Modern Wisdom - #1022 - Sheehan Quirke - How Did The Modern World Get So Ugly?

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Sheehan Quirke is a British writer and online educator, known as The Cultural Tutor for creating accessible posts on art, history, and literature. Why does modern life feel so devoid of beauty? For decades, efficiency has beaten out elegance. Cheap has replaced meaningful. When did we stop creating things built to last and meant to move us, and what would it take to return? Expect to learn why contemplation is a luxury, or a necessity for sanity in the modern age, why we lost when architecture became more functional than beautiful, if Is there such a thing as objective beauty in architecture or if it’s purely cultural and subjective, which city or structure best captures the balance between progress and timelessness, if sterile architecture is one of the reasons the students of today are so bored and uninspired, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a free bottle of D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and more when you first subscribe at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Check out Sheehan's book: https://linktw.in/PdoFxP Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is beauty? So I'm a hell of a question. I think the word is overused, misunderstood. The best way to think about beauty, the most helpful way, is to think of it as synonymous with the word love. Once you do that, all the complications kind of fade away. I think beauty is basically love manifest in the physical world. But anyway, so that's how I think of beauty,

Because I think... Because you're a hopeless romantic. Oh, I'm a hopeless romantic. Well, I'm a hopeful romantic, let's say. But I think the problem is, once you start talking about beauty, what is beauty, it's kind of like asking what is art. It's a very, very interesting question. But you can end up talking...

We could spend the whole two hours or how long we're going to be here just talking about, well, maybe beauty is this, maybe beauty is that, but what are this? Same with art. I think it's very helpful to agree on a pretty simple definition and then move on to the more important stuff. So taking beauty, I think people... obsess too much over the idea of beauty like is the modern world beautiful is architecture beautiful

is design beautiful is this room beautiful i don't think it's helpful i think more helpful words are interesting charming and meaningful they're the words i prefer to use delineate those for me so well i think interesting is the opposite of boring and i think you know a lot of what i write about online um and what generates an awful lot of interest is when you talk about the ugliness of the modern world but I think boringness is a much more important and powerful word because again ugly and I'm beautiful they're very they feel very subjective but when you say boring it's a lot easier to agree on what is boring and I think something being boring is a bigger problem I've often said to my friends the one thing human beings cannot stand is being bored like we can put it with a lot of stuff

we can put it with suffering and misery and ugliness and ugliness we can put up but being bored is the worst thing. And I think actually being bored has driven a lot of events and movements in human history. I often think a lot of revolutionaries end up being revolutionaries just because they're bored.

And a revolution is exciting. It's the chance to be part of something. And anyway, yeah. Okay. So we've got interesting, which is the opposite of boring, presumably sort of engaging, captures attention,

maybe memorable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then charming. I love the word charming. It's probably my favorite words. word of the year. You know charm when you see it. And charm, I think, is a kind of playfulness. It's not too serious. And it also respects the person looking at something or viewing something. When you make it charming, right, there's no obvious use to charm. You know, there's not really

a profit margin there. It's not. Yeah, exactly. But when it's charming, it's like, oh, wow, the person who made this thing has thought about, it's thought about me. They wanted to give me, you know, something, something to look at, something to make me smile. I think that's, charmingness is kind of like playfulness, I guess. Wimsy in the experience. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be like, you know, Wes Anderson level of whimsy,

but it just has to show that there's something about this object that isn't just interesting in the straight sense of like having something to it other than what is basically necessary, but also, yeah, makes you smile and kind of reminds you. In a way, charm what it does, it gets you out of your, your thoughts, you know, we're walking around and, you know, we're miserable thinking about I've got to email this. I think it's all the time. I hate

email, so I've got to email this person. I've got to read Chris Williamson's text or whatever. And then, you know, then I see something charming. And I smile and you know what you don't. Also Chris Williamson's text. Indeed. And then you think the world isn't so bad. And then finally meaningful, which I guess I mean, this conversation is more about the physical world

than anything else. And meaningful, basically could mean a few different things. But a good example. is when you walk around a town, and you find that the way things have been designed reflects something about that town, it's people, and it's history. I think that's what meaning is, and it kind of brings you out of this generic, standardized, convenient, hyper-optimized online modern world, and it brings you back into the reality. We're living in the one that we have been since the dawn of civilization. So meaningful, charming, and interesting are much more useful words

than beauty. And I think also they're much less inflammatory. Like if I put out on X or something about the modern world is so ugly or look at this, you know, the palace of a site is so beautiful, people start, you know, getting angry about it. But you say it's interesting, it's

charming. Or you take a sort of a modern building and say, well, this is boring. People say, you know what, you have a point it is boring. It's funny how quickly you can take the charge out of these conversations by using better words. I wonder whether some of this is because beauty and ugliness feels like a moral judgment. Yes. It feels like a value. So I

got a speech coach who you met at the Leicester Square, sorry, London last year, back to stage miles. And when I started working with him, some of my friends said, working with a speech coach is going to sort of neutralize your identity. What if you lose your speaking cadence? What if you lose who you are? And I found it really Fascinating, because I realized that there were preferable and less preferable, more optimal and less optimal ways to speak in the same way there are to write, and in the same ways that there are to sing or play the piano. And nobody would say to you learning to play the piano, well, why are you going to that piano teacher? What about the lovely natural way that you played the piano? And he said, well, yeah, but it sucks. Or it could be refined, even if I'm great, it can be refined. So what it taught me was that there are certain things that people attach closely to our sense of self, like the way that we speak, and there are other things that people don't attach so closely to our sense of self, like the way that we play the piano. And it feels to me like beauty

is this word that's imbued with moral weight, with judgment. Oh, it's the sense of the building or the piece of art or the poem itself, as opposed to a simple comment on the way that it presents. Yeah, exactly. So imagine, like, you know, before you'd seen this vocal coach, I said, You know, Chris, the way you talk is ugly, man. That feels quite offensive. But if I said to you, you know, the way you talk, you could work, but you can, yeah, it's boring. Suddenly like, oh, wow, really?

I should work on that. Yeah, exactly. I should work on my ugliness. Doesn't feel quite the same level of, what are you getting at? I want to see. You bought props. I bought props. I was so excited.

I went to snappy snaps a couple of hours ago. Oh, thank you. It's about two hours in there because I'm not very good at emailing and I sent all the wrong files and there were Google workspace and touch. If you spent more time on your emails, you'd be better at sending emails when you go to Snapy. Well, we can get into that. Okay. The good news is, here we are.

So in terms of to illustrate, because what I find is that when you talk about these things, having visual illustrations help so much. You know, the whole saying a picture paints a thousand words. It's so true. And all you, I've found, in order to make points effectively, all you have to do is contrast two things. Put two images next to each other, and it says everything. So when we talk about things being beautiful versus ugly, interesting versus boring,

I have some pictures of drain pipes. Now, I love drain pipes and gutters and air-conditioning units and rail. Like, I love all the stuff that the world is filled with. It's amazing. You sort of don't really pay attention to it, but once you start noticing how much freaking stuff that is in the world, like, you know, go outside on the street. Anybody here, you know, listening or watching when you finish watching,

which is hopefully not just yet, go outside and just look at how many things that are on the street outside. There's literally, like the cars, the signs, the windows, windows, the drains, everything, and all of that has been designed, right? This stuff didn't just appear. Like, everything in this room is, it's all man-made. Someone had to decide how all this stuff looked. And I guess my big gripe and the thing that bothers a lot of people is that all these things around us feel increasingly boring and standardized and generic, regardless of beauty. So, I have some pictures of drain pipes, and I will show them. I mean, I can maybe, I don't know if you can put them on. Yeah, we can put them. Yeah, so these are some

19th century drain pipes Wow And like I'm not going to sit here and tell you these are beautiful I think that would be crazy for me to say oh Chris isn't this beautiful isn't it But what it is it's charming it's interesting It's fun and it's meaningful And it's basically It shouldn't be revolutionary

Revolutionary idea but it is that Drain pipes can actually improve the appearance Of a town or city or a home But you think if it's something that has to be functional And you want to get it out of the way but you still have to see it and it's like well you know it's kind of ruining this wall no our drain pipes can make our towns and cities more beautiful they can make our lives better make drain pipes exactly yeah and so here's another one comparing some of the same to some modern more modern drain pipes

how would you categorize the difference between the two in terms of what they are if you were trying to describe them to someone what do you mean so you have this list on the right and this list on the left what is the difference between those two because they do the same thing. Well, I don't think they do do the same thing. Functionally, they do the same. But this is the point. So you know this famous line

and form follows function, right? Everyone knows that line. And everyone sort of thinks what that means is that the function is what matters, an appearance is, you know, doesn't matter. That's kind of how people interpret it. That we shouldn't care about appearances. We should just care about how it works.

But the guy who said that, Louis Sullivan, the great American architect, who kind of solved the big skyscraper problem, in the late 19th century. So skyscrapers, they appeared in America, in Chicago first in the late 19th century, and like no one had ever seen a skyscraper before. So no one knew how to make them look. And the first skyscrapers, if you can go and see you more look of photos,

the first skyscrapers in America were basically just like stacks of smaller buildings. You know, sort of take what would normally be a three-story building and just replicate that for another 10 stories. Command C, Command V. Yeah, exactly. And Sullivan realized this is nonsense. it's not working. And he identified the chief characteristic of skyscrapers

as what he called loftiness, you know, their height. And when he said form follows function, he was the guy who said it. What he meant is that its innermost purpose, the appearance must be suited to that. So what he did was he got rid of this weird multiplication thing and basically just made all the stories the same from the top to the bottom without all these horizontal lines

and kind of, in short, he figured out how to make them look good. I've done an architectural boat tour of Chicago. Oh, wow. I mean, so many people do this tour. It's musically, at least mine, was musically accompanied the guy, maybe it was a harmonica. But I went on my own. I was there on tour. And I went on my own.

It's fucking freezing. I wore shorts because I'm an idiot. And I was enthralled. It was brilliant. It was so cool. And you go and you see the fire. This is where the fire was. It goes down.

It does a U-turn. You see everything of one side. You see everything of the other. I think it's got the tallest skyscraper in the world that was a discerral. designed by a woman there. It's got the tuning fork building with this sort of unbelievably thin base and the way that they had to structure that in order for it to go. The most hilarious thing is you're pulling in the very beginning.

You go underneath the bridge from the harbour. You pull through and they're showing you all of the different buildings. And he's going sort of from right to left all the way around, right at the end, right in the middle, huge, big thing, big letters, Trump Tower, Chicago. go, and this guy's going, it was the tallest building in the world that was built by a woman, and using the granite that was imported

from East Germany, and this is, da, da, da, da, and moving over to the left, and he just completely leapfrogs the Trump thing. I'm like, it's probably safe. It's probably safe. Some people are going to hooray you for doing it. Some are going to be not so happy, and they just made the executive decision

that we'll forget that building. Yeah, yeah. I thought it was quite funny. No, it's there it is, but by the way, we may need to mention that name again later in this, in this conversation, because Trump is weirdly, and maybe unfortunately important in this conversation. You know, he, in both his terms, has done these executive orders to say that all federal buildings need to be in traditional architectural styles, which is, I think, in some ways, good and in some ways

bad. But actually, I will put a bookmark there and we'll come back to it. Because on this point about form and function, Sullivan decorated his buildings, right? Like, his skyscrapers have this beautiful sort of ornate terracotta paneling and all these floral wreaths. and stuff. His point was just that the decoration should be suited to what the building is. The problem he felt in the 19th century why he said that is because people decorated everything the same. He was saying, no, no, we need to decorate and design things according to their purpose. Not that they shouldn't be decorated. And in my view, with those two different sets of drain pipes, you said, you know, they're both functionally the same. But I don't, I disagree. I think any object

we design, not in all cases, you know, I don't need the inside of my laptop to look beautiful. It's just got a freaking work, which it still does, by the way, all these years later. But I think anything that's in the built environment and our homes, in our offices, and our streets, if it's not making that environment more humane, if it's not making the lives of people that are better, it is not fulfilling its entire function. So those drain pipes on the right-hand side, I don't seem like I'm picking on them. You know, they do their job, which is great. But my point is very simple.

It's just like if we can also make drain pipes that do their own. a job and like make the world a more interesting place to live in, shouldn't we be doing that? And now why things have changed and how to achieve it, we may get into that. But I think that's the first point to establish. And yeah, it sounds kind of shock to people, but drain pipes can be not beautiful, but charming. You know, like all those weird creatures or whatever. Like imagine, you know, you're walking down the street and you see those. It does something, which doesn't occur when it's just a plain metal or plastic pipe. Well, it's interesting when you say form follows function

but you ask what is the function is the function to add charm to your day so there's no reason that the job of a drain pipe needs to begin and end with water exactly yeah I saw a photo you are the leader

and traffic in the world of viral ex posts about beautiful things and interesting meaningful charming and I saw one I think it was the the inside of the latch

on a door. So when you look at a door and there was all this engraving, I imagine that this is a common currency that you traffic in. And yet another thing, you do kind of see it. You do. I don't see it much, right, but doors are left open, especially if it's an internal door, like kitchen door

or something like that. So why not make the edge of a door an opportunity to add charm? You go, well, what's the door for? Well, it's to create a boundary line, a territory line between the kitchen and the whole. hallway. Well, but what if it could be? Even more than that. A source of charm. Yeah, I mean, the analogy here is, like, is life itself. Like, I'm not going to ask you, what is the point of life right now. But, like, universally, people agree the most important things in life are love and friends, fun and adventure and achieving stuff, like all of that. Like, that is beyond

the function of life. Like, if I say to you, Chris, what is the meaning of life? And you said, well, it's to not die and reproduce. Some people do believe that, to be fair, but most people don't think that about life. Most people think a good life is one that has love in it and friendship. More than raw functionality. So the way we view life is, that view of life is reflected in drain pipes like those. Wow, what a take. Drain pipes are life. Yeah, but it's funny you mention the virality of these things is so interesting to me. Like, because this is kind of how I got started on X or Twitter as it was then. Why don't you tell the story? Tell us, regale us with how you began, How you became the cultural tutor?

So, how did I become the cultural tutor? So my name is Sheen Quirk. I was born in Scunthorpe, of all places, actually. Anyway, that's not really relevant. Well, it is maybe relevant, but I won't go into that just yet. So I went to university, and then when university finished, this weird thing happened where all my friends had plans. And they went into the master's degrees.

They went and got jobs in the city of London as lawyers and accountants and all that. And it kind of took me by surprise, because I just did not have a plan at all. So, I'd always wanted to be a writer. I've always been writing and reading. You know, since I was a child, my head has been, I've just, you know, my bedroom as a child was filled with nothing but books. And I always wanted to write, and I've been writing since I was, you know, since I could first hold a pen, basically.

And I'd always thought it would happen. And then this, then after I left university without a plan, I sort of got into this state of complacency where I was expecting life to just hand it to me on a plate. I sort of thought one day someone would knock on the door and say she in, we've heard you're a great writer. Here's a book deal. Obviously that's not how the world works. So I got a job as a security guard sort of more or less. This was four years ago. Doing the night shifts, you know, which I loved. I loved the night shift, the 12-hour night shift. At my old university, actually. So it was when COVID came. COVID came. And then they ran out of night watchmen or porters, as they're called,

because guys were off sick. They didn't want to work. And all the students had gone. And I was still living there, just in like a small house with my girlfriend at the time. And I needed a job. So they rang me as a chin. We don't have any porters left. Do you want to be one? Normally there are sort of guys who are in the 50s, 60s, semi-retired, retired. I said, sure, like, I needed a job. So I did that. And I spent a year and a half unblocking toilets and, like, fixing door handles and sitting through the whole night and doing rounds and making sure no one was trying to break in or seal anything. And in those night shifts, I would write and stuff and watch films. but in terms of the big picture, where I wanted to be in life, it wasn't happening.

I wasn't unhappy, but things weren't heading in any particular direction. I left that job, and then I realized I didn't have any money. I didn't have a job for three months. I ran out of money, and I needed to pay the rent on this house I was living in. I borrowed money from my friends and my family, and I just needed a job as quick as I could, so I just went on indeed, applied to everything. Pizza Hut rejected me, but McDonald's said yes. And so on the 2nd of January, 2022, I went for my interview, and then two days later, I was there.

And I wasn't a burger flipper. I was a maintenance person. So my job was to take in the stock, you know, I'd get at sort of six in the morning. The truck would arrive, bringing all the fries and all the sausages, which were packed in Skunthor, because it happens. And the chicken came from Cambodia, which surprised me. You know, I'd get into the freezer, stock got all up, and then I'd have to get out the jet washer and go and clean a car park. You know, there's McClurries everywhere, and tomato ketchup. The McDonald's tomato ketchup, and when it solidifies, is like rock, is like rock solid.

You have to freaking get like boiling hot water to get that stuff off the walls. So that's what I was doing. And there was just no sign of this ending. And I wasn't earning enough money to actually pay back all my friends. And I guess it was a bit of a spiral. And then I have a very good friend, Harry Dry, who you may know. Of course. He's a genius.

And also a fiercely loyal, brilliant friend who tells it how it is. and I was one day I was with him and I was giving him all these ideas like oh hurry yeah I'm going to write this novel about this and you know I think I'm going to make a film and he's like all you're doing is telling me that you're going to do all these things not doing anything and he said this great line

he said what you lack is deadlines not ideas you lack deadlines not ideas and it was maybe one of the most important things anybody said to me and I had this what I call my Moulin moment have you seen Moulin the Disney film Moulin not the most recent one the animated...

A long time ago. Yeah. You might need to... Anyway, so there's this wonderful scene in the film where Moulan, her father gets called to war. He's very old, very sick. He doesn't have any sons. And the eldest male member of the family has to go off to war.

Moulan, she loves her father, doesn't want him to go off and die fighting. So she goes in his place, which obviously they don't want her to do. But she has to pretend to be a man. So there's this wonderful scene in the film where the synths kick in. It's the middle of the night. And she goes and gets out of father's armor, gets out of his sword, and she cuts off her hair. She cuts off her hair.

so she can ride off to war as a man. And I kind of had that moment. There was this one day when I thought, you know what, I'm just going to quit my job at McDonald's and going to just give everything I've got to getting to where I think I should be. And I took off my McDonald's beanie for the last time

and my big yellow jacket. And I felt like that moment in New Land. It was like a point of no return. I did a few things. I applied to film school. They rejected me. I applied to the army and went through the whole process. They actually offered me a place at Sandhurst,

which I said no to because by then something else had taken off, which was this Twitter account I made. my plan had been to make some money or how can you make some money well by tutoring online tutoring is quite a good way to make money people sometimes pay like $50 pounds an hour for good online tutor and I thought well I'm going to tutor people not in maths or law

I'm terrible maths or law or law I did law university I don't want to tutor law I thought I wanted to do cultural tutoring I thought some parents might want their kids to be more rounded so maybe they'll pay me to tutor their kids in poetry and architecture and art which I've always loved

You know. And so I made this little website offering tutoring lessons. And then how do you get eyes on the website? I made a Twitter account hoping to drive traffic towards this website so people would book in tutoring sessions and I could finally make some money. What did I call the Twitter account? Well, the cultural tutor because that's what I thought I was. And I put this little statue of Plato as a profile picture. And within six weeks, it became pretty clear that no one wanted me to tutor them, but they did like what I was writing. about. And after six weeks, I had 100,000 followers on Twitter as it was then, and kind of from there to here, it's been a dream. But what I did, I said, when I made the Twitter account, I was going to post a thread every single day for a month and just see where it gets me. Obviously, the first 10 threads, you don't get a single like. So I would stay up all night, like, going on Twitter, searching for other people who'd posted about church windows, seeing who'd liked it, then message those people, say, hey, I saw you like this post about church windows. I've just written one too.

You might be interested. And sort of, you know, after a week, you're getting two likes on a post. It's really bootstrapping your way to viral. Oh, man, yeah. Yeah, I was obsessed. It was like, I had this clear-mindedness, which is a very rare thing in life. It's very rare to be able to have that level of focus and determination. And what started out as a month ended up being two and a half years.

So for two and a half years, I posted every single day online. What was the first day that you didn't, post like? It was when I was writing my book who's after I got the book deal and there was this one day when I thought I have a choice today I can either make this particular chapter of the book better or I can post on X and at that point I thought you know what it's very hard to let go of something like that like it's really hard to let go

of a ritual because that was my life like I would just I was like I would you know I said no to my friend if ever there's a you know friends going out I I'd say, no, I've got to write on Twitter. I see why the hell you want to tweet instead of hanging out with your friends. And I can remember, sometimes I would go out and then I'd get home at 5am and stay up till 8 a.m. Putting something out on Twitter. And eventually got to a point where I was where I needed to be. I had my dream, which was to have a book deal.

And then that became the focus. And a key part of the story is Mr. David Perel, who you know, of course. He saw I was going viral online. And he reached out to me and he just in this fantastically American way. Just said, let's get on FaceTime. and so we want to FaceTime, he said, look, Shian, I really like your work. And I'm guessing you need to make some money from this. But rather than you monetizing your audience and trying to, you know, maybe sort of substack, and then you turning your focus from the wider public to your audience, I'm going to support you. I'll be your patron. I'm going to pay you a living wage, a good wage, and all you have to do is write every single day. And thanks to David, and in his patronage of me, I was able to write every single day and then get to where I'm now with nearly two million followers, whatever, and a book. deal and some other exciting projects on the way. So that's how it happened.

And it kind of brings us back to where we started. I mean, maybe I don't know if you want any sort of, if you have any comments on that or any reflections, it was one hell of a journey. But the post that went viral, the post that took me from, I'd sort of ground my way after five and a half weeks to 15,000 followers,

which is pretty good. But then I did a couple of posts and they got like, you know, less than 100 likes. And I was thinking maybe this is it. I'm washed. I don't know if you ever have. I mean, you've been, you're an old hand now.

and anyone who works online will know the sort of the dread and anxiety that hangs on your back, right? Because you live by those numbers. And as soon as they dip, even by half percent, you're like, this is it. This isn't my time, you know, my 50 minutes of fame is done. And I was really mad, really mad, and I was staying with my mum at the time. And I thought, you know, and I decided to write about something, which had always bothered me. This one, I used to moan to my friends about it all the time, which was this thing we're talking about. Because ever since I was a kid, I'd always say, like, why is stuff so boring?

I would look at older things I think were there so pretty so interesting why is modern stuff so boring so I wrote about that online I did bring a screenshot actually of this post to just kind of show the point

this was the post it's called the death the danger and the danger of minimalist design and the death of detail a short thread yeah so it got 440,000 likes

yeah that'll fill a 15K account yeah and it got me 90,000 followers overnight and what's so funny about it. What's so funny about it and it's so interesting. And look at the lead image. It's just two

bollards, right? It's like a typical old ballard. It's not even that interesting. But then it's a typical new ballard. And what it turned out is that people all over the world had been feeling exactly the same way. That things are boring and generic these days

and that people are crying out for the world to be a more interesting, charming and meaningful place. A quick aside, I've been drinking age every morning for yours, uh-huh, uh-huh, and it just got even better. AG1 NextGen keeps the same simplicity, one scoop, once per day, but now comes with four clinical trials backing it. In those trials, AG1 NextGen was clinically shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels within three months, and increase healthy gut

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buy it and use it every single day for three months. And if you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back. Right now, you can get a year's free supply, vitamin D3K2 and 5-3-AG-1 travel packs, plus that 90-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below. Or heading to drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. too, what a great story I'd heard this from David's side but it's really wonderful to hear it from you it's really inspired me even hearing what David did

with you I've had a bunch of conversations with the people who look after my accounts and in America you can start a non-profit and do these things it's a fucking nightmare because what I would love to do is start a kind of scholarship thing where maybe once

every 12 months, I find somebody or maybe a small group of people who are in your position and liberate them to be able to go and do the thing. And it's so difficult. It's so difficult to be able to do that because if they're an employee, then it means this. And if it's a non-profit, then you can't be the person that chooses because the opportunity for nepotism is, you know, obviously through the roof. It's basically a way for you to tax-free funnel money from your business to other people that you like. Well, obviously I like them if I want to support them. because I think they're good. But, oh, you're not allowed to delight.

So you can be the director, but then you need to have a symposium or a board of people and they would choose and you can't have input. I just want to give someone, I just want to enliven one or a few people that I think are making good work to go and do it. And it turns out to be really difficult. So that's a working progress problem.

But you got it, because honestly, like patronage is like a very old-fashioned way to make things happen. In the modern, sort of throughout the 20th century, you had establishments, you know, have the publishers and the media broadcasting organizations, that's where you went to get stuff done. Now we have the online creator economy, as it's called, you become an influencer, like us, I guess, you know, you get sponsorships or, you know, you have a substack. The old-fashioned way is a guy who has some spare money, finds people who are talented and gives them that

money, right? And then that's how so many of the world's most famous and beloved works of art appeared, pretty much all of them. Like, you know, Michelangelo didn't paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel based on, you know, substack subscriptions. He didn't have a sponsor. Pope Julius II said Michelangelo, you're the best artist in Italy right now. I'm going to pay you 400,000 ducats, whatever it was, to paint the ceiling of my chapel. And he did it. Same as the Mona Lisa, right?

The Mona Lisa, which is, which is a pretty boring and overrated painting. But anyway, it was commissioned by a guy. Leonardo was back in Florence after being in Milan for a while. and this guy, he just got married and was moving into your house. So, Leonardo, I want you to paint a portrait of my wife. So here's a load of money, paint a portrait of my wife. Like, this is how great art throughout history and many books as well, and poems and stuff, that's how they appeared.

Somebody, with the funds, directs it directly to the person who needs it, and then it gets created. Patronage. It's an all-fashioned system, but I think maybe it has a future in our modern world. Tell me more about your opinion on the modern Lisa. Well, look, I think, I mean, there's a few facts about it. First of all, here's a question. who is the Mona Lisa what is she called it's not after Mona Lisa

well no her name is Lisa but I think there's something interesting about the fact that the most the most famous painting in the world the most in some sense the woman with the most famous face in history no one knows what she's called the name is Lisa Gerardini or Lisa del Jacondo once she got married

and also the crazy thing is she never actually saw the painting finished Leonardo was a famous procrastinator he just freaking take forever to do anything. And he actually left Italy with the painting. He went off to live in France because the king of France asked him to come and work. He hired a man. Yeah, he hired him and he took the painting. So Lisa Gerardini never saw the finished portrait, which is kind of crazy, I think. She died before it was done? No, no, no, so Leonardo took it took the portrait with him to France before it was finished. And then he finished in France

and then gave it to the king of France. Francis I was the first. He was called. Anyway, Here's a painting of someone else's wife. Well, I guess, I guess. But yeah, it's Leonardo. So even then, the guy was a select. Even then, like his reputation now, it hasn't changed at all. Like, people then worshipped the guy. But I just think it's a shame that the most famous painting in the world is a relatively boring portrait.

Why is it boring? Well, if you look at other paintings and the things that might get people interested in art. Like, you imagine it's because I'm passionate about art. It's my lifeblood. but the way our culture works like if you want to get someone interested in art and they kind of start looking into it and they see that the most famous product

of the entire history of art is just like a woman smiling I don't think it's going to excite them. What do you wish was the replacement if you were to say hey the world is gifted I can hot swap the Mona Lisa for something else this would be a good front end of the funnel

for people into art. Sure, I think there's a few contenders. Yes, some of which are already quite well-known. Look, it depends on the person. Because I think when someone's, for example, like young, when they're a teenager, I think you need something a bit more brash and exciting. If you look at the paintings of a guy like John Martin, he was a 19th century English painter, from County Durham, actually.

And he painted these kind of crazy biblical, catastrophic landscapes. You know, and there's lightning and there's thunder, and there's like cities blowing up, and there's gigantic waves. And it's epic. You know, it's like sort of watching Lord of the Rings, but in a single painting. Like, that kind of thing is exciting. Also, you know, another painting, which is very, very famous. You know, the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.

That one is pretty famous. And I think paintings more like that are more likely to get people excited about art. A little bit more interesting. Yeah, yeah, they're basically more. Because, look, I don't hate them at least if you like it, then you like it. But I think people should be free to call it boring if they want. This is another. problem like art the problem with art like it's in this space where people feel very intimidated

they feel ignorant yes i certainly do sure and then and then suddenly they feel like they're not allowed to say the mona lisa is boring because it feels unrefined like i don't get the joke that everybody else gets or i don't get the the the subtext i'm not sufficiently sophisticated yeah yeah exactly exactly whereas my view is the only thing you need to get into art uh you only two things your eyes and your heart that's all you need and you've got to fall in love with it And that's a lot of my work has been that, just trying to put art out there, not in the context of art, but in the context of just something that's not that different to cinema. Yeah, exactly. Or a nice freaking dame trap. Yeah, man, exactly. Anyway, so how did the Mona Lisa come up?

You were explaining, I think you were going through a bunch of, oh, it was Da Vinci, Michelangelo, he's laid on the ceiling. Yeah, so this thing you're thinking of doing, man, like good luck with that. Good luck with that, because who knows what am I lead to? What else have you got by way of example? I'm excited for what comes next. I've got some really good stuff there. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some deep cuts from the world of architecture and art.

So the reason I brought these is, again, just to illustrate the points I'm making. I could say, oh, just Google it, but it's much easier if I show it myself here. Now, a big part of my work online, a big part of the book, but not only the book, and a big part of this documentary, this short film, which is being released tomorrow, as we speak, made it with David Perel. Congratulations. It's a 15-minute short film,

and we're treating it as a standalone piece and as a pilot for a future series we want to make about art and architecture with and learning from art on architecture about life in the 21st century. It's called the modern world, actually, because I think we can learn a lot about life now and how to improve it by looking at art and architecture

and things like that in the past. And people are crying out for a sort of a high quality art documentary series. Anyway, now what I think is really important by my life's work in a way is to establish, first of all, that there is a problem with the way the world looks today and the way we design it. And then secondly, this is the crucial part, to establish a consensus around this issue. A problem I run into pretty early on, which I hadn't anticipated, is that as soon as I started writing about this, you know, this, like, just bollot, like people have very strong views about it. Most people are inclined to agree, and like the polls show very clearly, studies and polls show very

clearly that people are dissatisfied with how things look, and that they generally prefer traditional to modern architecture. But I found that as soon as I started writing about it, people have all these connotations based on whether they think their left wing or right wing. There's this idea, for example. No, it's a big issue because people think if you're, to criticize modernism, right? like modern architecture. To criticise that must mean that you're somehow like a traditionalist conservative, even a fascist. And also if you want to revive traditional architecture, you must therefore be a conservative or a fascist. And then people also think if you defend

modern architecture, the conservatives think you're like a radical socialist or a communist. And all of this is it's complete nonsense. It's just not true. Now, So that's the second part. I want to demolish these misguided political associations around the issue and establish a consensus, which is why I've brought some little graphics. So the first thing I'll do is I just want this should be quite good fun. I just want to show you these and ask you what you think they are. It's sort of a trick question, and I'm hoping you get it wrong.

They look like towers, towers of castles in some ways. Exactly. That's how they look. These are water towers. These are 19th century water towers. Wow. So all they do is, you know, for people who don't know what water tower is, like in a town or city, in order to have water pressure, you need to lift all the water up high to the pipe right. So that's what these are. Unbelievably, these somehow are just bits of, like, the most boring infrastructure you can imagine. Water management infrastructure. And yet they look like, they're just, they're so much fun, right? Imagine Northumbrian water created one of those. Exactly. Exactly. And what's most interesting,

is that these have all been decommissioned now, right? Because obviously, you know, we've got more advanced technologies, and yet they still stand because people love them. They've been converted variously into houses, some of them are like gallery spaces or viewing platforms. And again, just like the drain pipes, it's crazy to think that in the past, people believed that even something is simple and ostensibly boring and functional as a water tower could make a town or city more interesting. But this isn't about past, versus present, which is what people assume. All I'm interested in is improving the present

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Now, to the first, to establish out, I mean, look at this. This is another screenshot of a tweet I did. So this is like, I can't read it. What does it say? Why are cities all around the world starting to look the same? Yeah. You go the USA, Japan, Russia, Colombia, Germany, Ethiopia, Brazil, Taiwan, Poland, Australia, Spain, China. These are high-rise skyscrapers. Yeah, they just want, like, it all looks the same, right?

And what's, so I did this. It's a glass, steel, vocal lines. and he's got like 174,000 likes. You know, so, like, people really care about this issue. Like, people feel very, very strong. Like, the easiest way to get traction online is just to post two images. One of, like, a nice old thing, one of a crappy new thing,

and everyone loves it because everyone feels it to be true. And it crucially, it's like a global issue as well. So, you know, with those water towers, with those drain pipes. The reason that I wanted to show them to you is just to kind of give an example of two things. First of all, the fact that things have changed, that we don't design things how we used to. And secondly, to show that it's possible to make boring things, to make infrastructure, interesting, meaningful, and charming. So that is the problem.

Now, at this point, people start getting very angry. And if I can sort of address the two sides, one off the other, this is what I would say. So I think it's very important to defend modern architecture, right? It's not popular with the public, even though a certain sort of group of architects and planners love it. The general public do not like modern architecture. Look at any city, any poll. Look at where people go. Look at where tourists take photos, right?

When tourists come to London, where do they want to go and take photos in front of the pretty old buildings? Where do people want to go on holiday? They go to Paris. They go to Rome. They go to Venice. go to Kyoto. They want to see beautiful old buildings, right? What the public want is very clear. That being said, I think it's very important to defend modern architecture. There's this idea, I think, maybe among conservatives and what you might call more right-wing or traditionalist

people, which are all such unhelpful terms. Anyway, that modern architecture, these big, sort of boring concrete tower blocks skyscrapers, that they replaced these baroque palaces and these charming cottages. But the truth is that this is the kind of thing they replace. This photo was taken in the Netherlands in the 1930s. Okay, this is a mud hut. It's a family of three, two adults and an infant. I'm not doing this for the visually impaired. I'm doing it because some people are just listening.

Black and white photo of what looks like farmland, middle of a field essentially. I think there's a wheel? Is that a wheel? Yeah, on the top of the house. Yeah, so it's very low. It's basically the height of maybe even slightly. lower than the height of people. It's an a frame sort of, there seems to be a big

bit at the back, but I mean, it's halfway between a mound of dirt and a tent made out of wood. Yeah. Right. Would you want to live there? No. Probably not. Now, most people of our history were living in conditions not totally dissimilar to this. Like, for most of history until the last century, people were living in conditions of absolute squalor and material misery. And all these modern buildings which are very easy to criticize aesthetically, they look pretty nice when you compare them to that sort of thing. Modern architecture using concrete and steel and glass and plastic building quickly

and cheaply and efficiently basically gave the world a roof over its head. It lifted humanity out of material squalor and into a world where they could have, you know, they weren't living in places like that where you're warm and you're dry. and there's no danger of imminent collapse. So it's really important, I think, that more conservative or traditionalist people recognize that modern architecture has actually been a blessing for humankind insofar as quality of life is concerned. I also think a lot of modernist buildings are very beautiful, but that's kind of a separate point.

I think they can be lovely. And I think, like, I like the shard, you know, and I like the gherkin. These buildings are so much fun. And I wouldn't want to see a world where we didn't build those. Definitely not boring, though. Exactly. They're not boring. Exactly.

And the charming. And the charming. Yeah. Meaningful. But what I love about these buildings is like London has this fantastic practice of giving buildings nicknames. So the gherkin, the shard, the freaking walkie-talkie, the cheese grater. That I think is meaning emerging, basically, when we give them those names. You know, the gherkin feels like a pot of London.

You can't imagine London without the gherkin now, even though 20 years ago a lot of people didn't like it. So that's my sort of piece aimed at the traditionalists who are, I think, too overly critical of modern architecture. But now the problem is that maybe the slightly bigger problem is that as soon as you start talking about this issue, a lot of more progressive people, generally conservative, progressive, maybe socialist, left-heaning liberal people, think that to call for traditionalism is some kind of like retrogressive, conservative, fascistic worldview. which I think is clearly not the case. Like, asking for the world to be more beautiful, expect the streets where ordinary people live and work.

Like, the rich can freaking afford whatever paintings they want. They can afford lovely houses. The people suffering most right now are ordinary people all over the world whose streets and homes and offices are literally making them depressed. But studies have shown. I mean, you don't even need studies to prove it, but I suppose it's helpful. Like, we are more stressed, more anxious, less productive, less happy when we're in boring environments.

Like, why do prisons look the way they look? Like, why do Solisional confinement have nothing in it and harsh lighting? But there's this crazy situation where we literally design buildings these days in the same way that we design prisons. I mean, it's kind of sad to think about, but, you know, there's this game that some people play, which is, is it a prisoner, is it a school? And if you look at prisons and schools built in the UK

over the last 50 or 60 years, and I show you a photo of each, you can't tell which is which. They look pretty similar. Anyway, more to the point about why I think liberal people should embrace and progressive people should embrace this some traditional architecture. A bunch of reasons. One, it's more sustainable.

Look at those water towers, right? You build something that's beautiful that people like. You don't have to demolish it. It lasts decades or hundreds of years, which is way more sustainable than building things like we do now, which are going to be demolished in 20, 30 years because they're crappy and no one likes them. It's also more environmentally friendly. Traditional architecture is way more.

interested in using local materials. It's also more suited to local climate. Like, why do all old houses or buildings in Northern Europe have very steep roofs, steep gables? Because it snows, right? And you don't want snow to build up on the roof. Now we have flat roofs. So we spend like a crap ton, you know, having to, you know, we have to clear it or we have to heat it. So it melts. It's a mess. Anyway, so it's more environmentally sustainable. And also, the final thing I'm realizing going on a bit, but this is so important. Like, when you have beautiful stuff, like those beautiful hinges, you would talk about the beautiful latches in the doors. William Morris, the great, great William Morris, 19th century poet and designer and a campaigner, also a massive communist and Marxist as well. The reason he loved beautiful, medieval, old-fashioned design is because he felt it made people's lives more interesting when they have to use stuff.

But it also made people's lives better when they had to make stuff. Like right now, we're forcing people all around the world, on other sides of the world, to be fair, and other countries, paying them, like, crappy wages to make crappy, boring stuff. As soon as your job involves making something interesting and beautiful, and you've got some creative say in it. Like, imagine if, you know, bricklayers in this country, you know, we just make them, we ask him to make plain brick walls. It's at the middle ages, bricklayers, what they did, they would make patterns in the walls. You know, you can do wonderful things with bricks. They sound boring, but bricks can be so charming, so much fun. And now, you know, we don't do that.

But in a world where we embrace beautiful design, everyone benefits the people who have to make stuff and the people who have to use stuff. Anyway, that is, I think, most of what is needed to be said, that I want to establish a consensus that the world can be so much more interesting, that we will all benefit from it. And that it's not a political issue. Anyway, I didn't get through all my slides. I want to see more of your examples. Go to do the presentation. So, here's, here's one. So here are some, here are some, do you know what they are?

Water fountains. Yeah. So there's a variety, sort of a green. The classic green's okay. It's a little, a little sterile and minimalist, but it's not bad. And then there's one that's sort of a real aqua blue and looks a little bit like a, like a cartoon. Yeah. So these are some water fountains that have been installed around London in the past sort of 10 to 20 years.

And around the UK, actually. And they're fine, like they do their job. But on the whole, I wouldn't say that they necessarily make the place where they are pretty or more interesting. But now here are some Victorian water fountains, which... They look like mini chapels. They do, yeah, they do, they do. They're beautiful. And they're really...

Four-sided... Yeah, I mean, that... almost looks like a fountain that you would go to. Yes. Where ducks would swim. Yeah, exactly. And there's a few points on this, but I'll keep relatively brief. The main one to me is that when you see something like this, when this much care and

thought has been put into designing water fountains, which are one of the most important kinds of public architecture you can have, right? Like water is a sacred thing. It is the source of life. When you treat the public and treat water in this way, I think everyone is much happier. And now the other slides I can probably kind of speed through them. There's no speeding through anything.

We can indulge as much as you want. We can, we can, but there's just so much exciting stuff to talk about here. So this one is kind of fun. So you remember I showed you the screenshot of how all modern architecture looks the same, all these skyscrapers? Well, it turns out in the past, things weren't actually necessarily. different. Like here's one of classical island, Mexico, Greece, India, Russia,

Cuba, USA, Philippines, Argentina and these are all quite sort of Baroque style pillars with the classics A frame Greek what is that? Pettiment. Yeah and they all look the same

basically, all of the world. And it's the same here. Difference being I think people don't mind when they think it's pretty. No, they don't mind, exactly. But I think it's important to recognize that we shouldn't romanticize the past. Even though I'm prone to doing that, I think I've got better in recent years of being much more realistic about what things were like. But it's interesting, first of all, yeah, that people don't mind homogenous architecture when it's pretty, but also that things in the past were also, you know, it's not like there was necessarily more variety. And these ones are kind of

more to the point. Again, it's just like freaking loads of buildings that look the same. Wow, look at that sort of Gothic style cathedrals. UK, Norway, Slovakia, Germany, Chechia. Oh, Czechia, I guess that's the Czech Republic. Chequia. Italy, that one in Italy is insane. Yeah, it's in Milan. Hungary, Portugal and Belgium, all...

Again, they're all very, very similar, right? Because they're all part of the same. And that was kind of... And then, sorry, there is one more of these, which is a now Byzantine-style architecture. Okay, so this is with domes. Yeah. A little bit lighter color, a lot of white.

some yellows in there as well um and again they all look very similar so i kind of like making that point just because again perhaps um more some people who are more traditionally aligned tend to forget that there were phases in the past when buildings look the same all around the world but then the equal point that you made straight away is that people don't mind architecture they don't mind when it's homogenous if it's pretty then the final thing it's a It came out a bit blurry, unfortunately. But anyway, what do you think this building is? What do you think that is?

I think it's a church. Sure. That's what anyone would think. Okay. You tell me it's showers or something? So this is a still from the documentary, actually. It's been my dream for years to visit this place and to film there. Where is it?

So this is, it's called Cross Nest Pumping Station. This is a sewage facility. when London's new sewer was built in the 19th century they needed a pumping station a few miles like about 20 miles east closer to the mouth of the Thames and the Victorians thought this was how you should design a sewage facility

and it's just absolutely gorgeous and this in a way sums up the change and I think we've lost the belief the conviction that even sewers can be beautiful, can be

charming, interesting, meaningful. There are people working sewers, and what's the excuse other than convenience and cost? Yeah, well, so this is where I guess really interesting. The cost point is frequently raised that we can't afford

to build like that or design like that anymore. But this kind of isn't true. There are two things to say about it. First of all, one point, it is a bit more expensive, but like, anything is too expensive if you don't want it. And then the question is, is the extra investment worth making? Well, if it's going to cost 1% more, which is usually what it's like to decorate, like decoration is so much cheaper than every other part of a building, right? Just got to stick some pretty stuff on the front of it.

Now, that's all cast iron. It's mass manufactured. This isn't made by some artists slaving away for years. You literally melt the iron, stick it in a mould, pull it out, paint it a bit, looks beautiful. Like, is an extra percent worth an increase in human happiness and joy, worth increasing, you know, the lifespan of the building will be expanded by, you know, decades? I dare say that that's a wise investment. And also, in purely speaking purely commercially,

Think of what it does for tourism, like cities, especially like in Europe, you know, in Europe, people don't make stuff anymore, don't manufacture stuff. Where does all the money come from? Comes from tourism. Like you put up beautiful buildings and people from around the world will come flocking, spending all the hard-earned money just to spend one night in this one freaking pretty street in your city. So like it's one the best investments you can make is in decoration. That's the one people usually raises cost. It's kind of kind of the biggest one. And it really is that simple. I think there's also other things we could get into that probably aren't worth addressing right now. But it's, to the point I want to make, is that it is a choice.

We act like it isn't a choice. And the problem with that, however, is that we live in a consumerist society. And again, this is why I think traditionalists and liberals, conservatives and progressives, should be united. The problem, the biggest problem with modern design, isn't any um is isn't people who want to return to the past it's not socialism it's not communism the biggest problem is consumerism like we live in a society where we have a culture of obsolescence

nothing is built to last because you can make more money obviously if you don't build things to last where the cheapest most convenient quickest route is the one that we always take with everything we do like everyone stands to benefit from that kind of meaningful beautiful design apart from if you're a property developer or a planner whatever it is and you want to spend as little money as possible and get back as much as possible

in a short time span you make it boring you make it ugly you don't care about how it looks that's the consumerism I think is the biggest problem In other news this episode is brought to you by Momentus

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That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom, a checkout. Where do you think on the planet has got a good balance of beauty, of charm, meaning, interestingness? I imagine some unsophisticated idiot like me is immediately going to say Rome because it's so obvious and in my face. I went to Vienna for the first time. Oh, hell yeah. What do you make of it?

Again, I, that kind of very, I've just read my first philosophy book.com a necessarily baroque architecture thing. For me, it's very, it's easy to enjoy. I find it, I find the detail, very pleasant, the fact that every street that you turn down is really wonderful. I thought that was lovely. I really, really enjoyed Venice. I thought Venice was fantastic

and small, quaint streets and higgledy-piggledy buildings, almost leaning up against each other and they're being supported by bits of wood and the wood supported by iron and the iron brackets are on the side of the house and no two streets look the same and all of the pavements are cracked

and that felt quaint to me which was charming, I think that would be very, very charming. Where else has got it right that I like? I'm a fan of Harrogate. Nice. I think Harrogate in the UK, Edinburgh. Yeah, Edinburgh is phenomenal. Just, yeah, your spirits lift when you go to Edinburgh.

You're excited. Every corner. But these are, maybe not for Americans, but these are maybe more obvious examples. No, but they're good examples, man. Okay. You made such a, like, a good point. Like, when you said about Vienna, like, it's easy to enjoy. You know, I've got, like, I'm deep into this stuff, and I don't like Baroque

architecture. I'm much more of a gothicist. I'm much further Gothic. And I could sit here and talk for 12 hours about why that is. But it kind of doesn't matter what I think. I just like it. I like it. I like it because I like it. It makes you smile. And you get out your phone, you start taking photos, you know? And that is what matters here. So Edinburgh, Rome, Vienna, other cities in the world as well, all over the world. Where else? Give it, give us some maybe less obvious, beautiful locations that people could that you wouldn't think of. Yeah.

So I love Sophia in Bulgaria. That's got a wonderful mix. It's got a mix of architecture, which is why I like it, because for a long time it was under the Ottoman Empire. And the same is true all around Bulgaria. You've got a lot of Ottoman-era, kind of Turkish-influenced buildings. But then you've also got, after it was independent, you've got all these 19th century neo-Bisantine or big domed cathedrals.

And then you've got Art Nouveau, all spiraling and flowery and pastel colours. And then the communists came and started building their massive brutalist monuments, and I adore brutalism. And so you go to any city in the Balkans, really, and they've got this just amazing mix. Over 500 years, you've got several different chapters of world and cultural and architectural history crammed in on the same street. And I think variety is key. Again, I'll say it once more. I wouldn't want to see a world where we just get rid of modernism in design, like some modern building. It's just wonderful.

We mentioned the Gurkin earlier, and I think the world benefits from variety. Look, it's a law of nature. One of the big points I make is like, okay, but why do human beings like variety? Why do we need variety? Why is decoration charming to us? Like, why is a door handle with a little spiral on it nicer than a door handle that's just a bar? Because it reflects nature. You go outside and look at a tree.

John Constable, the painter, has this great line, that no two leaves in the history of the universe have ever been identical. And it's true. Look at a tree. Every single leaf is different. Every single tree is different. Nature is constantly changing. It's varied and it's detailed.

And those principles of natural beauty, I think, which is the environment that we were not raised in, that we evolved in. And that we've been in since the dawn of the human species is the one we feel most at home in. And go ahead, go ahead. No, I'm just, I totally get it. that the straight lines don't necessarily appear in nature, so trying to replicate some more complexity and some more uniqueness in design is a good idea. You mentioned brutalism there.

I can see how brutalism might not be boring. I would absolutely say it is not charming, though. True, true. Make the pro case for brutalist architecture. Yeah, oh God, you might need to do a tiny briefer on what brutalist architecture is as well. Sure. So, brutalism is a word that conjures a lot of images in people's heads.

Like it emerged after the Second World War in the late 50s, well, early 50s, and then kind of really took off in the 60s, in the West, and then it took off in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc a little bit later in the 70s and 80s. Now, when people say brutalism, they usually mean any building that is concrete and square. That's not what brutalism is. That's basically just, that's the most basic form of modernism, I suppose. is brutalism, properly told, is about these big, bold shapes. So you know, you know the National Theatre or the South Bank Centre?

Just on the other side of Waterloo Bridge. That's like a great example of brutalism. I should have probably should have added to my presentation. But what you've got is these great big cubes and pyramids and weird angles and big open spaces. And it's all concrete. It's all unpainted, raw concrete, which is very honest. It's truthful. That's the idea.

Anyway, the reason I love brutalism is because it's bold and it's exciting and it presents a vision for the world. It's like brutalism, you look at all this all fancy, pretty detailed, delicate stuff. Brutalism is the opposite of that. It is massive. It is pure geometry on a huge scale. Like the pyramids of ancient geyser or stonehenge are kind of brutalist. Like imagine those things but made of concrete. Suddenly they're brutalism. And that's what brutalism has this like ancient monumentality to it. And I think that's way more, I agree it's not charming. But not everything needs to be charming.

Some things should be imposing or impressive. And I think brutalism is impressive. But what you said was so true. You said you don't think of it as boring, right? Because it's not boring. It's maybe ugly. But maybe ugliness is a good thing sometimes. But what did I say?

The one thing we cannot bear is boredom. Ugly is fine. Boring is not fine. And brutalism, I grant that some people find it ugly. And I wouldn't want a world of brutalism, but I think it's something inspired, and to me, very optimistic. It emerged after the Second World War. You know, the whole world has been devastated by the greatest cataclysm in the history of civilization. And from the ashes emerges this new style of architecture.

It is, it is, if you pick a brutalist building and look at a photo of it from when it was first built in the 50s or 60s, it looks so futuristic. And I can imagine people, like, imagine you're surrounded by all these, like, you know, delicate Victorian buildings. the plaster is peeling, the iron is rusty and then you see this like concrete spaceship. It's like this is going to be a better, fair or more prosperous world. Only in comparison

with a much more delicate refined glass, steel, chrome building. Does this begin to actually look kind of raw and primal and

threatening. Yeah. Threatening is a good word. It can be pretty threatening. And the problem now, which, yeah, is that the world has been filled with so much boring design, plain squares and cubes. That brutalism has lost its charm because it worked by virtue of its contrast with that older environment.

Now you have these brutalist buildings surrounded by just freaking glass boxes. It doesn't look that interesting, right? You mentioned earlier on. You're a hopeful, romantic. I think I put myself in the same category, actually. How do you come to think about romance in the modern world? We've spoken about beauty, something that I think people wistful for struggling to find, perhaps, interestingness, and where is it, this sort of increasing sterilization as they feel of the environments that they have to spend time in, whether inside or outside.

how do you come to conceive of romance in the modern world so you mentioned um sterilization a really really good word i think romance romance is the least convenient thing you say the word romance twice and things start falling out of the wall and that's the way it works how it should be that's how it should be we live as i said i think we're okay yeah someone agrees we We live in a world of convenience and of hyper commercialized optimization. And in this world, in amongst it, romance screams out as the opposite. Like, I said it to a friend of mine, I think I said it to David, actually. I said, we were talking, we talked about dating and how he's getting on.

And I said, look, man, it's not love if it's convenient. Like, love is anything apart from convenient. Like, when you're in love and when you're in love, and when you're, you're taken by these passions, right, you stop doing things you should be doing. You think, well, I've got to work today, but I just want to be with this person. You stay up all night. No, you arrive at work, you're tired, you're sleepless. That is not convenient, and it's not beneficial to a world where your focus would be on, on kind of optimizing according to those material conditions. And yet, it's worth it. You know, and I think that's how I think that's how I think

romance and why we're struggling to find it, because it runs contrary to all the instincts that are being taught to us by the world. I don't think you can schedule romance, you know, and I think online dating culture, it is transformed the way maybe we think about love into something that fits into a broader scheme of a scheduled and organized life. I think it narrows the scope of possibility for passion to sweep you away, you know? And that is why I, yeah, that's how I think of romance. Does that answer the question or not? To a degree, it does. I think the inconvenience makes an awful lot of sense, you know, to go from your slightly more artistic, whimsical approach to my remote area of expertise of evolutionary psychology

in mating dynamics. Humans have two attachment systems. We have the passionate and the companionate. And the passionate is highly irrational. It's the honeymoon phase. It's obsession, a lot of anxiety. It's very painful. Anyways, it's very beautiful.

It's the rush, to the spark. You're unable to focus on anything. It wouldn't make for a particularly good society. It certainly wouldn't really even make for a particularly good family life. There's a lot of articles online. and go and find this couple kept their honeymoon phase going for 20 years and here's how you can do it too. And there's a bit of me that thinks, well, that sounds nice in some ways because there's the rush and there's the novelty and there's the uncertainty and oh, isn't it

exciting? I would not want to be the child of parents who I'm 10 years old or 5 years old and they're still in the honeymoon phase. I don't think that you're executive functioning. that's why you stay up late you should go to bed it's a good idea to go to bed something I imagine you tell yourself all the time knowing your sleeping pattern so

and then you move into companion at love companion at love is friendship categorized much less by sort of this obsession but a deeper kind of connection it's closer to friendship but with the romantic interest in there too and I think I don't know how much of a place there is in the modern world for romance,

certainly not given some of the challenges of roles that men and women have to try and contend with now, that women can be their own provider and that men don't need to be the provider at all, especially if the woman is. Neither need to be procreator, which would have been very novel, ancestrally. You know, if you have two people that are together in a relationship and there's no child that's come out of it, it's pretty likely that we're probably going to part ways. I don't know whether the fertility issues me or whether it's you, but if we both split up, then, you know, there's a 50% chance that we might, this might work with somebody else. Maybe it is you. Or maybe it's me and it'll be another, another whiff. But I wonder, given these sort of

changing modalities in order for you to be romanced in order for you to apply the and this is a joe folly idea i fucking become obsessed with this idea it's so good spoken about it twice today already joe makes this great point that the modern world is defined in many ways categorized by ironic speech yes yes man hell yeah before we continue if you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like getting your blood work done is the best place to start, which is why I partnered with function because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it in a simple dashboard, and give you actionable insights and recommendations to improve your health and lifespan.

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sincerity you're planting a position in the ground that you truly believe in okay this is me here I am this is what I want this is what I believe in uh as opposed to this is what I don't agree with or I don't believe in or I don't want anybody can define themselves there are far more things in the world that we don't want than we do want and it doesn't define who we are to say what we don't want but it also means that you don't risk the fear of rejection you can't be rejected for not something. You can in some ways, but it doesn't feel existential. You can be rejected for saying I like this thing. Or that feels like a comment on yourself. We were saying earlier on your ability to speak versus your ability to play the piano. That feels like a real, that's close to the

core of who you are as a person. Oh, I really showed you a bit of myself. I showed you a bit of myself. I opened up. It cracked my heart open and there it is. Here's a thing that I like. Sometimes that's a person. And sometimes it's how you feel about a person. And for that to be rejected, it's painful. So I think a culture of ironic speech of sardonic, distanced, second and third order, aloofness is a prophylactic against being hurt, but results in romance, which by definition is sincere and earnest. The courage to take your emotion seriously. it doesn't leave much room for that.

Yeah, every word, that was very eloquently beautifully put. And, yeah, I think in response to all of that, two things. First of all, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. The word romance, I think, can mean a couple of things. And I certainly don't believe that pure romance is enough for a sustainable relationship and a long-lasting. Oh, you're so utilitarian. Compatibility as well.

That being said, I think the romantic life is when you can, like, there's two sides. The romance is at the sweeping passion, you stay up all night, you leave your job, you run down the street with no shoes on, whatever the hell it is, I don't know. But I think romance can also be a way of life and a way of understanding the world. And what that way is, is exactly what you said, this ability to express those sincere, earnest feelings. And the possibility of doing that is less available to us than ever. We all have, every human has this deep well of passion and love, and light inside them. And I think the modern world, in many ways, is wonderful.

And even modern dating culture does a lot of things right. But that particular part of us, we can't get it out there. And I wanted to read you a few lines from, it's the obvious place to go to, but from Romeo and Juliet. It sounds like the obvious play to choose, and I don't want to get into what the play necessarily means and how it's even misunderstood. But it is, in many parts, a wonderful evocation of how to express oneself. so far as love is concerned. So here's a little scene.

Romeo Juliet is speaking from the balcony scene. Romeo says, Oh, will thou leave me so unsatisfied? Juliet, what satisfaction canst thou have tonight? Romeo, the exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine. Juliet, I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, and yet I would it were to give again. Romeo, wouldst thou withdraw it?

For what purpose, love? And then Juliet says, but to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have, my bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite. Now, that's a kind of expression, which we, doesn't really. really dovetail with this age of irony. And I think it would be... If she'd said all of that and then put lull at the end,

it would have hit slightly less well. Indeed. Indeed. I think we would be wrong to assume that all expressions of love are equal. And the language is obviously very old-fashioned. I'm not saying we should all start talking like that again. But those lines are as powerful and sincere. and they're also not generic, right? It's not just, oh, roses are red, violets, a blue kind of thing. That is like a really profound thought.

She's providing it. In explaining her, like, at this point in the play, she's like way ahead of Romeo in terms of emotional maturity. Like, he's freaking playing catch-up there. He does catch up by the end of the play, but at this point, he's just a guy who's, he thinks she's very good-looking and he'd like to kiss her, let's say. I think he's still in that stage.

But Julia, at that stage, the play is already well beyond that, into the realms of actual enduring, life-affirming, spirit-expanding love, which is what I think when I saw romance, I think that's why it's so important because it allows us to access that side of it. Like, romance and love are good for your freaking soul, you know, they make the world brighter and being able to talk, not in those words precisely, but to express oneself. The sentiment, the sentiment that I've loved you since before you knew it, and I'll love you so much that I'd withdraw it just so I could have the pleasure of giving it to you again

and it's boundless and reciprocal and circular and regardless of how you say it it's sort of cosmic and it's bigger than you and it's real and for that for you to say something like that to somebody for you to give them that much of yourself which is actually giving you more than them, right? You're giving more than yourself, which is what love feels like. Love feels, you know, greater. For instance, one of the wildest things that I've done when flying into London, I had a big day scheduled, I had all of this stuff planned, and I decided I was going to torpedo these plans. Land in London, by the time I've landed in London at Heathrow, I've got an Uber book to go

to Gatwick. I go an hour Uber to Gatwick, completely annihilate all of the plans I had for the day, trip to the dentist, hairdresser, to dinners that had been organized meetings, all the rest of the stuff. Go to Gatwick, fly to Edinburgh to meet a goal, to meet the goal. The girl. Hell yeah. Yeah. And then I spend 20 hours in Edinburgh to then fly back to Gatwick to then go and do the thing, destroyed the start of the week. Awful. Horrible idea.

Romance. Edinburgh is a great city as well to be walking around hand in hand, down there's a early way. Very much so, yeah. That's a beautiful story. And it's, um, actually, I was so into that story I've completely lost. Romeo and Juliet, earnestness.

Yeah. I was going to say something absolutely life-changing, but I can't recall But I think there is, this touch is on a broader point. And the poetry stuff might seem like, like, it's kind of a trick or a gimmick. And, you know, but it really isn't. And, like, I'm not saying that, like, you know, at 6.m. in the morning you wake up and, you know, I wake up and I make my girlfriend breakfast every morning before work. You know, she starts work at 7.

I'll wake up a 6. Make breakfast. If you can believe it, I do sometimes get up before. You've been texting me at 8 a.m. awake as opposed to going to bed. Yeah, for the first time, in a long time, I am now. You weren't nocturnal for a while. I was, yeah, I was fully nocturnal. Your diet was largely red wine and cigarettes.

Not red wine, actually. I didn't, I can't work drunk. I don't think you can work drunk. That's Alex, isn't it? It's Alex's his thing. I do not. But it was, it was one meal a day, far too many cigarettes. I think I asked you one day what your plan for the evening was, and you said,

I'm just going to smoke and walk around. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's romance. Romance. But it's, it's actually, a bloody good way to live. Not the smoking. It's bad for you. It's good for them, but it's bad for you and you shouldn't do it. But the walking around part,

doing nothing in particular is so much good for you. But I will probably get back to that, although on this point, I'm not saying we should be giving these kind of speeches to our loved ones, you know, a six in the morning, just woken up, faces a bit shiny and soft, or whatever it is.

But there is a place for it. And I think, to speak practically, like how, like why this age of irony, why do we struggle so much with romance, you know, this particular side of love, modern love, I think, and this is a broader issue, it comes down to education. And when I say that, I don't mean what you're learning in school. I mean the kinds of media and content you're consuming. Like what you watch and what you read and listen to shapes you even more.

than what you eat that shapes your body, right? Yeah. Like, you know, this kind of thing you talk about all the time. Yeah, it just is a really lovely,

hold the point. Don't worry. I'm not, I'm not going to lose myself in your, in your, just this is a lovely little, someone put this in the comments forever ago,

um, which was, uh, your body is made up of everything that you put into your mouth and your mind is made up of everything you put into your eyes and ears, prioritized appropriately.

And I think, oh, lovely. And you want a mental diet that is spirulina for the soul, not fast food for the amygdala. I'm not sure what three of those words meant, but I think I probably agree. You've had spirulina at some point. I'm sure they put it in cigarettes. I think that the new menthol cigarettes that you've been smoking has probably got spirulina. I don't have menthols. I don't smoke anymore anyway, so that's solved.

That's because your girlfriend's listening. That's what you've said. Yeah. Anyway, the point that was going to make was... Yes, that's also a beautiful way to put it. Prioritized appropriately. I love that. And in the same way that I think our souls and our minds and our hearts are better

when the things we consume with our eyes are charming and interesting versus boring. It occurred to me a little while ago. It sounds obvious. But I think, you know, I sort of... If I have a talent for anything, it's realizing that obvious things are true. and one thing I realized I was speaking at an event about the manosphere

I was telling you about it this weird event about the manosphere where nobody was on the side of the manosphere yeah I said put your hands up if you're in the manosphere no one put your hands with you know anyone who's in the manosphere no one so it was a bit of an

when not even two degrees of separation from a manosphere exactly yeah but it was a good event well meaning it was just a really weird thing about it but anyway at that event

and one thing I realized as suddenly as I was talking like one thing that we've done really well in the past decade, you know, you've been a big part of this as well, is like, I think a lot of parts of our lives are better now because we're focusing so much more on the kind of habits we have and the, and the, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, the way we, even the way we schedule and journal stuff. The past 10, 15 year boom in self-optimization has been, like, a blessing for human well-being, I think, primarily in a material sense. And maybe what we're lacking

is the equivalent boom in an, what I would call an artistic, cultural, or, emotional, spiritual. I was trying to work out what the word was. Yeah, I need to find a word that I will then use forever more, but it's something along those lines. Yeah, yeah. And I realized, I was like, what is, look at all these people. I was imagining everyone's there. They're eating well and they've got all the habit, they're living great lives in a lot of ways. But what is the best piece of art they've ever been exposed to? What is the best show they've watched? What is the best film they've watched? What is the best book they've read? What is the best poem they've read? And like, these days, notwithstanding the freaking infinite spew of Instagram reels, many of which are

very funny, of course, but anyway, notwithstanding that spew, which is obviously negative effects for how we think and feel. And, like, we don't need to come to that. But the other it says, because, you know, we always focus on the bad stuff. Like, people are spending too much time on Instagram and Reels, YouTube Reel, da-da, brain rot. But we never look at the other side, which is, okay, what is the best stuff we're putting into our brains and minds? And in the past 10, 15 years, I was looking at these people all about my age. And I'm thinking. thinking maybe the greatest piece of art they've ever ever witnessed and be you know seen is game of thrones or white lotus okay yeah yeah and like they're i've not watched them

i know they're very popular and they're they're obviously well made and they're clearly extremely good otherwise it wouldn't be that popular but i suspect across the scope of human history that they they're not i think there are other forms of art by which i mean poetry films books, paintings, music, which access and exhibit an even higher, profounder, deeper, broader and ultimately more meaningful side of humanity. And the great value of art is that it lets you into those secrets. It lets you see the world in a new way, like, what is the point of looking at a painting or reading a poem or reading a book?

Maybe you want to be entertained, but more than being entertained, it changes you. It either reveals things about the world that you didn't know or reveals things about yourself that you didn't know. And like the difference between a whole life spent watching nothing but sitcoms and one where you watch sitcoms half the time, but the other half of the time you deal with slightly more challenging, more complicated, more difficult but profounder forms of art. I think that second case, that person, is going to be happier.

It's going to be more at peace. And this is why I think poetry is so important the bit I read from Raymond Juliet, I think the world stands to benefit from, when I say, education, this is what I mean, like a more enriching cultural, a more culturally enriched environment where people do the hard work of like reading difficult books, reading these great poems, looking at these great paintings, listening to this great music. It's not just for fun and it's not just to show off. Like, this whole thing about being cultured can so quickly become like, oh, well, you know, I'm, I'm a cultural tutor like, oh, you You're in a Beethoven's third symphony? Well, you're a, you know, the troglodyte. Look at how refined it. Yeah, that is not what it's about. And some people think it is that they couldn't be more wrong.

Like, those people are idiots. What it's about is what it does to you. In the same way that eating a freaking Big Mac or a spirulina ball, which one is better for you? Same thing. And I think we need more poetry for that reason. And there is another poem I wanted to read. Bring it on. I'm ready.

This is Sheen Cook Quirke's Poetry Hour. So this, I... That isn't a dog-eared copy of... It's called verse and prose in peace and war by William Noel Hodgson. Now, William Noel Hodgson, he was a soldier in the First World War. He actually went to school in Canterham. Anyway, and he wrote poetry while he was in the trenches, and he sent it back to England. And there's one particular poem, which was published on the 29th of June, 1916, which I wanted to

to read. I think you'll like it. Let me just take her. Repair yourself. This is William Noel Hodgson, writing on the 29th of June 1916. It's called Before Action. So this is him in the trenches before.

He wrote this show, he just probably went off to fight. By all the glories of the day and the cool evening's Benazen, by that last sunset touch that lay upon the hills when day was done, by beauty lavishly outpoured and blessings carelessly received by all the days that i have lived make me a soldier lord by all of all man's hopes and fears and all the wonders poets sing the laughter of unclouded years and every sad and lovely thing by the romantic ages stored with high endeavour that was his by all his mad catastrophes make me a man o lord and I that on my familiar hill saw with uncomprehending eyes a hundred of thy sunsets spill their fresh and sanguine sacrifice

ear the sun swings his noonday sword must say goodbye to all of this by all delights that i shall miss help me to die o lord two days later William Noel Hodgson died in the battle of the song So it's a very powerful thing to read, regardless of the fact that he obviously wrote this poem and had those thoughts in his mind before he went off to die in war, it is nonetheless, I think, you know, you struggle to find a more impactful poem, one that expresses a more shocking worldview in a way. I mean, you imagine a soldier in the First World War in the trenches, in those miserable conditions, far worse than anything we could possibly imagine. imagine far from home in this in this war and like anything seen before with mustard gas and tanks and and and in the mud and the gangrene and a rats and just it's just it's just awful but he has the wherewithal the composure the the sort of spiritual depth to look within himself for this darkest of moments and write a poem which you know make me a man o lord make me a soldier lord help me to die oh lord it's just you know um almost beyond words now why do I read it well because I think someone

is better off I think people these days in the modern world will gain immensely their health their emotional um not much of their emotional texture their spiritual well-being

it can only benefit from being exposed for a better word to that sort of thing versus you know I'm not punching down when I say versus Game of Thrones or White Lotus

but my point is there's more than that and I think in art we can find it and that's just one example of one poem written by one guy

and I wonder if these days if people found the time and effort to dedicate 5% less time to those other forms of media

and more to this kind of thing I would do is all so much good so I think the problem I've always had, and I told you this before we started, the problem I've always had with poetry is I find it somewhat inaccessible. I don't know whether I'm supposed to, how I'm supposed to like it,

what I'm supposed to take from it, the holes, the unspoken words that are the vacuum that allow you to suck yourself in, you're spoon-fed Game of Thrones. You know, two or three times something is repeated, to remind you of exactly who this person is and, you know, the bad guy is disfigured and the hero has broad shoulders and, you know, there is a

difficulty setting on poetry and I mentioned to you that I'd read some Tim Burton, the melancholy death of Oyster Boy, which is really great and fun, but it's fun not because of its depth, it's fun because of its wit. And wit has a kind of, of depth to it but it's immediately apparent what's going on another one about um poor little mummy boy

and it's a pharaoh's curse that causes this woman to give birth to a a bundle of gauze and uh then a dog comes over one day and sort of pulls him apart and then there's some uh mexican kids at a birthday party and they mistake him for a pinata and they'd beat him to death. It's ready, Tim Burton. It doesn't have the spiritual or emotional explanatory depth of a guy that

is waiting at the battle of the song. But yeah, I think, I get it. I get that there is more to be gleaned and it gives you the opportunity to reflect on yourself and what this means in life and, oh, isn't that interesting wordplay?

or to think about, you know, a boy bobbing in the middle of the ocean, going nowhere, but being on a journey, or something like that, right? Like, it allows you to suck yourself into the story. The difference between reading a book and watching a movie of the same, even of the same book, right? But the inaccessibility that at least I find, I'm not, maybe I'm a little bit ashamed. I feel like I should be more sophisticated, should be more refined, capable. The insecure overachiever inside of me wants to win of being able to understand poetry. But the advantage that you have of something like Game of Thrones or White Lotus or whatever is that the barrier to entry is essentially the flaw. Very few people will struggle to understand

what it's about. There are certain movies, Severance, for example, might be a good example of something that's a little bit more. Or if you've ever seen, oh, fuck, not looper. There's this time travel movie. Oh yeah, it's called. Where they have the box. Yeah, I've not seen it,

but I know exactly what it. It's like a famous indie 2004. Suck. Primer. Primer. Brian. A little bit more difficult to follow. Yeah.

Tenet from Christopher Nolan. Tennet's so underrated. Tennis so underrated. But why did people not like it? Unnecessarily complex. Yeah. Memento. Also unnecessarily complex.

Okay. Yeah, sure. somewhat just again the barrier to entry to get into this is a little bit higher so yeah you're right um for the right people yeah okay okay something deeper is better but the breadth yeah is not there so i'm excited now i'm excited yeah get in come well okay so three things to say to all that like really well but maybe i end up being four first of all like tim burton his poem that's a great place to start you got to like that's fantastic like begin there and see where it takes you second thing is yes It can, again, poetry like art is dogged by the problem of connotations, that is this refined, sophisticated, like teacups and wigs, like, oh, well, I, you know, I can name every one who takes place.

Like, that's crap. That's stupid and irrelevant. And just pointless. The only reason this has any value is not because it makes you more sophisticated or refined in that sense is because in this stuff is contained the wisdom and the profoundest thoughts that humankind and a long civilizational history has come up with. Like, that's why these books survive. And obviously, does generate this kind of cultural gap and people use it as a shibboleth, you know, which my work is fighting against that. So I want to throw that all out the window and present this stuff and want people to look at it on its own terms. Now, it is more difficult, right? Some of it isn't necessarily difficult. A lot of poetry is crap and pointless and you shouldn't read it. But a lot of things in life are difficult. And there is a barrier to entry. Like, I don't go to, to the gym. And maybe I should.

Like, in fact, I almost certainly believe I should. But I've not done that. And it's quite scary. Like, just walk in like this. Like, might walk in the gym and start, I don't, I assume. You and Alex could wear your suit jacket. Yes, I assume I should get changed. But I, like, I don't even know how to.

I would love to turn you into a bro. I would absolutely love the opportunity to bro up sheer. quote. Well, look, well, let's do a swap. You can start reading poetry and you can put on a... Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I'll get you to do chest and back with me. Sure, but this is about this. We're joking. This is what I want. I want a synthesis. I don't want to take us back to the middle ages. What I want is for modern world, modern people as they are, to have this extra life, you know, infuse the system. But, yeah, the gym. Like, I don't know how to set up gym equipment. Like, to me, that barrier is the same barrier as when I sit down,

I read poetry, it doesn't immediately make sense to me. Well, sure, but like the only way to do anything, there are two ways to get in stuff. You either just freaking do it and learn on your own or you have someone to help you. And I would like to think something I can do in my book. There's a whole chapter of the book, which is trying to convince people to write a poem. You know, it begins with the line, I think you should write a poem. And here's why. I'd like to think my work can be to try and help people engage with this stuff without all those stupid connotations for what it is and for what it's worth and show that it has really. real value. Like, we need this stuff more than ever in the 21st century. And also, just get

into it. Like, you've got to be fearless. You've got to be brave. Like, people, it can be a bit elitist, it's a bit frightening. Like, you read Shakespeare and then you think, oh, well, like, this is what I think it's about. But, like, all these critics are saying it's not about that. Maybe what I think it's about is wrong. Yeah, well, here's the truth. What you think is about is absolutely correct. Like, this is my view, the same with art. Like, look at that painting. You tell me what you think of it, what it means to you. And then maybe your view will change. Maybe I'll try and change your mind, but that view is completely legitimate. It's no less legitimate than the view of whoever. Do you know Andrew Doyle? Do you know who he is?

Titania McGrath on Twitter. He is the creator, or he was the writer behind him. No, I think I'm now. For a long time. He's been on G.B. News. He was on the show a couple of weeks ago. He's living in Arizona now. And he, I didn't realize his master's or maybe his PhD, maybe he's got a I don't mind have a doctorate in this. It was in Shakespeare. Wow.

And he was telling me these stories about him. I didn't know much about Shakespeare law. And he was giving me all of this really interesting stuff. I didn't know that he said that Shakespeare basically made no commentary on his own plays. There isn't much by way of this is what this means. So as you said, well, this is what I think this means, but this is what the experts say it means. He goes, well, I mean, that's fine, but nobody knows what Shakespeare thought it meant.

Maybe there are some small, I think there was, I think there were a lot of acknowledgments that he had in some of the, the scripts, but there was no, there wasn't much in the margins, he wasn't writing about his own experience. He was a commoner, because plays at the time were, the entertainment of common folk. So, I'm like, I need to just, I'm fucking chewing this stuff. It was really cool. Exactly, right? When you're presented in that way, it's like, oh, wow, this is like, nothing's

like, like, whatever, Game of Thrones, I'd say, is the same thing as the as the, as Macbeth, you know, it's just the same thing. And, yeah, tearing away that veil is, is, is so important. God, I was what to say so, how did you, that last spiel you gave about Andrew Dole, where, what did that begin? had said it doesn't matter what you think this thing is about. It doesn't matter what the experts say or not. David Lynch, who's just so funny, you know, he has this great, he's famously doesn't like talking about his films. Yes, because people are like, so, David, what does this

thing mean? He's like, well, look, I made the thing, watch it, you too, more you think. It doesn't matter what I think. It's made. It exists now in the world. And all that matters is what you make of it. Isn't that interesting, sorry for introduction again. Isn't it interesting that the creator of the thing is allowed to tell you what the thing means. That would be like the parents of a child being able to define what the meaning of their life is. Yeah, I guess... As opposed to the child itself.

You go, I've created this thing. And it's now in the interaction of that thing in the world that it, maybe that's a shite analogy, I don't know. But it's interesting that people look, I think this is one of the reasons that that we do that is because we abhor uncertainty so much that we would rather collapse all of the different potential reasons for something's existence down into one, even if the one feels constricting instead of enabling. I can't work out.

Is it a love story? Is it a tragedy? Is it a comedy? Is it a comment on class? Is it, is Julius, what does he mean by, I just want to know because sitting in the uncertainty is uncomfortable and we would rather snap that down. Yeah, hell yeah. I could agree more. And I think the artist's perspective is just a part of the picture. But yeah, it's like if I said, Chris, I got you this lovely gift today. I got this nice table that you can put in your, in your front room. And you say, well, she and that's a mug. It's not a table. I say, well, I think it's a table. I said, well, I think it's a table. Like, well, yeah, similar thing, basically. Like, whatever you think it is, that's what matters.

You think it's a cup, users a cup. You think it's a freaking hat, you use a hat. I don't care. That's a beauty of art, that it just lifts you up and engages you. And there is one final thing I want to say about poetry, about why I think it's also so important in the modern world, along with everything else I said about the wisdom that it teaches us and what it allows us to access in ourselves.

It's also run, like, a lot of the problems that we find these days with the internet and social media reduction, and poetry, one reason it's so difficult, is because it's the exact opposite. Like, rather than seeing 30 or 40 reels in a minute, you have to kind of sit on your own in silence for maybe a couple of minutes while you read it, and then think about what it was, something of you're alone, and like all this world disappears, and all our instincts to reach for something to scroll, to flick,

to look for an explanation, to ask about it, to comment, like, you're just left alone with this poem. And that's sort of a little bit of contemplative, reflective experience again is like just a little little bit of texture that can help to to lift the ailing human spirit of the modern world I think it's good training basically yeah it's the same way it's the same way as going to the gym and lifting a weight while there's no weight on it wow okay right the progressive overload is injecting some of your effort into what it is that you do putting some of yourself into this thing

asking yourself what does this mean it's an opportunity to reflect um you know i certainly i wrote to my first poetry this year and uh i really enjoyed it it was a real challenge to to allow myself to be more whimsical this is certainly something else that doing this the show the live show that i'm doing um has allowed me to do because when you're on stage people kind of forgive a bit more wimsy you know if you're in a normal i guess if you if you're telling stories as well i learned this from friends that are great storytellers mr ballon uh who has this huge youtube channel and story, Keegan Allen, another friend of mine. They're just about a drive somewhere. And there's so much unnecessary detail in there about, you know, where the sun was at, how hot it was, or what he

was wearing, or the coffee that he'd had earlier that day. And you realize that all of the unnecessary detail fleshes the story out in the ways that you care about most. Yeah, that's the point of the end, that is almost the point of the story. It's like in life. All the most valuable things about life are the least necessary in a way. But no, I remember with your show last year, you came out on stage and I was thinking, okay, here we go, Chris. He's going to freaking nail me to the canvas

and sort me out. I mean, he's sort of telling jokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just doing what you want, I suppose. Yeah, I love that. Romance, anything else to say on modern romance? I think most of what I care deeply about has been

maybe not quite as clearly as out of like, but I think I think in terms of my main gripes It's uh Just give me one Maybe more than one second Of course Like five seconds Um

Yeah without getting to I have a bunch more slightly narrower thoughts But I don't think there's need to get into them Well one is just about the willingness to die You know I think It's a part of romance The willingness to die

Yeah I think Um Harold Bloom has this great line Where he says The erotic is where the sex and death overlap which is kind of an interesting thought and that reason I bring up that slightly weird

quote is because the willingness to die is an interesting phenomenon and I think love in its highest and purest form romance love that's what they are it's got to be a complete you've got to cast off your stake in worldly matters

in order to give yourself for someone completely, right? But it gives off someone, you've got to give everything up. That's a kind of death. Yeah, some people talk about religious duration. But the way of the thing is, I think, I wonder in the modern world, like, okay, here's a question for you, man. Is there anything that you,

what would you be willing to die for? Oh, that's interesting. Like, would you die for me? Would you die for your country? Would you die for... your parents yeah wrapped up in that is

love right is wrapped up in that is romance and it also teaches on this again broader thing I think a weird

interesting thing about the modern world is I wonder what people are willing to die for and it's kind of a morbid

thing to ask yourself but think if you want to know who you are if you want to get to grips with your life you've got to ask

what would I be willing to lay down my life for and I'm not saying people in the past had this sorted they didn't

but it's certainly of the case that at one time or another certain groups of people did and in many ways the people we admire most in our films and that's like why people find medieval knights so interesting or samurai many reasons one of them is the fact that what they do is life or or death and the same with many of the great romans you know what's one of the things are so impressive and weird and fascinating about them and and so compelling is the fact that they are willing to stake their life on on a belief on a conviction on a kind of of what kind of love and you know um it's uh albert camu you know famously said that the meaning

of life is uh whatever is stopping you from killing yourself you know it's a very very witty line and true my personal version is you know the meaning of life is is whatever you're willing to die for the meaning of your life is whatever you'd be willing to give up that life for and if there's one question people should maybe ask you know i don't know uh whether this is the time but often interviews end with. What's your one piece of advice? I usually have a few ones that I give, but the one that's on my mind right now is one piece of advice,

ask yourself, what would you be willing to die for? And a lot of other stuff will fall into place. Which is your favourite of the 49 lessons? Not the best, not the most obscure. The last one. Can you grab your... Sure. Grab your...

It's actually not the last one. I said that to be a... Well, maybe it is the last one. So this is my book. You want a photo? Take him with a lovely Alexander Griffin in the back. Ah, yeah, he's, he wants more credit. I think he's got a lot of credit, but he just wants more. I'm very selfish in that way.

I wonder if he's here. Is he here? Is he? Good, yeah, tell him he's selfish. Thank you. Maybe it is the last one you know. So is he enjoyed to talk about? Do you want me to read it or?

No, just, yeah, give me a little explainer of it. Hi, Alex, you're selfish. in terms of what's most relevant or useful here I'm not saying it's just because it's at the end to convince people to read the whole book but the second to last chapter is called the last library on Earth and in it I kind of pose the question

this theoretical situation which is like imagine in the far future there's being global catastrophe Earth is being evacuated and there's a spaceship and you're this librarian and you're like okay we need to leave Earth there's only room for 10 books, like which 10 books would you bring? The only books that survive from all of human history. My personal answer is that they shouldn't bring any books.

But anyway, the reason I bring up this point is because the touches on themes have been mentioning. There's something like 150 million books in the world. It's like 150 million, not total like physical books, but 150 million different books you could read. Like even if you read like a thousand books a year, year, you wouldn't read more than like 0.007%, which is kind of scary. It brings you face to face with your mortality as soon as you realize that you literally, you can read

anything, but you can't read everything, which means you've got to pick. And a lot of my work is just about trying to encourage people to pick much more judiciously and imaginatively the very few things they'll be able to consume in their life. You know, I don't think people should read my book, to be honest. I think there are thousands of books they should read instead of this one. The problem is, there are thousands of other crappy books being published every single year. And if people reading my book could come away with one lesson, it's that I don't need to read anything published in the last 50 years. Like, everything I need to know about life has probably already been written and written better. And has also... What a way to make someone

regret their purchase at the end of the book? Exactly. And but, like, what is the best filter for quality in all of that it is time right time if something is not good it will not last then the effect indeed so like an amazon bestseller list all it tells you is what's popular in any given week even book awards are telling you what's been popular in any given year but the past 10,000 years of human history that tells you what people across all ages in all corners of the earth all backgrounds all creeds all religions all situations what all of those people or at least you know a lot of them thought was most useful most interesting most meaningful. Like, we have a list of these books. You can go and read them. And I'm saying not to

only do that. Like, I'm not saying you shouldn't read, you know, Dame Jilly Cooper who died today. God rest of soul, you know, Jilly Cooper. She wrote these, you know, she wrote all these books, these sort of racy novels about horse riding and football and stuff. Real legend, Dame Jilly Cooper. You should read about her. Anyway, I'm not saying you shouldn't read her books ever, but the kind of the earning, the burning message of this book is like it's all waiting for you like all this stuff which will just completely transform the way you think about yourself and the world and like is you know for me the whole experience of learning about culture quote unquote um which i really got into about five years ago i just i kind of managed to cast off all these preconceived notions of what i should or

shouldn't think and just got into art and architecture and poetry and it was like the world went from being in black and white to in full color. And I think, yeah, to summarize, that is what these days, that's what, not all we're lacking, and a lot of the stuff we're doing is good, but it is one of the things that people are missing is joy, like the words romance and adventure and death, like these are such nobility, nobleness. You know, in our age of irony, it's very hard to say these words. But that doesn't mean these things aren't real And like if you got every single book printed in 2025

And asked how many times the words adventure and a romance And nobility came up It would be like, you know, no one talks about these things And my job for anything is to inject that Back into people's lives And it's a this is the place to begin But it's not the place to end This is not the place to end

This is not where you get everything This is intended as a primer This is where you begin It's like, hey, I've just discovered This whole new solar system And I want to tell you about it. Please, please, come and look at this. It'll be better, I promise, than some of the things you're doing currently.

Shane Quirk, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I think you're great. I really love the work that you're doing. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with everything that's happening and check out. Sure, well, following on X at the cultural tutor. I also do have an Instagram page now. Do you really?

Yeah. You on Instagram is a fascinating. It's going to be like seeing, I don't know, your dad do an MMA fight or something. It's been pretty fun. uploading stories you know take a picture of something and say oh look at this I was in an X Instagram I have a newsletter

which is called the Ariopagus you can subscribe on Substack find me at the Cultural Shooter on Substack and along with the book there's also this fantastic documentary which I hope people will be uploaded to it'll be on YouTube and on X whose channel

the Cultural Shooter YouTube channel David's one we're going to release it on a brand new channel which is exciting I'm not sure if this is a venture into being a YouTuber but it's more it's the home of the And I'm sure we can, what did they say? We can link it in the description.

Join us, Sheen. Dude, thank you so much. It's been a long time coming. I can't wait for the next one. Mr. Williams. When I first started doing personal growth, I really wanted to read the best books, the most impactful ones, the most entertaining ones, the ones that were the easiest to read and the most dense and interesting.

But there wasn't a list of them. So I scoured and scoured and scoured and then gave up and just started reading on my own. And then I made a list of 100 of the best books. that I've ever found and you can get that for free right now. So if you want to spend more time around great books that aren't going to completely kill your memory and your attention, just trying to get through a single page, go to Chriswillex.com slash books to get my list completely free of 100 books you should read before you die. That's chriswillx.com slash books.