Good Life Project - Rainn Wilson | Reimagining Spirituality

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

We want to hear from YOU! Take our survey.Ever notice how, increasingly, spirituality, and especially, religion, have become these loaded terms? Let alone concepts. But, does that have to be the case? What might a new lens or approach on spirituality and faith look like? One steeped in openness, kindness, inclusivity, service, compassion and beyond? That is where we’re headed today in this deep and nuanced conversation with my guest, Rainn Wilson. Now, before you even ask, you may be wondering, “Isn’t he the three-time Emmy-nominated actor who portrayed Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office?” And, the answer would be yes. But what you may not know is that Rainn has been traveling, examining, and deeply studying both his own Baha'i tradition, as well as nearly every other religious and spiritual tradition for more than 50 years. He is no stranger to deep, meaningful conversations. His latest book, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution explores the harmony between personal transformation service and the future of religion and spirituality. And, that’s exactly where he headed in today’s deep, rich, wise, and kind conversation.You can find Rainn at: Instagram | TwitterIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Matthew McConaughey about the pursuit of meaning, joy and expression in life.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We live in a culture that has a lie at its center, and that lie is do stuff for yourself and you'll be happier. Make more money, you'll be happier. Build a better career, you'll be happier. Have more social capital and you'll be happier. When actually that's not true. When you give to others, you actually feel increased well-being. And so there's a lot of these teachings that are foundational to all of these spiritual

traditions that we could really benefit from. So ever notice how increasingly spirituality and especially religion have become these kind of loaded terms, let alone concepts for so many. They smack of being everything from irrelevant to modern life values and needs to even being outright hostile to the very notion of peace, ease, and serenity. being outright hostile to the very notion of peace, ease, and serenity. And again, not for everybody, but increasingly for many. Which is why at a time when so many are struggling, grappling with groundlessness, loneliness, and upheaval, a time that in prior generations would have sent people running toward a spiritual tradition or path, people are instead running from it. But does that actually have to be

the case? And when we run from the core elements beyond the potentially co-opted translations and edicts, what potential good and value are we also running from? And what might a new lens or approach on spirituality and faith look like? One steeped in openness, kindness, inclusivity, service, compassion, and beyond. That is where we're headed today in this really deep and nuanced conversation with my guest, Rainn Wilson. Now, before you even ask, you may be wondering, Rainn Wilson, isn't that the guy who played Dwight Schrute on NBC's The Office? And the answer would be yes. But what you may not know is that Rain has been traveling, examining, and deeply studying both his own Baha'i tradition as well as nearly every

other religious and spiritual tradition for more than 50 years. He is no stranger to deep, meaningful conversations. And in fact, as the co-founder of the production company Soul Pancake, he produced a stunning array of programming that invites us all to ask the big questions and see the humanity in each other. He's also the host of Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss on Peacock and a New York Times bestselling author. In fact, his latest book, Soul Bloom, Why We Need Spiritual Revolution, it explores the harmony between personal transformation and service and the future of religion and spirituality. And that is exactly

where we're headed in today's deep, rich, wise, and kind conversation. With a powerful understanding of the connection between personal growth and service to others, Rain shares his insights from finding balance, purpose, the essence of a new, more expansive spirituality, and the pursuit of meaning and belonging in life. And he believes that by nurturing our spiritual lives, we can generate the energy and light needed to uplift and serve others, ultimately fueling our own soul growth in return and the planets on a bigger scale. And it's this delicate dance between self-improvement

and selflessness that Rain suggests is the key to truly living a good life. You will be maybe surprised and inspired to really dive into this conversation and the invitation to examine your own journey and consider the ways in which you might create a meaningful, purpose-centered life through the interplay of spiritual growth and altruism. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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 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. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. 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. So I'm excited to dive in with you. The new book is really fascinating. So many interesting insights and ideas.

I want to take a bit of a step back in time because probably a pretty safe bet that a lot of our listeners know you for your work in entertainment, in acting, producing, founding SoulPancake, but not necessarily as somebody who has really spent a lot of time thinking deeply and living deeply in the domain of spirituality. So I'm curious, it sounds like spirituality for you is something that has been a through line from the earliest days of your life. Yes. Wow.

We're going way back, aren't we? To the very beginning. I'm talking in utero, if you can recall from that moment. In utero, I was can recall from that moment. In utero, I was at my most spiritually evolved. I grew up a member of the Baha'i faith. So spirituality and conversations about life's biggest possible topics, including the soul and death and free will and God and the meaning of life. Those conversations were rampant in my house because, you know, Baha'is believe in all of the world's faiths and teachings from many different spiritual traditions. And so we would be reading from the Bhagavad Gita and the writings of the Buddha would

be on the shelf, you know, along with like Egyptian mysticism. And we'd have Sikhs and Sufis over at the house and born again, Christians would knock at the door and we would cook them pancakes and talk to them about, you know, the Bible and whatnot. So this was the milieu that I was born in and it's always kind of been percolating inside of me. And my parents really did instill a love of these kind of deeper conversations. Yeah. I mean, even as a kid, was there an innate curiosity in you about the things that you heard spinning around your house or was it something that was just kind of the fabric of your young life and you didn't really pay much attention? You know, it's interesting because you normalize everything when you're a kid. So I normalized

living in a household in which prayer gatherings were a regular part of life. And you would have people of different faiths over and you would meditate and you would, you know, have these conversations. So I wouldn't say I was drawn to it and I wouldn't say I was pushed away from it. It just was, it was like, you know, families that might gather and watch the Sunday football games. It's like, oh, that's what you do on a Sunday. You watch a football game. For us, it's like, oh, we, every 19 days we have the Baha'i feast and we have people over and we pray and consult and talk about trying to make the world a better place.

So inside of that and on top of that as well, this is what we do as children. There was a great deal of dysfunction in my family. So there was a lot of misery and unhappiness. So this was a very peculiar and difficult quandary. We spoke about love a lot and the soul and the meaning of life, but my parents were desperately unhappy in their marriage, kind of alienated from each other and from other people. So there was kind of also this spiritual dysfunction in my family. And I think that exists in a lot of people when they're growing up in spiritual homes.

And sometimes people that are seeking kind of a spiritual path have an innate dysfunction that they're hoping to soothe, solve, absolve, fix with a spiritual path. And I think you're right. I see that a lot. But what's interesting is my sense is that when you see that also a lot of people associate the dysfunction, especially when a faith tradition is really woven into the fiber of the family, they associate the dysfunction with the tradition and have a hard time separating the two. So when they sort of quote come of age and they get to start making their own decisions and forming their own identity, in the name of walking away from the dysfunction,

they also walk away from the faith. That doesn't seem to have been your case. That's very well said. That's very astute. And very few people kind of like grok that. And I appreciate you saying that. And I really mean that because that was very much my journey. And I appreciate you saying that. And I really mean that because that was very much my

journey. And I've encountered that in so many people that don't kind of see it with that kind of keen insight. So I did jettison my faith when I was in my 20s and going to New York City to become an actor. And I just wanted to be an artist and bohemian living downtown. And I wanted to have sex with my girlfriend. I didn't want to feel guilty about it. And I wanted to be an artist and bohemian living downtown. And I wanted to have sex with my girlfriend. I didn't want to feel guilty about it. And I wanted to do whatever the hell I wanted to do. And I saw the hypocrisy in my parents and also hypocrisy in Baha'i community. And I tried being an atheist for a while.

And I was generally rebelling in a number of different ways. And the very long story, very, very short, I just was extremely unhappy. And I was suffering from a lot of mental health issues. At the time, I had anxiety attacks, and I was depressed a lot, and I was lonely a lot. And I had a lot of addiction issues and kind of subsequently found that I have a very addictive personality and really wired for addiction, kind of anything to kind of soothe my inherent dis-ease and anxiety. And like you said, that's when I kind of was able to separate my parents and things I didn't

love about the Baha'i faith, separate it from the faith itself. And as I kind of went on a spiritual faith journey at the time, I was able to kind of come back and embrace the Baha'i faith and the purity and beauty of the religion itself separate from my background. It's interesting the way that you came full circle to it. Because a lot of folks will also, and I'm probably one of these people, start to this process of dipping your toe in a whole bunch of different traditions and seeing, it's like the Goldilocks approach to finding your faith, right?

A little too hot, a little too cold, a little too straight, a little too loose. But it is interesting. I think a lot of folks do end up returning to the tradition of their youth, but differently informed. And I think sometimes they then step back into it, but with a different lens and practice it very differently. And I'm wondering, as you step back into it, do you feel like clearly you're different just as a person, but that you step into the practices, the traditions, the devotions, the community, and see it differently and practice it differently? Yes, that has been my experience. And I want to say for the record too, and we're kind of starting off talking about the Baha'i faith and my personal journey

as a Baha'i, you know, the book soul boom, why we need a spiritual revolution really is not a Baha'i book. It's not about the Baha'i faith. There are some sections that are very inspired by some Baha'i ideas, but the important thing for me, and I just want to say this from the outset, cause I'm going to be really sensitive because sometimes in this day and age, people get very nervy and very sensitive about like, oh, is this guy trying to convert me? And I just want to say for the record, I'm not trying to convert anyone to any way of thinking.

I just believe that we could all benefit from deeper, spiritually rich conversations, which you do on your podcast. And this includes positive psychology and the study of happiness and wellbeing. And I view that as spiritually tangential, what is it? Adjacent. Adjacent. That's it. Spiritually adjacent is positive psychology because it all is looking for the same end. So I just want to say that kind of for the record, in case anyone was wondering. And I'll just say that, yeah, for me personally, what I was able to do out of my confusion and misery is I read a lot of different faith traditions. I read the Bible, I read the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Dhammapada, the Buddha.

I went to different religious gatherings. I tried some different practices. I also, at the same time, was reading the works of the founder of the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah. And I think that that's what was different for me is that I had a kind of a profound and mystical transcendent experience going directly to the source without any intermediaries, without any, of course, there's no clergy in the Baha'i faith, but the intermediaries in this case being like my parents or my family or the people I grew up with that were Baha'i, that it was just me and the words or me and the word of God, me and the logos. And that's when I had that kind of transition into being a person of faith.

It's almost like when your quest was to a certain extent to try and remove the intermediaries and say like, how close can I get to the source so I can actually read it, digest it, integrate it, and synthesize it in the way that actually lands as true or untrue to me without some people telling me what it means to me. Yes. And this goes with a key Baha'i teaching, which is if you're going to boil the Baha'i faith down to a handful of teachings, one of them is the independent investigation of truth. So baked into being a Baha'i is that we all need to find the truth for ourselves, which is very different than many other religious traditions that are

kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, wait a second. We don't want you to look at other faith traditions. This is the only right one. And this is the way to interpret it and, and stick with this. But in the Baha'i faith, it's, you know, find the truth for yourself. This is your holy task. This is your, your holy war. This is your mission is to discover what works for you. And I've been quoting a wonderful quote by Julia Cameron from The Artist's Way. And she says, I became spiritual out of necessity, not out of virtue. And that's how I feel about it for me too. And this is how it works sometimes. I was miserable. Things weren't working. I looked for any kind of solution. I turned to spirituality and I found some key things that brought me some solace and some focus, but it's not that I'm some holy guy at all. It's what worked for me at the time.

And again, boy, have I just fallen in love with just people walking that path, whatever that means to that person and being engaged in these conversations. Yeah. We actually had Julia on the podcast a couple of years back. I had the pleasure of hanging out with her in her house in Santa Fe and just spending some time in conversation. And she certainly had moments in her life which would have demanded she return to something.

As so many do. And I think as we're having this conversation, we're in a moment in the world right now where you can point to the last three years and say the pandemic has turned everybody upside down and made them re-examine everything about their lives. But I think the bigger truth is that we've been going through a generations long wave of upheaval, sort of like how we touch stone, what we believe in, what we don't believe in, and where we find solace. And this is part of what you write to in Soul Bloom also. It's sort of like there's a lot of stuff simultaneously happening that we're all grappling with.

Boy, you hit the nail on the head and that kind of goes to the thesis of the book. And I'm curious to hear your take or what resonated with you. I start the book talking about, well, first I talk about why the hell is the guy who played Dwight on The Office writing a book about spirituality? So I get into that a little bit. And swiftly I get into this idea, it's a chapter called A Plethora of Pandemics, where I talk about all the pandemics that are going on in the world. We've just come through a doozy of the COVID pandemic, but there's so many more at work. And this is kind of one of the things that you're tangentially touching on, which is, you know, I view racism as a pandemic. I view income inequality as a pandemic. Sexism is a pandemic. And militarism and nationalism, materialism are really pandemics when you look at it. And climate change is the granddaddy of all pandemics.

But the one that's having the most adverse effect right now is the mental health crisis, especially among young people, which is why I so appreciate your podcast and the service you provide. And I've experienced some of these mental health issues myself. I've even crossed swords with suicidal ideation occasionally, and it doesn't get a whole lot darker than that. So I really feel for this young generation that is struggling so much and suicide being the leading cause of death for people under 25 and in anxiety and depression in numbers over 50% in college students. And the numbers are absolutely staggering. So for me, this conversation isn't kind of some airy-fairy, hippy-dippy, lovey-dovey, vague, kind of like patchouli and prayer bead-scented crystal conversation, although there's nothing wrong with any of those things, people.

But it's so important to us as a species and what we're going through right now. We're at such an important crossroads. We need to be examining all of the ways that we can increase our well-being. And part of that is looking at the brokenness of the systems that are currently operating on our planet and in our Western materialistic culture. And some of these spiritual questions and ideas are key, are foundational to trying to address this really deadly pandemic. I completely agree with the way that you frame it. I'm curious about something, and I don't think you wrote about this, at least I don't recall you writing about it, but when you list out the things that you talked about, and we also look at part of what's going on in the world of mental health, which has become a massive global issue, is a huge amount of isolation, but also is research. And granted, there are different

arguments about how research may be affecting mental health, especially in younger adults and kids. But there is a bit of a correlation between the emergence of screen-based communication and mental health. So it's in a weird way, while it's certainly a double-edged sword, and I'm not a Luddite, I love technology. I love what it gives us. We're hanging out in completely different places having this conversation because of it. And yet there's almost a pandemic aspect to it in terms of the speed at which some of the features of tech and asynchronous constant on intermittent reinforcement-based technology and communications is kind of rewiring our brains to be so much more

susceptible to potentially more suffering. And I'm curious if when I throw that out, like, how does that land with you? I say, amen, you know, and listen, I'm not immune. I got up this morning, I've taken social media off my phone, even though I'm active on social media, I have the good fortune of being able to pay someone to post my run my social media and and then you know i got up this morning and instead of meditate i had to get go somewhere for an interview and instead of meditating i just started looking at youtube and there's youtube shorts and all of a sudden 35 minutes had gone by like in 35 minutes just gone i don't know what I saw. I saw like otters building a castle and I saw a poodle jumping backwards and I saw Joe Rogan pontificating about something. And I mean, I don't even know what I did in those.

And they were just gone anyway. So I still have a lot to learn. But this was a quandary that we had at SoulPancake. So SoulPancake, for those who don't know, was a digital media company that I founded. And we ran very successfully for over 10 years. We had over a billion video views and 4,000 pieces of content across many platforms. Then we ultimately sold and merged the company with Participant Media, which is mostly a film company. But we had this conversation all the time. We did so many programs about positive psychology and trying to help people with mental

health. We did a documentary called Laughing Matters about comedians and mental health. We did a show called The Science of Happiness. You know, that was eight years ago before anyone was looking at kind of science of mental health. I won't say before anyone, but very few were looking at that science based happiness research. And at the same time, we just kept saying, but we're part of the problem. We're a YouTube channel. We're a TikTok channel. You know, we just kept saying, but we're part of the problem. We're a YouTube channel. We're a TikTok channel. We're an Instagram page.

We're getting people to look at their phones more. And I imagine in the future that humans will look back and be like, gosh, remember the early 2000s when all of a sudden they put in everyone's hand a smartphone with unlimited entertainment and distraction. Just remember that giant social experiment we tried? We just dropped those phones down and we gave them to 10 and 11 and 12-year-olds. And there was porn aplenty and you could just find any amount of porn you wanted to look at. And we just scrolled, scrolled, scrolled all day long, and people started dying from it and suffering from it without any kind of research. And I

imagine that's kind of the conversation we'll be having a hundred years from now. I don't know what the answer is. I think it has a lot to do with simply learning better health and practices with use of screens. I don't think we'll just be eliminating them, but I don't know. I don't have a solution. Yeah, it's interesting. Not too long ago, I think it was last month probably, I saw a piece on the news that featured a group of high school kids who started a club and they all basically, they turned in their smartphones and they got old flip phones and they would meet actually, they did this bizarre thing when they would gather for their weekly meeting, they met in person.

Wow. You know, when they wanted to find out where each other were, they would actually, they would use that rarely used function on their phone. They would actually call. So it's almost like, I almost wonder if there's the emerging generation is starting to realize, you know what, maybe not wholesale, but I feel like there's seeds being planted to say, this actually isn't making me feel the way I want to feel. And maybe I don't have to just buy into it, but I think you're right. Like I'm, I'm so curious if we fast forward 50 years and we look back at this window, you know, like,

will we look at this as just some sort of bizarre experiment and you know like thankfully we figured out how do we move past it and keep the technology but actually in a healthy relationship i hope so yeah i don't know what's gonna what's gonna happen there mayday mayday we've been. 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'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. So as we move through seasons like this, zooming the lens out, so often what tends to happen with dramatic upheaval, years of groundlessness, like the actual health pandemic we're coming out of, I would think that in past generations, one of the big things that tends to happen is people turn to faith because it gives them a sense of community. It gives them rules to live by. It gives them ways to answer their question. It gives them a sense that they're a part of something bigger and somebody maybe, or some being, or some entity or energy is

somehow benevolently watching over and taking care. And what's interesting to me is that this started before the pandemic. This has been like the last 10, 20 years. There has been a wholesale running away from organized religion. I recently talked to Steve Leder, the head of a large congregation in LA actually, Rabbi Steve Leder. And I've been asking leaders of different faith, like, what do you think is happening here? Especially now when generally these are the moments in history where people run to something like faith, organized tradition, which has all of these great benefits. I'm curious what your take is on why it seems like so many people are doing the opposite these days.

Yeah, great question and super important conversation. Well, I think people ran away from faith for a lot of very, very good reasons. There has been incredible corruption in so many faiths. We look at the Catholic Church. So many faiths are really judgmental. And if you have religions that truly believe in a hell that non-believers are going to burn in hell, that's a really tough pill to swallow in this day and age. And that drives away. That's one of the number one things I've read a bunch of studies on this very topic. And that's kind of the number one thing that has pushed young people away, especially from evangelical churches. And when you look at the history of the world, you see so much evil perpetrated by faiths that at their center, they teach love and they have just created a lot of war. So it makes a lot of sense that people would leave. But as I say in the book, I think we've thrown out the spiritual baby with

the religious bathwater. Because like you say, there are a great deal of benefits that can be derived from religion. Not that that's why one is a member of a religion. It's like, oh, cost-benefit analysis, let me find this. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe that is a reason to be a member of a religion. But it's not really a surprise in a way that the mental health crisis really started accelerating at the same time as people started leaving faith. Because what does it give you? It gives you community, common purpose. You sing together, you pray together, you meditate together, which amplifies the power of those forces. There are, I have a chapter in the book where I talk about the universals of religion and I, I draw out 10 of them. There's, you know, there's probably 20 or 30, but you know, the idea of transcendence that we are not just material beings, that there is something more to us than just living in our bodies, A sense of morality. People

don't like to talk about morality and they shudder at the thought of morality. It's really an unpopular topic. It's even more unpopular than God. But a faith gives you a sense of that. There might be moral choices that come from some kind of divine source. And I don't want to say like, this is a whole other conversation about God, but it doesn't mean an old white patriarchal scowling judgmental man on a cloud looking down and handing down his book of laws to Charlton Heston to walk down a mountain and, oh, we all abide by that. But that there are kind of spiritual laws, if you were, just like there are physical laws and laws of physics. There are spiritual laws. And you know what? Being honest is a spiritual law in every faith tradition. And we all like honest people. We appreciate people

that are honest, and we don't like people that are dishonest. you might want to legislate that you know in a way we do it in the united states we have legislation against if you lie you deceive someone you can get taken to court etc but deeper than that is there some kind of timeless truth in being honest in living an honest life i'm digressing but what else do I have in here? There's the centrality of justice. I think one of them also that you had listed out was a sense of service to others. And service to others. And that's in every faith tradition. We often look at the differences in religion and allow that to drive the conversation. Like, well, Islam and Buddhism couldn't be more different. Islam is all about the Prophet Muhammad and submission, Islam and Buddhism couldn't be more different. Islam is all about

the Prophet Muhammad and submission to Muhammad and Buddhism. There's not even really a mention of a God. And it's a personal private practice that has to do with finding peace and serenity. But if you dig deeper and really look at the writings of the Buddha, and you don't just kind of listen to a meditation app and look at a Buddhist Instagram page, but you dig deeper, there are a number of teachings in the Buddhist tradition that have to do with eliminating the suffering of others. And that is central to Islam as well, being of service. It certainly was demonstrated by Jesus Christ in his work.

And as you know, as a positive psychologist and the people that you speak to, we live in such a selfish society. But when we give service to others, when we do nice things for other people, it actually feeds us and makes us happier. So we live in a culture that has a lie at its center. And that lie is that do stuff for yourself and you'll be happier, make more money, you'll be happier, build a better career, you'll be happier, like have more social capital and you'll be happier. When actually that's not true. When you give to others, you actually feel increased wellbeing. And so there's a lot of these teachings that are foundational to all of these spiritual traditions that we could really benefit from. And I remember I did a movie in

England with this director and he was English and he came over and he was like, oh, Rain, I understand that you believe in God and you're a member of a religion. And I was like, yes, yes. And he's like, oh, I could never do that. I'm like, oh, no, you don't believe in a God. Oh, no, no, no. When I was growing up, oh, they dragged me to church five times a week and I had to recite the things and I had to wave the incense and I helped the priest fold the robes. And I had to sit through all the ceremonies year after year after year. Oh. I could never believe in God. And you can kind of just see on its surface the weakness of that argument that spiritual trauma doesn't really have anything to do on whether or not there's a God or not. But as a society, we're spiritually traumatized.

We're religiously traumatized. So what happens in trauma? Well, you have PTSD, but you go to therapy and you work on various practices that allow you to live with the trauma and then come to peace and understanding and forgiveness and move out the other side. And we just haven't done that yet. It's really interesting. And I don't disagree with any of what you said. And I think when you list out all of these potential benefits of literally any tradition, and as you've written about it, it's out there for anyone to see, there's good research that shows that people who tend to be a part of a faith tradition, almost regardless of what

it is, tend to be more content, tend to be happier with their lives, tend to have less anxiety. More resilient. Right. More resilient as well. Which is very interesting to think about people in a religious faith having greater resilience. And we talk about, and social psychologists talk about today's youth not having that resilience. That's another key factor. Yeah, no. And you wonder, you know, what aspect of faith is driving that? Is it just the whole thing? You know, the full catastrophe of everything that gets bundled into any tradition? Is it, you know, any one thing?

I've been thinking a lot recently about Messel's hierarchy of needs. And the bottom is all about security and sustenance. The top is all about aspiration and transcendence. And there's this little slice right in the middle, the third level of five, which is belonging. And I often wonder if it makes more sense to reimagine the hierarchy instead of a triangle from the bottom to the top as a diamond where belonging is actually, it is essentially, it's the thing that unlocks both safety and security below it and aspiration

and transcendence above it. So you would put belonging at the bottom. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. I would say it basically, it's the thing that everything else. It could be at the bottom and the top. Yeah. You need it just like you need food and shelter.

And it's ultimately what you're striving for too at the same time. I love that. Exactly. Exactly. You know, and even if you go back to you go back to historically when we were prehistoric days, belonging was safety. Belonging was security. And we find the strength, the will, the energy to reach towards something higher when we feel like we're accepted for who we are. And we can take that risk and we won't be outcast. That's great.

I love that so much. You know, as you say this, this is what it makes me think of about resilience and people of faith. So what do I know as someone who has a spiritual practice? I know that I'm a spiritual being, Jonathan, and my essence is spiritual. My essence is in my heart and of my heart. I'm in a body. I'm attached to a body. I'm associated with a body. It's a pretty beautiful body. It's a gorgeous middle-aged man's body, if I may say. It's a little bit pear-shaped, but nonetheless, it's kind of an abnormally long torsoed body too, may I say,

but nonetheless, my wife appreciates it. I guess she tolerates it. I digress. But the point is that when I look at my reality, I know that I am a spiritual being. All the faith traditions teach me this. So what does that mean? That means that suffering is going to happen. Life is suffering, as the Buddha teaches. Life is dukkha in the Sanskrit, which is dissatisfaction from happening, to stop suffering from happening, but to embrace them as a part of my journey in this corporal physical plane. And my spiritual journey is going to continue after this physical plane. So death is not the end. And avoiding death is also not the point of life. And I'm here to develop my spiritual talents and my spiritual faculties and to use those to the best of my ability to serve others and to find the maximum joy in the process along the way. So there's the meaning of life right there. So bad things are

going to happen. Family members are going to die. Pets are going to die. I'm not going to get what I want. A lot of the time, I'm really not going to get what I want. And there's going to be incredible struggles, both internal and coming at me from external. And I guess for me, I've found increased resilience being able to have that perspective. So perhaps that's one way that humanity could benefit from a spiritual practice or a faith tradition. Yeah. And completely agree. I love Buddhist teacher Tara Brach's frame, as she calls radical acceptance. The goal is not to try and opt out of all suffering because that's actually going to bring you more suffering because it's an impossible thing to pursue. It's just life is going to deliver this to your doorstep.

You know, it's sort of a radical acceptance of the fact that, oh, and this too is part of my human experience. So how can I find as much ease, find as much grace, and how can I skill myself and find myself in a community where I can move through that space knowing it's coming? And if it's not here today, it's going to be tomorrow. And if it goes away, it's going to come back too. And the highest highs are going to go away and the lowest lows are going to be there

and they're going to go away too. And like, how do we move through that and just own it all, but not grasp it and make it, you know, have it destroy us because it just becomes consuming. And I feel like we're talking the same language. That has been one of the fundamental roles of any spiritual tradition for time immortal. So as we move through this season, just like broader humanity, where we're being tested, there is the opportunity for suffering all around us all day, every day. If so many of us are now moving away from a organized spiritual path, what are we turning

to for solace, to feel the way that we want to feel, to be able to breathe as we're moving through this window? Of course, I know you're going to have all the answers. I don't know is the answer. I really, I don't know. But I do, I offer a new religion in here. I have a chapter at the end of the book called, Hey kids, let's build the perfect religion

where we take kind of some of those universal spiritual concepts. And then that dovetails into how I end the book, which has to do with eight pillars for a spiritual revolution. And it's why I really like the subtitle, Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. And I think it's what you're getting to. I have a lot to say here, but I'm going to hone it in and just say this part of the problem as I see it is that all of the systems that we have working are based on a faulty engine, a faulty foundation. Pick a system, any system, education system, the agricultural system, governmental system, healthcare system, whatever system you

want to pick. When you really examine it, it's based on profit and greed. it's based on one-upsmanship, aggrandizement, backstabbing, dog-eat-dog, every man for himself, survival of the fittest, competition. It's based on contest. That's unsustainable. We are communal creatures and we're cooperative creatures and we live in social spaces that want to nurture belonging. That's how we thrive. And yet our systems are based on the worst of humanity and the worst of being a human being, literally the very worst things, the worst venal things you can think. Think about Gordon Gekko

from the movie wall street. Like that's a horrible human being. And yet the essence of Gordon Gekko powers all of our current systems. So one of my theses in the book is that we need to rebuild and reimagine all the systems based on spiritual and cooperative concepts. Easier said than done, but it's not working and it's not going to work. It's not going to sustain if we keep going in this direction. So, you know, faith or not faith, we need everyone to work together for this spiritual revolution, for this transformation. And you can be an agnostic, you can be an atheist, you can be a Tibetan Buddhist, you can be a born-again Christian. It doesn't matter what that path is, but acknowledging that there is a foundation of really beautiful spiritual teachings and ancient traditions that can help reinvigorate

these systems is crucial to the necessary transformation. Yeah. 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.

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But we've been circling around this idea of community and belonging also. And again, it's one of these double-edged sword things, right? On the one hand, it gives us so much of the feeling that we want to feel safety, security, we're accepted for who we are. And yet it can so easily be co-opted at the same time because that can become an ethos of, well, there's us and then there's them. And if you follow certain beliefs, certain rules, certain ways, then you're us and you're anointed and you're in. And if you don't, then you're outside of the circle. And if you're outside of the circle, all sorts of bad things come your way. And we don't associate with those outside of the circle. And in the worst case scenario, we are better than those. And the us

versus them mentality, I think we're similar age, like I'm going back to us and them from Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd, which is, this conversation is not new. And like people trying to reimagine, the notion of how do you build a coherent community with a profound sense of expansive and inclusive belonging without hitting the edge where it becomes this hard edge of us versus them? It's something I've thought about a lot and I just don't have an answer to. Are we just wired as human beings to eventually get there? Or is there a way to actually genuinely create a truly accepting and welcoming community where everybody who steps in simply by the fact of their birth, they're welcome?

Well, one of the great examples of that lost to many contemporary Christians is Christianity itself. Perhaps the first big tent communal sense of belonging in human history, where all of a sudden, and I just love this history. It's hard to find, it's hard to find books on it and to dig into it. But the first 300 years of the Christian church, church service would look like this. You'd be on the shores of the Mediterranean. You'd have an outdoor church. There were very few like covered churches, meet outdoors. There would be pews. There would oftentimes not be a clergy member.

There wasn't necessarily priests. I mean, maybe someone would run the service, but there wasn't clergy in the way we understand clergy today. There would be a Roman centurion. There would be a Samaritan. There would be a Jewish merchant. There would be a prostitute. There would be a slave. There would be a Jewish merchant. There would be a prostitute. There would be a slave. There would be a noble person. There would be a farmer. They'd all be of different races, of castes, and different colors. And they would come together, and they would pray, and they would worship, and they would pray to the Father, God, and they would accept his Son, Jesus, and the salvation, knowing that they would be continuing their spiritual journey with surrendering to Jesus's teachings and will,

and read stories of Jesus and let those stories inspire them. And Romans at the time would write about the early Christian church, and they could not wrap their head around one thing. Why are all of these different disparate people coming together? And not only that, because that didn't happen at the time. You stayed with your tribe. You stayed with your family and your tribe and your caste. Not only are they coming together, they are pooling their resources, sacrificing their comfort and their wellbeing and their resources to serve others and to serve the poor. And they're serving the poor, not of their tribe. They're finding poor people wherever they are and they're being of service to them.

And it doesn't benefit them in the slightest. And this was like to the Roman historians of the time, it was mind blowing. So can we get there again? Yeah, we can get there again. We have to get there again. And we absolutely can because one of the things I write about is creating a new mythology for human beings. You know, you talk about us versus them, and you're absolutely right. We've always been like, we're the people of this cave, and we don't trust the people of that cave. And we're the people of this valley, and we don't trust the people in that valley. They look different than us, we're different or we're better or they're worse or whatever. But there's a whole other mythology of human beings helping each other, collaborating, consulting and cohabitating and living in harmony with nature as so many indigenous tribes have done over the eons. So we need to also focus on that. You know,

I am old enough to remember the seventies. Yes, that's right, Jonathan, the seventies. And in the seventies, people would talk about world peace and they would talk about it a lot and they would believe that it was possible. And beauty contestants would talk about world peace and politicians would talk about world peace and people really, you know, John Lennon would sing about world peace and all the musicians would get together and put their hands across America and heal the world. And now if you talk about world peace, people roll their eyes and they're cynical and bitter and they think you're a naive stooge and an idiot to even consider that. But we have to keep hope alive and we have to look

at a new mythology of humanity that embraces the possibility that we can build loving, positive, fruitful grassroots movements. I completely agree. Keeping hope alive is not always easy, but what's the alternative, right? Can I just jump in and tell one quick story about that? Yeah, please. I was an acting student in New York, and I had the good pleasure of working with Andre Gregory, the famous theater director from the subject of my dinner with Andre. And he would meet with his students and I met with him and he said, so how are you doing rain? And I was like, well, I'm just feel so cynical these days. And I feel pessimistic and things are so bad out there.

And I don't know. I just feel like it's all a bunch of shit and it's all going to, nothing's going to work out. And, and you know, my de facto fallback position. And he grabbed my arm hard and grabbed it and squeezed it and looked in my eyes within a rabid intensity. And he said, don't do it. Stop right now. You must stay positive. You've got to keep hope alive. You've got to keep believing. If you are cynical, if you become cynical, they win. They want you to be cynical. They want you to be pessimistic. They want you to give up. If you are cynical, nothing changes. You've got to keep hope alive. And he was, I mean mean it couldn't have been more intense i i could still feel it on my arm like how hard he was squeezing my forearm and then that with that he was like okay go and i walked out into the west village and i was and it really changed me and it

has stayed with me my entire life and yeah i i tend toward the cynical but i do believe that one of the superpowers for a spiritual revolution is we have to just keep hope alive. And you do it on your podcast and in your work. And so beautifully. I think we tend to conflate skepticism with cynicism. I don't have a problem with skepticism before being in Colorado as a 30-year New Yorker. So it's part of your DNA, a healthy analysis and like, let's really deconstruct this and go at it. But it can tip into cynicism so easily and just kind

of become your way of being. And we're so breathed by the creative impulse and it can't exist in the face of cynicism. And it's destructive on levels that we just can't even imagine. One of the other things that you point out and sort of like the invitation to say, let's reimagine this. One of the sort of central invitations here is to re-explore or explore a profound connection or reconnection to the natural world, which I thought was interesting. I get that. I literally moved 2000 miles so I can walk out the back door and be in the most gorgeous mountains in the Rocky mountains in Colorado. What's spiritual to you about this notion of reconnecting with the natural world? I have so much to say. Two examples. I just finished this TV show that's coming on in late May of 2023 called the geography of bliss. And it's where I got to travel around the world looking

for happiness. So we went to Iceland, Bulgaria, Ghana, Thailand, and then back in Los Angeles. It's kind of a personal quest for me to help me find happiness. And also what could we glean from these different cultures? And it was interesting because in Iceland, most everyone is an atheist. And of course I'm not an atheist and yet it's one of the happiest places on the planet. But it might be 80% atheist, but it also has 80% that believe in fairies. So what is that about? I think that's fantastic. I think that's terrific. And I mean, they literally like woodland nymphs, spirits of nature that live out in the woods that from their heritage, Icelandic heritage and the love and connection of the Icelandic people to their island is really phenomenal. I mean, you talk to any Icelander and those mountains, those glaciers, those beautiful waterfalls and black obsidian beaches. And I mean, it's a staggeringly beautiful

place, but they are so deeply connected. It's visceral. And I got to go do a cold plunge swim with a group of women that get together every morning at seven o'clock and they sing and they hold hands on the beach and then they plunge into the Arctic ocean. And it was like 52 degrees or something like that. It was cold. And it gets obviously even colder in the winter. Maybe it was 49 degrees. It was somewhere around 50.

I'm sure you've talked about cold immersion therapy and how powerful that can be to well-being in the brain and dopamine release and whatnot. And the, you talked about belonging, right? And the community that they created, these beautiful, powerful Icelandic women holding hands on the beach and, and singing together. And that's community that's church right there. But then also when they submerge into the ocean, like they have such a belonging of this is their ocean. This is the ocean of the Vikings. It's the ocean of the fish that feed them. And it's their Arctic ocean and they're connecting with it.

And it all is so integrated that that's what I think it is. It's allowing the natural world to be integrated into everything that we do. I talk in the book about Basho, the famous haiku poet of medieval Japan. And he would wander around to various shrines and holy places and towns. And he would be writing haiku, which is always based on the natural world. And he would leave the haiku behind at the shrines and he would move on just with a little bowl and his sandals and walking from place to place and eating some rice and observing herons and fish and flowers and doves and whatnot and writing about them and leaving them behind. And when I think about that, I think about that intersection between

art, the creation of art, the beauty of nature that you're pondering in your art, and the sanctity of the holy places that he was visiting. It's usually Shinto shrines. And there you have religion, art, and nature indissolubly connected and not separate things, but all one. And that's very similar to those Icelandic women bonding and finding happiness and cold immersion in the Arctic Ocean. So how can we incorporate, how can you, Jonathan, incorporate the mighty trees and mountains of the Rocky Mountains into your work where it's not necessarily just a place of solace, but it's part of who you are and it's part of the work you do and it's part of how you do the work. And we're not separate from it. It's not like, oh, I'm here and then I go out to nature or something like that. That's humanity's next challenge is integration. And that is the

feeling that I get when I step into the woods or like walk down by the ocean. It has always, nature has always been my temple. It's like the world falls away and everything is as it should be. So I love that you sort of centered that as one of the ideals that say, hey, we're going to reclaim this thing in a way that feels like we can all step into saying like, we're not going to form a new religion here, but let's talk about things that really matter to us when we think about the role that spirituality has played in history and the great benefits when it's really like done well and welcoming. And how can we reclaim the essence of that as we move through some interesting times, which feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of good life project,

if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life. Wow, I love that question so much. And I've heard you ask it before, but I wasn't prepared to answer it. I feel like to live a good life is to acknowledge my spiritual reality and nurture and cultivate it on my journey. And then with the energy and

light that's generated in that action, to share that with others, to uplift and serve others, which in turn feeds my soul growth again, which increases and allows me to have the energy to serve and help and uplift and inspire others, which in turn feeds me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That yin and yang dance between personal growth and service to others puts everything into a crystalline clarity for me. Thank you. Thank you. inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those, you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better. So we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered

because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series X 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 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.