Modern Wisdom - #366 - Dr Clay Routledge - A Psychologist's Tips To Find Meaning

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Dr Clay Routledge is a Professor of Management at North Dakota State University and an author. How to find meaning in life is a question that's been grappled with for thousands of years. As an Existential Psychologist, Clay uses modern methods to answer these ancient questions and provides an awesome overview of our current understanding of what meaning is, why it's important and how to attain it. Expect to learn why nature would design a creature that requires meaning to feel fulfilled, the most robust ways to add meaning to your life, why religion might have answered a lot of the questions we're now asking, Clay's views on the importance of nostalgia and much more... Sponsors: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Check out Clay's website - https://www.clayroutledge.com/ Follow Clay on Twitter - https://twitter.com/clayroutledge  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... 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's happening people? Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Dr. Clay Rutledge. He's a professor of management North Dakota State University and an author. How to find meaning in life is a question that's been grappled with for thousands of years. As an existential psychologist, Clay uses modern methods to answer these ancient questions and provides an awesome overview of our current understanding of what meaning is, why it's important and how to attain it. Today, I expect to learn why nature would design a creature that requires meaning to feel fulfilled, the most robust ways to add meaning to your life, why religion might have answered a lot of these questions already, Clay's views on the importance of nostalgia and much more. I love talking about meaning. It's one of the most fascinating topics because it comes to everybody in different

ways and it's such a uniquely human phenomenon to need that, to feel like you're connected and contributing to something that's greater than yourself. So yeah, if you're in the middle of an existential crisis, this might be very good for you. Or just if you, you know, if you want to live a fulfilled existence, who doesn't want that? In other, actually before I get to other news, this was the episode that I recorded in the midst of Laryngitis, so I'm all, all husky and seductive.

So I need to apologize in advance for the very low tones that you're going to hear coming out of my mouth today. But now it's time for the wise and wonderful clay Rutledge, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, great to be here. For the people who aren't familiar with you and your work, how do you describe what you study? Well, I'm what's called an existential psychologist, and that probably sounds like what he's talking about. So obviously I'm a psychologist.

I'm not a clinical psychologist, I don't see clients or patients. I'm a psychological scientist. I mainly do research. And so the existential part is what I'm really interested in is the uniquely human capacity to ask big questions. Why am I here? What purpose do I serve? Does my life have any meaning that transcends my mortality? What does it mean to be free?

The idea of free will, agency, curiosity, creativity? you know, there's just all these things that we can do because we're intelligent and we're clever, we're imaginative. And so everything kind of wrapped around that idea, the big questions is what an existential psychologist is interested in. And then of course more, you know, that sounds very, very philosophical. So more concretely and practically, how does that connect to human well-being? Like how do my concerns about meaning in life influence my goals, my ability to be mentally and physically healthy, my relationships, the types of beliefs I have? You know, so everything in life that's, you know, that's truly important to navigating the world, the society,

and families, and cultures, how does that connect to these deeper questions of meaning and agency? That's pretty much in a nutshell what I'm into. Why does any of the psychologists not study that? Because that sounds absolutely fascinating. Yeah, well, I mean, I think a lot of it is it does, it sounds intimidating in some ways because it's so it sounds so abstract. And so one of the challenges we have as, you know, scientists is trying to, you know, trying to connect these broad ideas to empirically testable hypotheses. And so I think a lot of psychologists, they're just understandable, interested in very specific things like depression or schizophrenia or those types of issues. And obviously those are very, very important issues, but I'm into these broader questions,

which I think have implications for those issues. So, but I do think a lot of people are like, well, that's too fuzzy. And it's hard to get at. But I think it's a growing area of interest. I think there are more and more people that are interested in psychology. I think a lot of that is driven by an increased awareness that clearly humans want their lives to be meaningful. We're not machines and we're not just driven by money or practical security concerns,

like having shelter, having food. We want something more than that. I mean, the simplest example is like you could think of, but what if you were like filthy rich, you had everything you wanted, like you had a mansion, you had a yacht, you had, you know, the access to the best medicine. That wouldn't, you know, my guess is that would be pretty cool,

but that wouldn't necessarily be totally fulfilling. I mean, you might be bored, right? You might be like, well, what's the point of all this? And so I think even if you control for all these kind of basic security needs that people have to feed themselves, to feel safe, we long for something more, to have an impact on the world. And so I think more and more people are realizing,

realizing that that's actually a really important driver of human behavior. What do you mean by meaning? How do you define it? Yeah, so that's a really good question because there are different ways to define it. I mean, I think the simplest way to define it is people's subjective sense that they matter, that their lives have value, that they, you know, people, that they're significant, that they make a difference. So I think that that element of significance and mattering, but when you get into, you know, deeper into into the research, you can actually think about meaning at multiple levels.

And so you can think about meaning at the level I just talked about, which is pretty high level, like I want to matter in the world. I want to make a difference. I want to be significant. But you can actually think about it and study it at a much lower cognitive level. And what I mean by that is part of meaning is just perceptual patterns, which is, you know, the visual world making sense. And so if you go into like a modern art museum and you see like this crazy modern art, you know, this absurd art, right? And it doesn't, the whole point of a lot of it is to be like, this is not what you normally expect. These patterns violate your expectations. And there's something that's kind of cool about

it, but also it's a little bit jarring, right? It's a little bit like, well, those things aren't supposed to go together. And so, you know, together. And so that kind of effect that has on us is in part because our brain is about pattern, making sense of the world, about patterns. And we need patterns to, if you didn't get up every day with a certain level of consistency that you know what's gonna happen, that you know roughly what the weather's gonna be like,

how other people are gonna behave, then your life would be chaotic, and you'd be stressed out and very, very anxious. So we're constantly trying to make sense of our reality. And so if you think about that low level of meaning, of just the world making sense, you can even think of meaning as not even uniquely human, right, you can say, well, my dog has expectations for the world making sense,

right? My dog thinks that, in fact, my dog magically knows that it's 6, 15 in the morning, and it's time to get me up regardless of what I want. And so we're not the only organisms that need to make sense of our environment, But what happens is the more intelligent the organism is the more high level that becomes. So we don't as humans because we can self-reflect, we can think about our own existence and what that means and we can ask these big questions I was talking about. We don't want to just make sense of our physical environment or the world around us. We want to make sense of our own lives. And so it's that ability to turn inward to introspect about our existence that makes meaning this higher level issue. I don't just want the world to make sense. I want my life to make sense.

Is that what you mean when you talk about cohesive meta narratives? Yeah, yeah. So I mean, if you, so you can think about the pattern perception thing, right? You can think about just the simpleness of like, I want the physical environment to make sense, but we live in a symbolic world as humans, right? Because we're smart. And so it's not just that I want to be able to walk around my city and there be some order to it physically, to the physical environment.

I want there to be some order to the rules, the norms, the customs, the traditions that we have. And so there is this cultural narrative of what we often refer to as cultural world views of that order our lives and how to say, well, this is what we think of as good behavior. This is what we think of things we should aspire to do, things we should avoid doing. And so these cultural narratives are very important. And they really add the parameters, you know, they add the structure, the scaffolding

for our personal meaning system. Because how do I know what's meaningful or what it means to make a meaningful contribution to society? Well, a lot of that is derived from the cultural world view that I have adopted in the cultural world that I live in. What's the biological driver behind our search for meaning?

Because if lacking meaning can be a huge course of suffering to people, it doesn't seem very adaptive that an animal requires all this extra work to just be able to flourish. So you said, the solution to your dog's problem is to make sure that he's up and out for his walk at 615. The solution to giving a human meaning is this huge question that's been wrestled with for millennia. Yeah, so there's a lot of debate, a lot of debate around that question.

So there is one theory, and I've done work in this theory. I don't do as much now as I used to, but there is this theory called Terra Management Theory. And the argument, according to Terra Management Theory, is that humans are uniquely aware of our mortality. We're the one species that fully understands what it means to live and die. And so as a result of our intelligence, I can look forward into the future. And that can be cool, because I can imagine all sorts of great things that might happen. But that also renders me aware of the fact

that no matter what I do, no matter how often I go to the gym, no matter how many healthy shakes I drink and go to the doctor and do everything I'm supposed to do, I'm still gonna die, right? And so according to the doctor and do everything I'm supposed to do. I'm still going to die. And so according to the Terra Management Theory, that unique awareness that just kind of comes with being intelligent, it's not, you know, it's not forward like a specific reason. It just comes with being intelligent that we're aware of our mortality causes a unique

anxiety for humans. Like every organism faces a certain level of anxiety related to the threat of death. But for other organisms like a rabbit, like it has a spider flight response, there's a predator and it's like, it's got a very brief moment of terror. And then the threat goes away

and it can go back to business, but humans, we can think about that, we can room an an about that and we understand that that threat is coming someday for us no matter what. And so according to terror management theory this this unique intelligence comes with a great deal of anxiety in other words like with great intelligence comes to the potential for great anxiety. And so, according to that particular theory, what meaning really, the function meaning serves is to help regulate that anxiety. So, the response to understanding that no matter what I do to take care of myself, I can't avoid death forever, is to feel like, well, but part of me doesn't die. I'm not just a physical organism. I'm part of something bigger than myself. And obviously you can think about that quite literally in terms of religious traditions that offer some hope for life

after death. But even if you reject that, you can think of immortality as being symbolic, right? You can think that well as an individual organism, yeah, I'm gonna die, but I'm not just an individual organism. I'm part of a family. I'm part of a nation. I'm part of a culture. And to the extent that I can make contributions to that, yeah, I'm not really excited about dying, but I'm not just totally snuffed out. Part of me continues on. So that's one theoretical perspective. That meeting is a response to the awareness of inevitable mortality. There's other theories that take that idea and say, okay, well, that's mortality is

one threat, but there are other existential threats. It's not just like I'm worried about dying, but there's threats like worried about being socially ostracized. Like, what if I don't have anyone that cares about me? Loneliness is a major concern. So fear of rejection, the fear of uncertainty, like not only am I going to

die, but I have no idea what that means, what's going to happen, is there any, is that it? Is it going to be painful? What about the people I leave behind? Are they going to, you know, are they going to be devastated? So other people have made the argument, well, there's a whole bunch of anxieties that are related to mortality and other potential existential threats. And so what meaning is, is a response to that. But in a lot of these theories, a way to, you know, the kind of maybe connect them all, to say, they're all about some type of threat regulation, right? That that we face threats, things that make us anxious, things that make us scared, things that maybe demotivate us,

because another response isn't just to be terrified, but to feel like, well, what's the point? Like, why should I work hard and do stuff to contribute to society when I'm gonna die, and then everyone's gonna forget about me anyway? And so, the idea is to be in organism as intelligent as ours requires some kind of motivation beyond this, beyond the self, or to grapple with the transience of the self.

There are other perspectives too. You could imagine, it's similar to that regulatory thing, but you could imagine it without even thinking about the threat component. You could just imagine, well, you just need some kind of inspiration in life because life's difficult. And so if you get up every day and just kind of like

focused on like the immediate, well, I'll just get food in my belly, then our civilization doesn't really flourish. You need people to want to create works of art. I mean, some of the biggest contributions to culture and to architecture and to religion, have been projects that have transcended one individual's lifetime.

So somebody might be working on something and be like, this might not even be completed before I die, but I'm part of that. So I think there's something about our ability to step outside of our physical selves that has been, that's very, very adaptive, right? That has allowed us to say there are projects bigger than me. Because if you just focus on like, you know, if you're just like, I just have to focus on making sure I stay alive and maybe my kids, you know, like, you know, my, you know, my, you know, my gen, you know, genetic continuity, right? You know, I'm wired to protect my off string.

But there's just so many, so many challenges and society that requirerifice, right? They require you to look beyond yourself and to have a vision well into the future, say, well, you know, I want to I want to care about making an impact. So from that perspective, I think you can imagine meaning as not just about protecting you from your anxieties, but inspiring people to for big for big goals and bringing people together for big goals. So that's another theory. There are others about it, you know, that kind of, for big goals and bringing people together for big goals. So that's another theory. There are others about it, you know, that kind of, I think those kind of, that kind of sums it up.

It's pretty compelling, man, like, life's hard. The desire to overcome suffering requires something more than just, well, like, if it wasn't for the fact that there is meaning or some sort of ability to transcend, all that you'd be doing is say, well, I'll get past this suffering today so that I can get on to tomorrow,

suffering tomorrow. That's not very compelling argument. That does not sound like a very fun life. So yeah, I understand it's, um, it's interesting that it's kind of like a defense mechanism that it's there in a lot of these theories as a way to assist us with the inevitable vicissitudes of life as opposed to enhancing life and making us better. And I think that probably that would be explained by the fact that we're built to be effective, not happy. It doesn't really matter whether we're that happy. All that matters is do we survive and reproduce. And if you can be potentially sold some sort of transcendent

lie by your own programming, this thing that you're contributing, this podcast that you're recording really does matter in the wider scheme of things. Make sure that you keep going until you have children. This football team that you play for, you know, the religion that you were testing, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, I'm quite sort of seduced by the idea that it's a byproduct of being very clever that you have humans that are super intelligent, well, they are super intelligent compared with everyone else that's around. And a byproduct of that is this ability to consider our own death. And when you have that, you think, oh, maybe the intelligence is worthy of that. Maybe being intelligence is such an advantage

that the fact that we have to deal with death is just a small price that we need to pay, but we still need to be able to compete with it. And the desire for meaning and transcendence is one of those. How does purpose relate to meaning? Is purpose part of this, what does it do? Yeah, yeah.

So certainly among the researchers who study this, they consider purpose kind of a subcomponent of meaning. Because like I said before, you can think of meaning at this very, very abstract level of things ranging from just a coherent environment to my life having direction. And that, that self-part, that my life having direction is often what people refer to as purpose.

Like, the purpose is very goal, is a very goal-focused way of thinking about, about meaning. Like, I have a purpose. And in addition to that, you know, new area that I've been, you know, but I've been working on with some colleagues to develop, and this is very, very new, very, very new research, is what we're referring to as existential agency. And it relates to purpose,

but I think it's different in an important way. So purpose, you could say is, I've been given a purpose, right? Like this is you know, you can imagine purpose Outside of your own decision-making, right? You can say I'm you know my purpose in this world is to do X Some people would say no I create my own purpose But that's not inherent in the concept of purpose because you can have goal-driven behavior That you feel like you were assigned.

Like you could say, my purpose, like you said a minute ago, my purpose is to reproduce. Existential agency is, you know, we define it as people's belief in their own ability to guide the meaning in their life, to have a meaningful life. So you could say, my life is meaningful because I have this religious belief that says, all life is meaningful, and I've been given this purpose. But within that, you need some kind of drop. You need to feel like you have the ability to take action and to do things, not just be passively pushed around and to say, well, I guess this is my meaning, I guess this is not my meaning.

And so there seems to be this more self-regulatory dimension of meaning, and that's what we call existential agency. But it is connected to purpose. And people who, like I said, this is very, very early work. But it seems like people who have a strong sense of existential agency, even if you control for how, you know, how meaningful they see their lives, it's the people who have a really strong sense of agency that are the most motivated, the most driven, they're the most resilient and they're the most entrepreneurial, you know, so they're the most willing to take risks. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that they see themselves as responsible for their own meaning, right? They feel like when life feels meaningless, they can change it. They can do something about it. As opposed to people that, you know, maybe they're just more like, well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

And I can't do anything about this. Or my meaning is really contingent on these other external forces. And so I think that that's, and I think that's a part of the reason I wanted to really start to figure that angle out was because I feel like we increasingly are living in a society at least here in the US. And I think this is the case more broadly in the Western world, where people are acting like you're not in control of anything. Right? There's all these concerns about systemic oppression and things like that. And this isn't to take away from real structural challenges

that people face. But the point being is if we're only talking about those things that are who we think of as outside of people's controls, we're neglecting the fact that humans have all this cognitive horsepower up here. Regardless of what situation you're born into in life, and again, clearly there are privileges and advantages and differences between people. But regardless of that, there's something going on within humans that gives us a great deal of cognitive freedom if we choose to act on it.

Right? So I could get up tomorrow and say, you know, I've been kind of lazy every day and, but this is going to be the day that I, you know, I get my act together. And people do this all the time. You know, people set goals all that the people change their, for all the failure, you things we hear about like barriers to things. People all the time absolutely take action based on goals that they set in priorities that they make in order to take control over their lives. So I'm really interested in that agiantic component of meaning. Well, think about why anyone ever gets seduced or finds it really sort of emotionally fulfilling

to see those transformation photos of some guy even even Supli, one of my buddies, the guy that was in Remedetitons and Donnie Darker, a bunch of films. And he lost like £350. Like he lost two humans off of himself. And the reason that people love that story is that you see someone that you thought was going down a particular path that had a meta narrative that they were attached to and they were on the rails, but through force of will and effort, they've managed to change the cart onto a different set of railway tracks, and they've done that through their own agency. So I think that people intuitively are aware of this. It's, I think you're correct

to say that the victimhood mentality that we're seeing at the moment, um, completely outsources existential agency. And if man can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven, then your ability to interpret how the world is talking to you and how you are experiencing it is more than 50% of the battle. Now you have people that are in terrible, terrible situations who are able to be relatively fulfilled and people that seemingly have everything lottery winners that kill themselves. So, you know, your material situation is an influence, but it's not a determinant. You know, you would say maybe it predisposes, but it doesn't predetermine. So yeah, I think that framing things in that way and allowing people to understand and encouraging them toward, look, take advantage, take control of the direction that your life's going in.

I think that's a smart area of research. Yeah, yeah, thanks. No, you summed it up perfectly. I mean, it doesn't even have to be because people tend to think of, your example is a good one, a dramatic one, but even little, even little thing. So, you know, people do, you know, like you'll see research on like even just increasing them out, you walk every day. So even people who aren't like, I'm gonna make some gigantic transformation, but it's a choice just to say,

you know what, I'm gonna take the stairs instead of the elevator, or I guess you'd say the lift, right? Like I'm gonna, I lived in the UK for two years. I think I remember the word still. But there's lots of little things that people do every day. And even if there are, because again, and you made this point, it's true.

Even if you start out with certain vulnerability. So let's say, to use an example, think about a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism, right? Some people just for whatever reason, can't handle drinking. A lot of us can. A lot of us have no problems just saying, you know, like a drink, you know, sometimes a lot, sometimes hardly at all, and I can turn it on and off at well, it's no big deal. Other people, they just, they can't crack the bottle. They really can't. But, so one, so the victimhood narrative, as you described it, which you see a lot is, alcohol abuse isn't really a choice because it's a genetic disposition and it's a disease. And it's, you know, but, and so it's funny,

is the more we learn scientifically about that, the more people intuitively seem to think that well, you have no control over it. But another way to look at it from an agency point of view is thanks to our scientific understanding of genetic vulnerabilities, you've just armed somebody with information. So now they can say, you know what?

I know I'm the type of person that can't be at the pub, that can't have alcohol in the house. And those are choices to set up your life based on information that you now have. And so, yeah, and it seems so obvious, but just that simple difference of looking at it from, oh, this is a genetic predisposition. I'm hopeless. To know learning about genetics actually gives me information about my personality, about my vulnerabilities, things, you know, things that tempt me, things that bring out the worst in me, things that, things that motivate me, what is it that inspires me to be at my best? Like, so the worst in me, things that motivate me, what is it that inspires me

to be at my best, so the more you can learn about these things scientifically, those aren't like determinants, that doesn't mean like your life is just being pushed around by these external causes, their information that can help you make choices to live a better life. So I actually think that as we learn more and more about

the science of the brain, that doesn't mean we're less in control. That's giving us more information about how to regulate our own behavior. But my feeling is that's kind of a minority position in the modern day scholar, you know, Western scholarship. Instead, people just seem to think, well, here's another excuse. Here's another reason why you're not, it's not your fault. And I'm like, well, no, here's more information that arms you with the, with the

ability to make better choices. The presumption that knowing more about the way that you operate forces you into a tunnel, I think has got everything backward. Does this, uh, can be r-r-rimper-chay quote where he says, the choice in life is between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions or the discomfort of being ruled by them. Hmm. You know, that's a great quote. There it is. Like, look, this is going to happen whether or not you want to know about it. Your genetics are your genetics. If you decide to read Robert Plumman's blueprint or not, they're still there for you. They're still controlling your behavior.

So do you want to become aware of them or do you not? And then do you want to take control of them or not? Because you can either be at the mercy of them or you can try and account for them. And that's really all that we've got. What is some of the predictors? What are the biggest predictors of having meaning in life? Yeah, so the biggest one, okay, well, let me say this way, if you ask people

what gives their life meaning, which is some research we've done, and we've asked people who are religious, who aren't religious, of different ages, of different, you know, belong to different groups. Overwhelmingly, everyone says relationships, like family and friends.

So meaning appears to be very, very social. So that's one piece of information that's important. Now, what I think the mistake that sometimes people make is they turn that into, also meaning is just about being liked and being included. Well, no, I don't think that's what it is. What it means is meaning, what it really is, if you look deeper, meaning is about mattering to other people and getting back to the idea of you're talking about how we evolved and ways of thinking about it from a more, perhaps, evolutionary point of view. If humans are a tribal species, and if you look back,

certainly in the modern world, we have lots of advantage, advances now that kind of allow it. We still need people, but I can like, pay somebody to mow my lawn. And you know, through trade, we can make all sorts of arrangements, even if no one likes me. But if you look back in our ancient past,

and when life is more dangerous and we lived in small groups, then it was really important for you to have a role, right? For you to be like, well, you know, here's what you're good at. Here's how, you know, here's how you matter. And so it is social because you have to, you know, the tree or a rock or the ocean doesn't care about you.

Other people care. And the reason other people care is, in addition to, like, we're kind of naturally social, is we need each other. And so it really, it's that feeling of, like, my family and friends need me. And so I often use this example, and it's silly, but I think it illustrates it pretty cleanly, which is, imagine a situation in which you're part of a team.

This can be a work team or any kind of group you're part of. Everyone in your team is really, really nice to you. Very inclusive, never says anything bad, you're great. Everyone thinks Chris is wonderful, right? But when it comes time to actually, for the team to do something, you're like, okay, what's my role? What am I going to do? Imagine if your teammates were like, oh, well, we don't need you to do anything. You're just, we just love you, Chris. You're great. You just show out. You're fine. We don't need you to do anything.

Now, that situation doesn't sound very meaningful. It sounds like people are being nice to you, but you're setting everything in, well, what, am I like a loser? Like, I can't, I don't have anything to contribute. Now, in real life, the other situation, oftentimes our relationships are a little bit more messy, right? They're not everyone's nice to you all the time, because we have all sorts of motives and vulnerabilities and insecurities and conflicts and things like that.

But what matters for you to feel socially valued is that your team actually needs you to do something. Chris is good at X, Chris can deliver on this. It's not just being liked, it's serving an important function. And it's easy for us to see, or it's often easier for us to see that with, or we care about it more with our close family and friends, because those are the people we matter to. Those are the people that count on us. And so this connects to something that I'm actually

think might be a growing concern, you know, and our society is, you have people, you have this, you know, supposed loneliness epidemic that people talk about. But the funny thing about loneliness is you can, and this has been documented in some of the early research on loneliness, is people can actually feel lonely even when they're surrounded by others. So you can get up every day, you could have a roommate, you could have co-workers, you could have schoolmates Around you all the time, but you still feel lonely and how is that possible?

Well, it's because you don't really feel like you matter You feel like you're in fact people who have been ostracized They often if you just ask them to describe the experience of they often, if you just ask them to describe the experience of ostracism, what they'll say is it feels like they're invisible. In a way, it's been described by researchers as ostracism is like social death. It's an existential threat, like we were talking about before. You're still physically alive, but you're invisible. You don't matter.

And so the biggest predictor of meaning is really mattering. It's like, it's a social thing. You have to, you matter to people. But it's more than just people being nice to you. And I think that's important, because imagine a lot of our, imagine some of the things we care about like in schools and education,

where anti-boleaning and you know all these, you know, these, these campaigns for, for kids to be nice to each other and not to be cruel, which you know that, that's great. Obviously we don't want people being cruel to each other. But people need, even children, they need to feel like not just that people are being nice to them, but that they have a significant role to play in the group, that their contributions matter. So we can have a very, very polite and kind society that's superficially social, but a deeper, you know, I would rather you yell at me, because I'd rather you and I have a conflict, but it's because we're both doing something important and we realize that sometimes important things come out of challenge, adversity.

As opposed to, well, we're never going to say anything mean to each other and we're always going to just be really kind because we don't want the ones feelings to be hurt. And you know, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but to the extent that we go in that direction, let's just make sure everyone feels safe and comfort and love. If it's at the cost of people actually having something to do to make a difference in society, then that's a worrying trend. you know, that's it. I think that's a worrying trend. Yeah, this sort of, what do you say like dictatorial meaning? It's like bureaucratically bestowed top down.

Like, that's not, that's not a thing. I mean, we saw this last year with the Black Lives Matter Black Square. So if you didn't post the Black square, there was something implied around what that meant. And people were much happier to see somebody be coerced into posting something they didn't believe. They would have been more comfortable with a comforting lie than an uncomfortable truth. Or even just nothing. Let alone truth. Like truth sounds like people would have been going against.

It's like I just didn't post it, but that wouldn't have been enough. And I think that it's interesting, it's interesting to think about how meaning relates to the social side of things. Does that mean that meaning in isolation kind of doesn't exist if you were an isolated individual? Yeah, I think that's a good way of thinking about it because why do we care about anything? And if you were the last person on earth, right? If you were the last person on the planet, then yeah, it probably would,

unless you felt like you had some way of rebooting the species, right? It would, you know, you probably would feel very meaningless, right? Like what's the point? In fact, this is one of the, I think this is actually an issue that people who are concerned about things like climate change should pay a little bit closer attention to, because if you want to motivate young people to make the world a better place, it's not a good

strategy to take this apocalyptic worldview of, whoa only have I don't know it depends on what week it is how many years we have left but you probably heard all this before like this this total apocalyptic you know you know terror of well what's the point like we're all we're just it's too late and you see that kind of wrapped up with the anti-natalism, right? There's no point, you know, we should just quit reproducing. Humans were a mistake. We're destroying the earth and it's not going to be inhabitable in 50 years or 20 years or 100 years. Well, that's a very demoralizing position to take.

That's not going to inspire people to make any sacrifices. In fact, if anything, it might have the opposite effect, which is it might make people more hedonistic and more greedy and selfish. Because if you're like, well, there's no point, there's no future, you might as well go out with a party. So you might as well just be like, well, I'm just going to look after myself and enjoy my life.

But if you think there's some kind of challenge or threat coming in the future, but one that we can manage and through science and engineering and other types of goal-directed behavior, then you're more likely to get people to say, okay, well, there's things I would like to do, but I'm not going to do this because I'm serving this higher good. But I see a lot of, and there definitely are, I mean, if you look at like technology, if you look at innovation and entrepreneurship and certainly in the business world, I think there are a lot of people, a lot of companies, and a lot of entrepreneurs, they're trying to come up with new types of technology,

cleaner energy, ways of just kind of calibrating their life to manage the fact that there might be changes in the climate, right? And not being like, insane about it, we're just saying, hey, this is a challenge. And humans were clever. We've overcome challenges before. We can do this.

There are people doing that. But then you see this, and they're just doing it, I think, in largely in the business world. But then you see these activists that are not all of them. I mean, I'm not trying to, you know, overgeneralize, but that do have this more very like nihilistic, apocalyptic view. And I mean, I guess I just don't know what the purpose of that is. I think I think the reason that people are doing that is they presume that because if they overshoot the severity or if they give it the most grand seeming level of significance that they can, that maybe this is going to motivate

people into doing it, but it sounds like what you're saying is that's based on a misjudged view of how human motivation works. Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. I think so so big time. I mean, you just people have to have a, people have to feel like there's, there's a reason to try. And, and so you could, I know that some people have argued that the Sepocalyptic environmentalism is like a meaning system. Like, they're doing it because it's like gives their life, life meaning. But this gets to, I think, the question of, well, not all meeting, world view,

existential, related world views are the same, right? Apocalyptic ones that act like, well, you're the last one, you know, you're the righteous chosen few, which some of this does have like a fundamentalist for her, you know, not again, not all of this does have like a fundamentalist for, for, you know, not again, not all of it, but some of it definitely does. Well, that might make somebody feel somehow like they're part of some group, and that's meaningful, but it's not really

a solution focused, future focused, source of meaning. And so I would say that all, all meaning projects aren't created equally, and it's healthier, not just for individuals, because obviously, like, people are, I mean, there are people, I mean, some people, I think, are being over the top, but I do think there are people that are legitimately, like, completely terrified, and they're very, very anxious, and they're mentally not healthy. And that's not really a way for them to live, and it's not really helping.

In fact, it's hurting because it's demotivating the people who would care, and it's making other people feel like these people are just being ridiculous. They have nothing to offer. And maybe they do have something to offer, because like you said, maybe they're overshooting, maybe they just throttle back a little bit and said, okay, well, here are some things that we can do. Can we come together as a reasonable people and try to moderate or behavior in some way or come up with some new innovations and technological innovations

that can help us take this problem on. What are some of the most robust ways that people can actually add meaning to their life then? I think one of the best ways you can do it, or one of the things again, this gets back to the social element of meaning. It seems like the more people feel like they're giving, they're looking beyond the self and helping others, the more they feel mean. So, pro-social behavior. So helping, you know, taking care of family, helping out, you know, in your community, working on, you know, not every job. Here's another thing that I think is interesting is that

we often think about like, well, your work, you know, we talk about a lot and, you know, I'm in a department of management and a business college and we talk a lot about meaningful work. And I think that one misunderstanding about meaningful work is, is people think, well, I have to feel like every day when I go to work that what I'm that tasks I'm doing feel meaningful. But a lot of times

at the lower level, what we're doing doesn't feel that meaningful, which is boring stuff. But so what helps people actually have meaning is if they can attach it to something higher, what we call higher order goals. So to use an example from physical training, if you're training to run a marathon, and if you had the goal of this higher order goal of training to run a marathon, I feel like a pretty big accomplishment, right?

But that goal is actually made up of a bunch of sub goals, right? And those sub goals are things like, you know, increasing the distance I run, you know, fluctuating, you know, coming up with a training schedule, increasing my caloric intake, eating the right types of foods and things like that. So those, but that's not like, that doesn't sound super meaningful.

Like if I'm going to say like writing a book, that sounds pretty cool, right? But that's made up of things as low as typing words on a keyboard. That doesn't sound particularly meaningful, right? That sounds kind of boring. And so I think one of the things that people need to be able to do to really achieve meaning is to be able to attach even their mundane kind of ordinary day-to-day grind to bigger, longer-term projects and goals, especially ones that are oriented towards serving other, serving your community, helping, you know, helping build something beyond yourself. And this is why it's good for organizations. This is helpful because it's good for organizations to think about that.

Their employees don't need to feel like entertained all day long and need to feel like everything's you know, the big, epic thing. But it helps if you feel like what you're doing, even if it's small, even if it's just cleaning it, cleaning it in office, that that's actually, you're a meaningful member of the organization. You're part of a team that's working towards a mission or certain cause or you know, some purpose, and you play a significant role in that. And sometimes those things are going to feel, you know, inspiring and interesting, and sometimes they're just going to be mundane chores that we have to do. So I think that's important.

And again, a lot of those things are about relationships. They're about feeding my family. So again, a job might not be exciting. It might be boring, but where people might get meaning from that job is not the particular duty, but the sense of like, I'm taking care of people, like, I'm doing something, I'm putting food on the table, and I think that's, that's really important. It seems to me like a lot of these questions had already been answered by religion and tradition. Right. Am I wrong there? Like, is it, it seems to me have a community that you feel like

you're contributing to, have a local group of people that know who you are and that you have a role within it, build a family, have a job, you know, a lot of this, a lot of this was probably already fixed. Right. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's tons of things that we do, and this is picking on myself a little bit, because I'm obviously a modern empirical psychologist. There's tons of things that we do that are just rediscovering, like, old wisdom. I was listening to a podcast a while back, and they were talking about this idea of, well, what

if you took a portion of percentage of your salary and don't it? It's like they were rediscovering the concept of typing, right? It's like, and then they settled on what if it was like 10% like this whole idea of like altruistic giving and it's like again not to you know not to take away from From those rediscovery's but it's like yeah, those are what you're right. Those are old ideas I mean a long time ago, you know people came up with you know figured these things out a lot of this is rediscovery an old Old wisdom I think but you know getting back to an issue that you raised about culture. I mean, I think in any given time, a society, a culture has to make things like speak in their modern way.

So now, we care a lot about science, right? We want things to be empirically tested. That seems to be the guiding cultural narrative of the modern West. In other words, we might be revisiting old ideas but we're scrutinizing them using new techniques and tools of science. And then we're putting our own, our own spin, you know, kind of our own spin on them. And so I do think, you know, rediscovering these things is just part of, you know, part of culture looking back and seeing like, well, what worked and what didn't. And then, you know, you cultures forget, right, they were discovered things because they forget because it's, you know, it's easy to go in one direction and think, oh, this is really cool. This is the way we should go.

And then for things to get stressed, test it a little bit in the me and I'm like, you know what? We should get back to this way of thinking. That actually connects to another area of research I do and an existential psychology that's focused on nostalgia. Actually, I don't know if that's something you want to talk about. Yeah, yeah, what's it about? Also, it makes me think about a Shane Parish quote where he

says, the wise of every generation discover the same truths. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good, that's a good quote. Yeah. So I, you know, I do research on nostalgia. And typically when people think about nostalgia, they just think of like silly marketing sports memorabil marketing, sports memorabilia, sports memorabilia, you know, vintage clothing, old music, things like that. Well, it turns out what a big aspect of nostalgia that's that's existentially helpful is nostalgia really is about the memories that we cherish, the things that we find meaningful. And often they are connected to these these things that seem kind of silly, like sports memorabilia

and old movies and music and things like that. But those connections are usually because that was those objects or experiences are connected to memories, to specific times in our life that something seems really important. And so, it must also seems to be, or a big part of the style,

just seems to be people's ability to reach into the past to find the lessons that help them move forward. So, for instance, you might be really dizzy right now. You got lots of stuff going on with your career, with other things. And it's easy to forget how important relationships are. Time goes by really fast. It's easy. You often hear these anecdotes of older people saying, wow, looking back, I wish I would have spent more time with my kids or doing, focusing on this. I was so worried about it being successful at work or accumulating money or whatever.

And they look back on these things. But nostalgia does is it kind of helps, it helps direct you because you're like, oh, yeah, these are really, this was really important memories that I have. And I'd like to have stuff like that again. And so it's kind of like a priority check. Yeah, so you used the past as a forecasting tool to project the future. Right, and the things that you wanna spend your limited

time and energy on. And so in a lot of ways, I actually think nostalgia is a very future oriented is a future oriented experience because it's reminding you of what you care about. Even like the silliest example of going on holiday where you're like, oh, that was a really cool trip and then you kind of forget about it and then maybe 10 years later you're like,

oh, I haven't done that in a long time and that was awesome. Like I really need to make make something like that happen again. And so it does have this kind of guiding effect. And the reason I brought that up in response to their rediscovering old truths is nostalgia is there is this intergenerational component to it, where we're passing down traditions and religions

across time. And so there is this this this aspect of nostalgia that is I think encapsulating some of these old ideas and especially around the importance of like you said community having a community having a family focusing on those things a lot of nostalgic memories are very much about rights of passage important family in religious traditions, and things like that. Have you considered what happens

if we're now kind of fighting the tide as humans? Like if trying to create some sort of cohesive metanarrative that ties everything together, is essentially impossible. Like what if our brains are overclocked for what we need and the clash between what we need and what we've dispensed with as we've developed as a culture and created science has just left us in this sort of uncanny valley. We can't go back for most people. I think it's more than 50% of America now describes themselves as non-religious in one form or another. So we can't really go back to that sort of a situation. We're now praying at the altar of science and rationality, but it would appear, I think

I've seen you quote, about some global trends over time with regards to meaning that there is a little bit of a meaning crisis at the moment. Why if we're just stuck in this sort of U-bend? Well, I'm a by nature an optimist. stuck in this sort of you bend. Well, I'm a by nature and optimist. So I'll balance you out quite nicely in that case, Clay. Okay, so that's good. And we need both sides, right?

So I think one thing that is possible and it relates again, it connects to that idea of rediscovering ancient wisdom, is that yes, we are in a unprecedented time, especially with technology and the way it connects us, that I don't just live in a little community and I'm worried about being liked and successful and everything within my little group. I can get online and see what other people are doing all over the world. Now we just bombarded with so much information and even with the supposed rise of science and rationality, and the reason I say so pose it is Because people often talk about things using scientific jargon and

You know using words that sound rational, but really they're just expressing their their feelings and their intuitions and their beliefs and They're just decorating them. That was scientific terminology But I do think it because I do think you're right. It relates to the fact that science has become like almost like a religious like movement, even though really it's a methodology, right? It's a set of tools used to interrogate nature in reality, but people have turned it into this this bigger identity. But our brains haven't changed, right? We still have the brains we had for the way things used to be long before,

the long before the Western enlightenment, long before modern technology and our interconnected world. But what I think is possible is that, well, we'll figure it out. Like, well, you know, we'll learn to, you know, again, maybe through science, ironically, we'll learn that, well, you know what, it's not science and empiricism isn't enough.

There's something, magical is not the right word because there is a neurological explanation, but there's something that feels magical about the human experience that can't be just summed up by acting like we're robots or like we're, what's on of your Star Trek fan? You know, there's like data that he's the robot. Or the Vulcan's, they're not, I mean, they're human-like, but they supposedly suppress their emotions.

But we're not like that, right? We, the things that give us meaning in life, this is another element of meaning, is there's a cognitive component of meaning. The things that give us meaning are intuitive, then that is it feels meaningful. So if you go out in nature and you have an experience that induces awe, that's an intuition, that's a feeling.

And that, you know, if you are listening to music and you just let the music move through, if you're not a music critic who's putting on your empirical brain to scrutinize every element of it. You're just in the experience. So meaning is very experiential. And yeah, there's a crisis now and yes, religions in decline. But I'm actually not as convinced as some people that it won't come back.

Now, as it was before, but as some people that it won't come back. Now, as it was before, but as the people won't figure out that there is some aspect of the human condition that is spiritual and that that is something that people that really makes life fulfilling. And I do think that we're especially bad at this in the West. I mean, if you go to you know more like in East Asia, you know, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of like non-religious people, but there is more of a sense of it's not weird to kind of be dualistic about these things. You can be a scientist and be spiritual. Like there seems to be something about the individualistic west that's more like, well, you have to be one or the other, right?

Like you have to, you're either committed to the project of science and reason or you're like some kind of weird hippie spiritualist or religious fundamentalist. And a lot of the world is not, you know, some of the, some of the, you know, most successful scientists are religious. And so I do think that there, I think maybe we'll kind of figure out like a more holistic path back to, you know, there is something about, we do need to nurture our spiritual side. And that's not hippie or weird or matinistical or, you know, that's just part of the human condition. And a lot of the cool things that we do that are, you know, artistic and inspiring very much tap into that side of our, you know,

those dimensions of our brain. And so, you know, I think I'd like to think we'll figure it out. I have a couple of buddies that call themselves cultural Christians, so that they don't necessarily ascribe to sort of the higher powers and stuff like that, but they really enjoy the experiential side. They're like going to church, they're like sitting down, they're like being able to contribute to the community and doing stuff for whatever it is, autumn, farm giving, and all of that. And to be honest, the more and more that I've thought about it, especially this year, that really, really sounds quite appealing to me.

I'm asking, I'm gonna try and get myself to go at some point and say, look man, like I'd love to go along and see what this is like. You said that a part of human nature is inherently spiritual, what do you mean by that? Yeah, well when I say that, I mean, I mean, you can think of that in a totally materialistic paradigm, I think.

So because a lot of times when people say spiritual, what they mean, that there's something beyond the biological, something beyond the laws of physics. And I'm not saying there isn't, there is. As a scientist, that's beyond my scope of inquiry. I can only study things that are bound by the laws of nature. I'm not a theologian or... But that doesn't mean that there isn't, experientially, there isn't something spiritual. And I can be agnostic about, you know, that can be someone else's problem whether there's something beyond the material, but within our house, within

our brain, right, the cognitive processes that drive human behavior, very materialistically involve intuitive cognitions, right? You can study this in brain studies, right? You can look at, if you, there's different brain activity going on when people are like focused on using rational thinking to solve a math problem, then when they're just using their emotions and their intuitions, right?

These are, in fact, there's an argument that these things are, these processes are antagonistic to one another. And what I mean by that is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to simultaneously do both. And so you can either use your math like, you know, you can either be solving, you know, logic problems, or you can be feeling and experience and something, and you can switch between the two, but you can't do that, that. And you can switch between the two,

but you can't do that they're actually antagonistic to each other. You can't do them at the same time. And so in other words, you can put on your intuition hat. So you know what, I'm not scrutinizing. I'm not trying to tear this apart logically. I'm just experiencing it. And then you can put on your science hat

and your rational hat and say, well, this happens to be the type of decision that really needs to be informed by evidence and reason. And I think people do this all the time without knowing it. And it's a classic example of, like, the religious scientists, right? So somebody can go to church on Sunday and say, well, in this particular space, I'm not a scientist, right? Like this is an experiential space where I'm having a spiritual encounter. That's about ritual, it's about community, it's about letting, like a leap of faith,

like letting go a little bit. It's like a humility, I don't know everything. There's something, you know, maybe there's something beyond my, my, you know, my ability to know, you know, everything empirically and just to have that experience. And then you can, Monday morning, you can go to your laboratory and be like, there's no space for any of that kind of stuff here.

Like everything has to be extremely methodical and empirical. And I think people do that, not just with religion, but we do that with relationships. People would probably think you were weird if you have a significant other. Of every day you were checking a checklist of, here's the pros and cons of this relationship and you were just making constant empirical evaluations and then you were told your spouse, well here's the 10 things that you suggest I should like you and there's only eight that suggest it shouldn't.

So I guess I'm the whole, I love you. Like, no, you don't do that. It's a feeling, right? You love is an intuition, it's a feeling. And not that it's not influenced by empirical data gathering. But when you experience it, you'd be weird if you took that methodical approach. You probably would be single.

Pretty quickly. So we do this all the time, right? Or we switch between just throwing caution to the wind, taking a leaf of faith, like trusting our intuitions and having, you know, having experiences versus now's the time to really marshal all my rational capacities because I need to make an informed decision. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Do you think that at the moment was seeing people be too reliant on cerebral horse power and not enough on this sort of embodied intuition? I mean I think it well I certainly think people think

they're more reliant on it than they are and this gets to you know issues that you know of I think maybe group think and of, I think, um, maybe group think and bias. And I think there's a lot of certainly in my world, you know, I'm an academic. I think there's a lot of people and, and especially the behavioral and social sciences, but in the physical sciences as well, who, um, act like because they have this role of scientists that they're just holy empirical all the time. Right? That this is as opposed to, although in this one specific area of work that you do,

hopefully a good portion of the time, you're able to kind of overwhelm your biases and your intuitions and you're able to rely on the tools, the objective tools of science to do that. But you're not doing that all the time, right? But I think people are so I think people are overconfident that they're that they're using these tools and and because we have this culture that's acting like that's everything, like you're idiot if all your decisions aren't guided by science. But I think a lot of that is actually just, it's just an narrative, it's just a story. It's like a lot of things that people do are not guided by evidence. They're guided by, you know, experience, they're guided by habit,

they're guided by personality, they're guided by personality, they're guided by intuitions, and it's not the case that people aren't making choices, but this notion that every single choice that they're making is based somehow on a rigorous interrogation of evidence. I don't think you just make it very far in life if you'd be paralyzed by a decision. And there are some things that really, it's just, it doesn't matter. Like it just should be like,

well this is what I wanna, you know, this is what I wanna do and this is what I'm into and that should be fine. So yeah, I think maybe if we did a better job of, like I said, hopefully we can get back to this. If we did a better job of carving out a space where we said, there's a lot of life that is just us trying to figure it out and explore ideas and have experiences.

And you talked about this with the kind of totalitarian, like everyone needs to have the right to do the right virtue signalling and show the right response. It's like if we just had more tolerance for people, you know, people are into different things and they have different opinions and they're not all driven by, like, this is the science says this right now and if you all don't fall in line, then what kind of idiots are you? But a lot of it's just more messy than that. So I know people are figuring things out, and they have different, they're legitimately

subjective opinions that there's not a single right answer. It depends on what people care about and what risk they're willing to take. And so I think we could, I would like to see us get to more of that. And I think a recognition of our spiritual or intuitive side would go a long way in helping us get beyond this. Like everything is just cold calculations. And if you're not making the right ones, then you're an idiot.

Because honestly, I think a lot of people, even the people that claim to be doing that, I think a lot of the times they're just not. They're just as biased and intuitive as everyone else. I agree. I think that the most interesting thing, one of the most interesting things is the implication that this has for people's confidence in their own word, because if you think that the standards, the rigorous scientific rationality standards where you need to know the name of every cognitive bias before you can set foot into the world, you're inevitably going to question yourself so much more because you understand there's

this big chasm between where you're operating at and where you feel like you should be operating. Like if I haven't imbibed the entire rationalist movement and I'd like be able to recite it word for word, then always I'm gonna be making a lot of mistakes in my life. Whereas if you look at some of the simplest people that you know, your friend, it's just really, really happy being a young dad, or your friend, it's just really, really happy being a carpenter,

whatever he's like, you know, I've got friends that are DJs and they don't think really too much about how you're meaning. They really love the job that they do. They love playing music. They love making people happy and that's it and they live this sort of party-boy lifestyle. And they're having a great time. And then reinventing this and the, yeah, the come-upence of this scientific movement has been that when people on an individual level have taken this in, they've thought, right, well, I need to be able to justify to myself rationally, scientifically, all of the different actions that I'm going to take. And you go, well, how do you think we got here?

For like thousands and thousands of years, people weren't able to do this. And I understand that if there is a best way, if there's an optimal strategy for achieving anything, then trying to get closer to that should result in you operating more efficiently, but not if the chasing of that efficiency causes you to suffer so much during the chase that it completely negates any of the gains that you're going to get in any case.

And this is the virtuous mean, right? It's, I want to know the things that I want to know, but I need to also be aware of the fact that I'm fallible and I'm this weird phenomenological creature that's just gonna feel things and just kind of have faith in my embodied self. And this is something that I think when you dispense with religion,

there's nothing for people to fall back on. They can't just have faith in the fact that they're doing things right and God will step in if I'm doing it wrong. There isn't any higher power. The cold harsh, gray truth of rationality is that existential agency is purely mine to find, to create, it's my inertia,

to overcome, it's my momentum to maintain. And if I don't do it, then oh my God, maybe my life's not worth anything. And that's where we end up. Yeah, now it's an interesting point. I mean, and to be clear that, you know, obviously science, internationality, you know, have dramatically improved our lives. But we all can contribute to that. But the brings up the point of science is not an individual accomplishment. Science is a set of tools that people can add to their tool kit of how to do things,

but it's just part of the story and part of the solution. So I think you have to have, or it helps to embrace the fact that there are other aspects of the human condition that aren't purely empirical, and that aren't purely scientific. And oftentimes, those are the things that make life worth living. And it doesn't mean it's not like a black and white.

It doesn't mean like we should reject science. I mean, I think we're very, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation over the internet, thousands of miles apart if it wasn't for advances in science and technology. And so I think you can simultaneously appreciate that and champion that and also recognize that that's just part of the picture. There's a fuller picture and one that involves, you know, the head versus heart metaphor is a good example.

It's like we need both, right? The head, you know, this is a metaphor obviously because all of our feelings and stuff come out of our brain too, but people naturally understand this metaphor. They say, follow your heart or use your head, follow your heart, this kind of metaphor. It's worth recognizing that both are important. The heart makes life worth living. It makes science worth pursuing. The heart is what makes you say, you know what?

I want to cure diseases. I want to make the world more comfortable for people. But if it's just focused on, you know, if you're just entirely focused on science and not the value that it, that provides to making actual people's lives better, then I do think you lose something. And again, I just think a lot of people, they have this identity. Like it's an identity. Like I'm a science person.

And I think it would be helpful if we got away from that. It's like, no, you know, like it's not a defining characteristic. Like it's a job and science is a set of tools. It's a methodology that we science is a set of tools. It's a methodology that we used to interrogate nature and reality. It's not like a personal identity that just makes every decision you've ever made rational. It's just part of what we do to part of what it's part of the toolkit of what we do to Advance human progress and to you know to make life better

Clay Rutledge ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for coming on man Why should people go if they want to check out more of your stuff? Well, I have a website. That's just clayroutledge.com They can check there. I'm on Twitter. I think it's just at ClayRotledge. Yeah, those are probably the best places. Thanks very much for that day. Thank you. It's great to have this conversation with you.

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