me to hear you say that because I'm much earlier in my own writing career. And that's one of my struggles. One of my struggles is to go to that place where I throw it up.

It helps to be desperate. Things aren't bad enough for you yet. But to get to that level where you'll go to that place and be that wrong and that vulnerable and that real and that true and then bring that out. It's weird. I now write liner notes for Paul Simon, of all things, which is so fun. Why don't you? Right. As a friend of mine says, who's a friend of Paul's, says, remember, a B-plus from Paul is not a passing grade.

So I work on them. And I just finished this novel, and I look at this book. I haven't for a while, and then I look at it and think, I don't write that well. Who wrote that? And this is a really bad analogy, but Paul said about Bridge Over Trouble Water, he said, you know, I'm really good. And everyone knows Paul thinks he's good. He said, but I'm not that good. Something happened. So, you know, you try and get in a place where something happens

and it doesn't happen every day but all you can do is show up and try and do your work. I mean, that's what it is. And I know you feel it when that happens. You're not there. Yeah.

I don't remember doing those things. I've looked at the occasional piece afterwards and I barely remember writing it. And there are those moments where you go to that place. But here's the trick, actually, if we can do a little writing class. I did a book with Twyla Tharp, and so I read all her stuff. And her first book was called The Creative Habit.

Great book. And as you know, it's all about muscle memory. There is no creativity. There is work. And you do your work every day, and you have a shot. But if you're sitting waiting for God to tell you your marching orders, good luck. No, I mean, and I completely believe that. I became friendly with Steve Pressfield a couple of years back.

His book essentially, he's got a whole book that essentially says with Steve Pressfield a couple of years back. His book essentially, he's got a whole book that essentially says that. Pressfield's a nightmare. Pro. He says, lose your wife, quit your job.

If you want to do this, do this. Yeah, I mean, what's so funny is like, and Pressfield in real life is actually a very loving, gentle guy, but he writes with a huge amount of bravado.

But I think there's so much mythology around that right it's just like you know that it's just the muse will hit at any random time and that's when you create rather than you know you show up every single day and it's almost like that's may happen it may not but like your job is to show up and do the work but i've talked to people and they're like who are prolific and have written some really good stuff or created or painted and there's a radically different i mean people war over this people lie about this i think maybe that mark knopfler told me that chad atkins told him you should that's a double name drop uh you should fall asleep with the guitar in your hand and knopfler as you may know if I can believe fired his brother from Dire Straits

because he didn't feel he practiced enough. Did he really? So I have heard. But no, people want the magic. No one wants to do the work. Right. And the work's a bloody bore. Yeah.

But on the other hand, if it's what you're, if, you know, once you know what you're supposed to do, life gets a lot simpler. I mean, I don't think I can do anything else. I think I'm without talent. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there

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Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference

between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever,

making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.

When did you think that, when were you able to say that? Age 8. Sure. Serious? Of course. And here's the other thing, okay, Malcolm Gladwell, right, with the 10,000 hours, right? That, you know, you spend 10,000 hours and after that you have some mastery and you can do it, or at least you'll know if you can do it. And as an example, he uses the Beatles.

In 1961-62, they go to Hamburg and they play five hours a night in this club. They're taking speed to do it, right? They do it for months at a time. When they come back, they're the Beatles. So, a book comes out, the first of three, a thousand pages, The History of the Beatles, an amazing book. The first volume takes you to 1962, and that's how granular it is. And someone then read the book and wrote a piece and said, you know, that wasn't it. The Beatles didn't come back as the Beatles. They went as the Beatles. Because what was the defining thing? And this is another now book I want to write. It's called In Your Face, Colon, The Power of Arrogance.

The Beatles thought they were the best things ever. That it was just a matter of time before people figured it out. But they were arrogant. And they say so. I mean, they come back from Hamburg. They get rejected by six labels. They finally get a deal. And the record company tells them the song's going to be on it.

And John Lennon says, Love Me Do is on it, or we're out of here. What do they have to go back to? Liverpool. Nothing. But, okay, record company allowed it, Love Me Do came out, and they were the Beatles, right? And I see this everywhere. I mean, as Dizzy Dean, the baseball player, said,

it ain't bragging if you can do it. So, yeah, hard work and arrogance is really, to me, what the formula is. Which leads to craft? Which leads to those moments where you access something magical? You know, yeah, craft is important. I mean, at this point, it's like in my DNA, because here's the real dirty secret. I type with one finger. There's two of us, by the way. Okay. So I try not to have to do it a lot of times, right? And so I'm looking for

the entrance point. I'm looking, I mean, what Orwell calls, you know, prose like a window pane is what I'm looking for other people are very stylish I'm not a stylish writer subject verb object no adverbs adjectives as necessary I mean Hemingway was a fairly great writer

though it's turned into something else James Salter there's a little space between those sentences and everything happens in that space so yeah but for me and Kurt Vonnegut alter, right? There's a little space between those sentences and everything happens in that space. So yeah, but for me and Kurt Vonnegut, the first thing you do is make friends with the reader. Put out a hand and say hi. First sentence of my novel. There's no woman more beautiful than a woman reading a book. Because as it must be clear, I'm pretty much only interested in women. And this is a book I think women want to read or would read if they could, someone would publish it. And right away I'm saying to a woman reading a book, I think

you're beautiful, which I do, totally do. And, you know, well, my ex-wife, one of them said, a little sincerity goes a long way. I think, okay, a little sincerity. So craft, I think, is sort of overrated. I think having something to say is kind of the point. Huge. Huge. And I think it's so interesting also because now that everybody has the tools to say something, that having something to say is getting lost even more. Well, it also gets lost because we all are standing on the shoulders of somebody else, right?

Right, of course. So if you haven't read anything except blogs, if all you watch is a reality show, what do you have as a model? Tweets. Well, tweets are haiku. I mean, actually, there's some really, I mean, there's some tweets. I know, I've actually seen some, like, incredible creativity within the context of that. But I don't think I could commercialize, I don't think I'm monetized to use your word, tweets.

So, you know, I think occasionally you have to, like, read a real book. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I mean, I think we're in the middle of this really fascinating window, creative window, in terms of, like, it's almost like the soul of creation is evolving, and I'm not sure how or where it is evolving.

I would never pass judgment to say whether I think it's good or bad, but it's changing. But I don't think so. I mean, it's interesting, because when I started this project, which is, I don't know, around two years ago now, actually. Wow. People thought I was nuts, because I wanted to do video that was longer than like four minutes.

I want to have a conversation like this, you know, and move beyond the soundbite shtick that's everywhere else. Do you know who Morris Dees is? No. He founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's a great man. A great man. I did a piece on Morris a long time ago and it was like you couldn't open the car door it was so armored and if you kicked underneath you know you hit the shotgun because he's on everyone's kill list. Morris started out as a marketer and he wrote a book, he started the Alabama cake service,

right? Send your boy a birthday cake. Made a lot of money. Then he had gotten into mail order. Wrote a book called Mail Me a Million. Good old Southern boy. And then he got to George McGovern and he wrote a seven page solicitation letter. And they said, oh Morris, please you can't send this letter.

Solicitation letters are a page. Morris sent the letter. Got a 35% response. They said Morris, what can we do for you? He said, I'd like the mailing list. And they started the Southern Poverty Law Center. The point is, you can go long if you've got something to say and if you've got the heart to say it in a way that people want to hear it. And that's been my philosophy. In my mind, there's no such thing as too long, there's too boring, there's too disinterested, there's too... I work for people who said, if there isn't a buy link within 400 words, forget it. But here's the question.

Do you know who watches this? Yeah, I have a pretty good sense because it's a very, I have a huge, interestingly, I don't have a comment section for this, but I get more email in response to this than anything I've ever done. So I, now granted, that is a tiny, tiny fragment, but I also have some really cool metrics because now I can go to YouTube and actually I know where in the world people are. I know their age. I know their demographics. I know a lot about them, which is probably more than people realize, to be honest with you. So it's interesting. I can give you a decent profile of the average viewer of this show,

and it's not kids. You know, there are a fair amount of, you know, 20-something, but it's mostly more sort of, you know, like mid-40s, or like 35 to 55. Definitely skews more female than male. And when they write you, what do they say they're getting? It's two things. One, and this is something I really tried to understand. One of the big things is a body of proof. It's not just and more people paraded in front of me who are me but ten times worse and they're doing what I aspire to do and won't.

And that is very likely the single biggest reason that I continue to do this. Okay, here's what I hear when you say that. Yeah. We went to see American Hustle on the first day it was out. And the Times review was a rave. All the reviews were a rave. You know, this is the Oscar. And, I mean, my wife and I hated this movie so much.

I mean, so much that at the end she said, you know, I could have left at any time. And I said, well, why didn't you say so? Because it was a set of schtick, you know, everyone sort of like August Osage County, the same story. We're going to assemble a cast and that cast is going to get nominated. Right. And they're going to do all that performance to be nominated. And so it's not a movie. It's a set of ego shows. Anyway, so we're sitting there in this totally packed audience and the audience is very unhappy

Because they have been told this is a great movie and they're not enjoying it. So what they have to do is invalidate their own experience In order to think it was great So what I hear you saying is people get, I'm not alone. Somebody knows how to do this. It's possible to do this. Is that sort of part of it? Yeah. I mean, that's part of it. But I think the other thing I was going to say is the I'm not alone thing. I think it's huge. You know, I think there's such a pervasive sense of isolation and we have never been more connected and simultaneously more disconnected

and to find a sense of belonging in some way, shape or form to me is powerful It is, but it's also tricky, and this is why. Ian Forster, at the start of Passage to India, says, only connect. But I think what you and I are saying is, no, no, only disconnect.

First you have to disconnect from that, so you can connect to this. Yeah, I would agree with that. And that is powerful. Because that does not love you. Right. It does not see you as anything but something to be exploited. And it will hurt you if it has to.

And this doesn't want anything from you. I mean it wants to be liked, because it's human, but that's a human thing. It doesn't necessarily want your money. It doesn't want you to pay allegiance. It doesn't want to organize you into a political group. It's sort of like a kind of self-selecting karma club. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. We're standing with Donnie Graham at a conference a few years ago. will vary. you know how it is when you say the thing you never should say but you always do, you can't help it I said Donnie, the things I believed when I was 19 I still believe them he said why don't obviously you don't I've read your newspaper

but it's and I think there are other people and we recognize them when they appear to us and what you're doing is it seems to be creating a place where they And we recognize them when they appear to us. And what you're doing seems to be creating a place where they kind of gather. I think so.

And to me, I think that's what I aspire to do. And how effectively I'm actually doing that, I think, to me, is still an evolving question. It's hugely scary because you don't know the end game. Right. I mean, do you ever read Childhood's End by Arthur Clarke? No. It's the greatest science fiction book ever, he said. You know, the children are different. They're different.

And the children all go in the forest. And they hold hands and they form a chain and they run through the forest and that energy ends the world. It's quite, very powerful. But it isn't the end you would have written. So there's that Pema Chodron story, which I do in my book too. A family has one son and they love him beyond measure. And he falls off a horse, and his legs are crushed. And a week later, the Tsar's soldiers come and take everyone who's fit to be in the army, and he gets to stay. And Pema Chodron says, is this good or is this bad?

We don't know. And I spend a lot of time thinking, because I'm a quick, judgmental, facile Jew, wait a minute, you don't know. And I find myself not having opinions on all manner of things that I used to absolutely know what the answer was. I mean, we sat the other night with these people I'm writing with, and they told us the real stories of about ten things, because they knew the real stories of about 10 things. Because they knew the real stories. They were in the room.

They were consulting the CEO. They knew this. They knew that. I was like, God, are we children? I mean, I was cynical about those stories, but I had no idea what was going on. So I'm very tentative. But I do like the process. I do believe this is what we should be doing.

I mean, I don't know. Until I know a better thing to do, this is what we should be doing. I mean, I don't know, until I know a better thing to do, this is a good thing to do. Yeah. And I think, and I think it's part of why I wrote my last book, is that I seem to repeatedly go to a place, and it seems like you, and I think anybody who has this desire to create goes to this place of deep uncertainty and lives there for extended periods of time. And you have to go there, because if you don't, then you're replicating, and I'm not particularly drawn to, you know, I want to actually bring something different out there. Not that there is something different, but my voice. Well, I hope people appreciate how hard it is for us to do this. Okay, in the following way.

I was once at a dinner for ten people. I could do the name drop, but let me spare it. Let's just say I was the least person in the room by a magnitude. And the hostess said, let's go around the table and use one word to describe ourselves. And it's indomitable, superior, unbeatable, and it gets to me and I say ambivalent. Right? And there it is, right? So the tricky thing is to be both accomplished and arrogant and ambivalent. I mean to

have all those things, you know, it's like, as we talk, it's like adding more ingredients to the recipe, but... Yeah, but, I mean, to me, I think the challenge is finding grace in uncertainty. You know, which, in children, I mean, that's fundamentally probably why I'm so drawn to Buddhism, actually. I'm not sure, though, the thing we call grace is grace. That's the thing. I'm not sure I'd know it if it bit me I Mean have a bias and certain feelings come over me and you know, there's the chanting and this and you know But I'm not sure you know, I'm not sure then and I don't think I'm sure language again We're gonna define it very differently. You know, for me, it's, for me, first level is not dying

in the face of great uncertainty because it causes a huge amount of suffering. I say every day, survival is victory. Yeah, you know, and for a long time, that was, you know, part of the reason why I really went into the last book is because I have to create, and similar to you, it's what I do. You know, it breathes me.

But for the vast majority of my life, there was always a lot of blood in the water. And I asked the question, does there have to be? You were a hedge fund lawyer. My God, the rest of your life you were Tony. That could be part of it, actually, looking back. You know, is there a different way? You know, can you go to that place? And live in that place where it's a complete question

or enough of a question, and I do think that you have to be in that place for an extended period of time, but not suffer so much. Here's what I got from my conversation yesterday

with my two co-authors. If you want to scale, there's blood on your hands. You don't scale for free. Tina Brown used to say when we were at the Vanity Fair, we give them. You don't scale for free. Tina Brown used to say, when we were at the Vanity Fair, we give them the cover, but not for free. And, I mean, I'm a huge fan of Krishna Das. Huge. I mean, I wrote half of my book with those chants. And it was very helpful for me, because I'm an excitable boy, and I need to sit in the chair.

So we go to see him the last time he comes at the church we always go to. It's packed as it always is. And it starts with about 40 minutes of marketing. And at the back table we've got this and we've got this and we've got this and they did everything but the t-shirt and the coffee mug. And by the time he came on, I was ready to go. I thought, you don't need to do that. You let that happen. You wanted that to happen.

Krishnadas wanted that to happen. And maybe it's his arrogance or his whatever belief that you can start, you can knock the audience off of its anticipation for 45 minutes and then come in and rock the house, but I don't believe it. And I thought, you know, I love you, man,

and I'm giving you money for the Kickstarter, but I'm not coming back. Because that's what scaling, and I wrote him a note to say this, and I did not get it, and we have corresponded, but I did not get a note back. I didn't expect to but I think it's I mean I think that the process is is hard for people like you and me along the way because we don't know what the process is I mean we're vamping every day I think I think nobody knows what the process is,

but I think when you own the fact that you don't know, that's when it gets hard. No, that's when it gets good. It's quite hard and good. That means you still have a shot at not being a jerk. I agree, but I think that's also when it gets really, because then you have to go to that place where you don't know how it's going to end.

Yeah, but I'm sort of curious to find out. As am I. I think there's as much wonder there as there is anything else. Plus, you know, I'm old. I've invested all this time in it. You think, Jesus, let me, you know, okay, let's you know, am I close to seeing what happens next?

Yeah. So, which kind of circles around also to, like, what this is fundamentally about. You asked me in my mind, what is this project about? If I offer out the term, it's called Good Life Project. If I offer that phrase to you, in your mind, what does it mean to you to live a good life? So, I've had an extremely full life. I mean, I've done lots and lots of things.

I mean, the things you mentioned are just the tip, right? And I've had amazing experience, and I've had a ton of girlfriends, which is how I learned anything. I've learned nothing from men, learned everything from women. I got married for the first time at 40 and for the third time at 50-something. At 56, I became a first-time father. So, you know, everything's kind of at a skew for me. So comes my Harvard 45th reunion book. You know, it's a big, thick red book for those in the audience who haven't had the luxury of going to Harvard. And, you know, people write stuff, you know, about themselves.

And this was an unbelievably sad experience for me to read this book because I thought they'd had really dull lives. It's Harvard and they've had dull lives. I mean, this is what it had come down to. Work, family, the boat, they're retired, they play golf, they've had some diseases, grandchildren. It was like, whoa. This was the class of 1968 at Harvard. I mean, a cusp year, the huge year, right?

I mean, this was, everything was up for grabs then. I mean, who you were, you had to figure out what that was under terrible conditions. So anyway, I go to write my thing and I say this, this and this, then I'm doing this, this and this. And then I say, thanks thanks to the love thanks to the love of my wife the forbearance of our child and the support of my friends I finally found the life I wanted so

you know I'm a happy guy. That's it. I mean, work and love, God, isn't that so original? But, you know, that's what it turned out to be for me. And so, I'm having a great time. I mean, I'm having a terrible time at the same time, right? I have written this novel that is so good, and publishers are running away because they're so scared of it. I mean, I would say, wow, they should be jumping on this.

They'll make a fortune on this book. Right? But, okay. And I could be hurt by that. I say, no, this is a judgment on them, not on me. I know what I did. If it doesn't sell by April 15th, I'll publish it by May 15th. That's the other thing I really wanted to say.

The end of the gatekeepers. Right? Before, you and I could not get traction in media. Or I did. I mean, I was on Today Show. I did every Charlie Rose. I did all those things when I was younger, right? But you sort of age out or you have the unpopular thing to say

and then forget it. But in the old days, there was an underground press and then they hired those people and then they became the New York Times. There were music bands and they were the underground and then they got hired by labels. You made a little movie and you got hired by Warner Brothers. No more. You don't have to do that through these other distribution channels. So at the same time, I feel, you know, the old world is giving me a sort of mixed message. The new world is saying, go for it.

William Irwin Thompson, The Future, says, at the edge of history, the wind is blowing in our faces. I like that. I love that. It's a great place to wrap, too, I think. I'm done. Such a great conversation, thank you. I've enjoyed this far too much. think. I'm done. Such a great conversation. Thank you.

I've enjoyed this far too much. You've ruined my day. Thank you. So my guest today has been Jesse Kornbuth. I'm Jonathan Field signing off for Good Life Project. We'll see you next time. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe,

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