How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - SPECIAL EPISODE! How To Fail: Alain De Botton on embracing vulnerability in the age of Coronavirus

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

In the second of two special episodes, the renowned philosopher Alain de Botton, returns to How To Fail With Elizabeth Day to talk about how to be human and how to stay (relatively) sane in the grip of a global pandemic. We talk about the fact that, right now, it's rational to be a little demented and how we should all take lessons from our childhood and be less ashamed of bursting into tears when we really need to. He tells me about the merits of stoicism, the comfort that comes from admitting the situation we're in without sentimentalisation and what it means to find consolation in these unprecedented times.Along the way, de Botton tackles how to deal with grief and dismantles the idea of any hierarchy of suffering - insisting that how we feel is a fact that must be taken seriously, even if there are people worse off than us. And he also tells me about the need 'to turn the light on in the room of your fears' so that the darkness no longer has the power to terrify us. This leads to the brilliant idea of having a pessimistic shopping list, where you write down all the things you're most afraid of.In many ways, this interview is the perfect companion piece to Mo Gawdat's episode last week: de Botton tackles similar subjects but approaches them from a different angle, one that embraces darkness rather than choosing not to dwell on it. I found it so comforting talking to him, and it's a comfort that has sustained me for the days since doing the interview. I hope it does the same for you.*If you really can't get enough How To Fail content and are looking for something to read during lockdown, there is a book! How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out now and available to order here*Alain de Botton is the founder of The School of Life You can see a video of this podcast recording on their YouTube channel.* How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and recorded, edited and mixed by Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail]* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayAlain de Botton @alaindebotton  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host,

author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Hello. So last week I released a special episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, where I spoke to the wonderful Mo Gowdat about how to cope with anxiety in the time of COVID-19. The response has been overwhelming. Thank you to everyone who messaged, emailed, tweeted, or shared the episode with their friends, family, and colleagues. I appreciate it so much. We both do. This week, I wanted to release a second special along similar

lines. Like last time, there are no sponsor trails, and we're not discussing three failures as we normally would. Instead, I wanted to be able to ask the questions that feel the most pressing for the times we're living through. And I wanted to ask them of one of our finest philosophers and thinkers, someone who could give us a calming historical and intellectual perspective on the things we're currently dealing with. So I approached one of my wonderful former guests, the best-selling author and founder

of the School of Life, Alain de Botton, to come back on the podcast. And he agreed. What he has to say can, I believe, help each and every one of us. Let me just warn you though, he doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of this situation, and yet I find his stoicism weirdly comforting to listen to. I hope you enjoy it too, and that it brings you a sliver of calming perspective in these turbulent times. And know this, I am sending love to you wherever you are. I am sending gratitude to all the heroes still working to keep us safe and informed. And I just want to say that although

we might be socially distanced right now, we are still in this together. And now, on with the episode. So, Ala, how are you doing in these turbulent times? So, I am absolutely fine. Of course I am, as many of us are, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't in the background, perturbed and alarmed by how swiftly things that we imagined were solid have revealed themselves to be slightly less than solid. I think that it's normal that we grow up with a sense that things are broadly always going to be okay, because most of the time they are. Look, it's like going to the doctor, isn't it? And every time you've been to the doctor, the doctor said, you're fine, you're going to live. But all of us are one day

going to go to the doctor. And one day, the doctor will tell us, actually, now it's the end, because that's the way that life goes. We've just, you know, collectively, as a civilization, as a planet, had a little bit of a health scare. We are having a health scare, we're having a planetary health scare. And that is unnerving. That said, look, living is always a bit of a health scare. We are having a health scare. We're having a planetary health scare. And that is unnerving. That said, look, living is always a bit of an emergency. Being alive is sort of an emergency situation. There is ultimately no such thing as total safety. If you feel safe, you've just forgotten a danger that's somewhere lurking in the background. We've been forcibly reminded of a very particular danger. There was a friend pointed out to me the other day, you know, this crisis has not removed our risk of dying of stroke,

heart attack, being run over, felled by a pigeon, or any of the other million dangers which we run every single day. So things are fragile. They always have been, always will be. And we're just being given a particularly forceful reminder. Look, it's sad to see people's businesses that they've built up so patiently over years destroyed overnight, people's efforts. It's heartbreaking what's unfolding in front of our eyes. And there's no sentimental bromide that it's worth coming out with at this point.

Sometimes one needs to cry, actually. One of the things that we're always taught when we grow up is that crying is for crybabies, and it's not a very noble or dignified thing to do. In many ways, the under fours or fives are much wiser than most adults. They know that when it gets too much, what you need to do is to take to bed, pull the duvet over you, and weep. And after 10 minutes of relentless sobbing, you'll probably hit bottom and be able to put yourself together and the afternoon will be a lot better. So I think we can suffer sometimes from a feeling

that we need to be braver than we in fact are. It's completely normal to be in distress. It would be rather strange if we were not distressed by this. It's a sign of sanity to go insane at points. And I think this is one of them where we might legitimately lose our hold on ordinary composure. So I really wouldn't want to advise anyone to feel that this is a moment for cosmic serenity and sort of stoic forbearance. It's just as much a moment for losing your mind for a little bit.

And maybe that's okay. And hopefully it will return. But if it gets lost this week or next, it's a good time. It's a good time to get lost, to get it lost. It's a moment for cracking open the gin and just getting lost for a bit. But I think the other thing that you raise there about the importance of crying, and I think that the other thing that crying does is it brings you back to the present moment. And there's something very reassuring about only having to handle the depth of the emotion that you're feeling in that present moment. And you're right that it feels much better afterwards. But I wonder, Alaa, what the ancient Greeks would make of what we're facing right now. Look, the ancient Greeks, and in fact,

many ancient peoples in general, had a very, very sensitive relationship to the powers of nature. They worshipped nature, but they did so half with an eye towards proper veneration and half with an eye of knowing that nature was a force that could slam them and slam them hard and might do away with them once and for all. When the night sky crackled with thunder, when the oceans roared in fury, they knew that this was a pre-sentiment of a natural force that was mightier than anything human. Part of what it means to be a modern person, and modern people have been around not for very long, it really sits the middle of the 18th century, to be a modern person is to believe in science, and more broadly, to believe in the powers of human reason, and the

power of reason to overcome any natural challenge. And that is a wonderful faith, but it is a faith rather than an actual certainty, because there are moments at which human reason runs out of steam in relation to a natural challenge, be it of the weather or of a microbial attack. So what we're suffering from now is something that the Greeks would totally recognise belongs to being human, which is that our order and our wishes are terminated by a force mightier than we are. We can call that the gods, we can call that Zeus, we can call that the COVID virus. There are many different names which one could append, but basically what one knows is to be human right now is to be on the back foot of something we don't quite understand

and we don't quite control. But the Greeks would also have reminded us that to be born is to face this because all of us are going to have to face death. So all of these things are merely echoes of the fact that none of us knows when they're going to die, how they're going to die, and we're powerless to prevent our own deaths. And on that fragility emerges a fundamental philosophy of humility. We have to proceed through this world with humility because we simply don't know what's around the corner. And look, you know, this could sound like a philosophy of total despair. Don't get me wrong here either. To proceed through the world with humility is also to be joyful, to be very modest in one's expectations, but therefore all the more keenly alive to what is

going right. You know, if you manage to get through to evening and nothing terrible has happened, fantastic. If no one close to you has suffered, if your interests are assured for another 24 hours, brilliant. But don't expect this over a lifetime. And for many older listeners, this is something that they've been through many times before in different perspectives. Younger listeners might think this is the first time anything like this has ever happened. Humanity has been here before and we will be here again. We'll be here in the 2050 asteroid impact. We'll be here in the 2070 visit from aliens from another planet and on and on. And the New York earthquake and tsunami of 31, 22 to be human is to be visited regularly by pretty large stuff, which for a time unbalances us. Of course it should,

and it does. And the only response, as I say, is crying and love. Let's remember love. I mean, we get confused about love in the ordinary course of events. We think love is something that two people do when they've met on a dating app. Of course, there's that kind of love, but there's also another kind of love, which is really based on charity for one's fellow vulnerable human beings. It's about extending a hand to somebody who is as vulnerable as you are. It's about recognizing their need, they're recognizing your need. And it could be a total stranger. That kind of love transcends the normal civility of like, do you know this person? Of course you know them, they're a fellow human being. And if they're in need, well, that's an echo of your need, and you might help out if you can. It sounds to me as if you are identifying the difference between what we do have control over as individuals, so our actions towards each other, and what we don't have control over, which is the actions of the fates, or whatever you want to call them, and how important it is to distinguish between the two and not be driven mad by the

latter. Yes, I mean, you know, this is the bedrock of Stoic philosophy, that ultimately, the way in which you can achieve composure is to withdraw the boundaries of your control. It's almost like grabbing territory. We tend to think that a lot of things are within our remit, our careers, the future of our countries, the future of humanity, that we identify with its upward progress. And then an event comes along that reminds us to withdraw the borders of our sense of control right in, and that actually, we can't control time, we can't control space, we can't control other people. At best, we can control an aspect of our minds, and even that is fragile. This is not, again, a despairing philosophy. It's an attempt to achieve composure in very difficult times. And I think that, you

know, when people say things like, you know, I don't like the president, or the prime minister is letting me down, or I'm not sure that the policy of France in relation to this is quite right. One wants to say, look, I understand the sentiment, of course, but let's just recalibrate the obstacles that we're up against. It's a miracle that we can find our own mouths, that we can wake up every morning and still roughly be the same sort of person we were when we went to bed last night. These things are all victories over the forces of entropy that we otherwise face. It has to be said also that a certain kind of dark counsel fits these times better than a sentimental optimism. You know, a lot of the time when people say, is it going to be okay? The answer is, sure,

it'll be fine. And that applies to so many of our ills. You know, we're used to thinking that the answer to worry, whether it's our worry or somebody else's, is it's going to be okay. We talked to the ancient Greeks, both they and the ancient Romans in their Stoic strand had a different view. In their view, the way to reassure somebody is not to tell them everything will be okay, because that's simply, it's not true to the facts. Some things are not okay. However, we might rethink what we mean by okay. Will something be bearable? Probably. Will I be able to get through it? Almost certainly. Will I be able to endure the worst? 100%. What is the worst? Let's put aside all sentimentality. We're grownups here. What's the worst that can happen to any of us? The worst that can happen to any of us is we die. This is

something that's already happened to billions of humans. They got through it. And we will walk through that threshold when our time comes with relative good grace. And I think one of the interesting things that's happened is that, you know, I've spoken to many people who in the ordinary course of events are very fussy, very controlling, very ambitious about what they can do. And then you say to them, you know, this could be it. And oddly, they say, well, if it really has to be it, I can take it. And this was somebody who was sort of screaming down the phone that, you know, the source wasn't on the right side or that they'd lost a bit of money or whatever. Suddenly, with a gun to their head, they go, you know what? I could die. I could, if I had to. I think this is actually innate within all of us. It's almost a biological

mechanism that we know, it sounds weird, we know how to die. In other words, we know we're alive, we know it's not going to go on forever, we know that in our bones. And if it were to need to happen, we could walk over that threshold. This isn't a way of saying that we should look forward to it, or it's going to be great, or we should take no steps to mitigate that possibility. It's simply to lend us a kind of a dark strength that what's the very worst that could happen, the very worst is that we die and we'd be able to get through it, as it were. We would be okay with our own death. And working backwards from that, we can start to build strength. Would it be okay to lose

everything we've worked for? No, definitely not brilliant. Could we survive? Yes. Could we survive the loss of, you know, make the list as long as you like, health, mobility, loved ones, reputation, money, et cetera, all wonderful money, etc. All wonderful, beautiful things. Could we endure without them? You know, the examples of history show yes. And I think, you know, we turn at this point to the examples of kind of biblical figures like Job, you know, who in the book of Job loses absolutely everything and turns to God. A wretched person who at the beginning of the book of Job had been full of confidence, full of family happiness, professional happiness, loses everything. Turns to God, you know, he's scratching his own skin with the shards of a broken pot.

He's in such despair. Turns to God and says, why? Why did this happen? And God's answer at this point is very fascinating. You'd expect that the answer would be, you know, because you've been bad and this is punishment or something like this. And God essentially says, it's not for you to know. These things happen and the ways of the universe are not necessarily for humans to know. Now, a modern person from Silicon Valley might go,

hang on a minute, we know exactly what's going on here, and it's down to this microbe, etc, etc. But the broader, more philosophical point is there are forces to which we are exposed, over which we have no control, whose directions and swirls and eddies we can't have a control over. This is sometimes something that we need to endure rather than control. And this is one of the lessons. something that we need to endure rather than control. And this is one of the lessons. I think that's so interesting because I've always been a firm believer in the power of constructive pessimism. As you say, imagining the worst case scenario and in a way, bringing your darkest fears into the light and examining them because then they lose their power to be terrifying. But I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned the idea of love

and how important that is right now. And I wanted to ask you about grief because people will be having to cope with grief a lot more over the coming weeks, tragically. What would you say to someone who is struggling with the loss of a loved one? How do you live with grief? Look, I think that one of the things that makes grieving for someone very, very painful is the sense of what if I had dot, dot, dot. There are so many things that when we lose somebody, we feel we should have told them, should have done, should have fixed, etc. We feel that

there has not been enough time to do something essential. I think it's almost always the case that there has been enough time. And even though one didn't have every last conversation, even if there wasn't a chance to say a formal goodbye, even if there were certain things that were left untied. I think we are able almost always to say a lot of what this relationship was about got through. Look, there's a broader point about how long should a life be? What does it mean to die young and before your time? We very often feel so-and-so went before their time. History is full of people who seem to have gone before their time. You know, Mozart dies at whatever it is, 32 or something, seems to have gone before his time, etc. And so often we think it's premature, we haven't had

enough of a chance. I think at times like this, when we're looking at death, we have to move away from a purely chronological view of what an important relationship is. It isn't to be measured by the number of hours. It is to be measured by the depth of the emotion and the connection that was built up. So maybe there was somebody who you didn't get to spend, in inverted commas, enough time with, but you spent enough time for that person's loss to matter immensely to you, which suggests that you did spend ultimately enough time because otherwise their death wouldn't matter so much to you. As some wise person said, that grief is the price we pay for love. If we are effective,

connected people, we will pay a price for all loss. We cannot both love and be inured to sadness, but I think we have to remind ourselves that enough of the relationship existed. Also, you know, it sounds very odd, but it's present in every culture. When people die, those around them worry that the dead are okay. Almost every culture that's ever been has wanted to assure the dead that their passage into the next life would be okay. In Christian culture, people sang hymns to the dead, that if a certain amount of prayers and songs were given to the dead, they would make it into the next world in a more pleasant way. This exists in Buddhism, in Hinduism. Gifts are given. In ancient Egyptian death culture, you need a certain amount of stuff to get through into death. It's a

poignant concern. Normally, people are going on a journey. You want to make sure they're okay? You want to call them at the other end? And did you get through okay? It's very poignant. The good news is it's unnecessary. The dead are fine. It sounds like an odd idea. The dead are properly at rest. That is what it means to be dead. And, you know, in the words of the Church of England funeral services, the dead are referred to as at rest. And there's something very beautiful about the term rest. Life is turbulent. Life is full of anger and frustration and disappointment. One thing we can be assured of is that the dead properly are at rest. They are at peace. We don't need to pray for them or sing for them. We can remember them with kindness,

but it doesn't matter for them because they have found peace. And we don't need to fear that they are vengeful, that they are angry, that they are suffering. It's we who are bearing those emotions. that they are suffering. It's we who are bearing those emotions. We mustn't project it onto them. We can own them. We can share them among friends and love them for all the beautiful things that we shared with them.

Let's talk about perspective, because I think I read online the other day that during the first world war young men were asked to go to the trenches and spend years on the front line in terrible conditions in grave bodily danger every single day and we ultimately are being asked to stay at home with our netflix box for a few weeks. These are the people who aren't NHS carers, who aren't the people working on the front line, who aren't dealing with contracting COVID-19 themselves, but the rest of us who are quite often in quite a blessed position. How important do you think it is to keep perspective? It's both important, but let me signal a danger. If a child is distressed, I'm taking a child deliberately as an example. If a child is distressed, if you point to it and say,

you know, you could be the Democratic Republic of Congo, the country with the lowest life expectancy and average income, and you're complaining that your toy is broken, buck up. It's not helpful. It's not helpful. That is not how kindness emerges. That is not how you build a thoughtful adult. It's humiliating. It's crushing. Everybody's sorrow is legitimate. You know, the tears of the emperor have a certain legitimacy. Now, they may not gain much public support, but if you're human and you're connected to somebody else's humanity, listen to them. Make space for their griefs, whatever it happens to be. There's no point saying, you know, somebody else's suffering was worse. Because when we're suffering, that's

not how we think. We're in pain. So we need to soothe ourselves. You know, soothing is, well, it's an art that all good parents know. What is it to be soothed? You know, a child is wailing. A parent doesn't start giving it a lecture. It doesn't remind it of GDP figures or its relative good fortune. It picks up the child and strokes its head and puts its heart next to the baby's heart, next to the child's heart. That's how you get soothing done. And we're all going to need to do quite a bit of soothing at the moment. We know hugging is important because some of us have now been told not to hug other

people and we miss it. Hugs are very important. Sex is lovely and kissing is lovely and romantic stuff is lovely. But hugging of a non-sexual sort, of a friendly sort, is perhaps a deeper and more humane act. And it's something that we may need at points small and large that we're going to be facing. So a certain amount of soothing. But listen, you know, perspective,

of course, from planet Andromeda, from the surface of Mars, from the International Space Station, our cries don't count very much. We are able at points to rise above our own circumstances. One of my favourite philosophers is Spinoza. And Spinoza says that, Spinoza's read a lot of the Stoics and very influenced by Stoic philosophy. And he says that all human beings are able to look at situations from two perspectives. The first is, as he put it, subspecie durationis in Latin, under the aspect of time. But we're also able, he thought, to look at life under the aspect of eternity, subspecie eternitatis, he put it very beautifully in Latin. And what he means by that is the distinction between thinking, you know, what's happening to me today right now,

versus how does it look like from 100 years? How does it look like from cosmic time? How does it look like from geological time, which moves in 100 million year increments? And we are able to flip between these two modes of thinking, we can both say, my drink has spilt and dirtied my keyboard, and I'm mad and so upset, and it's, you know, great grief. And then, you know, how's it looking for a Mars? I think this is something that we should do. It's rather cruel if somebody else does it for you, you know, because it's very easy to have a cosmic perspective on somebody else's problems, and then not such a cosmic perspective on your own. So beware, don't do it to somebody else, do it to yourself. But of course, it is a source of relief. It's a source of relief.

I was reading a history of natural disasters the other day. Oh my God, Allah, you need to get out more. I know, I know. It was very relaxing. You know, the plague of Justinian went on for, I think, three centuries, more or less destroyed the Roman Empire, made away with about 200 million people. When the Spanish landed in South America, they had some ships and horses. And of course, they had viruses and bacteria that wiped out 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas. And on and on and on it goes. You know, we humans have been through, as you very wisely put it, a lot worse. We will be through a lot worse again. And we, you know, we build up again. I think what's amazing is the human capacity for hope. I mean, it is extraordinary.

We somehow have this power. The whole thing is destroyed and we pick ourselves up and we go again. It's unbelievable. Maybe we can't and we go again. It's unbelievable. Maybe we can't take credit for it. It's in our genes and bones, but we certainly do do it and we've done it in the past and we'll do it again. And actually hearing you talk like that, it's a miracle that we're here at all. These two individuals chatting to each other through a screen is a sort of extraordinary triumph of hope over all the imponderables. It's kind of amazing just to

be here in this moment. I mean, absolutely. If you think of the long, slow path of human evolution, we're in the last sort of minute of it in terms of our technologies, and we're able to do some dazzling things. That we haven't managed to do everything is simply a reminder of how large the obstacles really are. People say things like, this caught us unaware, we weren't managed to do everything is simply a reminder of how large the obstacles really are. And, you know, when people say things like this caught us unaware, we weren't ready, et cetera. I mean, at one level, of course, we weren't ready and lots of postmortems, et cetera. But at another level, we've been doing quite well in some of our achievements. But at another level, you know, we're also a wicked and damned species that has been gumming up natural processes for hundreds of

years. And, you know, the blackbirds and lemurs and pangolins of the world are probably having a nice breather at the moment and having a little bit of time off from our depredations. I think a wicked and damned species will be the inspirational quote that I use to promote this podcast, Anna. I can see it there on Pinterest. Elizabeth, you know, wicked and damned and also beautiful and tender and glorious. The depths of our capacity to love is unbelievable. We are creatures of massive cooperation and huge trust. We will trust strangers over vast distances. We do know a lot about our aggressive sides and these are well recorded. But what's very moving is also

our capacity to love and to serve. Serving is an odd word because we tend to imagine that happiness is related to people serving us. But we crave, most of us, to be of help to other people. And if there's one nice thing that's come out of this is we suddenly feel that we have the power to help somebody else. You know, very often our jobs and the way in which the modern economy works is we're often very, very tiny cogs in vast machines. And at the end of the day, we don't really know that we managed to help anybody or made any difference, etc. Yes,

we got paid for doing something. So in that sense, we obviously help someone, but somehow it doesn't feel like we have. Sometimes in a crisis like this, we're asked to do things that are very tangible. We're helping somebody with their groceries. We're helping to ferry somebody from one place to another. We know at the end of the day that we've managed to make a difference. And that's so important to feel that you have the power either to reduce somebody else's suffering or increase their joy, is such a fundamental human need, but one that we miss out on day to day. At moments like this, we're closer to that sense that we're meaningful, that we have a role, that our lives are meaningful. Most of the time, we're out

to maximize our own happiness. That's the way that modern societies are framed. It's like, if you are succeeding in your life, you'll be trying to maximize happiness in your relationship and maximize happiness in your work and all the rest of it. For a moment, the pressure has been taken off. It's like, that's no longer what it's about. Like you're no longer that relationship maximizing person, that work maximized. That sounds almost obscene right now. It won't in a while, but right now it doesn't really sound like that's what it's about. And strangely, that can be a relief because suddenly you think, my goodness, I've been given a holiday from the arduous business of making myself happy, and I've got a chance to

make somebody else happy. And that's often a lot easier. We're very complicated creatures. We know so much about our strange desires and aspirations, et cetera. And meeting those is very, very difficult. It can sometimes be easier if the world narrows and you just think, right, I've got to do a certain number of things today. They're relatively simple. They're difficult, but they're simple in their structure. And that's going to help everybody to pull through this week. That can oddly be a relief from some of our grander ambitions. And it should also be said, someone said to me the other day, FOMO's over. FOMO, the fear of missing out. It's like, no one's missing out anymore. Everyone's at home. Everyone's just struggling to cope.

Everyone is kind of vulnerable and in difficulty. And don't get me wrong, I think they always are. I think we always are. We're never really missing out. It's just a phantom in our head. I think life is difficult for everyone. And if we open the head of the person who's gone to that glamorous party or who's supposedly having a terrific time, you know, being rich and famous or whatever, they have their own woes and their own troubles. But normally we kind of forget that and we think the party is going on elsewhere. We now know that the party is not going on elsewhere. There is no party. You haven't been excluded from it. There's just all of us. Here we are, 7 billion people on the planet, feeling a little bit bereft, feeling a little bit scared, and very much in need of each other's comfort and solace and

friendship. And that's maybe a better perspective to have on humanity than the previous one. I do think, though, that it is so difficult to be single and living on your own right now, whatever age you are. I mean, you mentioned earlier, the consoling power of a hug. And my heart really goes out to those people who don't have that, who don't have other members of their household that they can do that with. What would your advice be to someone who is feeling very isolated at this moment? So this makes me a little bit angry, in a sense, because this is our romantic illusion, really driving us onto rocks on which we should not be. Let's imagine that for whatever reason,

you haven't found somebody who's the right height, who's got the right hair colour, the right hair, the right whatever it is, you're single, they're single. This is about a very particular thing about getting together with somebody to, sex with and have a certain kind of thing, which we call a romantic relationship with. That is not the be-all and end-all of human connections. There are other ways to connect. So when you say someone is single, as though that is somehow a kind of category that defines their entire being, I don't believe that they're single or not single. I believe that there are connected humans and disconnected humans. You can be in a relationship and be a disconnected human. And my goodness, many people out there are. That's called a not-so-great

relationship. And let's remember, many, many relationships are not-so-great. They're not fulfilling to their participants in lots of ways. And those people are, in inverted commas, as single as so-called single people. So there's a disconnected person and a connected person. Let's also remember that connection operates across different categories of friendship. You can be connected to an animal. You can be connected to a book. You can be connected to a period of history. You can be connected to a child.

You can be connected to somebody you've just met. You can be connected to somebody that you've encountered in a chat room online. Whatever it may be, there are different forms of being together with someone and together with others. And I think that some of what drives the single, in inverted commas, to despair is the feeling that at this difficult time, most people are hunkered down with some very special person. They are on their own. No, it doesn't work like this. Being on your own and being connected cuts across boundaries of relationships, not relationships. If you haven't

got somebody to, you know, have a physical hug with right now, that doesn't cut you off from the possibility of being connected to other humans. There are other ways of building connections. And I would say that this time is quite a good time to remember that and for everybody to remember that. And certainly in my circle, a lot of people who don't have a partner are finding that actually they have something almost as good and sometimes a lot better friends, people they are connected with. And it doesn't need to be somebody who they've known for a long time. It could be a new friend. need to be somebody who they've known for a long time. It could be a new friend. And I think that what's the reason why connection is now easier than before is that our vulnerability is apparent to us. And let's remember what builds connection is an acquaintance with one's own vulnerability and a recognition of the other's vulnerability. If two people meet and they go, I'm fine,

I'm terrific, I'm doing really well, how are you? And they and they go, I'm fine, I'm terrific, I'm doing really well, how are you? And they go, yeah, I'm doing really well as well, I'm earning a lot of money, my career's going places. These people can't connect. I mean, good for them, they're having a great time and they may be having ambitious and shiny lives. Are they connecting? No. The way you connect is you go, well, you go one of a few things, but the options are, I'm scared, I'm afraid, I hate myself, I'm ashamed, I've done something wrong, I'm an idiot, I'm pathetic. These are the beginnings, oddly, of connection. Because when one vulnerability plugs into another, you have a recognition of mutual humanity, and the beginning of something to kind of play with in terms of a connection.

And I think that one of the good things about now, I mean, and please, I'm not somebody who thinks like this is a great time. And, you know, one of the good things about the shit show now, to be specific and basic, is that it's become slightly easier to say I'm not coping, to say I'm not having a good day. I've just had a cry. I'm at wit's end. Often, we're not coping, but we think we should be because the economy is growing. The economy is growing at a rough rate of 2% a year. How can you not be coping at 2% growth rate? Well, of course, many of us can't cope at 2% a year, but there's a sort of idea that you should cope because you're a modern heroic citizen. None of us are modern heroic citizens. We're all very

fragile. We're small children inside and we can't cope. And this is a time when it's become slightly easier to say, I can't cope. You know, I've spoken to a lot of people who suffer from anxiety. A lot of people suffer from anxiety. I think everyone suffers from anxiety. We're all anxious, but extreme anxiety. And some of them have said things like, well, you know, at last everyone's anxious or at last I can point to something out there, you know, that's identifiably very, very scary. And that's a little bit of a relief from the loneliness that I might otherwise feel, the loneliness of being, you know, the only person with that anxiety. So that's a silver lining.

I absolutely love that, the idea that vulnerability forges connection and that people with anxiety feel that the external world and now at least is reflecting something of their internal world. Thank you. That was such a beautiful answer. I wanted to ask you whether it is possible to live in a state of functioning denial right now. How good is denial for us? Look, let's have a moment to celebrate denial, because, you know, the general view is denial is a river in Egypt, and it's very terrible, and we should always overcome it. Bless our capacities for denial sometimes. You know, if we had to take in everything that is coming our way in one go, we might collapse. So the ability to bracket anxiety and to say,

okay, there's a lot of dark stuff out there, but I'm going to take it one day at a time. Let's sing the praises of one day at a time. You know, when we're grown up and ambitious and things are going well for us, we have a time horizon of years, decades. Like where am I going to be in sort of next year, in 10 years, et cetera, right? When we're in a crisis, very beautifully and very modestly, people's horizon shrinks and they go, we're taking it one day at a time. If you're 88 and having trouble walking and trouble breathing or whatever, you're not thinking years ahead. You're just taking it one day at a time.

Or if you're a small child, you're just going to get through to evening. It's really great to make it to summertime, et cetera. You don't have enormous plans. And there is a kind of wisdom in there, in the ability to sometimes just say, look, I'm really going to operate on the horizon of a few hours. So if I make it the next few hours, we're going to have a little clap at the end of a few hours, and we're going to go, fantastic, did well. And sometimes life deals are such a blow that we do have to retrench our time horizons. And I think this is in one of them. So we will say, where are we going to be next year, the next 10 years, et cetera. Look, let's just see where we are by tonight. And then tonight we'll see where we

might be by tomorrow night. And on and on we go in small baby steps. And along the way, we appreciate the flowers. Again, let's say it for the flowers most of our listeners i think will be in the northern hemisphere some of them will be in the south for those of you guys in the north flowers are coming out right starting to come out they've been in the ground flowers are coming out flowers are really pretty if you're an ambitious worldly healthy person of kind of 20 you know 20s i mean you will not spend much time looking at flowers. What on earth is the point of looking at a flower when there are seriously big things to look forward to, like an amazing, amazing love life, a terrific career? Why would you be arrested by a daffodil? However, when there's a crisis, you might pause. The interesting thing is almost no one over 70

is left indifferent by flowers and by gardening, right? Because by the time you're 70, like a lot has gone wrong and a lot more is going to go wrong. And so you just, you are delighted by this little small, vulnerable manifestation of beautiful nature. It's a spot of brightness in an often very dark world. And you will look at that and go, isn't that pretty? And it will fill your heart with gladness and joy. And I think that we're at that stage now, where all of us at that stage are thinking,

huh, I don't know about the bigger picture, but wow, that flower's nice. Or, you know, a bird was singing outside my window, and that was extremely pretty. And this is not sentimental. You know, to be sentimental is to think that everything's going to be fine, and that there is no pain and suffering, and aren't flowers lovely because everything's lovely to be fine and that there is no pain and suffering and aren't flowers lovely because everything's lovely. No, no, no, this is not this at all. This is going, to come back to my rude word, most of life is a shit show right now, but there's a lovely flower and that flower is even more lovely because the rest of life is so difficult. The difficulty of life has thrown into relief the beauty of modest things, which matter

so much more to us now. It's like, I don't know whether you've experienced this, but if you're an adult with a kid and you're reading a children's story, and it's a sweet story about a bunny rabbit hugging its friend or something, sometimes you just burst into tears as an adult, or tears start running down your face. If you're reading that story to a kid, the kid will be like, well, there's nothing sad about this at all. But as an adult, you know that the world is not about bunnies hugging each other. It's about killing and disappointment and sadness and betrayal and all the rest of it. So when in a children's book, you see something really tender and beautiful and pure, God, it can cut you straight to the quick, because it's such a contrast with what you

know. And so I think that explains why many of us get more teary as we get older. It's really that we've suffered more and we know we're going to suffer more. And therefore, the beautiful and pretty things are islands, which start to matter so much more than they did when, you know, when life was pretty much solid and nothing really had ever gone wrong. To get the true flower appreciators, go to people who've suffered a lot. Go to people who've been to wars and endured really bad things. They will have the best lesson in bunnies, flowers, bright, beautiful days. They won't be scoffing at them for one second. They'll know how important these things are.

Don't even get me started on Watership Down, which is one of the most tragic tales of all time. How important in that context is it to be aware of the difference between being informed and information overload? Because we do live in a culture where we have 24 hour news. And whilst that can serve us in some ways, in other ways, in this particular time, can serve us in some ways, in other ways, in this particular time, I'm finding it helps my mental health to ration the amount of news that I take in. Look, I'm so glad you brought it up. Look, I'm sure you and I, you know, we know people in news, it's not personal, but my goodness, these people damage our mental health, our mental well-being. It's almost impossible to have any kind of mental balance and be assaulted on an hourly or even quarter of an hour or 10-minute basis with ever more news of deaths, disasters, economic carnage, etc. There's just a limit to how much we can take.

We all have responsibilities both to ourselves and our loved ones in our immediate circle. Of course, we want to know about the progress of humanity, but sometimes in order to be able to maintain our own humanity, the sorrows and cries of distant strangers are things that for a time we will have to put on mute. This is not the same as callousness. Callousness is saying, I don't want to know because I'm pursuing my own pleasure. This is, I know already, but I can't bear yet another update of something I already know because I'm trying to do something here, which is important both to me and those around me, which is survive. And I think it's no source of shame to be deeply impacted by the things that we read. I think there's an odd way in which the news both parades very tragic things in front of our eyes, and at the same time,

almost expects that we don't take them seriously. Because to be told today in X country, 300 people died, or here's a beautiful person that was wiped out yesterday in their prime, just as they were growing their career, etc. These are devastating things. And if we are halfway sensitive, they're going to cut us to the quick. And I think that rather than us becoming numb to the bad news, better to pause the bad news, maintain our sensitivity, but remain more open to the things that are happening immediately around us. We can't take the sorrows of the entire world on our shoulders. And the modern media expects us to. The modern media, it's almost like they're saying, what terrible things have happened in the last 24 hours? Anywhere on the planet, you need to know about it. No one can do

that and remain sane. It is too much. The cries of the whole of humanity of 7 billion humans is too much for any one sensitive human to bear. So the more sensitive you're inclined to be, and all of us, I think, have a high sensitivity, perhaps far higher than we think, the more it becomes important to say, you know, I know the bare bones of this story. I've picked up roughly what's going to happen. It's not like I'm without any basic guidance. I know what to do. I've picked up roughly what's going to happen. It's not like I'm without any basic guidance. I know what to do. But I'm not going to listen for seven more hours. For seven hours, I'm going to focus on what my own eyes and ears can pick up. That's going to be my world. If there's distress within my field, I will respond to that. But I will not go out and seek to hear of the distress of people

whom I can't help and whose distress will merely interfere with my ability to help those that I can help and I think ultimately it's a utilitarian calculation what does it help for me to know there are certain things that yes you need to know because you're going to respond to that information and other things that are going to start to wear away on your capacity to endure. I wanted to ask you about guilt. It's a very odd time to be feeling guilty and yet it's something that I've noticed in myself and in lots of other people and there are various different categories. There's guilt that we're not doing enough, there's guilt that we're not doing enough to help the NHS. But there's also the weird daily guilt that you haven't got down to writing that life-defining novel that now you've got time to write, or you're not homeschooling your children sufficiently, or I have a strange guilt that I'm not going out for a walk, even though I know I shouldn't, but we've been taught that fresh air is good for you. And even my mother, who has had COVID-19, is feeling guilty for feeling exhausted post-virally and feeling guilty that she's not

sort of getting up out of bed. Where on earth does that guilt come from? Look, we are by nature ambitious. We always can contrast what we have and what we've done with what might be. And this is part of a, you know, it's a wonderful part of human beings. We imagine a better world for ourselves and a more resourceful use of our possibilities. There's nothing inherently problematic about that. But where it becomes a problem, of course, is when we set ourselves goals that we can't reach. And when our failure to have reached those goals then becomes a reason why we can't move at all. So in other words, where our past failures, in whatever way, become a cause for further failure. We're then in a loop, we're then in a downward loop, when our shame, our own idiocy and fragility and laziness

becomes a further reason to spin on our own axes. At this point, it is very helpful to do something salutary, which is forgive ourselves. Forgive ourselves for being idiotic. Of course we are. What other option is there for a human for being lazy? Of course we are. Here's a word on procrastination. We do a lot of procrastination. We're going to write that novel, but we don't. We're going to write that plan, but we don't. We're going to do this thing. Is it that we're lazy? No, we're not lazy. We're scared. And what we're scared of is attempting something which we don't, we're going to do this thing. Is it that we're lazy? No, we're not lazy. We're scared. And what we're scared of is attempting something which we don't manage to the level that we had expected of ourselves. So this happens every day when we have an idea of the cake we want to bake, the novel we want to write, the speech we want to make, and then we make our first steps. It's

not as we wanted and we fall into total despair. I think we don't have a correct sense of the laziness, the fear, the compromises of other people. We know our own so well, especially if we're honest with ourselves. It's like, you know, Elizabeth, you know how lazy you've been. I know how lazy I've been, but I don't know how lazy other people have been. So we have, you know, a bird's eye view on our own frailties, and we kind of project that other people out there are much, much better than us. The hidden secret, which is not a secret, of course, is that all of us are massive procrastinators. I mean, oh my goodness, we delay, and we delay because we're scared, because we're not as we want to be, etc. So let's remember that

the journey towards being a better person is a very long one, a very bolder one. It is so normal to fail. So if you wanted to be a better person today and you failed, if you're trying to be a better person this week and you fail, if you're trying to be a better person for the last year and you fail, this isn't a sign you'll never get there. It's a sign that it's very hard. It's also evidence that you know something about yourself that you don't know about other people, which is actually that great novelist, that great business person, that great ethical hero. They also had struggles. You just didn't see them. They wiped away the traces of their effort. You know your effort. You know

your disappointment. You don't know theirs. But of course it existed. And so even though we don't know it, we should imagine it. And it should not be a reason to not give it another go tomorrow, half aware that we'll probably fail tomorrow as well. And that's fine too. And in terms of dealing with fear, would you advise someone sitting with it rather than trying to ignore it? How do you deal with being terrified at this moment in time? Look, I mean, here, you know, again, I go to the Stoics. So the normal view, if you're scared, is to be told it will be fine.

I don't think that's soothing. I'm not soothed by that. I like to hear, even if it's not fine, how can it be okay? It's not going to be fine. How could it be okay? So, you know, money gets really tight. Okay, it's not great, is it? That's not great. No, that's bad news. But how could it be? How could it be okay? How could we somehow cope? We might get sick. That's not going to be great. How might it nevertheless be okay? And even if it's not okay how might it nevertheless be okay and even if it's not okay can it be born and even if it can't be born can the unbearable be born yeah yeah because

that's what we do i think that's how we calm down by switching on the light in the room of our fears not by bolting the door shut and never going in there, but by going in there and just staring down those fears and just going, okay, get a clean sheet of paper and write down what I am terrified of. One, two, three, four. Write them all down. The shopping list, by the way, is one of the great inventions. The psychological shopping list is one of the great inventions.

Our minds are confused spaces. We have lots of dizzying, anxiety-provoking thoughts buzzing around in them. To be able to get them down on a piece of paper, look at them and unpick them and go, okay, if this thing came true, how might it still be okay? And then the other thing, of course, we need to do with our fears is share them. It's the last thing we want to do because our tendency when there is a fear is to be ashamed of it and to hide. The moment you lean into the vulnerability and reveal it to another person, well-chosen person, is often the moment when, you know, dawn can be felt for the first

time because there is support on hand. You know, very often there isn't an answer, but there is consolation. I'm very fond of the word consolation. Consolation suggests that, you know very often there isn't an answer but there is consolation I'm very fond of the word consolation consolation suggests that you know not everything can be solved but there are consoling moves we're in a world where kind of we need to make ourselves at home with a word consolation because you know not everything's going to be perfect but there are some consolations available and one of the great ones is fellowship, connection with others. Do you think we've always been ashamed of sharing our fears? I mean, right back to early man and woman?

Look, I think it all depends on the structure of the expectations that are placed on you. What is supposed to be, that was a terrifying word, normal. And those expectations do shift. that was terrifying words, normal. And those expectations do shift. They're different if you're a child to if you're an adult, right? So it's okay for a child to be scared, not so okay for an adult to be scared. That shouldn't really be the case, but it is. Traditionally, it's been more okay for a woman to be afraid than for a man. Is that right? No, it's not. Why shouldn't they be equally afraid? In British upper class life, we're sitting here in London, British upper-class life, it was supposed to be the French people were afraid, but good British people were not. Nonsense. So there are always these models of where vulnerability is allowed and where it's not

allowed. I think one of the freedoms of kind of modern enlightenment is it's allowed everywhere. And the graceful acceptance of vulnerability belongs to strength. The graceful acceptance of insanity belongs to sanity. There is no wise, sane adult life that isn't at the same time, shouldn't be at the same time well acquainted with insanity, childishness, immaturity, failure. These are all part of what a so-called good life involves. And we can blame our notions of so-called success for not allowing enough of that nuance into the picture and therefore forcing us to be far more isolated than we should be with some of our greatest and paradoxically most universal sorrows. You and I have spoken before about how the modern notion of success

relies on exceptionalism and the worship of exceptionalism and that idea that when you are famous, you are plucked out of your mundane obscurity and their happiness lies. And I just don't really have a question. I just wanted to reiterate that because I think it's such a good point that finding joy in the normality, I suppose that's a lesson for these times as well. Yes. I mean, again, silver lining here is, you know, we are all in this together in the sense that, you know, we're speaking today at a time when we've just heard, and it, you know, we are all in this together in the sense that, you know, we're speaking today at a time when we've just heard, and it, you know, it has almost, I don't mean this disrespectfully, almost comedic thing that the future king of the country that we live in has caught this virus. I

mean, this thing is no respecter. It doesn't care if you live in a mansion. It doesn't care if you're going to be the king. It's coming for you anyway. And it is the great level. Now, there've always been things. I mean, the key one is death, to which we're all exposed. But I think in ordinary times, we create these hierarchies, they're false hierarchies, in which some people belong in a superior world, where they're supposed to not be touched by the sorrows of the rest of us. Moments like this, we're reminded, obviously, that's nonsense. And that's the way in which we feel togetherness. That's why we do feel together. And it's a difficult moment, but there is nothing more joyful than a feeling that we are part of a society and we belong to a community. We know so much about individualism and individualistic pleasures. We're still taking baby steps in the joys of community and in the pride we can have in being a community. It's very hard being on your own. And that's why we need others. And to recognize

our nature as communal beings is one of the great supports that in ordinary times we've unfairly disallowed ourselves. You are an atheist, a thoughtful atheist, who I know has spent a lot of time learning about different religions. But I wonder whether there is part of you that feels there is some kind of meaning to what we're now going through, some sort of universal meaning that is unfolding, that can only be understood by a power greater than ourselves? I think we need to be careful here. You know, I just read Albert Camus' La Peste, The Plague, you know, wonderful, fascinating novel about a city in Algeria that is visited by the plague. Again, a lot of de Botton-like reading going on in the time of the virus.

Anyway, fascinating book, recommend it if you've got some time. And at one moment, the city is dying, you know, thousands of people are dying every day. It's a harrowing scene. And there's a priest in the city. And during one very powerful scene, the citizens of the city gather in the main cathedral. And the priest stands up and gives a speech and says, this was ordained. This plague is here to remind us of certain things. Most of all are sins. And on and on it goes, you can imagine. And Camus, who was an atheist, has some very bitter lines that he puts into his hero, Dr. Rieu. And Rieu says, very bitter lines that he puts into his hero, Dr. Rieu. And Rieu says, there is no such thing as a willed plague. This plague doesn't mean anything. And later that day, a child, an innocent young, of course, innocent young child dies on his hospital operating table. And he says to the priest, you know, was this death meaningful? What meaning are you going to give to this child's death? This is an obscenity. And I'm not accusing you of thinking this way, but I think that this

notion that somehow this is out to cleanse us, take that to the, you know, wards of the dying. It's not true. This is a freak, random, molecular accident that has befallen us. Now, this is not to say that we can't put meanings onto it, knowing that these are our own meanings. We're projecting. And that's okay. Sure, if you want to project, you know, this might be a reminder that you should write your novel. This might be a reminder that, you know, you need to be kinder to your grandmother. Whatever it may be, fine, put it on there. But don't think this is the universe speaking to you. The universe doesn't speak to us. It's we humans. As far as we know, we're all alone spinning on this rock. And this was not a sign from God, supernatural force, or anything else.

So by all means, use this psychologically if you need to. This could be a spur to all sorts of potentially rather useful things. Reminders, evocations, goads towards certain things. But let's not fall into the trap of thinking that we, in inverted commas, deserve this. Such a good distinction. Thank you. I know that you write a lot about the power of rituals, and I wondered if you've instigated any daily rituals at the moment, and how important you think a kind of structure is to get through the days. Well, I read with some interest the advice of a person on a submarine who'd spent a long time on a submarine. You know, he made very useful points about exercise, food, the so-called small things.

So I'm keen to follow those things. It's a reminder that we are creatures of the mind and the body, and we neglect the body at our peril. And I think, you know, wise parents often know that when things are looking very bleak and despairing, it could look like, you know, life's over. But actually, it's not that. It's that you need to get an early night or that your blood sugar levels are low. And I think it's useful at times like this to pay quite a lot of attention to that. You know, yes, your perspective on GDP figures or the future of humanity may be taking a downward curve. But just ask yourself, have you been on a walk around the block first before, you know, giving up hope on humanity? Have you had some

orange juice? A little bit, not too much. Have you done a few stretching exercises? Because these belong to mental health as much as other things. And we neglect, you know, we can get rather grand thinking that we're just creatures of the mind and that our thoughts are merely the emanations of our powers of reasoning. Often they are the emanations of our low, you know, sugar and sodium levels. And so we need to pay attention to those as well. Well, I'm glad you brought up low blood sugar because I know from our previous interview that you love Jaffa Cakes. And I would just like to reassure the nation that you have enough Jaffa Cakes. Have you stockpiled them?

I'm out of Jaffa Cakes. But the good news is that I found the other day some dark chocolates, over 70 percent. And it's serving its purpose. Stocks are going down remarkably quickly. But there are moments when all the finest arguments in the world are as nothing next to the uplifting benefits of a small square of over 70% cocoa chocolate. Alain de Botton, I cannot thank you enough for coming back on How to Fail.

Thank you so, so much for sharing your extraordinary wisdom. Thank you so much. And thank you for all that you're doing for us. We're failing on a planetary level, but it's also, well, it's wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much. And thank you for all that you're doing for us. We're failing on a planetary level, but it's also wonderful to talk to you. Thank you. You too. We're connecting through vulnerability. Absolutely. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.