I've Got Questions with Sinead Bovell - If AI Takes All the Jobs, What Happens to Our Purpose? (Existential Psychologist Weighs In)

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Clay Routledge is an existential psychologist, author, and leading researcher on meaning, purpose, and nostalgia. His work explores a fundamental human need: the need to feel that our lives matter. In this conversation, we unpack why so many people today feel caught in a modern crisis of meaning, even when they’re productive, successful, or doing everything they were told would lead to fulfillment. We explore how social media, rapid technological change, and the rise of artificial intelligence are bringing deeper questions to the surface about identity, work, and what truly gives life meaning. Clay reflects on why so many of our assumptions about success, productivity, and purpose fall short, and how someone can go about finding meaning and purpose if they are feeling lost. We also discuss the surprising role nostalgia plays in helping us navigate change, and why questions of meaning and purpose may become even more important in an AI-driven world. You can grab a copy of Clay’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Past-Forward-Nostalgia-Help-Meaningful/dp/1683648641 00:00 – What Does It Mean to Find Purpose? 05:00 – Why Humans Need to Feel Like They Matter 10:00 – Are We Living Through a Crisis of Meaning? 15:00 – Work, Identity, and the Fear of Being Replaced 20:00 – How AI Is Forcing Us to Rethink Human Value 25:00 – Decoupling Job Titles From Who We Are 30:00 – A World Without Work: Utopia or Dystopia? 35:00 – Nostalgia as a Guide to the Future 40:00 – Technology, Presence, and What Makes Life Meaningful 45:00 – How Humans Reclaim Meaning in Times of Change Follow my work here: Substack: ⁠⁠https://sineadbovell.substack.com⁠⁠ Website: ⁠⁠https://www.sineadbovell.com⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/sineadbovell⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/sineadbovell⁠⁠ Twitter / X: ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/SineadBovell⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/Sineadbovell⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@sineadbovell

You've described that we are in a crisis of meaning. Do you think AI and the impact it could have on the workforce is going to exacerbate our confusion around meaning or it's exposing it? Is some new technology comes along and it disrupts that can cause an existential crisis or a threat to our sense of meaning? You're saying we actually have an existential need to mean something to others. That's a big issue now, especially around the topic of mental health because the advice we get is to turn inward, to engage in self-care. We're seeing the rise of this counterculture. People are unsubscribing from dating apps and joining things in person to meet people.

People feeling like, oh, I just want to get into nature. We're not trying to go back to the past. We're trying to use the past to build the better future. And what advice would you have for somebody who feels like they're struggling to find meaning? What does it mean to feel like our lives are meaningful? And how do we go about finding purpose? And in an era where artificial intelligence will introduce some major disruptions to the idea of our identity and how we spend our time, how should we be thinking about this?

Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Clay Rutledge, an existential psychologist who studies the role of meaning in the human life, how we create meaning, how we find meaning, and the scientific role, things like nostalgia play in our quest for it. I'm Senebeauvel and this is I've got questions. Dr. Rutledge, what does it mean to be an existential psychologist? So in my academic training, I was trained in a field that's called social psychology, which is really how humans navigate the social world. But I was particularly interested in the unique human capacity to introspect and ask questions about the nature of our existence and how that is shaped by and shapes our social life. So I was really more into those big questions that as far as we know, humans are the only organism capable of asking.

So questions about why am I here? What's my purpose? What happens to me when I die? Is there something larger or more significant than my time on this planet? And a big portion of your work is dedicated to this idea of meaning, right? So how do you define the human need for meaning? And why is the need to feel like one's life is meaningful and existential necessity? Yeah.

So one thing that I think is especially interesting about the need for meaning is sometimes it's compared to other needs, like the need to belong. And that's a big part of it. Humans are social, right? We like to have relationships. But it's more than just having relationships. We like to feel like we have a significant role to play in a meaningful cultural drama. So we're cultural organisms.

And because we can introspect and ask these questions about the nature of our existence, like, why am I here? We want answers to those questions. And we want to feel like we're here for a reason. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be a religious question. For many people, it is. But more fundamentally, it's a question about what's my place in this world? What's my role in this cosmic drama? And then what we find is a lot of that comes from the sense that we matter or that we're useful.

And I think that's a big theme for regardless of where you find meaning and people find meaning in all sorts of different places, the core, the common theme is they want to feel like they matter, that they have a role to play in the lives of others. It is so interesting that you say that, right? Because we often hear things like self-worth. It has to all come from inside. That's something that you define for yourself or something that you have to just. realize, but you're saying we actually have an existential need to mean something to others, to feel significant, and not in a way that we have to be famous or in terms of followers, but it's external to us. We have to matter to something outside of our own selves.

Yeah, I'm really glad you're emphasizing that because I think sometimes people confuse why we need meaning with how we find meaning. And the why is more introspective. It's our ability to turn inward on ourself and realize that we exist. So that sense of self-awareness and to see how we exist in the larger schema themes. And so our intellectual capacities drive our need for meaning, right? I don't think my dog has a need for meaning. I think she's got a lot of other needs and, you know, has social needs even. But as far as I know, she doesn't ask herself what her purpose is or introspect about the

nature of our existence. We do that. So we turn inward and that makes us want meaning. but we don't actually find meaning inward. We find meaning, as you point out, by turning our attention outward on the world. And so meaning really is about how can I make a positive impact in the world, in the lives of others, and whether it's through our jobs, through our roles and our families, through the traditions and rituals we subscribe to in our cultural life,

it's about what can we do to impact the world. And I think that's a big issue right now, especially around the topic of mental health, because so much of the advice we get is to turn inward and to engage in self-care or to spend a lot of time ruminating about our place in the world. And that's important, but it's also important at some point to turn your attention outward and say, okay, I've got to get in the game because meaning's about action. It's about going out and making a difference. Yeah, and I don't know if it's the rise of social media or what has happened that's really focused our attention inward. We've almost over-rotated. And so when we talk about self-care or this idea of empowerment, what we often hear are terms like, you know, this is my year, this is going to be the year that I am going to be the best version of me. These are my goals. I mean, people set New Year's goals. It's now mostly just about the self. Yeah, yeah. But you're saying that could still lead people to feel this void, almost the more we over rotate inwards, me, my boundaries, my life, my health, the more it's possible will still feel a bit empty because meaning actually has to be external to us.

some way. Yeah, that's right. And that's not to discount the importance of some variant of what we might refer to as self-care. Of course, obviously, you have to think about your needs and your goals and the things that make you unique and that you want to strive for for yourself. Then what we find is even in those what seems like self-directed aspirations, such as a career, which we often think of, oh, this is my career, these are my personal goals. The research finds that it's when people think about how those goals impact the lives of others positively that they derive the most meaning from it. So for example, in one study, they had office workers think about their work in two different ways. In one group, they had them think about how their work is helping them climb their career

ladder and improve their own situation. And another group, they had them think about how their work is making a positive difference in the community or in the world around them. And the group that thought about that positive difference was reported higher levels of meaning derived from their work. So yeah, it's important to look out for yourself and to pursue your own interests and develop your own sense of self. But you're absolutely right. What the research shows over and over again is that the way to generate the most meaning is not to fixate on your own concerns or worries or dissatisfactions or ambitions as much as it is to get out in the world and try to do something that makes a difference in the lives of others. And you've described that we are in a crisis of meaning and I feel it.

But I want to hear from you why we are in one. Yeah. So I go back and forth on whether or not to use the term crisis, because on the one hand, there are data that suggest that young people, for instance, like high school students, are more likely to report that their lives are meaningless today than they were maybe a decade or so ago. And so you do see some trend lines that suggest a sense of meaning is in decline. But at the same time, the story of the human condition, you know, throughout history has been a story of struggle, of challenge. You know, the world throws different things at us, you know, whether it's wars, whether it's social upheaval, and people have to grapple with these questions of meaning.

So I don't think it's necessarily the case that a crisis of meaning is unique to our specific time as much as it's a unique to the human condition, right? that humans are constantly in a struggle to find meaning. And I think a lot of this ties back to like a theme of agency. And I'm guilty of this to be clear. Like when we talk about the decline of meaning, we say things like, well, religion is declining and that provided people with meaning. Or the fertility rate or dropping or marriages. And so you're saying that these kind of these factors are why we don't feel as much meaning in our lives, but that's not true. And I think that's part of the story. But the way we talk about it is we're not very. careful. I'm saying we collectively. I do this as well, but when you see social and commentary,

you often see things like you just said, well, people used to get married and have families and go to church and have faith in their institutions, and that provided meaning. So I think that's part of the story, but I think the key word is provide. Those things don't actually provide meaning. They provide a framework or guide to building a meaningful life, and we all can look to guides and mentors and cultural frameworks to do that. That's important. We don't just exist at a vacuum. But we have to be the ones that create the meaning. So I think we've gotten more, to your point about passive consumption, we've gotten more passive, I think. Even the experts have gotten more passive in our language. And so I think a more correct way of saying, if I could rephrase some of the,

some of my own statements would be, no, these things don't provide meaning. They provide opportunities to create meaning. But ultimately, you have to get out there. and build a meaningful life. You know, when people talk about the decline of churches, for instance, you know, part of me is thinking, well, nothing's stopping you from starting a church or going to church. I mean, they still exist in every community. People can go invest in the institutions that they think are important for their community and for their personal well-being.

People can find partners and get married. Maybe, you know, maybe the marriage market's more difficult. Right now we're seeing tensions, you know, between men and women that other people have been commenting on. So it's not that there aren't challenges, but the answer isn't to say, well, these things don't exist, so I can't have meaning. The answer is to say, well, what can we do to rebuild these institutions or to build new institutions or to, you know, to help contribute to the type of culture and climate that inspires people to create meaning? Because meaning is ultimately an active agency. It's an act of action. At the end of the day, we have to do the

work and maybe that's part of the challenge with with young people and the the lower rights of meeting that they're reporting is you know we're not sufficiently encouraging them to do the work and we're you know we're not saying yeah you know it's hard it's hard to build a beautiful life you don't just inherit meaning you have to earn it and so I think that that's that's part of the story and so you know going back to your question about are we in a meaning crisis or what's the cause of the meaning crisis I think we are going through obviously a lot of technological societal upheavals and challenges. I'm sure we'll talk about the rise of artificial intelligence and people's concerns about how that might affect their ability to make a living, for instance, in the future,

and what their purpose will be if robots can do work. But at the end of the day, meaning is really about mattering. It's being like you matter. It's feeling useful as a simpler way of saying it. And so a lot of times that means being entrepreneurial. You have to create your own usefulness. You have to show to others that you actually have a role to play in the world it in their lives. And I think the good news about that is even though it's hard, even though people are facing a lot of challenges now, it's accessible to anyone. Anyone can get out there and make a difference large and small in the world. So meaning might be difficult, but it's something that's available to anyone, I believe. And I'm so glad that you made that distinction because it is so easy

just to point to the decline in people, you know, starting families or the decline in going to church or feeling like the institutions around us are crumbling. But meaning making is actually an internal decision and it involves an external action and it maybe we're making it bigger than it is meaning could be doing something down the street for someone and that could make us feel like we're doing something meaningful but we've maybe ascribe this bigger moment to it or why do we feel like it has to come from something outside of ourselves yeah that's a good question I think and and I don't know the answer for sure but I do think to your point about the the self-care culture I do think that there's a lot of attention being paid to the idea that meaning is some kind of really

deep philosophical endeavor that you need to spend a lot of time and search for. And again, there's nothing wrong with having deep philosophical questions. I'm an existential psychologist. I think about this stuff all day. I love it. It's great. But actually, that's not where your life's going to feel the most meaningful. It's going to feel the most meaningful from, like you said, going to helping a neighbor. You're going to get a higher boost to your meaning than doing that, than pondering, you know, deep existential questions. And so even if you enjoy those things and find those things intellectually stimulating, as many of us do, the meaning you actually derive from life is in the action.

It's in doing something. You'll get more meaning from going out there and helping somebody or just making a positive difference in your community. And whether you're a philosopher or a painter or a school teacher or a police officer, it doesn't really matter what your job is. what matters is that you feel like you're doing something important and that it's valued and that it plays a significant role in improving the lives of people around you. And you'd mention jobs. So when you think about artificial intelligence, do you think AI and the impact it could have on the workforce is going to exacerbate our confusion around meaning or it's exposing it?

Yeah, I think that's a great way of framing it. I think it's exposing it because And I think there's a positive story here because I think what's happening is when people see the capacity for artificial intelligence to do a lot of cognitive work, which people had thought before was what made us unique, right? It was like, we're the ones who do intelligent work. but seeing that maybe these large language models and whatever the future is for machine learning and for artificial intelligence, people seeing that, oh, these platforms are smart, too. It forces us to think about, well, okay, well, what is it that makes us human if it's not just being smart? And there's a whole bunch of other affective and motivational processes involved in human thinking and human decision making beyond just like logical calculation.

Right. And we're also analog organisms, right? We're multi-century. We're tactile. We like to engage physically with the world. We need to engage physically with the world. And so there's a whole bunch more to the human condition than just being able to solve intellectual problems. And so at a fundamental level, before you even think about jobs and things like that, as I think it reveals or exposes these questions of like, well, what does it mean to be a person? And a person isn't just someone who solves logical problems. a person is someone who cares about other people, a person is someone who loves, a person is someone who experiences awe, a person is someone who has dreams, a person is someone that will hold someone's hand who is sad or distressed, right? A person is someone that likes to take a walk with somebody and talk to them about their day. I mean, these deeply emotional and intimate experiences are human. And I think we will see more attention paid to that as we see the rise of AI and robotics. But then how people say that their job does give them a sense of purpose and they do feel some meaning in it, regardless of how much they like it or not, or how much they may dread Sunday night for the Monday wake up, that that job as a part of their identity does make them feel somewhat meaningful. So do you think we've over-indexed on work in a professional identity as the core of our identity or has work become this defense mechanism? for meaninglessness because it's allowed us to not think about the other categories of what is uniquely human and instead we get to say, I am this identity versus just who are you outside of

the title that you may hold? Yeah. So I think the title that people hold is if they think that's where they get meaning, they're wrong. And this is why you can have situations where someone will say, you know, I'm this very successful person, but I'm unfulfilled. Because it's not because a successful job makes you unfulfilled. It's because you're not doing something that makes you feel like you matter. So if you feel like you're not actually making a positive contribution to the team, then regardless of what your title is, you're not going to drive a lot of meaning from that job. So I think work is very important to meaning.

And regardless of whether the work is paid or unpaid labor, because, you know, being a parent's a lot of work. right there's a lot of things we do in our communities and our personal lives that involve labor and work makes us feel productive and feeling productive helps us feel like oh like we're in the game we're doing something important so i think work is meaningful um but it's that sense of that we're doing something that's actually going to make a difference that is where the the meaning of the work comes from and the future will happen is of course there'll be a lot of disruptions and anytime you have a major disruption in your life and like oh this is what i did and then now this is a you know, this is what I did. These are my patterns. This is where I feel like I'm useful and that's,

you know, somehow that's taken away from us that can cause, you know, an existential crisis or, you know, a threat to our sense of meaning or purpose. But the good thing about humans is we're adaptable. And to the extent that we can take that on as a challenge and say, okay, well, it wasn't the specific job itself that gave me meaning is that that job gave me an outlet to use my skills and my talents and my interest in a productive way that helped others or that made a positive difference in my community, where else can I channel those talents and those skills and those efforts to do something that also feels important? So I think the key is going to be as artificial intelligence, you know, potentially starts to change the nature of work, the extent to which people feel like,

well, they are still useful and they can still do something that's productive and meaningful, makes a difference is where people are going to find meaning. I think some of the challenges also, the story behind why the jobs that we identify with are going away, it's kind of tied to this bigger idea of, well, why are we passing it to an AI system that doesn't have needs? Like, we're creating this, and we're making this disruption happen. It's not some UFO landing that we can't do anything about. We're creating this world where we believe that work does give us some sense of we feel productive, we feel like we're contributing to something. And then now it feels like that choice is being removed from us. And so where does

that leave us? And why are we even doing that? Yeah. This is, you know, this is the history of technological change and innovation is some new technology comes along and it disrupts the world. And people feel like, oh, this is being taken away from me. And part of that's true. It's still fun to lose your job because of a new technological innovation. But then you look over the history of human progress and you see, well, people find new ways of doing work. In my book, I give the example of the ATM. Like when the ATM came out, people were worried the bank tellers were all going to lose their jobs. It actually led to an increase in the number of bank tellers because it became cheaper for banks to open branches.

Of course, now we have online banking, so there's disruption again. but any particular job might go away and people might resist that or be frustrated with that understandably. But, you know, we often get a lot of benefits from the progress too, and it creates new opportunities for new ways. So when I think about AI, I see two different kinds of responses and, you know, where I work at the Archbridge Institute, we do polling on this pretty frequently. We have a survey called Progress Pulse where we, you know, ask Americans how they feel about different things associated with progress. And we generally find when we, we ask people questions about AI, whether they say AI as something that's going to improve

their professional life or improve their life in general or something that's going to be, it's going to make them more free or it's going to be good for our economy or it's going to be bad or it's going to make us less free and it's going to make us have less of a sense of control of our lives. We see that Americans are split about 50-50 actually. And it's interesting because no matter how we ask the question and how we frame it, it seems like we get about a 50-50 split of people who see AI more is almost like an opportunity to enhance meaning as a way to have your own research assistants to help you in your career to help you do more to scale your work more right for instance and have more of an impact and then other people see it more as like oh no

this is going to destroy our jobs potentially our economy and so it's kind of an interesting challenge there's not a ton of consensus i mean you might know about this more than i do what the what current attitudes are about AI. But I, you know, I think a lot of times people feel like they're not in control and this is happening. And that's kind of life. Like we live in a society. Like we live in a global economy. You know, we don't shape that. But what we can do is Victor Frankrell pointed out many years ago is regardless of the environment around us, we can shape our own decisions and our own attitudes about life and we can take these things as an existential challenge. You know, in this time of major disruption, that's what I would encourage people to do, is to, is not feel

overwhelmed or threatened, but see this as, you know, as, you know, an exciting, you know, scary, but exciting time that there will be opportunities, perhaps for new ways of building meaningful lives. With that, it's also the economic reality of what could happen in that disruption period. So I don't think work in its entirety is going to go away, at least not for a long time. What we're doing right now is completely unrecognizable. And most of the the jobs that we have are unrecognizable. But I do think AI will force us to decouple our identity from a job title. And what's ironic about that is the idea of jobs is are also, it's also kind of a new idea. It only really happened after the industrial revolution. So technology gave us the idea of

we can identify as a professional identity outside of maybe being a member of the royal family or in, you know, the military or maybe you're in the monastery. You didn't really have a title. You just kind of did general labor. And so it's, you know, if technology can give us the idea of a job, a new technology could take out that part of the identity. But it's how, what tools or frameworks can we hold on to as that disruption takes hold? I mean, if somebody is thinking, I don't really know who I am without this identity, I think I have skills, but I don't know how to apply them or where I should think about placing myself, how should they be thinking about this moment? Yeah, that's a great question.

And I love the point that you, I believe you've made in previous episodes where the difference between a title and skills and how in the future people are going to have to think more about themselves and the skills that they bring to the table as opposed to the title. I agree with that 100%. And it aligns perfectly with my view on, maybe this is why I agree with it, because it aligns with my view on meaning in life. Meaning doesn't come from the title. Meaning comes from what you're doing and feeling like you're contributing to something. So a title can be a correlate. It's a poor correlate of meaning, though, because really it's about the activities, the skills, the things that you're

bringing. We can look to, I think, retirees as an example, as a model. Because when people retire, if they've spent their life in a career, sometimes, especially historically for men, it's been a very big struggle, an existential struggle after you retire. And like, what am I, what's my use now? All I did was work and I liked my work and I felt like I did a good job and I felt like I was a good employee for my, for my company and from my organization. And I made it and I feel like I made a difference. And then now I don't have these other sources of meaning to invest in. And so if you look at people who retire, the ones who channel those skills and those interests into doing community work, whether it's volunteer work or whether it's, you know, a lot of times people become entrepreneurial

when they retire. Like they don't want to have a full-time job anymore, but they still want to have a little bit of a side hustle. Now it's kind of the main thing they do. And so they figure out ways to take those skills and do something with them. They don't have the title anymore, but they still have the same personality. They still have the same experience. They still have the same, you know, knowledge they've built up. A lot of times they're great mentors because they have decades of experience. And they figure out ways to get involved in their community and to, and and to use those skills. And they end up doing pretty well. They end up feeling like, oh, my life's still meaningful. I'm involved with, they do more with their family. They do more in their community,

with their religious organizations, community organizations. And they do pretty well. It's the ones who feel like this is all I did. This was my job. This was my life. And now I have nothing. And they, going back to a previous point, they turn inward and they're just at home and they're not using their skills in any way. They're the ones who feel like, well, I don't matter anymore. I don't have a use anymore. And it's not good. I mean, it's a predictor of not living very long. It's a predictor of bad health habits. It's better if you can make that transition at the individual level into retirement and to like, well, what's the next stage of my life look like? And what can I do to be a meaningful contributor to my community? I feel like you can use that logic to think about, well, what happens if it's not an individual who's retiring, but it's a society. He's going through some type of economic or societal transition in which we have to, rethink the way work works. And I think you've offered great advice on this in some of your

previous podcasts. Because even for me, and I know I talk about this and I'm very close to the data on this is the reality is going to be some decoupling of job title to identity. But even for me, I think the idea that I don't have something to strive for professionally doesn't sit very well. And I'm also, you know, very aware of what's going to unfold. Being a part of your community is incredible. But if I'm just kind of floating around and I don't have this anchor of striving, and maybe that's something that I have to go internal about, but it doesn't feel great thinking about that. Is that because we have built this society around work being so central to who you are?

I mean, when kids are three years old, we ask them what they want to be when they grow up. We bring the idea of your identity is a job. Like the kids don't think in terms of work. But we introduce that to them at such a young age. And then we basically say you go to school for 17 years to prepare for this thing, not just for life or not just to become yourself or to become someone, but to do something with a title. And so is that because we've made this world around this construct of jobs and work

that it feels much more existential than maybe it really is? Like we've done that to ourselves? I was smiling a little bit because it's funny. We do ask these kids, these questions. And they say all sorts of things, you know, from superhero to, you know, more like normal or predictable job aspirations. But what's funny is like, I used to be a college professor. I was college professor for a long time. And most university students change their majors.

And a lot of, you'll see this reported in media outlets where, look, students aren't even using their college degrees. And that's a bit of a misrepresentation. What it is is they're doing something that's not in the specific major. that they did, right? So they might have done a major in psychology, but now they're in banking. But it doesn't mean they're not using their college education or the experience. And so I think the question of work or purpose in the world is tied. You're right. In the modern economy, it seems more like explicitly tied to professional life or work life. But really underneath that is it's like, what am I doing to like help build and sustain society?

And I'm with you. Like I do, I don't think this is an immediate issue. I don't think robots are going to replace workers tomorrow. And I, you know, I think you've had some good commentary on this of how AI can't actually do people's jobs. But down the road, yeah, maybe we have all these advances.

And I think humans will find new ways of doing work where they feel like they're still creating something in a marketplace, whether it's an economic marketplace or a marketplace of ideas in which they are able to feel like they're building, that they're entrepreneurial, that they're contributing to something. And so I understand what you're saying, but I see work in a more, I guess I see it more abstractly, that yeah, in our current framework, we very much tie it to jobs. But really, it's that action. It's that feeling like we're contributing in some way. And there's just, there's lots of ways to do that, I think. And that's, yeah, I'm I see work is separate from jobs.

Jobs is a relatively recent invention, but work isn't. And maybe if we were to zoom out on the macro scale of history, even in the last 500 years, there's a couple hundred years or maybe a thousand years where we identify based on a religion or community or social belonging. And then there was the chapter where we identified based on jobs. And we're headed into a new chapter and it's undefined. But on the macro scale, it will make sense when we get there.

but until then it feels quite disruptive. But when you hear AI leaders casually say, we're going to have to prepare for societal disruption. And people will just casually do other things and the economy will take care of itself. We'll introduce universal basic income. All of the economic needs and labor will be done by AI and robots. And then people will be freed just to do whatever they want.

And the idea of just getting some form of a check to sustain seems like it's just this simple future that we step into. How do you see? that idea as an existential psychologist. Yeah. Well, two things. One, I'll believe it when I see it. You know, because there's long been science fiction type utopian visions, I think, and things rarely pan out as predicted or imagined. And wouldn't that be a dystopian vision in a way?

That's a good point. So I think it would be a dystopian vision if it looked something. along the lines of Wally, right? Which actually has a very positive ending, right, where humans reclaim their agency after, you know, just kind of being lazy and taken care of by robots, figuring out, oh, there's something more here. Where I'm bullish on humans is even if this happens, I think there might be a period of existential decline where people feel like, well, you know, what are we supposed to do? But we're clever. Like, we're creative, we're adaptive.

I think people will figure out new ways to build frameworks for meaning. Well, they'll still say, well, you know what? We still matter. Like, there's still things that we can do that robots can't. You know, provided a few examples earlier, you know, maybe a robot can hold your hand. Maybe we'll have human-like robots, but will it be the same as knowing another person

is there sharing that emotional experience with you, sharing that tragedy or that triumph with you. I think there's something deep about our emotional lives that, you know, whether you're a religious person or not, some levels deeply spiritual because it's about what it, you know, what it means to be a human being and to feel something. And so I think we will privilege that more. And you're already seen this a little bit with the way you're seeing an increase in people privileging real-life experiences over digital experiences. And again, people aren't rejecting digital technology. We all love digital technology. It's improved our lives in many ways. But you're seeing people say, okay, well, that's good, but there's something missing. There's something about the in-person

experience. The COVID-19 pandemic really brought this home on people who were not able to spend a lot of time with others in person. And it reminded them, oh, yeah, that's a big part of what being a human's about is being in a room with other people sharing experiences. And so, I'm I think that will continue. And I don't know. Well, you know, it would be interesting to see what happens, for instance, when we have AI actors and movies. I'm really curious about that.

Will people like those movies? Maybe they'll think they're interesting. But, you know, a lot of the Hollywood people's interest in Hollywood culture is the actors in their lives and the gossip about it, right? And like understanding what they're doing. We like watching interviews with actors because we like to hear their story. What got them into this? what motivates them, how they performed that character, how they prepared for it.

So even in something where we've never met a person and we're just watching them on a screen and it's all very technological, we still like that human backstory. And I think, so I'm interested about that too, like how when these transitions happen, will humans respond? And will that change the development of these systems as well? Well, we carve out a space for ourselves where we say, well, you know, really, yeah, Maybe a machine could do this, but we think of this more as a human activity. And maybe the arts will be more like, maybe that's a domain where that will exist.

I don't know. But it's an interesting time for sure, an exciting time. And I guess it's so interesting to think, do we over index on technology and then realize we went too far? For instance, with dating apps and social media, we did all of this, you know, we kind of realigned our lives to this digital world. that felt really insufficient. And now we're gearing away from that. But do we go through a period where we actually do think robots and AI can fill some voids?

And then we have to overindex away from that. Yeah, I think so. And that seems to be the story of progress. We just go for it. Right? We just kind of go wild. We go all the way. And then sometimes we recalibrate and we say, okay, you know, that was an interesting experiment.

but we need to dial that back a little bit. I think to your point about social media, you're right. That's what's happening. It's not that people are getting rid of it entirely because they like many of the features that social media offers, but they're saying, okay, you know, maybe it was, maybe it's a bit much, and maybe I need to carve out some space. And there's lots of surveys showing this,

you know, the vast majority of Americans are at least reporting that they're dialing back or they're setting time aside with without their phones present so they can live in the moment more. And so, yeah, I think you're right. think that that's a possibility that well, things will get really wild and we'll be excited about all the shiny new robotic toys and opportunities, but then maybe we'll be like, okay, now let's figure out, let's dial it back. And again, that's part of the human condition. And you do a lot of research on the idea of nostalgia. And I think a lot of us can relate to having those moments where you

kind of feel happy or joyful thinking about something, but then it's also this longing for the past. And what we're describing, we're seeing the rise of this counterculture, right? So people are unsubscribing from dating apps and joining things in person to meet people. The rise of the flip phone. More articles about offline as this luxury. People feeling like, oh, I just want to get into nature and be unreachable by a billion people, which I don't think was ever natural in the first place. You could describe that as people longing for life that looked like it did in the 90s,

but maybe through the lens of your work in nostalgia, is this actually our desire for a better future? Like we're actually pointing much more towards the future than we are to the past? Absolutely. So I very much believe that nostalgia is a future-oriented experience. We think of it as past-oriented because, of course, it involves reflecting sentimentally on the past. But no one has a time machine that I know of, right? No one can go backwards. And so we're inherently a forward-looking species.

Like we're trying to figure out tomorrow and the day after that and these long-term ambitions that we have. And part of the way we do that is we pull from the past. So we're not trying to go back to the past. We're trying to use the past in ways to build the better future. So all the things we're talking about are exciting and scary because the future is unknown. We don't know what direction these technologies are going to take.

That's the nature of the future. It hasn't happened yet. What we do know is we can look back and say, these are the memories and experiences that I've had that are meaningful. This is what's fulfilled me the most. How can I factor that into the decisions I make, the priorities that I have for different paths that I could choose? And we've also started to find that people don't just do this with their own life. They don't just use their own personal or autobiographical nostalgia.

They also use what we refer to as historical nostalgia, which I think is really cool. We only really started studying this in the last few years, which is you have a lot of people saying, I'm nostalgic for a time before I was alive. They don't have any memories from that time, but they are consuming artifacts from that time. They're watching media from that time. They're hearing stories from older generations about that time. They're reading historical documents.

And what they're discovering is, most people, if you ask them, don't want to go live 50 years ago. They don't want to give up the modern advances in medicine and technology and civil rights and things like that. They're not saying I want to go back to that. But they're saying there's something from the past. that maybe we've let go of or that we've lost or that we've just neglected. Nature is a good example to your point of like people don't want to go live like people did in the

frontier, but they would like to spend more time in green spaces. And in fact, when they're thinking about planning future cities, they think, well, maybe we should have more green spaces in them because it turns out there's something really nice about that and something like the humans really enjoy, the experiences of awe and connectedness to nature. And so, yeah, I think of nostalgia as very much this way as we approach the future to be guided by what's given us meaning in the past. And to use that in a way that gives us more confidence, too, in our decision making. Because it's very difficult to know what to do. And this is why it's difficult to be young when we're talking about young generations and challenges with meaning.

I mean, that's just inherent to being young. It's like you've got your life ahead of you and you're trying to figure out which path to take. and it seems overwhelming, well, nostalgia can help, I think, in this way. It can help us pull inspiration from the past, as long as we do it in a constructive and productive way and to figure out what path is the best path forward for us. And I was on social media, ironically, and I came across this young girl talking. She was maybe, I'm just going to guess, between 19 and 22.

And she was saying, you know, we might be the first generation that dies with more memories of other people's lives than our own. And that comment really struck me. Because when you think about nostalgia and how you describe it, as nostalgia is actually really important psychologically. It helps remind you of who you are, and it can be good to go into those moments of nostalgia. But what if there is a generation of people

that don't actually have those memories because we've spent more time looking at other people's lives, but you're seeing nostalgia doesn't even have to be a part of our own life. We can be nostalgic for time periods and events that we didn't. even actually experience, and that can be a guiding light. Or do you think I'm looking at it wrong by over-indexing on how much time we've given to this algorithmic Truman show? Yeah, yeah. So it's hard to know, you know, because people will say, oh, young people aren't having the same opportunity to build nostalgia experience that previous generations have.

I'm always personally a little bit skeptical of the kids these days kinds of arguments because I remember talking to my grandmother, who by the way, wrote a horse to school, which is pretty incredible, right? I remember her saying, oh, I feel sorry for you kids because when I was young, we grew up on the farm and we had freedom and we were just outside doing things. And there are aspects of that that sound very appealing, but I look back at my childhood in the 80s and the 90s, I'm like, I think it was pretty cool. And so I do think that it's hard to know in the moment what any particular generation is going to feel nostalgic about in the future.

But to your point, there is research, for instance, on the concept of savoring. And you're more likely to build nostalgic memories if you savor experiences. And so this is where I think our digital distractions can be a barrier to nostalgia. I go to concerts and this is going to make me sound old. I'm just always shocked at the number of people who are more focused on recording the concert on their phone than enjoying the concert. And I'm just, you know, and again, maybe that just makes me old. But I'm like, well, you came here to see live music. Like, enjoy it.

It's live. You don't have to, you don't have to capture it on your phone. And, you know, maybe that's minority position. but I think the research shows that when you savor something, when you really take it in, you're more likely to feel nostalgic about it in the future. So I do think that's something, and it's not just young people,

we're all getting more addicted to our phones and more distracted. It's good to take a step back and look around and appreciate the world and what's going on in your life. And I don't know if that's a generation-specific thing, but I do think it's more challenging now with all the digital distractions we have.

But to your point about historical nostalgia, one thing that we've found that I think is really fascinating is how young people are, their technology's introducing them to a life before this technology, right? They're learning about this by watching TikTok videos and by watching YouTube, and they're saying, hey, this was what high school was like in the 1990s. And they're getting really into that. So it's just kind of funny that the learning about it by the technology. But then what's kind of cool is that they're often going and using that to talk to people.

So that's maybe a conversation starter for a person in an older generation to have this intergenerational contact is to go talk to their mom and dad or aunt and uncle or older cowork would say, was it really like that? Tell me more. And then that kind of creates a dialogue for inspiration, which again, I had when I was young, you know, talking to the older generation about what life was like. And I feel like I picked up some things that, you know, were useful. And so I think historical nostalgia is even though it seems to be starting for many young people with their phones by watching videos and learning about the past, it often ends with them getting off their phones and going out in the world and talking to people. And so this is why you see a number of interesting consumer trends like increases in final record sales. It's not just people my age.

It's young generations. And they're saying, you know what? It's kind of cool to have the physical media. One, you own it. And so if your streaming platform takes it down, you have it. So there's a practical motivation. But then there's just something about curating a physical collection that you can handle the tactile experience. And then that sense of like this kind of, you know, this is part of my story of like what makes me me and what I'm into.

And so I think you're seeing a lot of those historical patterns reemerge because young people are discovering that there's something. something, as much as we like these digital devices and streaming content, there's something neat about having that physical shopping experience and then being able to curate something that feels tangible to you. And if I was to plot the trend lined over the next five years, of course the world's going to look really unrecognizable. But I think one of the trendlines that's not as easy to spot is how much we are going to veer away from this idea of being constantly connected, scrolling, available, or our lives becoming this performance that others can quantify and rate. I mean, talk about living in an unnatural coliseum, and I think we're actually,

and we are already intuitively moving away from that. And I think that those numbers are just going to grow. And even your point about to create nostalgic experiences, we have to just savor the moment that we're in and just be more present. There's this pressure for life to look like this performance that you post and share and can get quantified, but to just be in that moment can actually make your life start to feel more nostalgic and in some ways more meaningful or are those two not necessarily that correlated? Yeah, yeah. No, so nostalgia is a big driver of meaning.

So when people engage in nostalgic reflection, it tends to increase their sense of meaning in life. And it does so because nostalgia, you can be nostalgic for lots of things, but one common characteristic of nostalgic experiences is they tend to be highly social. Most, not all, but most nostalgic memories are memories shared with other people. And a lot of those memories are memories in which you have done something that, like, this is what makes life worth it, and what makes life fulfilling. So you've done something with people.

And they're not necessarily entirely happy memories either. When we were first doing this research, you know, almost 25 years ago now, we were interviewing people south of London, and I worked at the University of Southampton and Southampton, England. and we were interviewing older adults, and they were sharing these nostalgic memories from times when they were children in World War II, and that southern part of England was heavily bombed by German bombers. And so this is not a good time in life.

It's like now you're hearing some people talk about nostalgia during COVID. Like this isn't a good time. It isn't a time that any of them wanted to go back to, but they have these memories from that time that reminded them of what's important in life. And to your point, it wasn't like what looks cool on Instagram, am, right? It was what it was to be with people that really matter in my life. And what am I doing for those people? Nostalgia can help you, like, really focus on that. There's lots of things that are

fun or interesting or distracting or just stimulating in many ways. But nostalgia really helps you focus on. Well, what are the things that I really value, though? What makes my life meaningful? And so many, not all, but many nostalgic memories center on meaningful memories. And so, yeah, I do think that's That can be useful going forward because it serves as sort of as a guide for people. And do you think social media has really gotten in the way of our ability to just feel like our lives are meaningful because we can continuously compare it to somebody else that's doing something different, something better, something bigger, or that's actually just this feeling of never feeling satisfied. Or I think about even in my own life or life of friends where they'll achieve some sort of a goal that was on the vision board.

And then you achieve that goal and suddenly no one says anything about it and it's on to the next thing. Or you know, you get that relationship, but then suddenly, well, I feel still unsatisfied because there's this aspect of my career that doesn't feel fulfilled. Or you get the career and then it's like, but I'm still single so I feel like something's still missing. Is that just amplified by social media? Is that actually just part of the human condition to need to continue to move forward? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's both. And so I do think social media can, these social comparison processes can be bad.

So we did this research on what we call digital flourishing, and we asked American adults about different dimensions of their digital lives and whether they felt good about them. And on many things, it was a positive story. Like most Americans said they feel like they can control, like, you know, whether or not they're on, you know, they can get offline if they're, want to. They're in control of their, the time they spend online. The area in which they had the lowest level of flourishing was what we call positive social comparison, which is when I compare, I'm comparing myself to others in a way that inspires me. So social media could do that, right? You could look to people that energize you. You see them as role models and inspire you, but a lot of people don't feel that way. They feel like they look to others and, you know,

they're engaging in a social comparison that makes them feel worse about themselves and demotivated. So I do think that can be a challenge. But at the same time, I think you're also correct to point out that this is the story of the human condition, as meaning is always in motion. There's a momentum to meaning. And we actually did, this is many years ago, we did a study where we looked at goal completion. And there was this ironic effect that happened that you would think your intuition might be when people complete a goal, they feel more meaningful. And what we found is, as people were working on a goal,

they felt more meaningful. As they were approaching that goal, they felt more meaningful. If they got close to completing it or completed it, their meaning actually went down. Because like you said, it's a little bit like, well, what's next? So that's not just a phenomenon of like modern life or social media. There is a sense that meaning has to be sustained. That's an ongoing project.

It's not something that you can just pull from. And, you know, this is, you know, like the point I made earlier about retirement. People can't just retire and feel like, well, I built up, you know, I built up this bank account of 40 years of meaningful work and so I'm good. No, they need to feel like they're still in the game. And so I do think that it's important to have these, you know, to have one different types of goals. So if you think about it like an investment portfolio where all your meaning isn't in one particular investment, right? You have a diverse portfolio, existential portfolio.

I think that's important because anything could happen to any one of those areas. And so it's good to be like, I have a holistic approach to meaning. It's not just my job. It's not just my family. There's lots of interest. In addition to that, you've got to stay active. I think you've got to feel like you're constantly doing something. And it's good for our brains, too. It's good for our mental health. It's good for our existential health. It's good for our social health to stay engaged and active. And so, yeah, meaning is very much an ongoing project that has its ups and downs. And if you look at meaning and dated studies that kind of, measure it day to day, you know, people, you know, it goes up and down. Like some days you feel like, oh, what am I doing? Like, is it really, and other days you feel like, oh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really making a difference here. And so I do think that is just part of the human condition. But yeah, social media, I mean, it can be, it can be tough. And one of the things that we're doing where I work at the human flourishing lab at Archiburg Institute is we're trying to help people

develop those, the skills to use social media or just digital technology and a more healthy and productive ways because the technology has lots of, lots of great things about it, right? They could really help improve our lives. It can help improve our, you know, people say, oh, social media is antisocial. It's like, well, it's how you find out where things are, where you can, you know, it's how you find people with shared interests. It's how, if you live in a small town, you can find that there's other people that have, are interested in the things you are far away, even if you feel alone there. So there's lots of positive social benefits from this technology. the key is to use it in a constructive and productive way, I think.

And if you were to sit in a room with policymakers, knowing that AI is going to create this somewhat sense of disruption as we start to decouple job titles from identity, and we can see that that's coming, what would you tell them that they could start to do to prepare society? Like what actions could they be taking or could we all be taking to prepare for this shift that we're starting? stepping into? Or what should they at least be expecting? Because I feel like we don't hear anything

from policymakers about the impact of AI on the individual person. Right. Right. Yeah, I think a lot, yeah, that's, you know, that's a good question. I don't know, I think part of the challenge is a lot of policy is needs to be or should be fairly surgical, right? It needs to be like this is a specific, you know, this is a specific challenge. And we've thought about these different policy mechanisms for responding to them. I think a lot of policy makers are honestly behind onto, you know, an understanding technology. They don't have a lot of understanding of how these AI systems are going to affect society. And so it's not at the top of the priority list. But really, I think, and this isn't a dodge, but really I think a lot of the work is more

cultural than it is policy, because a lot of what's going to have to happen is is going to be bottom up, not top down. It's going to have. have to be individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, figuring out a path forward. And this is why I think it's important to maintain, you know, it's not like a naive optimism, but I think it's important to maintain a hopeful spirit because that affects our, you know, our cultural attitude matters. If people become extremely pessimistic and disillusioned and depressed, then that, that's when we start to turn inward and we retreat from the world and we retreat from our communities

and we're just more skeptical and negative and that and that's not you know that's not how you embrace or respond to change um it becomes nihilistic in a way and so i think we need a culture that you know i'm not saying that we should be ignore risks or concerns or that we don't have real challenges i mean our policy makers you know they they should be perhaps focusing on, you know, things like, or adversaries, like in the challenges that pose to, because there's a lot of potential weaponization of, well, we're already seeing this with social media, right, where there's deep fakes and other, and there's actors from other countries using our social media to demoralize, particularly younger generations of people.

And so I think there, obviously, there's places like that where policy could be very, very targeted. and how do I don't have the answer to that. It's not my area of expertise. But I do think those are concerns. But I think a lot of the societal, how the society responds to this is going to happen really more at the cultural level and how are we going to approach this. And I think that the best way is really with, you know, to go back to the nostalgia, the nostalgia point is like, we can look back through history and we can see examples of where the world felt like it was not, going in a good direction, right? When I was a child, it was a Cold War, right, with the Soviet Union and the constant fear that, you know, this could all end at any point because of a nuclear

war that could break out between the United States and Soviet Union. So that was a big existential threat. I think I'm the, and I think I'm the first generation my age that, you know, most of our fathers didn't. You know, we weren't drafted to go into, you know, my father's generation was the Vietnam before that was World War II. So that was obviously a big existential threat that we had these major wars that people fought in. We've had the COVID-19. We had a good example of we remembered previous and even worse pandemics, right? And so we've gone through these challenges before, not the AI thing, obviously, but we've gone through big world-disrupting challenges before. And humans have come out on the other side. And so I think it's for our

culture, we need to maintain that spirit of agency and resilience and optimism. And policymakers can't, you know, no matter how much they try, they can't make that happen, I think, that that's not their role. That comes from us as individuals, bottom up, and the cultures we create. And it's funny. I was talking to a friend the other day, and I was telling her that kids under the age of five are likely the first generation where, you're... it will be a foreign memory or seem radical that people used to identify with what it is that they do in terms of a job.

And so they are probably going to grow up and think, wow, remember when people used to think that they are what they do between the hours of 9 to 5. And that's how they viewed the entirety of their life. And that will seem radical. The same way, if you go into a dinner party, it's a radical act to say, okay, nobody can talk about what they do. soon it will seem radical that that was such a big part of who we thought we are and who we thought we were. Yeah, so interesting. This is why I think intergenerational dialogue is so important because it's funny to think about the things that we just take for granted or we just assume our default. And then you talk to people of different age groups and I'll be like, oh, no, that's, you know, I remember as a college professor and our students laughing, you know, they would laugh at me when I would talk about that I used to,

you know, just get in a car and goes, and you have to ask somebody where something was, or look at a map, you actually would talk to people and say, like, how do you get to so-and-so's house? And that, you know, but all they knew was the GPS, right? That was, you know, they grew up in that era.

So yeah, I do think it's, I do think it's interesting. And I actually find that somewhat exciting. I know it can be scary, but I think that's exciting to think about, well, how is the world, how much is it going to change in my lifetime and beyond? And I think it's just healthier and more productive to approach that with a level of curiosity and excitement than to fear it because it's happening. And so it's better to approach it with a bullish attitude, I think. And what advice would you have for somebody who feels like they're struggling to find meaning? They don't, what should be the next step that they do if they're feeling like, I don't feel like my life is very meaningful?

don't feel like I'm contributing to something. What should they do next? So if you don't exercise very much, but you know it's good to exercise, right? Fitness trainers will tell you the most difficult thing is getting started. You have to go into the gym. And the reason is because exercise is self-reinforcing. It has momentum. You start exercising every day. You start feeling good about it. And then you want to exercise. The exercise itself makes you want to do it more. So there's that challenge of starting. right and I feel like meaning is similar in a lot of ways when people feel meaningless it's the same thing with loneliness one of the problems one of the challenges of loneliness is it's self-reinforcing that's why it's so difficult is because if you feel lonely you actually start to avoid people because

you're worried about social rejection you know like it'll make me even feel worse if I go out and try to meet people and then they reject me and so loneliness tends to encourage more loneliness right meaning is similar like at some point you just have to put yourself out there and you got to go for it. You have to look. This ties back to the idea that meaning is about action. You have to look around you and say, what can I do that's going to make a difference? It doesn't have to be something grand. It can be something small. You can go help your neighbors. This is the story of a lot of entrepreneurs, actually, right? It's just like, where can I identify a need in the market or I can make a difference? And you can start a little entrepreneurial operation in my home, right?

And I can do something and I can feel like, oh, like people like my products, people like my services, making a difference. I can go out in the community and I can volunteer. I can do something creative that inspires others. I can offer some kind of mentorship. I have maybe skills that I bring to the table. So that's where, you know, before I said meaning isn't found within you. It's found by action going out and doing things. That's true, but it has to start with you saying, okay, what can I do? And then you have to just go for it and you have to take risks. And you have to be prepared for setbacks, but just like exercise takes going to the gym, and it's no fun at first, right? It's difficult. It's often physically uncomfortable. You're sore, you're miserable.

Sometimes you're embarrassed because you're like, I'm out of shape here. But eventually, everyone who does it, who keeps going, feels better about themselves, and then they take pride in it, and then they want to keep going. And I think that's the same thing with meaning is you have to, you just have to get out there and throw yourself in the game. And you'll land on something. eventually and and then that becomes like exercise it becomes reinforcing. Here's the interesting about meaning. It's a very motivational force. So if you look at research on meaning and health, people who have a strong sense of meaning

in life tend to live longer and healthier lives. And the reason, there's nothing like magic about meaning biologically, right? The reason is meaning motivates you to take care of yourself. Because if you feel meaningfully, you're like, I have a reason to be here. I have a reason to make good decisions. because I play an important role in the lives of other people. And so meaning promotes healthy decision making. So like exercise, I think once you get going, that that sense of meaning further energizes you to do even better. And so, but you got to, you got to start somewhere.

And is there anything we didn't cover on meaning that you think people should know or nostalgia or feeling like you have or understanding that you have a lot more agency than you may think you you do. I think we did a good job covering meaning, especially the point about, I think it's important that people recognize that meaning is about outward action more than is about inward reflection. And again, that inward reflection is how we come to ask questions about meaning, but it's the outward action. That's how we find meaning. And something I would say about nostalgia, because I get this question a lot, because I, you know, I'm in this space. of what's sometimes referred to as progress studies a lot where people are interested in the

technological economic scientific um you know political advances that make the world a better place so you know the history of human progress and most of the people that i encounter that space are very anti-nistalgia or they think they're anti-nistalgia and their point of view goes something like Well, the future is about looking forward. So if you're allocating any cognitive bandwidth to looking backwards, you're wasting time that could be spent on looking forward, right? Or worse, looking backwards is actually distorting your, you know, it's a barrier to thinking like rationally or thoughtfully about the future. My response to that is, first of all,

that's not at all with the evidence shows. We're supposed to believe in science and evidence, right? nostalgia actually makes people more open-minded and makes them more creative and makes them more motivated and makes them feel more agentic and makes them more resilient if you talk to and when I was working in my book I was talking to artists I was talking to filmmakers I was talking to technologists I was talking to business um business entrepreneurs and all of them had nostalgic memories and they were trying to do something innovative and something fresh or something new and they were talking about what got them into filmmaking the first time they went to that movie and they made this is what I want to to do. A musician's often bring, even if they're doing like trying to do cutting edge of music,

they bring in the music that inspired them, right? And they show some nod to that. They just try to put a twist on it. And so I think that's the story of progress. We never just start from scratch, right? We're always building on history. And nostalgia helps us access that in an inspiring way. It's the affective component. It's not just like the pure rational history. It's what what makes that history interesting? What makes it inspiring? What makes it meaningful? And so, you know, my response to people whose intuition, understandably, is to see nostalgia as a barrier to progress is often the fuel for progress. It's the passion for progress. It's the inspiration for progress. And it also can help us make the types of decisions that make change better because

change in itself isn't good, right, or bad, right? We can make decisions that make the world worse. We can make decisions that make the world better. Sometimes we're just going to find out by trial and error that we made the bad decision. That's fine, right? We make mistakes, but nostalgia can help us. It can help us move forward with decisions in a very intentional way. And so that's why I call myself a nostalgia futurists, is I think it can be a very useful way for building a better future. And even for the individual, if you're feeling a bit lost, don't be afraid to sit and reflect in some nostalgic memories because that could actually be some sort of, you know, catalyst to moving forward. Absolutely. And one thing that's kind of cool about that too is what

you'll often find is even though nostalgia starts out as this very personal, reflective experience of like, oh, me, sentimentally longing for the past, what we find is kind of like meaning, and this is a big part of why nostalgia is so connected to meaning, it's most of the time that nostalgia quickly turns outward. What do fans do when they get nostalgic about what they're into? whether it's Star Wars or Harry Potter or something like that, they build communities of like-minded people, and they share those memories with others. And so nostalgia, even though it starts with a, like a reflection,

often ends in people building communities, talking to others and sharing their memories, because that's one of the best ways to experience nostalgia is to pass it along to others and to share it with others. And so nostalgia in itself, even though often thought of as this sort of withdrawn, like passive activity, ends up turning into a very engaged and active and outward oriented activity in which people find ways to share their memories and connect their memories with other people.

Because we all have our own individual memories that are situated and broader and larger cultural memories. And that's part of what makes society function is where we can connect in that way. Clay, it's been a pleasure. Thanks so much. Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you today. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of I've Got Questions.

If you've got questions, we would love to hear them. You can submit them on our website via email, or you can comment below. Send this episode to anyone else who you think may find it interesting. And we look forward to seeing you at the next one.