The Daily Stoic - Jake Seliger On Cancer, Acceptance, And The Gift Of Life

Episode Date: September 23, 2023

Ryan speaks with Jake Seliger about how his cancer diagnosis and having his tongue removed have changed his perspective on life, why he is prioritizing people much more highly than work now, how he is making every single minute count, what he is trying to communicate with his recent outpouring of creativity, accepting death, and more.Jake Seliger is a writer, editor, and researcher. He has written two novels: The Hook and Asking Anna, as well as many essays covering a wide range of social and scientific subjects. Jake is also the Principal of Seliger + Associates, a grant writing and grant source service for nonprofits, public agencies and selected businesses throughout the United States. In October of 2022, Jake was diagnosed with tongue cancer, which called for the complete removal of his tongue. Despite that surgery, a later diagnosis found that the cancer had spread more quickly than expected, and tumors were found in his neck and lungs. He and his family are now raising funds to undergo the next round of treatments. Jake’s own account of the surgeries and reflections on his experiences can be read here: jakeseliger.com/2023/09/09/life-swallowing-tasting-and-speaking-after-a-total-glossectomy-meaning-i-have-no-tongue. You can find Jake’s work on jakeseliger.com and on Twitter @seligerj, and please do visit his GoFundMe to help pay for his cancer treatment at www.gofundme.com/f/help-the-fight-against-cancer-with-jake-s.✉️ 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.

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Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, 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 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 a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I wanted to open today's episode with the last words that Marx realized in meditations. This is per the Gregory Hayes translation, which by the way, we carry our own edition of them, drawing here from the leather edition, if you hear that. Gregory Hayes renders this quite beautifully, and I think it's, we can imagine Marcus writing this

at the end of his life as he was dying of the plague as we suspect It says you've lived as a citizen in a great city Five hundred five years or a hundred. What's the difference? The laws make no distinction and to be sent away from it Not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by nature who first invited you in. Why is that so terrible? Like the impressario ringing down the curtain on an actor, but I've only gotten through three acts. Yes, this will be a drama in three acts. The link fixed by the power that directed your creation, and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine. So make your exit with grace, the same grace that was shown to you.

Again, we can imagine as we know of Marcus's last days, his friends gather around him weeping. You know, he has this troublesome sun. The future of the empire is uncertain. He's dying of this painful pandemic. It's scary, you know, even if he prepared for this very moment for many, many years, nobody wants to die. And here, Marcus was trying to talk himself through it,

to be philosophical about the most philosophically challenging thing there is in the world. And that moved me when I first read it in my 20s, and as I've gotten older and have kids, it's moved me even more. And I was moved by it most recently when I sent that passage to a friend of mine, actually today's guest, Jake Celiger. And I sent it to him because barring miracle or massive advancement in science in a very

short amount of time, Jake is dying. In October of 22, Jake found out that he has a carcinoma of the tongue, the call, SCC, and he had to go and have surgery to have half his tongue removed due to the cancer. And as they were removing it, they found that it had spread much quicker than expected, and they had to remove his entire tongue. They thought they got it, but it wasn't. And it returned on July 21st. CT scan showed that he had eight new tumors, four in the neck and four in

the lungs. Now, Jake is a great writer. I've read his writing now online for many, many years. He's the author of two well-received novels, The Hook in Asking Anna, is the principal of Seleger and Associates where he writes and edits grants proposals for nonprofits. And he's been writing on his website now for many, many years, which I'll link to. And he does this great link collection and he writes about political issues and cultural issues and fiction. He and I, we met at a conference.

I forget exactly why or where we met. We stayed in touch. I followed his writing. You'll see in today's episode that I've been touched by and provoked by a lot of the things he's written about over the years. And then when I saw the news about Jake, I was heartbroken and sort of reconnected and we've been chatting. And I didn't want to impose on his time because I don't know how much time he has left, but I noticed this sort of outpouring of creativity

and wisdom coming from him. It's just something I wanted to bring to the Daily Stoke audience. He's familiar with Stoke philosophy. We've been chatting about it and actually I noticed this book over his shelf while we were recording and I said, what book is that? Is that the book I think it is? And it was Massimo's book, How to Be a Stoke. So he's very familiar with the ideas that we talk about here at Daily Stoic and he was kind enough generous enough to share one hour of his time with us. His wife, Bess, was there. She's been writing beautifully on his website also. And it's just really moving stuff. I would really urge everyone to follow both of them to check out his writings and to listen to this interview. Look, it's going to be a tough interview as he tried to, as he tried to warn

me before we got together. He's not the easiest to understand. That is the perils of having your tongue removed, your tongue destroyed by a vicious, relentless, you know, merciless cancer, but it's brain still there. The insights are still there. His writing is fantastic. His spirit is inspiring to say the least. And I'm really excited to share this with all of you. I think it's a must listen.

It's okay if you miss a couple things here or there, because you can't understand, just push through. That's what I did. And I think you're really gonna like this. And there's also a GoFundMe page that's helping Jake and his wife deal with the enormous and catastrophic expenses from going through something like this, which the American healthcare system

is not at all well suited to helping patients with. If you go to dailystoke.com slash Jake, it'll take you to the thing also, just link to it, but I'm gonna create a URL shortener so you can make a donation. If you've gotten anything out of Jake's writing over the years, if you've gotten anything out of today's episode over the years, do go and be of service or contribute what you

can. I think it wouldn't mean a lot. But in the meantime, take the wisdom of a man who has stared death now in the face who is wrestling with his own mortality. The curtain is coming down, as Marcus said, and there's some real stoic lessons and wisdom here, and I'm really honored to share this with you. It's one of the more personal episodes we've done here at Daily Stoic in quite some time, and I hope you enjoy.

I wish we were talking under better circumstances. It's been a long time. So do I, obviously. So. Well, I thought we'd start with something that we both were clearly thinking about as we wrote similar pieces on things that we wish we did earlier. Yours obviously coming from maybe a less flippant, you know, more introspective place than mine. But talk to me about as you wrestle with all this, what's coming back to you as

regrets isn't the right word, but what's coming to you as things whose significance or urgency has changed in your opinion? So I think probably the business is, I have so much to live in one place, so it makes it sounds and but the citizens are around people, my family is not very people's sensors, they're I was younger, I have a lot of time, a lot of problems dealing with people and what I was is that I had houses to find, so long, and flatless, house-about, and that with people, having met friends. And most of the time, that's having a lot with holidays, all those times and times. So if you're not necessarily prioritizing people, like if that's not what you grew up with, what are you prioritizing instead, sort of without thinking, is it ideas, accomplishments, stuff? What did you find you were putting above people?

Probably stuff and probably the science of the world, the world, the world, the world, the science kinds of things with some of that battle right like the one through the them Having a positive through the is good, but at the same time Like and best of all I have both my button about this At the end of us or isn't in a middle of life, people have not met the man of the same, oh my God, I wish that his hands would bat his hands, right? They're the same as mine. What are they saying? What are they saying about? They're saying about the relationship with other people and how other people met them feel and also how I met

other people feel, right? Sure. And at the same time I don't want to say I don't know, my sister or something, send to me by the heart, I don't have the mind. That's not true either. One time, who violence is not about supplies, right? Sure. You want to find people who are going to put back what you live out into the world. So if someone says, look, I want to head out with them.

I want to head out by them too much. Then they'll be thinking about I want to someone else about them. But there are a lot of people out there who wanted to have more positive connections with, and I personally was there about her that my husband. So, I mean, there might be other people out there who were very, very actually in positive connections, and then I have other words, I was certain times with better parties

where I still have better words. I was sort of on the battle's horse, what I sort of had about a similar or whatever. I was reading this book about the poet William Stafford who won the Pulitzer Prize, who's a pacifist. He tells this story, his kids are visiting, he and his wife, they're older, they're kids are, in their 20s, 30s, something like that. His wife, and he get tired, they go to bed, and he hears his kids sort of stay up and

just talk like at the living room or the kitchen table for like a couple hours. And he knows they're talking about them and they're joking, they're having fun. And he says something to her like, I think this is the eulogy that we get to hear. Right. Oh wow. And I thought that was really beautiful and it goes to the point you're saying and one doesn't have to have kids to have a meaningful life. But it is the idea of the people that come together around and through you, the relationships that you facilitate, the conversations that you have, the time that, I think we all kind of intuitively know at the end of our life, that's what we're going to value. But the interesting thing is, then when we evaluate our day-to-day decisions, or when we look back at just the choices we were making relatively recently, it's not usually around that organizing principle for some reason.

And that is what is hard for a lot of people and to the minute, with the sense that there is a lot to the wrongs home. And that of what I have been talking about two at times is in a way you always do as a Z, right? Yeah. So, I don't know. So, the other reason is not well. As a Z is simple as a Z, that becomes to Z. Sure.

And as a Z is not, that is to Z as well. So I was curious about that because so I think we all wrestle with or contemplate what it would be like to suddenly get a terminal diagnosis to know we have a certain amount of time left, be thinking about that, right? But I was a friend of mine, her mother is dying and they gave her something, something between like 18 months and three years. That struck me as a difficult period of time, right? A month. Almost all of them. Yeah, a month is very urgent. 10 years is impossible to contemplate, you know?

But right in the middle there, how would you, we know it would change us, but then we also know, it's like, hey, you know, you're driving and you almost get in an accident because you were paying attention to your phone. You go, I'm not driving with my phone ever again, right? But it would creep back in, you know, back to have its creep back in. And so I wondered like the day to dayness of it, you've obviously had this perspective shift. It's hovering over you. It's there. But even with that, is it always top of mind

for you or do you find yourself drifting? How do you think about that? It has been formed with some of us, because I have not been with friends, diagnosis, and side front of us. And that was very, very sad because I do not know if I have one month off. So either a bunch of the bars with football that may have stood out a little bit similar. Like when you're saying goodbye at dinner and then you both walked your car. This is we I mean, it's a fully problem to have. I have before that problem, I have problems. But I don't know.

And so I said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, there's put the distance. I have one of the principles has been to that leave everything I'm saying. So to help people I love them or appreciate them and to them to do the same thing, right? But I have had some friends and family visiting and I have to hold them I want to let her I'm always calling them I'm being housed so that more time I'm gonna have to do this no part about the weather nothing about the halls I look like the dogs not the dog but I don't know, matter of the bad ones, folks,

but the most of the small stuff, but we haven't even done that. We want to sign for service, and we want the citizens that is as hot as it is about whatever, whatever we want that last unpleasant in the web. I'll be honest with the last unpleasant I'll want people to

forward, but it's a bit of a loss, right? It's a real bit of wow, necessarily always worth, but I really, this is my man. I'm an assistant, right? Is this a person to present? Probably is the most I've ever had for that. It's the best of the man, person. It is funny though, like you're basically saying, look, I don't have the luxury of small talk at this point.

Let's not waste the interaction. But it is the sort of arrogance or entitlement for the rest of us to assume that we do have the luxury of small talk and pointlessness and dodging around the issue and saying, I'll get it to it later. I mean, most of the time we say that and and it's a safe bet, but it's not really based on anything we can say for certain. I mean, you get hit by a bus, you know, you get

struck by lightning and there could be a nuclear attack. Like the idea that the rest of us have time to indulge in these things is interesting. Santa and one of his essay on the shortness of life, he says, it's the craziest thing in the world. He's like, if someone stole money from your pocket, you would be upset. He says, if you're neighbor built over the property line, you would

get upset. But we let people steal our time as if we have an unlimited amount of it. And it's, it is kind of crazy. Yeah. And there's a question through about what is handbook. And there always no with what is handbook's own to handbook. And you have to know about that but that was a good start. I think time to spend the time to start up,

what is time doesn't always work. But sometimes it's time to look though, but I have a family member that is in the early weekend and took that whole day so that's the point we have to essence of the little monsters that have. So sometimes it's not really predictable. Sometimes it sends us off, I mean, there's some elements with a famed,

and that's where the massive happens. So the authors are meant to send us up to the... Well, I think, you know, the problem with quality time, deliberately, right, setting up quality time is there's an expectation, right? There's a sense of how it should go. I think I've, I've, I've experienced this and I've heard people talk about it. The problem with distance relationships is when you come together, there's been so much anticipation of how you want it to go, or how you'd like it to go,

that it's not fair to either of you, because it's never gonna go that way. And I think, when you plan the perfect trip or the perfect birthday or whatever it is with your kids or a loved one, then life gets in the way. There is something freeing, I think, about what Jerry Seinfeld calls garbage time, which is just, as you said,

get running errands, talking on the phone, watching TV together. How do you think about that time now? Like, would you let yourself sit on the couch and watch TV, or do you feel like you have to make every minute count? And what does that you feel like you have to make every minute count and what is that pressure feel like? I am supposed to say that I did a minute at the time.

And for me too, I also don't know how I'm going to, I just hit with this time, good as fast, right? But within a month, I be on the ground with salt. But I did that in some sense for title with the optimal drive for what I have, drive the audio. If that somehow works, I should have a little more. So I'm in this, the message I'm in I

think it is in this in between so. But at M times the part of what seems important to me and what seems important so that's and that is how we have invited us as. About all the lessons that and what matters and what. But who does that says that about how since my 15 years was in the book, but not written. And now I see also feels like, most time as an adult, as limited, and most is limited, and the outcome of this fantastic. There's a forcing function to the experience that maybe dispenses with some imposter syndrome, procrastination, fear, self-consciousness, all goes goes away, I imagine.

Oh, well, I'm very impressed. I was intimate enough. I would probably not like them if I thought I was a bit of a thought in my mind. But I'm not so much an element of what I'm doing out there. Well, I mean, I've read your stuff for a very long time and I noticed I emailed you about this, but it was like, you know, you do like a roundup of links every couple weeks and then every once in a while you'd write something and it was clear that you sort of thought a

lot about it. You had, you know, a big idea you were trying to get across and then it does feel like more recently though, like the floodgates have opened and perhaps your internal standard for what you think is postable or important, like that's been reduced, but actually to a positive outcome, which is now your, it's like actually this goes to the idea of quality time. Quantity is a way to get to quality, right? And so you're publishing much more. So the average, the chances of you publishing something

greater higher because you're putting more out there, and because you're less self-conscious about it, I think you're actually being more vulnerable and more authentic and just more inherently you. So it does feel like something got unlocked for you creatively which I'm sure is only a small comfort. I would much rather you have remained a blocked writer. But that's sort of...

It is unfortunate, but I have this topic now and so I am going with it. I mean, but it is also this element too, like, you know, what other that's hopeless and seeming right. Love, death, science, self, other other sciences, and maybe one or two others, you know. And I'm anticipating this insolent pain of clinical loss, especially for those in ambulance. And so we are worried about what is that related to the virus, what are the implications of that and that isn't either so since I see people all the time who are at the end of their lives sometimes they don't realize it and so see what's

in the room right and so by the way you might have a whole lot, you might have those rough and some of those confesses to her or the soldiers. But also, no matter the sense of her, and really the sighting about this, the best of the sermon, I wish I had heard how arms my pelvis is. Yeah. No, no, no, it's just that. So it's around some of the suit and that was her most hot songs. But do it. And don't you think it's not just, hey, I'm, I wish I, no one's thinking, hey, I wish I'd held on to these petty grievances,

but also don't you think the enormity of it also makes us realize how petty those grievances are. Very rarely are we aware while we have the grievance that it is a petty what, You know what I was pointing to or whatever. Oh, why was that a mean to me? Why was that sort of something, whatever. And then five years later, why was that in his head? And I had my whistle. And so I think that perspective that suits you all this time. That house is trying to focus on the more positive aspects of us and that on the reminds us of some of us, some of whatever. Yeah, there's a Bruce Springsteen lyric. I like he says, um, we fought over

nothing till nothing remained. And then he says, and I carried that nothing for a long time. And I love that. Most times the Buddha still has that soul, right? How many of those fight the most? People who fight all of those other ones are so bad. People who are disciplined, or are doing something else. So it's also about the love for one. Do you do you feel like this sort of outpouring of creativity that you're doing? How how much of it do you also feel?

Because I think all writers deal with it. There is some sense when you're writing or you wouldn't be compelled to write that like this will live on after me. This is my way of this is my force multiplier. This is my denial of death. This is my way of this is my force multiplier. This is my denial of death. This is my immortality. How much of as you're writing, did you find that it got stripped down and you're just writing to yourself and to your loved ones or do you find kind of an empowerment in feeling like this is this is my way of trumping the trump card that is the end that's coming closer.

Some of both, but my azure level is vast. So a lot of what I have been voting, I have heard in my eyes. heard and mad. But when you are better than you are doing anytime or business or answer to this, it is hard to write for everyone, right? Sure. It is hard to say a business for everyone. That most people have said, this business is for all man's hands. You have to say, here is the customer, who is the leader. And so for me, that's just my leader. So a lot of what I'm voting is that's the whole and I hope for everyone else's rights, right? But I'm trying to select stuff that is very particular and has the point of view and

Hopefully other people like it and maybe some people don't but that is of health so I'm really positive So this is what I have run this side for this to come after as you said But all the moment is for best. And I have also been, I haven't posted this, but I've been making videos for her. So after I'm gone, she's been watching.

That's very beautiful. The End But nothing can stop a father. We want to find her just as much as you do. I doubt that very much. From doing what the law can't. And we have to do this the very way. You have to. I don't. Bosch Legacy. Watch the new season now streaming exclusively on Freevy. Emily, do you remember when one direction called it a day?

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It's terribly famous. The end of the day As I've tried to figure out what makes me tick, I go back to this image of being a teenager and having feelings or thoughts or views about the world that I would have loved to communicate to my parents, teachers, etc. But being unable to do so and channeling that, like, the reason one develops the acumen of writing where I think a lot of artistic mediums is because you have something you want

to say and you don't feel like you can communicate it like everyone else, right? You feel like you sort of channel it. And I wonder if for you, if this sort of creative outpouring is also, as the power of speech has slipped from your grasp slightly, if you've gotten better at these other mediums, and so part of what you're trying to do is, is go towards your strength. And you're getting stronger in those strong areas and so that's what's powering some of this great writing that you're doing. It is hard for me to stop and it is obviously hard for me to do under the sun.

Although apparently I'm doing very well, well for what has happened to me but that's really I saw the most infoxism to start a meal and start a class to do a bio-obsis that this is an amazing So, um, but that is what I was saying. But it is those high and such heart and so there. The whessless, I mean, isn't that an upside to the whessless? What is the most million-fold thing I think is really right now in this moment? And the answer has been right then, for both me and for bass. When we are not doing similar therapies or settings, like a lot of problems with health and health are still here, right?

But in those moments when I am not doing similar therapies or within central files, I'm not sure if the relationships big enough for two miserable writers, but I think that's what I'm saying. I'm not sure if the relationships big enough for two miserable writers, but I'm not sure if the relationships big enough for two miserable Thank, thankfully she is not. I'm not sure if the relationship's big enough for two miserable writers, but I think, I think the other thing about writing

for people who are not writers, maybe it's difficult to understand, writing is not just, like there are very few great writers who wrote via dictation, for instance. Church, church shows probably the only example. There are very few great writers who wrote via dictation, for instance. Churchill's probably the only example. And so the poet of the author, Milton. Yes, sure.

Right, yeah, you're right, I forgot about Milton. But very few writers can speak as well as they write. That's the irony of being successful as a writer as people want you to talk, as though you're as good at that. But I think part of what writing is is sitting down and going, what do I really think? Like, let me really wrap my head around this. And then what's the best way to communicate that and articulate it? And that practice of sort of communicating something that's sort of ineffable or

disorganizing, getting clarity through it is really, really powerful. So I imagine as you're wrestling with literally the biggest philosophical complex or complex problems there are, which is mortality, you know, which is an afterlife, you know, which is an afterlife, which is what's fair and unfair. You know, as you're wrestling with all this stuff, I imagine there's something quite therapeutic, cathartic, but also clarifying about writing about it

as you go through it. So yeah, best is your audience, but you are also your audience. Yeah, absolutely. And there's also this question of how do you remember something that is done all the potential, right? Sure, but everyone knows and through it,

that finisolidation sauce, that is the same almost every normal person. o'r ymdyn ni'n sart. Mae'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o'r ysgol o' and made it to the roots for whatever is on your arm, and this has been my life, or your life, or whatever. And that's what kind of stuff that people would find sort of the most hands of sorts. I heard that it was bad. Somebody would have that it was bad. But everyone would say, yes, that is bad, but how does that answer? Okay, but what is specific about it?

What's the use of it from the own specific experience and that's universal? And that is one of what we have in times as well. But don't you think also, like, I think my love of fair with Marcus Aurelius is writing is tied up in the fact that here you have a guy who was only like I think my love of fair with Marcus, so really this is writing is tied up in the fact that here you have a guy who had, was only interested in the particular, right?

Marcus really is writing meditations for himself, never expecting it to be published, not even writing in his native language, he's writing in Greek, and he's writing, you know, in this kind of shorthand to himself about what he's specifically dealing with and thinking about with no eye to the audience. And yet it somehow becomes this enormously successful, timeless, and universal work of art. And so there's also something I think about the specific is the most universal.

Like if you strip out everything else and you're authentic and real and you talk about what a human being is actually going through, by definition, other humans are going to have been or will go through it, but there's also just something vulnerable and raw and real about it that I think speaks to people in a way that the more inherently performative writing does not. Yes, hopefully. And that is part of the reason why I am absolutely right now. I don't have the sense of one person

right now, you know, 10,000 words I'm using, but I'm saying a one person. What was the reason of this etc and the hope that as a sub The presently other people that have something other than experiences Well, and you know, it's like I'm reading it and I understand it at some level, right? Because it's good writing and you're doing a good job communicating and you're going through experience. But there are also some writing that you can't understand until you've gone through something similar. And so it kind of sits inside the reader and it has this sort of long underground sort of latency period

and then you come back to it or the words come back to you when someone you love is going through something similar or you are going through something similar. And so I think that's the other thing about great writing and great art is like maybe it doesn't land with you because you're not ready for it, but it's still, you're still storing it somewhere inside you, and later, and experience unlocks what the message was, I'm sure, you know, as this news came into you and you've been adjusting into this period, I'm sure things that you read 10 or 20 or 30 years ago have come back to you in ways that maybe were a bit unexpected and you're now thinking about some quote or some line a number of essays on how God desires one. Have you ever learned that?

What's it called? How God desires the island. No. Well, I want to feel people when they look at the end of life that all their families were saying, I want everything to be right to me right yeah I want the better way I want the Edmmer missing I want all hands of metal for stuff a lot of doctors they know the limits of this sure then I have a special issue of your arms or you are sick with hands of especially as you are old or you are sick with hands up. And of my siblings can be my food title and armor sets,

also right? Yes. So a lot of them will say, don't do it. Right. No. Don't hold me high. Don't hold me high. It's okay.

Because they love. Right. don't hold me hard, it's not allowed, it has been allowed, but there's no special importance in terms of what. And so that would be one example. Others would be like I've been very close to about half businesses or or pilot of her doctors. And then what is the people heart about and the virus and that is actually what we are saying earlier. So as the students help us to turn side of them, lose their letters and suddenly they are aware of this and for something that they are involved in. Well I see you have all those books behind you. Have you, I've noticed this weird phenomenon where I'll be writing about something and

I'll go, you know what I think, you know, Herodotus or Plutarcha, I think there's something in this book that might be connected to what I'm talking about here. So I'll go back and check that source. And I'll notice like, oh yeah, not only do they talk about this, but I had underlined 10 years ago the exact quote that I, like it was almost like I had traveled into the future and see what I would need or I'd went back in time. And there's something magical about that where it's like,

your body or your mind is sensing, hey, I'm gonna need this later. Because think about all the things that you did learn that you immediately forgot. But there's some part of you that's like, ah, let's tuck this away. You know, something's gonna happen down the road and you're gonna wanna use this.

And then there you are you using it Happens to me That's right now was the son of the sim Yes, yes. And so I was fortunate when we had appendices when everyone is silent and all of it is very important to say, and he says, I don't want to wait until all of us has a man's name, and man's name and name is name and man's name and man's name is it and I was like that is the side what I want to talk about because I don't want to be the person who is a sign of answer and who is having food starting to survive what? I'm over. Sure. I was out of, I heard,

I was out of my mind. I was out of my mind. I was out of my mind. Well, that ties into something you were writing about, which I thought was beautiful and it made me sort of tear up when I saw it. You were referring, I think I said that phrase, you were talking about life as something

you would have to give back, or you'd have to return the gift. What was the phrase you were using? I found it very beautiful and profound. Yeah, that was at the time of the rest. But that was the rest. And it was all the same as the other. And that was hot.

And that was just the answer, I've heard, and he's had a supplement or he's had well about how unfair it is, but I find it's a bit, I don't know, but then I find it beautiful for the hands of the Sutton. Yeah, the so-called talk about how the physical form is ours only in trust. Exactly. I haven't heard that before, but I wasn't as honest as I was about it. Same as that. That's all the time. Yeah, that it's, we're the temporary owners and then at some point, at some point, we

came to embody a thing and at some point, we disembodied that thing. And we know, right? Scientifically, the energy, the cells, all of that gets regenerated and goes, we know that it does continue after us in that sense, but we don't possess it any longer. It was like the whole Southern climate. We are all made of salt as well. Yes. But we have the elements of salt and supernova. So, there's a bunch of us.

For us is that is or a censor or whatever. And then we're about. And that is similar of lots right now. Yeah, it is interesting that we don't think that, like a lot of people do think about death, right? What happens? But we don't, and I guess it feels very foreign and incomprehensible, like you only experience it once,

but many philosophers have talked about this, but they go, for some reason you don't think about that before you were born, right? You don't think you you actually have inhabited that state before for long for far longer than you have been in being you were out of being, right? And that doesn't scare us the same way. But, yeah, and so I know that and for me part of this some have an insight in the last because in such a long time I have seen myself as one kind of part of the world's as a matter of fact. And so I feel kind of sublime when that happens. I have all the vastnesses of humanity and my small part of it. And it is something that humanity was the one. I was, I'm not saying I wanted that, I don't. I must have been so happy with others, but

to me, it was the wrong, but there's something to do that. I like the beauty of seeing it as a gift too, because it does kind of reorient our perspective about what we had and what we have, right? So I imagine seeing life as a gift that you have been given notice that you will have to return, right? That the product's been recalled, right? You got the letter in the mail that it's been recalled.

I imagine that that perspective shift has informed how you're thinking about everything right now, right? Like, instead of thinking about the things that you didn't get or you didn't get to do or what and why and all this, seeing it as a gift that you continue to possess for however much less time, I imagine that was an interesting way to start thinking about things. Yeah, I'm totally, and so I am fit in my mind right now. So I don't know, whether I feel I have not lived as I'm fitless, there's an essence, either

whatever, but I have managed to live a full life, you know, I have had I have had to experience a full life, I have been to the service I have, I have managed to experience the life, so I have So I have set a minute, but all the things I have done is experienced, and so, and that was what I am about to do. I think that our somebody who lives with us or is, but there's no man who lives a full life, without any sense. He totally does. Yeah. We can't see tomorrow, but we can hear it.

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kingdom? Listen early and add free to the entire season of Disney Frozen Forces of Nature Podcast, along with exclusive bonus content on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, or Wondery Plus Kids on Apple Podcasts. Well, I mean, one of the things that I could talk about is like, you want to make sure that at the end of your life you have more to show for it than a large number. But you said that all humans experience those things that you went through that you got the full range of experience. I don't know if I agree with that.

I think you might be under-selecting. All of them are possible. Well, I just mean there are definitely 70-year-olds right now that wish they had the relationship that you have. There are unfulfilled writers that wish they could have published or written some of the things that you've written. You know, there are people who are angry and pissed off and want a certain resolution or piece that maybe you have that they don't have.

And so I think more than just saying, hey, I've experienced these things. I think, you know, in reality, you've experienced a lot of things that many people do not get to do. And maybe that is something that I've been following as well because I haven't I've been through about the end. But I that I have grown to do a lot in this time I have had. And that obviously I have had a story to do about it, right? But I am doing all the time, but having that story with so much drama, once it has to my face, it is there and my decision is I will survive for one period of time. And so, but since May 25th, since that master says that in my horrible huddle, I have looked at this all as bonus time. the bicep science and scientist, that he was a really good hit by a boss, right?

I said that maybe it would have been easier. I almost hit by a boss and said, there's something sitting in my hand, I'll hold with him. And then I would have just been here and been wrong. And I would have had that as a say all my advice of the poem sizes, have him whatever is most in my mom. And I would not have found the same all of my other bias of the poem, sizes have them,

whatever is most of my heart. So. The terrible thing about life is that it can get taken from you as we're talking about and it can be taken from you like painfully. I don't mean that it's painful to lose it.

I mean like what you've gone through has not been a walk in the park, right? But I've been thinking about this, like when you have kids, what's in a way you become less worried about yourself and your worry transfers to them. But Joan Didian talked about how, like once you have kids, you're a hostage to fortune. Because now all you're thinking about is, is there more talent? You're thinking about something that's happening to them. And that sort of keeps you up at night

and it terrifies you and it worries you. And one of the ways I've tried to cope with that, I'm be curious, you think about it, I try to, I try to say to myself, something can take my kids from me, they can take my life from me also, but it can't take from me that I had them, right? Like a future can be taken from you,

but the moment that you just experienced you own, and how do you think about the relationship between what's being taken from you and what you've had, I guess? It is basically what is a service is that, you know, I am someone of the essence of the soul. I am trying to say, you know, I am trying to think about the past as a response that I have had and that I have decided to think about the positive experiences I have had and the size that I've been able for others. I'm trying to have a lot of impact in the whole sense and trying to talk best to what is your service is. It is said that we are being part of this way, that on the other hand we have

understand all the existence of it. So, in some sense, I will not even understand that, but we have not really had much time to know, we are not doing that since our ending, but we have to first, we'll have what we have. So that is what I'm trying to do. I read this story about Richard Feynman, Richard Feynman falls in love with this woman, her name is Arlene, when they're in college. And she comes down with tuberculosis,

which was at that time, basically a death sentence. They didn't know whether it'd be a couple years or a year or whatever. And they have about 18 months together, I think, before she ultimately dies of tuberculosis. And he gives this talk later and he explains how, you know, when he was with Arlene, they had this sort of perfect happiness and this wonderful relationship, this wonderful time together. And he said, and his life was amazing and happy and good.

And then obviously he lost her. But he said what he took from that was that the future didn't have to be so good anymore because he'd had that sort of perfect moment of happiness and goodness. And it strikes me as that's sort of the opposite of how most of us think about these things, which is we get something, whether it's a person or an experience, we win something, we make a lot of money. We get this thing. And our first instinct is I must keep this forever.

Yeah, don't lose it. Not that I actually can, I actually am less vulnerable now because I've experienced it because nothing can take away from me that I've had it. And I'm sure, if I'm not going to talk about this specifically, but to me, one of the most real and a little depressing mathematical concepts is that everything regresses to the mean. And so I tend to think like if you've been blessed and gotten a lot of amazing stuff, it's inevitable that it would even out at some point. Well, we often lose to what we have, right? But before this happened, to what the hell, right? But before this happened, I would say I was under for a tourist about what I have had, but I wasn't quite as focused on the positives. I was more focused on trying to build stuff up there better there. And so, but when it's like hostages and you step back a little bit and say what is really happening here, so, um,

yeah, I have had some of that, but we do have some, I house family is more valuable. And so we don't want that long fence often for the business, but if you have to let go, then what's the use of that? What's the use of that? How do you deal with hope? I imagine part of what's difficult about your situation is that it's not a hundred percent certain, right? There's some ambiguity and the human mind, the human mind goes into directions one, when things are unlikely, we tell them they're impossible and then other times, you know, we do like in dumb and dumb or,

so you're telling me there's a chance. You know, there's the part of us that sees the point zero, zero, zero, one percent probability as what we deserve slash what is going to happen. Because we so desperately and understandably wanted to happen so I Also, but I said I am something this title So

But it is so well I Mean listen It's almost a wedding, but you have to touch the process. Yes. If you talk with too much on the outcome, it will be the result of the outcome. So I am focused on, I am going to offer you a similar process. We are going to do everything with hand and probably the work work long form. But I am doing what is within my power and best is what is within her power. But we are also just something that I just

find what I was stuck with. Sure, because of that. So yeah, and then plus all those thoughts and prayers are obviously moving the needle too, right? I'm not myself for this, but I think people want to perform it. You'll take it. I will for it. Yeah. The probably of all the things you've written about over the years, the one that sticks with me the most that is most relevant here, but the change to how I think about things is during the pandemic, especially you wrote about the idea of the invisible graveyard, which I know Tyler Cowan and Alex Terabick have talked about too, but this idea that,

you know, the injustices or the failures of society are not just measured in the very concrete things that we do and go badly, but also the things that we fail to do, right? You know, had the vaccines gone faster, how many hundreds of thousands of people would be alive right now? Had society not politicized the vaccines. How many people would be alive right now? Had, you know, we responded to the crack epidemic with a better infrastructure for, you know, recovery and rehabilitation.

Might fewer people have died in the opioid epidemic, right? These sort of invisible graveyards, talk to me about that concept, and then where specifically, the invisible graveyard is not so invisible in your case, because I think it's really, really powerful. And to me, that's a, that's a thing that all of us can do a much better job wrapping our heads around. the actual, the actual, there's something wrong with it.

There are multiple hands that are over-sweep and that's the side that I was doing something or not doing something, right? People fit them, there's something else. So there's a side example. If you like, stab someone and tell them, you're gonna be saying it's a middle of it for the reason, right? og vi har stærkt som en helst hårdvendt, der vil begynde sig til at medleve forvirke det, hvad? Men hvis jeg har været spørgsmål, vil jeg se, som en sammen og ikke for at sige dem,

jeg vil finde, at vi vil løbe til dem endte dem, og på et femt minnes hårdvendt på dem. Men at løbe det spørgsmål, er at ærselen er lidt ærseling. But, really speaking, I actually didn't ask him to see this one. The FBA was the same thing. The FBA does not want people to die from taking any kind of treatment, right? So, they don't want bad parts. They don't want visual time, says, after that five people died of health treatment in the United States of New York. But the problem is, there is a harsh to that.

And the harsh to that is, well, what happens if there are 20s, health treatments, and one of them, you know, says a hundred thousand people, and the other answer of them says, a hundred thousand people and the other answer them for five people is the one is better for the world. And so the after days are always considered about people having something and they're suffering with that about their lives that are in the statements of this. And so I am thinking about that because that are in the submissive form as this. And so I am thinking about that because there are submiss

out there, whether or not the band has heard or that the listeners possess all the emanating and intensified songs that may ask the submiss but they are hot up in this air that rumble. And so everyone who has had that memory at everyone but many of us who have had her or know some of your thoughts or know some of your thoughts in it as there is a lot of human suffering out there. So awesome. I've heard some of them move the stuff. Yes. Yeah, it's it's it's a risk aversion, obviously, that has a cost. And so does just

bureaucratic slowness. I remember during the pandemic, it would be like, okay, the FDA has met about the vaccines and they've approved it. And it's like next week, the CDC will meet. And it's like stack the fucking meetings together, guys. You know, like you are putting in a needless 12 hour, 36 hour, 72 hour delay, and people are dying in that interim period because you're either too slow or you value the appearance or the perception of deliberation more than the act, you have valued optics over the thing that actually matters, which is the suffering

that you could be preventing. Well, it's a socialism. Well, it's a more about the sense of of the places than after some whatever centers Once you see it once in one of our friends that is first certain It's it's hard. It's hard to uns It's weird the invisible graveyard is something you can't see

But once the concept is explained to you. It's very hard not to see it in lots of places. And I was especially sad because I said that I have tried to split up the process, but we are not doing that. And so a lot of people, my suffering is really suffering and dying while we live. Well, that's what was interesting and fascinating and then hard to unsee after the pandemic is when everyone was suffering from the same thing simultaneously, we moved heaven and earth to solve the problem, right? Oh, oh.

But when little pockets, little ghettos of people are suffering, 1% of the population here, 0.1% of the population here, 1,000 people over here, then it's easy for all of us to go back to our regular lives and go, that doesn't affect me. And it's as usual. Yeah, and you know, it's this idea that it might not be registering on your radar, but for someone else, it's their entirety of their radar. It's the one thing that you want slash need more than anything in the world, but because the rest of the world has collectively shrugged, you are left to suffer needlessly or individually

when collectively we could do something about it. Right, and so, but the nervous answer is, the nervous answer to me is so many people are touched by at some point in their lives, right? Sure. I think a lot of others are not there, and the other people another, and the world that people who are on the same decision paper that are causes, they are only saying the problem, but for some reason without censor, the fact that everyone who is touched by a single letter is an answer. And so I just said at some point I've seen this as houses, but it has been as hot with

mine for millions as a land. But it's certainly not just out of this. And I mean, I think this is true for so many of the profound injustices of our time, right? It's like mass shootings are something you see on the news and you go, oh, that's bad. But until it comes much closer to home, you're able to, to luge yourself with certain fictions, right? Or you can, you can tell yourself that it's politically impossible. And it's like, it's only politically impossible because we've decided it's politically impossible. If we actually set our minds to it, we could do something about it.

And I think the idea that there are these invisible graveyards, there are these little pockets of suffering, not even little, but there are pockets of preventable suffering all over the world. And then I think, you know, the task of one's life should be trying to improve those. Yeah, to a juj- if not, you don't have to do all of them, but just be satisfied if you did one. But, well, I sometimes write about two, about 40,000 people in the US, the to house houses out of the jail. Yes. A hundred and five and a half months, that's the hell.

No one seems to have. That's the reason. I took it. Yes. During the pandemic, people would go, oh, you know, this many people die of car accidents every year. This many people die of the flu. And it was interesting to see how

because it had been happening for a while people decided that was acceptable when reality, that number, you could, I mean, during the pandemic, we solved the flu death problem. Basically, nobody died of the flu during the pandemic, right? And a lot of these things, we could do something about we just don't. And I think of, have you read Camus the Fall? No, it's beautiful and haunting. I don't know if I'd put it on my list of final books to read potentially, but he basically, he's walking through the streets of Amsterdam and he hears someone jump into the water or fall into the water and scream. And he kind of, he's like, what was that? And then he shakes his head and goes back about his life. And basically,

he's haunted. It ruined it. Ultimately, the guilt and the turmoil of having ignored and not saved a suffering person, sort of turn this guy's life all upside down. And I think Camus was ultimately writing about the Holocaust and the sort of indifference to what the Nazis were doing in Europe. But it is this idea that I don't think it's costless for a society to allow

invisible graveyards to fill up. Not only can that come back and claim you, but I also think there's a profound moral injury involved also. And I think it's really powerful that you've been writing about it. What we must want to know is that I love people and the food so they want to suffer in the way I love suffering or the way that best is suffering or my family or my friends. or my friends, right? Because I posted this about me, but it's also about everyone else around me. What I remember, that has happened this often, often, that is. As soon as I go

out to see some of this, there's a lot of things that are around me, so my hope is that I'm, yeah, bit of a football. To me, that's the meaning of life right there. Do you leave the place better than you found it? And hopefully everyone gets as much time as they possibly need to be able to do that. But it's also the sort of sobering, haunting reminder that you might have less time than you think. I was very surprised.

Everything about listening to a horse in the last year has been very, very surprising to me. Why can I imagine? I can imagine. Well, I'm so glad that we reconnected and your work has meant a lot to me. And this conversation means a lot to me. And I appreciate you taking the time to have it. And I know it's not easy for you not just to talk about it, but just to talk period. So I think it means a lot. We all appreciate it.

And I wish you much more writing. And I hope that keeps writing too too because it's also very, very good. That's what my fingers are fast. Google through what happens. I have a summer optimist up, but then we're all at the time. I do too. My fingers are crossed and we're pulling for you and we really appreciate it. Well, something wrong.

Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you canoke early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. We can't see tomorrow, but we can hear it. And it sounds like a wind farm powering homes across the country.

We're bridging to a sustainable energy future, working today to ensure tomorrow is on. And bridge, life takes energy. sustainable energy future. Working today to ensure tomorrow is on. And bridge, life takes energy.