The Daily Stoic - Atticus the Poet on Modern Media and Remaining Anonymous

Episode Date: October 29, 2022

Ryan talks to the anonymous Instagram poet Atticus about how modern media has distorted old ideas, his experience meeting the Dalai Lama, the decision to remain anonymous in the public eye, and more.Atticus, who grew up in Vancouver, has built a career as a bestselling poet by reading for hundreds, from behind a mask. From being an early investor in SpaceX, to launching a coffee business with Elon's cousins, to releasing 3 NYT Bestselling books, an international wine brand, and clothing partnerships with John Varvatos, Levis, Target, and KOHLS. Atticus can help share how to create business around ART while doing what you love (all while staying anonymous).He has now produced many bestselling books of poetry including Love Her Wild and The Dark Between Stars.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have. Here on the weekend when you have a

little bit more space when things have slowed down be sure to take some time to think to go for a walk to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. I tell this story at the beginning of this episode, but I'll repeat it because it was funny

I was down in Florida with my wife and kids. This is before the pandemic, we were at a home goods, we were getting some pillows or something. I actually had to be kidding my wife said to me, I said, what are we looking for at home goods? And she said, oh, you don't go to home goods looking for anything. Home goods tells you what you're looking for as you shop. And as we walk through the aisles, I went through this little art section and I saw this quote. This is when I was writing, as I was starting to research for courage, just calling. And I saw this

quote and it said it was from to Kill a Mockingbird. And I didn't recognize it at all. I hadn't read it in a while, but I do love the book and I hadn't find it. It turns out it's not from to Kill a Mockingbird. It's from an online poet, an Instagram poet, very talented one in Atticus Poetry. I posted it on Instagram, I was talking about it. And then he sent me a message and we ended up connecting and being friends. I don't know what he looks like. He's entirely anonymous, but he is a fascinating guy and we had a great discussion. You never know we're going to end up meeting people and you never know what those people are gonna go on to do

or have done as it happens, even smaller world. He read one of his poems at the wedding of a friend of mine just a few months ago, a friend and neighbor out here in Texas and that kicked off the discussion that we had today. He has a new book out called Love. He's a three times New York Times best-selling author. He's a new book out called Love. He's a three times, New York Times best selling author. He's a creator of an international wine brand. He's got clothing

partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the world. And his stuff, you've seen it everywhere. It goes viral on Instagram all the time. Tons of my friends share them. And you can follow him on Twitter. I think he's best on Instagram at Atticus Poetry and it's just a great, a great account. I really like it. And it turns out he is a huge fan of the Stokes he even wears Marcus Relius necklace with him at all times. I think you're really gonna like this interview

comes from funny and usual origins, but here we go. This is my conversation with Atticus, the poet, and his new book Love is available everywhere, and I believe we've got copies at the Painted Porch, some of his other books as well. Hey, man, how are you? Oh, good. How are you? I'm doing good. I was thinking about, as I was prepping for this,

I was trying to think about Stoicism in poetry, and I remembered there's a line from Clienti's, one of the earlier Stoics, and he was saying that one of the beautiful things about poetry is the constraints. Now, obviously, in your kinds of poem, you sort of do whatever you want, but the he was saying the constraints of poetry that you know, perhaps that it has to rhyme or that it all the different formats of poetry, right?

He probably didn't know about a haiku, but the idea of the constraints of the poetry calls them the fetters He says actually produce the art and the meaning, right? So if you truly could do whatever you wanted in a poem, it, I guess he was saying like in life, getting everything that you want is actually not what you want. What you want are the obstacles or the impediments or the deadline or the constraints, because that's what channels the energy in, if not a positive direction,

at least in a direction. Yeah, that's so interesting. I haven't heard that take on it before, but it makes perfect sense. And I totally get it. It's interesting, because I feel like poetry really opened up for me when I took off the constraints. And I was like, you know what? I was just going to mess around with words. But the constraints have since become kind of things that I put on myself. I like try, you know, my poetry is very

short form and zephyrams, it's aphorism. So I kind of try to say as much as I can with as few words as possible. But they're my own constraints. But that's okay. No, I think that's right. They are your own constraints but their constraints nevertheless, right? Like if you had unlimited words, you wouldn't stop and think about whether these

are the right words or not. Even just think of the constraint of like, you're producing the work for an audience and they have to understand what the fuck you're talking about. So like if you never even had to think about the fact that hey, the audience is not inside my head and naturally assumes and knows all the things that I know, you wouldn't stop and think, well what am I trying to say and am I saying it effectively like the whole point is the constraint. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think if I if I didn't put on my own constraints, I think it would very quickly become something like a ballad or like, yeah, the home is Odyssey, but way worse written, you know.

Yeah. And like, I think there's something about the shortness of your poetry also that yeah, it forces, well, you can't be self-indulgent, you can't waste time, you, each word has to not just mean something, but in a sense, it has to mean a lot of things. Each one of those words has to carry a lot of weight, right? Or else the thing doesn't mean anything.

So, yeah, I think there's a metaphor here in the constraints, because again, we want to do whatever we want in life. We want to have unlimited freedom, you know, total autonomy. But you actually, actually, you know, total autonomy. But you actually, I actually, you don't. You have, even if you do have that, you still have to, as you said, impose your own constraints, or you just get chaos or gibberish.

Yeah, yeah, actually, that's a really, really powerful consideration too, because if you think about, you know, people that get unlimited money or unlimited power and whatnot, it often corrupts them because they don't build their own constraints. I think you look at Aurelius, he was so powerful in creating his own constraints within his unlimited power and wealth. What's like, when no one else can tell you what to do, you better be telling yourself what you can and can't do. You're going to default to your worst impulses very quickly.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's so human to do so. Yeah, I have a line at the beginning of the new book, The Book on Discipline, from Eisenhower, and he says, freedom is better defined as the opportunity for self-discipline, which by the way, you break that up into a four or five line poem. It's pretty brilliant, just in and of itself. Like I like the rhyme and the rhythm of that,

but it is a really interesting idea. It's like, okay, suddenly you are beyond financial concerns or your parents no longer tell you what to do. You broke from your church or your old profession and now like you're the decider. Would you want to decide what's on the table and what's not on the table or best case scenario you're paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of choices or worst case scenario you make some bad choices. Yeah, and you do see it all the time, you know, it's certainly with celebrities and people getting there. They're, you know, first liquidity or like, you know, big money and, you know, the people that I feel like are have longevity are the ones that create those constraints for themselves

that like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, work out more now. Or, you know, I'm going, you know, I'm not going to do as many drugs or drink as much as I possibly can, even though I can. And people don't shame me for it. Totally. Totally. I was trying to think too, like, when we met, like, I think we met because I saw a poem in Home Goods. My wife had dragged me to Home Goods in Florida and we were shopping for something.

And I saw this thing and it was like a poem. I forget what it was. It was like a poem about courage, but it said it was from to Kill a Mockingbird. And I was like, I don't remember that line into Killamockingbird. And so I googled it. And it turned out it was a poem of yours that someone had stolen obviously not licensed from you

and tried to claim it was from Atticus Finch. Yeah. It happens so often. The amount of people that have said their favorite quote from T'Killamockingbird is like one of my quotes often, the amount of people that have said their favorite quote from, to kill a mocking bird is like one of my quotes or something. Or, you know, somebody will be like, Hey, you got this from to kill a mocking bird. And I was like, where in to kill a mocking bird is it? I mean, I'm like, honestly humbled by it every time, but I just, I find it hilarious

that not everyone picks up like, that's not in the Tukill Mockingbird. It's so funny. Well, it's like the famous Lincoln quote that you can't trust everything that you read on the internet. Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, I pulled it up. It says, I loved her even more because she loved me back and I didn't think that I could be loved

or deserve to be loved, but the more broken, no, that's not it. No, that's not it, right? That is one of mine. Yeah. No, that is one of yours, but that's not the mockingbird one. I thought it was about courage.

Do you remember which one it was? Shoot, I mean, there's been a bunch. Yeah, I don't know which one you're talking about, but I could probably find it. I was like, that is a great fucking lot. And it is funny, right? Because it's like, if that line was in the mouth of one of the most famous literary characters of all time,

it would have a certain sign. It shows how much context matters, right? Like, it means something if it was from that character. And then when it's a poem, it means something else, but then also because we don't value poems the same way we do quotes from movies or books. Like it was weird. I love that.

Yeah, I think that, and then you kind of, then we started talking on Instagram, and that was the first time we linked up, but it's fine. And now we're both in Austin. There we go. No, it worked out nicely. Do you have, what are there poems of yours that you think are rooted in stoic ideas, or that you think were, are connected to stoicism.

And you mentioned it really as earlier. So I know you're more familiar with the philosophy than the average person. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. It's funny. I think of of all things, you know, spirituality and kind of ways of being stoicism speaks to me more than any other. And I'm certainly not alone. I mean, I think to throw it back on you, the daily stoic was one of the first introductions to stoicism that I found really, really digestible. I've loved it and having it in my life.

But yeah, I certainly think that poems, even more and more now, and philosophies and things that show up in my poetry are, have kind of like an ode to stoicism, for sure. I think this is it. I think it's, she was powerful not because she wasn't scared, but because she went on so strongly despite the fear. I think that was the quote that was on the.

Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely not in the mockingbird. No, it's definitely not. No. I can't imagine Atticus Finch saying that. So it's like you obviously like realize like that's not a con in a context of Atticus Finch. But most people, you know, don't take it for granted. I mean, certainly Daily Stoke has been occasionally guilt.

Like, so it's like when there's so much bad info floating around in the universe, eventually it corrupts even people who are caring, right? So like, like something will get reposted or it worms your way into your brain or you just see it so many times. Like actually, there's this famous quote from Victor Frankle where he says,

like in between stimulus and response, there is a space and in that space, we have the ability to determine our condition. Well, I've used that quote a billion times. I've read a man's search for meaning a bunch of times. And there's something about that quote that sounds exactly like something Frank will would say. And more or less does say, but this is actually a paraphrasing of him by Stephen Covey that

he never actually did say, but then it sort of enters the internet ecosystem in you. It means something to someone so many times that you, I think he comes to a place where you almost don't want to believe that it wasn't exactly said that way. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, did you hear the kind of recent controversy, controversy of some of these roomy quotes? I mean, many of them and a lot of the translations. There was a famous translator, I forgot his name,

but it's kind of like he's the most profound roomy translator. Yeah. And yeah, he got in kind of hot water recently because what they realized is that he takes a huge amount of romantic liberty, creative liberty with the translation and creates them way more, makes them way more Western. And in reality, if you actually go back to these texts and translate it, it's nothing like most of the quotes we know of Roomy. Right. So he actually has become the all-other of these quotes. But it's interesting, it's like where does,

that you know, as it relates to translation, it's like where does the creative liberty stop or like how direct do you need to be in the translation? Well, I found that when I did the Daily Stoke because so I have always loved the Gregory Hayes translation of Mark Serelyse, that's the first one that I read, but I think it's also the most beautiful and lyrical of the translations, and certainly the most poetic, right? And so when I did Daily Stoic, Stephen Hanselman is also my agent, it's those weird, unusual collaboration where I

did a book with my agent, but he did all the translations. He can translate both Greek and Latin. So I picked all my favorite quote, like I went through my addition of meditations. I'm like, I like meditations five, six, and I like meditations 12, one. I went through, and then he gave me back these translations. And a lot of cases, I was like, but this isn't what I love at all. You know, like, like, this isn't, this isn't it. Like, I was just thinking about this. There's this quote in the Hayes translation.

He says, um, how trivial the things we want so passionately are, right? Which I think is this beautiful expression. And then only in realizing the translation and then probably my own, I wouldn't say dyslexic, but semi sort of weird way of reading things, I thought he was saying so passionately R. Like I thought passionately was connected to R, but he was saying how trivial the things we want so badly are. Right, so I thought it was this kind of poetic take of the language, but in fact, that's a different

translators sees it totally differently. And you just realize that not only do translators bring a lot to the text, and there's a huge amount of discretion, you know, like when I was on Rogan, I was talking about this where like, look, like, you know, they weren't using, like, we have clichés or expressions now that did not exist 2,000 years ago, but you translate or make total sense just as some of the idioms or expressions that are in a addition from meditations from the 1800s, like, are not actually there. So not only does it translator have this, you know, a mens about of translate of interpretation, but then you, the reader are projecting and interpreting.

Like I'm sure your poems mean things to people, they'd say them back to you and you're like, that's not what it's about at all. Yeah, yeah, I'm careful with that, you know. It's like so many of my quotes have been tattooed on people and they'll kind of up and they'll say their meaning and I'm like, whoa, that's just not what I meant by it. But I also think it's beautiful that they, like you said, have taken the words interpret

it in them, how they wanted, and put them on their bodies. And in that way, they've become their own. And I've always thought that's special. But that's really interesting. You said about the translation because when my books were getting translated to different languages, and I'm wondering if you found the same. But I used a lot of, because of like poetry and, you know, that's lyrical, I used a lot of music artists in the country.

So I paired with a musician from Italy to do my Italian translation and likewise for German and Spanish and Czech. Just because I felt I wanted to capture, I wanted that to translate. And I think if in a direct translation, I would imagine just be very different. Yeah. The weird part about publishing that people who are not in it don't always understand is a lot of times these things are totally outside the author's control. So like I often would just get in the mail like an international translation of my books and I go like not only do I not know what language it is, I'm not sure what book this is like like I see my name on it, but I don't know which of these books. Like, my first book, Trust Me I'm Lying, was translated in German, and I sent this to

my German grandmother who was completely puzzled. It was titled Operation Shitstorm, like in English. Like they gave it an English translation that, and God. That, and like I guess this became like a buzzword or something in Germany. I know it's very strange, but yeah, you go, you realize that so much of the world is like an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation. Yeah. And there's something both beautiful in that. And then also a way that a lot of things can get lost. Yeah. And you know, as it relates to, you know, the great texts like, including the Bible, you know, there's so many translations over so many years, I think it's, you know, it's pretty widely accepted that there have been so many different iterations and translations and it's hard to, in fact, track

down whose were the translators and throughout time. Well, it's interesting that you wanted to work with a musician because you thought their sort of lyrical understanding would be different. There's a famous observation from T.E. Lawrence, you know, Lawrence of Arabia who does a translation of the Odyssey. He's like, to translate the Odyssey, one must have like written a horse into battle, killed a man, traveled wide.

Like he was saying that like you could it just be an academic, you had to have experienced some of the adventure that Odysseus has experienced or else you wouldn't fully understand what's happening. No, I don't fully believe that, but I do think there's an interesting kernel of an idea in there that like, yeah, you're asking, let's go to meditations, you're asking some tenured philosophy academic

or ancient language expert to translate the personal reflections of a person with unlimited power. I mean, they're going to understand what's happening on a language level, but maybe they don't, when Marcus really talks about, you know, not being stained purple, like there's a historical understanding of that. He's meaning like don't be corrupted by what the emperor, the cloak, the emperor wears. But I have to imagine somebody who's had a lot of power

would relate to and perhaps understand what's happening there in a way that a translator couldn't. Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, it's true. And I think that, you know, I think, yeah, as it relates to my poems, I think musician kind of, I think it helped in the lyric side and potentially just like, you know, so many of my poems and quotes are about like love and lot losing love and it's kind of like that For like or better term like they kind of like emo musician captures it quite well Yeah, you have to be at a certain emotional wavelength Yeah, I would also wonder if the musician to though to go back to what we're talking about with constraints. If there's anyone who understands the constraints of a piece of writing, it's a musician who

realized I only have five syllables or X amount of space to say this thing. And what's really important is that I'm at the right vibe, probably less so than I'm using the same word in a different language that they were using. Yes, yeah, I think that's it, exactly. Exactly. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. There you are.

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Download the Amazon Music app today. I got, like, imagine like you translate, like, I don't know, like, Dr. Seuss or something and you you're not only having to translate But you're you're having to translate whimsical nonsense like how do you even do that? Right? Like like you're again, it's like can you get in the vibe of like a child's mind? Yeah, probably more important than like what your mastery of Armenian is. Yeah. Yeah, Dr. Seuss would be, would be so difficult because like he said, it's just so whimsical and he captures just, you know, he captures something and it's like very genus Iquat

and it's like how do you translate that? But, you know? Yeah. I read a translation of the New Testament like a few years ago. I'm forgetting who it was by. But like obviously I grew up, you know, I'd read the Bible or had the Bible read to me. I was vaguely familiar with the ideas of the Bible, but this professor at Yale did a translation of the Bible. He went back and you got like the oldest possible version

you could find, right? Like in greater, whatever. And he was like, I'm going to translate it, but not from, I'm gonna treat it as if it was just like dug up from Pompeii or something, right? Like he's like, I'm gonna ignore the fact that there's 2,000 years of people debating what this means and that means and whatever. And it was so interesting to then sit down and read the Bible

as essentially fresh, but also from a like a historical perspective because it is a historical document also, right? And then you're like, oh yeah, like a lot of what I think this means has to do with what people have been telling me what it means. But in fact, like with this fresh perspective means like almost the complete opposite. Well, that must be fascinating. Can you buy that? I'd be interested to look at that. Yeah, yeah, let me find it.

Let me find it. Let me find it. I'll pull it up. It's it's really interesting. It's a new testament. We'll cut out the search. New testament. Yeah, university press. Let me see. I've recommended it a bunch of times that I really liked it. Yeah I can't, oh, it's by David Bentley Hart. It's called the New Testament, a translation. Because I mean, even so many of the things that we take for granted, like, okay, Shakespeare's writing in English. That's almost the problem of Shakespeare, right?

Because since he's writing in English, but essentially a different version of English, it's very inaccessible. But if you think about when Shakespeare was writing, he was writing to like the people in the pit of the Globe Theater. Like he was writing to common street people as well as smart people. So everything in Shakespeare would have been imminently accessible and immediately understood by the audience.

There would have been a subtext also, but like he was, he was not writing high-brow literature. Like when he, when he would clear out the theater, like the same audience might, the next day go watch like two bears fight, right? Like these are, these are like regular people, right? And so like even when you see it in the Bible when it's loud, thou doffest, thou shalt not. Like that's not what somebody 2000 years ago would have been struck by, right? Like it would have been written, it just like if you were alive

when people were saying thou dost, that didn't seem archaic and unfamiliar. Like that was just language. Yeah. You're telling your brother, hurry up in the shower, you doubt. Yes. Good.

Yeah. Oh yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't consider that Shakespeare is probably written for the people more than kind of royalty. And so it was made to be accessible to everyone in the same way that the Bible was. Yeah, of course. Yeah, these are regular people on their way home from work, writing who've stopped in at the theater.

And the other thing that they're operating on, which I love when you read like poetry or or whatever from long time ago you go, oh, there's all these like illusions to other ideas or other things that you would expect them that the audience was expected to be familiar with. But like, we're not so like hamlet or like, let's say like all of his Roman place like, Like, let's say, like all of his Roman place, like, Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, this is based on Plutarch's reading, like, essay on this person. And most people, at least the educated people, would have also known that.

So like, they're understanding what he's doing. It's like, they've read the book, and now they're watching the movie, you know? Wow, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I feel like you kind of, you see that in, in meditations too, you'll sometimes have like references, like I wonder what he's talking about

and you look it up, I mean, you probably know them, but I've often have to like look them up and just see exactly what he's referring to, but. Yeah, I think it's, sometimes he's referring to poems or plays that like that's all we know of them. Like he was weirdly it was like this weird service he was providing history because like he's right. It's like it's like if I went and saw a movie and then I wrote in my diary some great line from the movie that struck me.

But then the print of that movie was destroyed over the next 2,000 years. And all that remained was my diary of quoting, like, the hangover tree. I was thinking more like, it's like, never take your problems outside the family or some line from the guy father. And you're like, oh, that's so brilliant and wise.

And it's like, yeah, Ryan stole that from the movie, but you don't know that. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, and that's to totally to be expected. I mean, it's, you know, Arrelius was kind of like the few why people who survived texts, survived that time. Totally.

Yeah. Yeah, he kind of keeps them alive in a way, you know, yeah. I love that. Yeah, there's a line from your rippie disease and meditations I love. He says, and why should we be angry at the world as if the world would notice? And you're like, that's beautiful. Yeah, and you're like, I wonder, like, that's a play, that's the only line from that play that survives. I don't even think we know the title of that play. But like, it also stripped of contexts is pretty awesome in and of itself.

Yeah, that's not amazing. It actually made to me think so. Last, I literally just got back, but I got invited to go to India to Darmashalla and I met with a lot of the Tibetan monks there, but also I met with the Dalai Lama and he granted us access, I was an incredible experience, but he granted us access as an incredible experience.

But they granted us access to the libraries and one of the kind of library and monks showed us these texts that actually were brought over on the backs of monks when China invaded Tibet, but there are thousands of years old, and there's some of the kind of oldest texts, and he opened them up, and we'd go through them, and he would explain what they said. And it was just fascinating, so beautiful, but also to our point of like, lost in translation, and he would say what it literally meant and then he would say, well, you know what, what he was trying to, or what this person, this text is trying to say is this. And I just found it all fascinating.

And a lot of the things were written in gold and silver on paper too, which was cool. We do take for granted the role that monks have had in preserving our greatest works of art, like even meditations in all these Western works, they survive because monks in these monasteries just to practice their Latin or Greek, and then also to like idle hands or the devil's workshop, their job was just to sit all day

and just translate these manuscripts by hand over and over and over again. And that's why they survive. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I mean, we owed them a lot for that. Yeah, that... It really is fascinating. I mean, and by the way, these scrolls are in a building

that doesn't seem fire safe. Has these old school air conditioned units that are just kind of blowing air and keeping it at good humidity with India's consistent power outages. And thankfully, there's this whole initiative to finally digitize all of these. And so they're going through all of them. But it was just the whole thing was just fascinating to see.

And the story of them kind of going over the Himalayas away from, they would have been burnt, obviously, or taken at least. And, you know, they survived in really, really good quality. So, but yeah, we owe the monks a lot. What was the Dalai Lama like? Oh, by no surprise, a wonderful, wonderful human human being. Total asshole, who's just a good man. No, asshole. Huge jerk. You know, I don't think I've ever met someone

who's just so pure to purpose and not putting on a show, but like you can really, really tell that this is who he is and what he believes and he's committed to spreading compassion in the world. But in the same way, he's like, he has this childlike energy. He makes jokes. He's actually very funny and very charming and quick-witted. And I think part of his practice is why he's been able to keep this kind of happiness and childlike energy. You know, he is a child. He was talking about how he's like, you know, you guys in the West, you always have sleep problems.

He's like, I've never had a sleep problem in my life. He's like, I sleep nine hours every day because why? Because I have peace of mind. And I thought that was really interesting, but he had some very, very profound things for me, at least some takeaways that were kind of like, he described the difference between empathy and compassion and empathy is a more passive observation while compassion is like the active active actually acting on empathy and helping people or you know people around you and and you know he had some really good thoughts on

compassion needs to come with wisdom otherwise it it can be wasted. And he used the example of people that were outside the monastery begging, because someone asked the question, you know, where does compassion stop? You could give all your money to this person and you'd have to do the same the next day. And he made, he's like, that's why compassion must come with wisdom, because, you know, what you will realize that if you gave them a bunch of money today, you'd probably need to do it tomorrow in the next

day. And instead of doing that, he's like, you know, provide them food, provide them shelter, and use your wisdom to realize there's better ways to serve these people and to serve yourself. You know, the whole thing was very, very, very profound for me. I tend to find with people like that, like, like, let's say you didn't know who the Dalai Lama was or, like, what he looked like. I wonder if, like, just him entering the room, if you could sense that you were in the presence of someone at some sort of, you know, like transcendent level.

Like Marks really talks about like a sage is like, he says it's like a smelly goat in the room, like you know you're there. But I wonder, like it's kind of woo-woo, the idea of like energy, but I do tend to find that it actually is something you can feel. A hundred percent. It's so funny you picked up on that,

because I was actually going to mention that. It's like when he kind of enters the room, and everybody notices everybody like, you know you know quiet and you can tell something is changed with the energy and you know it might have it's hard to know if it's like us putting that on him or if it's like this like you said if you didn't know who he was would you notice something was different and was he you know something, like something deeper in connection, very human, where we're like, I need, you know, something's different about this person.

And I would say that I would argue that there is something very, very different. And when he comes in a room, you notice whether you knew who the Dalai Lama was or not. It was, it was really spiritual in that way. Yeah, I mean, even just like with fame, like if you're ever like, you can sometimes, like, you know that feeling of like, do I recognize that person? Is that a famous person? Like, obviously, there's something about like, probably an indictment in the way that culturally we

like hold fame up. But there is something, like, there is something, I wonder how much of it is that, and then how much of it is just like the artist or the creative that is in touch with themselves at a certain way, like is carrying themselves, and even though they're not saying anything, and even though you're actually in different groups in different tables at a restaurant, you can be like, no, that person is different

than all the other people. I wonder what that is. Yeah. It's funny, I've met Oprah not too long ago and I really found that with Oprah. It was almost like she was like how the halo around her was glowing. She's got it, whatever it is, she's got it.

Yeah, I wonder if that is like a comfort with oneself, connectedness to some sort of like higher power or wisdom, and that's probably what, like I think about this, you know the Marina Brahmavitch thing, like the artist is present, like people would just go and sit across from her and then you watch these people just break down in tears and you're like, well, she didn't say anything.

What is that? It has something to do with like, oh, this person is actually present with me and that is so fucking rare that it's emotionally overwhelming. Interesting. Do you think it's a, to some degree, could be like a human tribal thing as well where where we're like, you know, we're kind of triggered to to know when somebody who's important is kind of in the room because of and maybe it's like a old school survival thing, but this is like.

This is an alpha or this is like an important person in our tribe or their tribe or you know sure has anything to do with that. person in our tribe or their tribe or, you know, sure. Has anything to do with that? Yeah, I mean, maybe there's like some pheromone shit that's going on. Yeah. But also like, yeah, you could probably sense if there was a lion behind a wall in, you know,

the large room that you were in, right? Like, because you're right, you should sense like killer energy. And I mean, that in literally and figuratively. Oh, this person is, this is the king, this is the greatest ever, this is the person that I meant to be with to go to your book on love.

Maybe that's even what love at first sight is, you're picking up on some kind of energy that is different about this person for you, like not me for everyone, but just like, no, no, you and this person are on a wavelength that words cannot possibly express. And even physical gestures perhaps couldn't express, but like, could be felt. Yeah, absolutely. And it could be as basic as like my jeans, loving their jeans, you know, or something like that. And it turns in terms of love. Not to butcher the whole idea of love

because I'm kind of a poet that relies on the opposite. But yeah, I mean, I think a lot of these things can be reduced and refined down to like basic human instincts and, you know, to your point of lying in the room. I think you can, you can certainly, it's like when, you know, you're at the hair and the back of your neck goes up when something's wrong or like, you know, you can so often, if someone's looking at you, even if they're kind of behind you, you can kind of, you'll look at them and you can tell, right? I think so. Yeah. It's like a human survival thing. There's the, in science, there's the concept of tacit knowledge, which like we know more than we can say, for instance,

like in art, like, like, how do you know in art or science or discovery or whatever, like, how do you know when you've, when you've like done it, when you couldn't have said what you were trying to do? Like, like, you, you finish a poem, you're like, the poem is done. And like, there's, that's happening at some sort of intuitive, artistic level. You were sitting around trying to find words, the right words for a thing that's never been said before. Right?

What plane is that happening on? Like Plato talks about how do you know when you found it if you have never found it before? Like when you're like, that's it, that's the discovery, right? That is a thing that's never happened and yet somehow you recognize it, right? Like you recognize the thing that you've never, by definition, never seen before

because it's totally new, that is tapping into some sort of tacit, you could say supernatural form of knowledge that is, you know, is it from the muses? Is it from God? Is it from where is it from? I don't know. Yeah, that's really interesting.

And it's true. Especially like from an artist perspective, they're building a statue and they're, you know, keep adding to it. I'm like, okay, now it's done. But like, yeah, something is kind of embedded in them to know about it. That is done. I'm like that.

Well, like I'm in the middle of writing this book now. And somehow I wake up every day knowing the direction I'm supposed to go. Like today, I need to do this. But it, it's like I'm following a blueprint that doesn't exist, right? Like, obviously I have an outline, but like how you don't know. Like there's something inherently magical about the creative process or, or, you know, tapping into some kind of inner truth where like it intuitively you know, and you're following this thing and you recognize it when you're not doing it right, but you could never actually articulate

the whole thing like like I finished a book sometimes and I go like where did these 50 60 70,000 words come from? Like I didn't have them all in my head at the beginning and yet the process felt more like putting them in the right place than creating them from nothing. Yeah, I find the same thing. It's really interesting to, I don't know if you find this, but sometimes you're just in, you reach this flow. I mean, people talk about the kind of flow state and whatnot, but it's like, you can just write and you don't really recognize Sometimes the words that are coming, but they just like come and they arrange themselves in a great way and you're like, all right

That's perfect and then other times that for at least for me it doesn't doesn't happen and I'm like, you know Can't write anything could put two words together for the life of me and it's funny because a lot of one of the Questions or like messages I get most often is like, how do you deal with with writer's block and like, how do you move past it? I just feel like I'm not inspired. And I'd be interested to know from your perspective, I kind of have my own tactics that have helped me. But from your perspective, is writer's box something you tackle? Is it just never comes out for, or what?

Well, so I'll answer that a second, but as we were talking about what we were just talking about, I thought of one of the poems I found in the book, you said, there is the great miracle that occurs when we listen to that little voice inside our heads that tells us truthfully who we are and why. You know, it's like, what is that, right? That, I think there's something about the artistic process that that captures as well, where it's like you're listening rather than telling. You know what I mean? Yeah.

But I do think like, yeah, when I think about writers block, I'm obviously always empathetic when I hear someone say like, I'm just blocked, I'm writers block, I don't want to be like an asshole or whatever. But like in my experience, the only times I'm blocked are when I haven't done the work before I end to set up what I need to do. And what I do is different, I'm not tapping into my internal view of things. I'm not trying to express my personal truth necessarily. But if I'm sitting down to write a chapter, I'm writing this big chapter right now

in the Justice Book that I'm doing, and it was hard going at first. And I was like, the problem is I haven't read enough books about this topic. The reason I'm feeling uncertain or not sure where to go is because I was going to try to get away with something. Like, I didn't actually have the grounding that I needed to be able to authoritatively say, you know, what I wanted to say.

I just didn't have, I didn't have the stuff. It's like the reason you're nervous before the race is you know you didn wanted to say. I just didn't have I didn't have the stuff. It's like the reason you're nervous before the race is you know you didn't do the training. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually that's actually quite rise. And I think it I think it relates in a different way to to the you know something more like poetry or art and in that, you know, if it's never not working or you have that writer's block, you know, chances are you're not doing the work, you're not kind of getting inspired in the right way, you're not traveling enough for meeting the right people or just sitting down and doing the work giving, giving, you know, the words enough space to to find those flow moments. And I personally have found the best way to that I can write or beat writer's block is to just put in the time,

whether it's five minutes every day or whatever. Some days that stays five minutes, but some days it turns into hours. So it's a lot of, I know, it sounds trite, but it's just carving out that time. Yeah, I mean, for you, maybe it's like, I haven't been doing my routine. I haven't been taken care of myself. I haven't been sleeping. I've been closed off emotionally, blah, blah, blah. And that is why you're not in the right creative, like artistic truth place.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think it totally goes to art and everything else. And, yeah, you're just not putting in the work. So how do you think about doing something sort of raw and authentic and vulnerable, but then also hiding behind something. And I don't mean that as an entire, I'm just saying there's an interesting tension between like, I'm sharing this part of myself,

but then I'm not sharing this part of myself that most artists do. How do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, you know, me remaining anonymous was just an important decision for me from the beginning. I was, you know, I'd come out of L.A. and kind of a world of television and things. You know, transparently, I lost a friend that was also in the industry and he passed away in a hotel in Vancouver from what I would say are like complications of fame, but he was from the same small island I'm from in Canada. So like when this whole thing was starting, it was very, it was an experiment almost.

I wanted to see if I could, you know, reach a level of success and spread my words, but not have that recognition, that, you know, particularly like facial recognition or whatever. And as it grew, it kind of kind of became more and more important to me. And as it grew, it kind of became more and more important to me. But to your point, it's certainly something that I've struggled with, you know, I'll often ask myself, like, am I truly being vulnerable if I'm not doing it without a mask on, or, you know, if people don't know who I am. And it's, and I think that, you know, there is an argument for that, and it might be true. The other side of that is that I often find that I write very vulnerable because there is that separation, and I'm, and it's easier. So it's almost like a cheat for me in that I can

write what I feel and I and I don't really write it worrying how people will judge me for those feelings. That makes sense. It's it lets me not think about oh you know how will I look and will this make me more famous? It's like, how do I actually feel? And I'm not worried about getting judged for being too cheesy or too emotional. I just try to write my truth. And it's a very imperfect science and it's something I need to push myself always to do, but I think it has helped the words in that way. Yeah, I had this, I had this interesting sort of dilemma,

or not dilemma, but like opportunity to sort of explore what you're talking about when I was just finished ego as the enemy. So obstacles away and come out, it's done pretty well, but it wasn't by any means like what it went on to do. So I was just working on this second book and I had no idea that they were really part of a series or anything like that. And the publisher, my editor came to me with this idea.

She was like, we designed this cover. Like I think you're going to like it. It's a whole different direction. We're really excited. And the idea was the book was all white and it said, you go as the enemy on the cover and nothing else. Like my name wasn't on it. It didn't say other books that I'd done.

There wasn't a description. It was just that. And there was this part of me that was like artistically really intrigued by the idea. And certainly saw like the statement it was making from an ego perspective. Like you're like, I'm going to take the eye out of it. But then also I was thinking, like the reason I didn't end up doing it was, I sort of came up, I came,

I don't mean it's a rationalization, but I was like, an artist signs their work, right? Like for it to be anonymous, to not have my name on it, like there's almost something that's saying, like, I'm not proud of this, like this isn't me. But it is interesting that like, how one presents themselves, how

one associates with the work is also a statement about the work, right? And I get your point that like by not by not putting your face on it, maybe you are saying this isn't about me, this is about this idea, this isn't like my personal truth, this is some sort of eternal truth or something. I it's interesting to see how like what there's always the professional but also the artistic sort of reason to do this or that. Yeah, that's very interesting. And one byproduct of it that I've actually liked is that, you know, to what we were talking about earlier, people take the words and make them put their own meaning in it.

And they also take, you know, whoever Atticus is and put their own kind of face behind it, whoever they need it to be. And, you know, I love it when people just kind of take my poems and change them, rewrite them, or like alter the pronouns, or whatever. But it makes the whole thing more about the words and less about who I am as a person, what color is my skin, or whatever, what do I look like. colors my skin or whatever, what do I look like? And again, you know, it's just an experiment, maybe it'll all not work out. But also it sets up the big reveal at some point if you ever decide to do it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Although back on Oprah. Yeah, there you go. There you go. No, I mean, you're interesting too, because like obviously, although poetry is probably one of the most eternal and timeless of the artistic mediums, I don't think it's a stretch to say it's in the modern world one of the least popular. Poets used to be rock stars and now they're not. And then by embracing certain tools and by the mystery of, you know, not putting their face on it,

I think you also had the effect of bringing something to millions of people that other maybe, like I see this with stoicism, it's like, sure, it's a little weird to be like reducing stoicism down to these quotes on Instagram. But the alternative is, it's not like a lot of those people would not have been interacting with stoicism in any form, were it not in the form that I've brought it to them in. Yes, yes. That's very, very important. And I think, you know, what both of our work does to some degree is, it's like a gateway drug for, you know, it leads into, you know, people have said, oh, why do you write such short things and post them on Instagram? And, you know, poetry should be longer and follow these rules and

I'm like, well, for one, I don't, that's not how I write, it's not what I enjoy. I like the turns of phrase, I like after grants, but I also think that, you know, if I wrote these really long, you know, prose poetry or like, you know, long-form poems, it doesn't connect with the younger audience in the same way. And I think what you've done for stoicism is people, it's bite size, they can consume it, and then it ultimately leads to a deeper dive

into the incredible classics and all the rest of the stoic world, but it certainly provides a service. I usually get that too like people go like oh Like the originals are better, you know, they bugger and I'm like agreed Totally agree The fact that you're putting up short poems on the internet is not Anything more than you putting up short poems on the internet. There's no, it is them who are projecting onto it, some idea that somewhere you said, don't read Robert Frost, don't read Homer, you know, don't read so and so. You're like, it's a, it's a, it's not an and or situation, right?

Like, or in either or a situation, like these things are not mutually exclusive. And in fact, by, by expressing your truth, like by doing what you're doing, your expect, those people are now more likely to read other forms of poetry, because previously they were like poetry is not for me. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love how you said that,

and it's just so, so true. It's like, yeah, you know, if somebody says Shakespeare is better, it's like, yes, Shakespeare is better. Frost is better. I'm reading those things. Like, I love them. I love them a lot more than what I write. But that doesn't mean that, uh, you know, that we should burn myself. Yeah, it's like, who's the best, who's the best in the world that what you do? And then, you know, they say, whoever. And it's like, so you should stop doing it. Like, like, the idea that the idea that because someone else did it perfectly or wonderfully or better should not be, should not condemn the rest of us from not being able to explore what we're interested in.

you can have to explore what we're interested in. Yeah, yeah, totally. Hunter S. Thompson was famous for when he couldn't write. He would open up like Hemingway or some of his favorite authors and just literally type whatever, like type the books out. And he's like, that gave, you know, provided me that put me in the mind of the greats. But, you know, everybody looks up to, to, how's there kind of heroes in there, whatnot. It's just, doesn't mean you shouldn't write.

No, I did the same thing, by the way, like the no cards that I do, it's often the process, it's like priming the pump, by like typing it out, getting it, it's like, oh the pump, by like typing it out, and getting it, it's like, oh, I know what that feels like now. Like, I felt that running through my system. Like, I forgot who I got it from, but they were saying like,

you feel it coming out of your fingertips, and they were like, oh, I am capable of having it come out through my fingertips, just that I have to add the step where I originally created it. Yeah, yeah, you're kind of like rinsing your, rinsing it through your audience and then you can kind of create it. Yeah, I've done it too. It works really, really well. It's actually advice I give people

if they're really can't write or their mind is blocked. Just like pick up something and just start writing it. Oh, pick up one of your favorite books and just start typing it out. Yeah, it's like a musician warms up with some cover songs. Like it gets you going. Totally. It gets you going. Yeah, totally.

It's good advice. Well, this was awesome, man. I wrote down a poem. Like, so I've told this story before on social and it always works well. But I don't think people realize it's a poem, like, so I've told this story before on social and it always works well, but I don't think people realize it's a poem. I wanted to give this to you and then you can tell me where you are with this as a very successful author and entrepreneur. So this is from Kurt Vonnegut in the New Yorker in 2005.

He says, true story, word of honor. Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer, now dead. And I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, Joe, how does it feel? How does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch 22 has earned in its entire history? And Joe said, I've got something he can never have. And I said, what on earth could that be, Joe? And Joe said the knowledge that I've got enough, not bad, rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut. Whoa.

And that's so good. Wow, I love that. I love that. Why have a few things to say about that? One is, is that a similar quote is something I try to remind myself of often. And it's what you have already is enough. And I've been privileged enough to be friends with a lot of very, very successful people, much more successful than me, billionaires and, you know, top titans of their industry. And one thing I've noticed is that they're

not, they're more often than not very happy or balanced. And they're not those things, or they are. They, they, sorry, they're not those things. They're not very happy and they're not very balanced and they are doing incredible world-changing things but You know they definitely don't feel like what they have already is enough and I find myself falling into that trap often and kind of always moving the bench, benchmarks, goal posts rather of like, you know, if I have this then, if I have this then, and you know, I did the Hoffman process a few years ago, and what it really hammered home was, be, you know, be now instead of thinking, you know,

I need this and then I'll be, it's like be now instead of thinking, you know, I need this. And then I'll be, it's like, be now. And then you can have later. Um, and I, I think that's the answer to everything. And that's why I'm so interested in stoicism because it kind of frees you now. It frees your mind now. And it makes you like your story that you just said, it stoicism, you know, gives you enough right now.

If you have it enough today, then you could be happy now. Yeah, you're very rich and you could be wealthier than those guys in a sense of, you know, of your mind. But yeah, very, very, I love that. I'll have to look that up. Yeah, it's funny too, because at the beginning, when you set out to be a writer, right, and you were like, I wanna write one book.

And then what if it's sold well or whatever, right? That's the dream, and then you do that, and then your mind's like like, that's the dream. And then you do that and then your mind's like, that's not the dream. You have to do it again and again and again and again. Right? Like the goal post is always moving and so you don't have what Heller is talking about, which is, you know, enough.

And so, but the person who does have enough is richer than the richest person. Yeah. It doesn't have enough. Yes. You know, and that, that was one thing I, that really stuck with me from the, the meeting of the Dalai Lama is, is he's like, he's like, don't forget, don't forget, you can live simply and you can be happy. And he, he said it so poignantly, and he said it over and over again.

He's like, you can live like a monk, you can be happy, don't ever forget that. And I think we're all, you know, especially in our countries, it's so easy to forget. Totally. No, man, that's a great place to stop. Well, I love the new book and I obviously I love your work and everyone should follow you on Instagram and

thank you so much. Yeah, we'll have to we'll have to connect in Austin and come sign your books at the bookstore sometime. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would be fun. We should do that. That's a great idea. Cool. All right, bro. All right, thanks for having me. To me, discipline is the most important trait a person can have, right? It's not knowing what you should do. It's being able to do it, right, to have the force of will and character, to stick to the right path. And even as Seneca says when those around you are hopelessly lost, there's no one truly great

that we truly admire who hasn't been defined by their self-control and their discipline. So I can't wait for you to check out the new book, Discipline is Destinated the Power of Self-Control. The second in my four virtues, series on the Cardinal virtues of Stoicism, Courage, Discipline, Justice, Wisdom. The new book is out now. We're still honoring some of the preorder bonuses, which you can grab at dailystoke.com slash preorder.

But you can pick up discipline is Destinated the Power of Self Control anywhere, books are sold, grab it on Audible, you can grab it on Kindle, you can pick it up at your local indie bookstore. If you want me to sign your copy, you can also do that at dailystoward.com slash pre-order and we even have some signed manuscript pages for people who order five copies, plus you get a bunch of other bonuses which I'd love to give you. So sign up at dailystowach.com slash discipline.

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