The Tim Ferriss Show - #578: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim’s Best Penguin Impressions

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Starting point is 00:04:25 Well, hello boys and girls, lemurs and squirrels. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers from all different disciplines to tease out the lessons, habits, new tools, et cetera, that you can use. My guest today is one of my favorite guests and a good friend, Matt Mullenweg. Matt is a co-founder of the open source publishing platform WordPress, which now powers more than one third of all sites on the web. He is the founder and CEO of Automatic, M-A-T-T, see what he did there? Automatic, the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, WPVIP, Day One, and Pocket Casts.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Additionally, Matt runs Audrey Capital. Can you guess who that's named after? I'll give you three guesses. An investment and research company, he has been recognized for his leadership by Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc., TechCrunch, Fortune, Fast Company, Wired, it keeps going, Vanity Fair, and the University Philosophical Society. Matt is originally from Houston, Texas, where he attended the high school for the performing and visual arts and studied jazz saxophone. In his spare time, Matt is an avid photographer. I encourage you to check out ma.tt. He currently splits his time between Houston and Jackson Hole. For my first interview with Matt,

Starting point is 00:05:45 way back in 2015, where he had very long hair, go to tim.blog slash Matt. There was some tequila involved. As mentioned, you can find him online at ma.tt. You can find him on Twitter at photomat, that tells you just how many photos he's taken, and on Instagram at photomat. Without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Matt Mullenweg. This is a new acoustic environment for me. So Matt Mullenweg, we'll get to you in just a minute, but we're sitting here in a shell tent, which has surprisingly good acoustics, kind of like sitting inside a spherical curtain, I guess, to deaden the noise or deaden the echoes. And we are on top of ice.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Miles of it. Miles of ice. We have two layers in this shell tent. And inside, we have a little fold-out table on which we have Bluetooth speaker. We have some caffeine. You have some water. We have, how would you say this? Ah, Glenmorang? Glenmorang. Glenmorangie.

Starting point is 00:07:00 Somebody's going to correct us here. Help us out. That's embarrassing. G-L-E-N-M-O-R-A-N-G-I-E. Highland Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. Legends, the Cad Bull. I'll let somebody sort that out. And then we have a Nalgene bottle full of water.

Starting point is 00:07:17 And then we have a Nalgene bottle that is colored. It is orange. And the reason that it is orange is it's currently full of 28 ounces of my urine. Oh, wow. Strong open, Tim. Yeah. Does that need to be on the table? You know, this is a reminder that I need to dispose of it. So if you come to Antarctica, which is where we are right now, everything that is brought in needs to be carried out.

Starting point is 00:07:44 And that includes all human waste. Because if you pee in the snow here, it'll be here for hundreds of years or thousands of years. And in such case, you need to, if you have to pee when you're outside or you're in your tent and you're freezing your ass off and don't want to walk to one of the bathrooms, you need to pee into a bottle.

Starting point is 00:08:02 So that's why I have a differently colored bottle so I don't mistakenly assume, as you might, because there are no bubbles here, that this is my water, which I guess it is in some sense. Slightly used. Slightly used. So last time we did a podcast, I guess we were doing some back of the napkin,

Starting point is 00:08:20 it was what, five or so years ago? Five years ago. And a lot has happened in the last five years. But before we get to that, cheers, sir. Cheers. So fun to spend time with you, as always. And thanks for coming to Antarctica. Well, thank you for the invite.

Starting point is 00:08:34 I'm so excited to finally come here for a million reasons. The principle of which is just getting to spend more time together, honestly. This is our fifth continent, so we got two more. That's crazy. Africa and Australia, and then we'll have the hat trick. We'll have the hat trick of all seven. Yeah, we're day nine now in Antarctica. Day nine.

Starting point is 00:08:56 We've been off the internet for a while, which I'm a little shaky. It's like 98% of my brain. Some withdrawal symptoms. Wait, you have to now, we're going to get to the bio, don't worry folks. But one of your coping mechanisms, like the methadone for the internet addict was downloading what? What did you download a lot of before you came here? Downloaded a good chunk of the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia, like the Facebook. The Wikipedia, like the Facebook.

Starting point is 00:09:25 The Wikipedia, yes. I like that flair. And well, I remember last, I downloaded a Scrabble dictionary too. I remember last time I was in Antarctica in 2014.

Starting point is 00:09:32 It was really just looking stuff up that I missed the most. And I've used it a number of times here. And also like, I might have the fullest copy of the Wikipedia

Starting point is 00:09:43 of our group. So that's like... It came in handy. I wanted to look up a few factoids about Suriname and boom, there it was. There it was. But then I found out that Ernesto Hoost, who's one of my favorite kickboxers of all time, was born in Suriname, later won K-1 a million times. People who know what that is will know.

Starting point is 00:10:03 It's a long story to explain. But there were no accompanying photographs, of course. I should say, just given the bandwidth limitations. So here we are, day nine. You, I guess, were ruminating on what day it might be, and I had no idea because it is daylight all the time. 24 hours a day. And it is so bright. I had experienced 24-hour twilight once above the Arctic Circle in Alaska, but this is totally different.

Starting point is 00:10:32 I mean, this is like laying on your back in Santa Barbara with the sun beating down on you at 10 a.m. on a perfectly bluebird day. It's so bright all the time. So everything kind of blends together and you're not really sure when you should be tired or shouldn't be tired you think it's 1 p.m and we came back from an excursion today and it was already 6 45 something like that it's really strange it's super strange to not have a circadian rhythm modulated by light change to

Starting point is 00:11:09 synchronize to. Super weird. It's been, yeah, it feels very timeless when we've been here. And day of the week, everything has been kind of lost. We also had a very special morning. We did. So before we get to the morning, Matt Mullenweg, for people who don't know, who are you? Ah, friend of Tim, but probably better known for co-founding open source software called WordPress, which is blogging, CMS, content management system, has over 50,000 plugins and themes. And I'm the CEO of a company. It was a lot smaller last time we talked, called Automatic. There's a Matt in there. That's kind of a little pun. And we make WordPress.com, a place to get WordPress, WooCommerce,

Starting point is 00:11:50 which is e-commerce built on top of WordPress, Tumblr, Jetpack, all sorts of... Day One, awesome journaling app, Simple Notes, PocketCast for podcasting, so check out PocketCast. Great app. So we basically try to make the open web, make the web more open. And what percentage of the web uses one of those products or WordPress itself at this point?

Starting point is 00:12:12 The W3 techs, WordPress is now up to 42%. It was probably like 10 last time we talked. That's incredible. It's coming up. And what would you guess five years ago, roughly, size of the company then and now? Then we were a couple hundred and now we're a couple thousand. We're coming up on 2,000 people, which has been really amazing. Distributed before it was cool. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:36 That's worth noting. That was kind of a funny thing as well. I even started a podcast called Distributed. And I was like, okay, my goal for the 2020s, basically the next 10 years, was to get more remote work happening. And I was like, whoa, it happened. Sorry about the virus, guys. Yeah, so it just woke up one day of people who could. The numbers were incredible, how many people switched to distributed work.

Starting point is 00:13:02 But yeah, we've been distributed since the beginning. We're about 2,000 people, 92 countries. Majority of the company first language is not English. And we communicate primarily asynchronously through blogging. Now, when you say blogging, you're referring to internal tools that resemble blogging? Yeah, we have this tool called P2, the letter P as in penguin and the number two. And it's basically an internal blog. We have no email in the company. The only email I get is HR stuff. And everything else happens.

Starting point is 00:13:30 It's usually, I'm guessing, not a good day. No, I work a lot with HR. All right, all right. So that'll happen privately. But everything else, instead of sending email, we'll just kind of blog to each other. And so everything has a permalink. is archived everything is searchable and you can have rich embeds like figma embeds youtube embeds what was that first embed figma i don't know what that is uh figma

Starting point is 00:13:55 is actually an awesome tool you should check out imagine a way to coordinate design online and in real time so you and i could be working on the same wireframes or interaction design. And actually, it's the latest episode of the Distributed Podcast. And I didn't actually interview the founder, Dylan. Connie Yang did. Mutual friend of ours who's a designer.

Starting point is 00:14:16 We owe Connie credit for another prop we have on the table we may or may not use, which are the Holste, H-O-L-S-T-E-E, reflection cards. And there are a lot of decks of questions that I've seen out and about, and I've tried quite a few. My girlfriend loves these various decks. And there's the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I'd say mostly fairly mediocre. And this is a deck that is quite good. So we might get to some questions here. So Connie, you were saying, interviewed the founder of Figma on the Distributed.

Starting point is 00:14:48 Yeah, latest episode. It's a cool tool. I think you might enjoy checking it out, actually. I will. Figma, I'm on it. And let's see, what else? This is such a lazy question, but it kind of boggled my mind to think

Starting point is 00:15:03 that it's been five years since we last did one of these. Because you said what, the first episode we did was number 60 something? 61. 61 in the Bay Area at my kitchen table or dining room table, all the same, in Glen Park, back when you had your golden locks. i think that was when you still had your golden pretty long hair yeah i tried to change it up every every year or two every once in a while and at the time the nectar of choice was tequila and so that that featured very uh heavily more ways than one the jargon is hoping yeah that was um that was that's a go-to that was good evening

Starting point is 00:15:43 that was a good evening so this morning if we evening. So this morning, if we switch from evening to morning, so we had a very interesting morning and it started, well, it didn't really ever end, I guess. I mean, it was continuous. Most people didn't sleep, but what happened this morning? So part of the reason we're in Antarctica, besides the penguins, which I know you talked a lot about with Sue, check out that episode with Sue Flood. It's the total solar eclipse that happened here in Antarctica. And it's the only one in the continent until 2039, I think. That's total solar eclipse.

Starting point is 00:16:16 So you and I, at the wee hours of the morning, got to see what was my first visible total solar eclipse. And it was incredible. The in antarctica is so dramatic yeah it's a it's a place that really makes you feel it's a very patient landscape and it makes you feel like your size in the cosmos interesting that you'd use the word patient why Why do you use that adjective? I was anticipating you might say vast or majestic. Vast even more so than majestic. But why patient? There's something to me about Ayn Ardegh that feels really timeless

Starting point is 00:16:54 and also just unconcerned with... Human welfare. Human welfare and timescales. Things here happen over huge timescales and it's so cool to see mountains buried by glaciers, essentially. They look like they have a blanket over them. And that was over how many tens or hundreds of thousands of years? It's pretty incredible.

Starting point is 00:17:15 It is. And we were chatting with a gentleman yesterday. I don't know if he would want to be named, so I won't name him, but he had mentioned how deep an impact, I guess his first full totality, as it's known, first total solar eclipse had affected him and how he had always on some intellectual level understood our relative insignificance from a cosmic perspective. But the first time that he viscerally felt that, which actually was deeply therapeutic for him, was seeing a totality with his daughter in his arms. And somebody behind him caught this amazing photograph of his daughter, tiny little daughter, pointing up at the totality as it's happening. I mean, you couldn't have scripted a better photograph. And then this morning, it still feels like it was two days ago. I mean, everything blurs and blends together, which is... We've lived lifetimes.

Starting point is 00:18:12 We've lived lifetimes. It was around, what, 444, I want to say? And leading up to it, in the days leading up to it, I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement. I just assumed, okay, it gets progressively darker, then it's dark, and then it gets progressively lighter. I'm not that blown away by this phenomenon. Yeah, yeah. Cool story, bro. And had to be there, had to be there. And it turns out you

Starting point is 00:18:42 really do have to be there. And when it actually started creeping up and you're watching this happen and you're observing the progression through these eclipse glasses, because otherwise you'll blow your eyes out, of course, especially if something's magnified through equipment. And when it actually fully overlapped and you're able to take off your glasses and look at it directly, it was stunning. And the effects on the horizon and on the visibility of stars, the things happening around it, the shadow bands as people refer to them as, traveling across the ground. Did you see the wavy ones from the corona? That was so surreal. Yeah. And just everything about it almost harkened back for me to prehistoric humanoid times. Like it touched something very old, if that makes any sense.

Starting point is 00:19:37 It felt like it touched something in species or racial memory going back thousands of years, where you can imagine the impact that this would have on any sentient being who's observing it and really paying attention and watching it. Difficult to put into words. That was the most common sentence, probably, some variation of that that I heard afterwards. People were giddy, people were euphoric, and the expression was, you just can't put it into words, or I can't put it into words. And I encourage people to look up the history of eclipses. There's been some cool historical moments where predicting eclipse or not predicting eclipse, or I think two kings died after seeing them, and then that was part of the creation of Europe.

Starting point is 00:20:25 Yeah, King John the Pious, you were saying. And then Europe was split up into... What eventually became France, what became Italy, and what became Germany to his three sons. So, yeah, eclipses seem to figure pretty strongly into the shaping of history and the shaping of national borders. What's more reliable than the sun? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:46 And for that to be blotted out for a moment is, yeah, all inspiring. Let's do it again. Yeah, I don't say this lightly. I mean, once it happened, though, I immediately turned to a few friends that we're with, and I said, I get it. I see why people chase this. Because we have people here in this camp

Starting point is 00:21:06 because you have these shell tents arranged in rows of sorts and then they have snow piled around them to brace against the wind and it does get

Starting point is 00:21:16 really really fucking cold here surprise surprise it's Antarctica it's also very very dry and people get a lot of sun damage even more so than the

Starting point is 00:21:26 driest desert in the world. It is dry. It is dry. It's part of the reason you can dry the surface of say your steak by putting it in a freezer on an elevated rack for a short period of time. It's the driest place in your house is a good freezer. I didn't know that. And you just expand that a gazillion times. We're in a really good freezer. Over eons, and here you are in Antarctica. It's also interesting that where we are on Union Glacier, there's no birds, no animals, no insects, literally nothing living except us. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:58 I was going to say disturbingly, but it's not disturbingly. It is oddly quiet when you go to certain parts of the camp if you're not within shouting distance or within hearing distance of the mess hall or something like that. Especially after we spent seven days with the penguins, which have kind of a constant din. And it was really cute. They would walk into camp and just walk past your tent. The tents have no noise isolation. Or right up to the tent. Right up to the tent right

Starting point is 00:22:25 up to the tent and you're actually you're better at the noises that's what he that was that was pretty good thank you you although that is actually the pairing call that you hear more at the colony but they're just going to spend practicing i have been practicing this. I have been practicing. Much to the chagrin of my traveling companions, I've been doing that like 100 times a day. If you can cut in some of that field auto you took, it would be pretty cool. Oh, we will.

Starting point is 00:23:29 Oh, there will be magic in the editing room. I have no idea if you'll be able to hear me or black and white attire the largest of the penguin species so I would guess I'm no biologist but probably let's just call it two and a half to three and a half feet tall probably 25 to 45 25 to 50 pounds and then there are chicks who have gray downy feathers, or certainly appear to. The adults have, I think, roughly 15 feathers per square centimeter. And you're hearing many different calls. And I don't know the meaning. I assume there certainly are meanings, of the different calls, but there's a da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, which they make when they point their beaks

Starting point is 00:24:15 basically straight down flat against their chests. So I imagine that's straightening their trachea somehow, but it's the opposite of what you would see with, say, a coyote or a wolf howling. And here I am. Holy shit. Antarctica. So, Matt, where should we go next? What do you think?

Starting point is 00:24:33 Should we pull out the deck, see what happens? Should we go somewhere else? Are there other things in the last five years? Maybe we'll roll into that. I mean, five years. It seems like so recently that we recorded our other episodes, and it's not that recent. I mean, five years, it seems like so recently that we recorded our other episodes. And it's not that recent. I mean, it's not.

Starting point is 00:24:49 It's like if you live 80, let's just say we live 80, 85 years, it's like five years is a meaningful percentage of that. It's true. Yeah. Makes me think of that essay, the great one from Tim Urban. The Tail End. Yeah. Which you introduced me to, and I have shared with so many people, put an edited, or I don't think it was highly edited, but like a slightly shortened version in, I think it was Tools of Titans, because it had such an impact on me. And that's all thanks to Mr. Mullenweg. Yeah, that was one of the big things since our last episode, was my father passing.

Starting point is 00:25:21 Yeah. You were a great friend through all that, so thank you. I'm sorry for what we lost. was my father passing. Yeah. You were a great friend through all that, so thank you, but that taught me a lot about grief and the ephemerality of life and everything, so that was a big one. Yeah, pretty much everything

Starting point is 00:25:34 in my life has changed a lot in the past five years. We hadn't even acquired WooCommerce when we last spoke, and this year it's going to do, what's the number? I think 21 billion transactions. We're hoping to do for e-commerce what we did for websites. And I think there's a chance and the web wants an open source

Starting point is 00:25:51 thing out there for commerce. So I think what's been exciting for me is everything is always changing. I'm not good at staying still. Everything is always changing, not in a macro world sense, although I guess that's true. You're saying for you personally. Yeah. You asked me the other day, do I have like a weekly routine where like Mondays are staff meetings, Tuesdays are design. If you have an infrastructure for your week, because people like Jack Dorsey have talked

Starting point is 00:26:16 about this. I don't know if he does it any longer, but I did ask you and your answer was? Every day is different. And that's part of what keeps it super exciting for me because I feel like I'm always learning. I know nothing about podcasting software or journaling software or e-commerce software or anything. But I love making tools that people use.

Starting point is 00:26:35 It's very, very satisfying. If you don't mind, let's just come back for a second to your dad's passing. And I know that was an understandably, extremely tough period. And I don that was an understandably extremely tough period. And I don't even know if it's something you've ever fully metabolized. If that's something you even view in the past tense

Starting point is 00:26:52 as something you went through, or if it's something that you continue to live with. But my question is, if there are any resources, tools, books, or just simply advice that you would give to someone who is experiencing grief, or has lost someone, or maybe is on the cusp of losing someone. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:11 The book that I found most helpful during that was co-authored by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who came up with the Kubler-Ross scale, I think. That's the five stages, denial, anger, acceptance of the five stages of grief. The book was called, I think, Grief and Grieving. Yeah, On Grief and Grieving. On Grief and Grieving. That one was really powerful. Might be just Grief and Grieving. I shouldn't be so definitive, but yeah, one of the two. Yeah. So that one was very, very helpful for me. But one of the things I learned was how personal the process is and how different it is. For example, for me and my sister, grieved completely differently. And I've seen other friends go through this since then. And so,

Starting point is 00:27:50 I would say one thing I really learned is just that everyone has their own way of processing, and it'll happen at different times. And it's very easy to get annoyed or mad or angry or disappointed at how someone else is grieving, if it's different from yours. How did the book help you? What did it explain or help you to accept or clarify or otherwise? I had heard of those five stages, but I thought they happened serially, like you went in order. Well, that's what I would assume. And it turns out you can have them out of order and multiple ones at the same time, and in the same day, in the same hour.

Starting point is 00:28:30 And so that was really helpful. Pre-grieving was something I learned a lot from the book. This idea that if you have a sense that someone's going to pass, there's actually a whole grieving process that happens before then. And my father was in the hospital for about five weeks. So that was one of the most intense periods of my life. And that pre-grieving, I hadn't really understood. Those are some big ones. And it's been helpful as well. I think, especially in American culture, we don't talk about death. We don't think about it. We like to pretend it doesn't happen, but it's the one thing that for certain is going to happen to every single one of us. And we're all going to lose some only love and we'll all pass someday.

Starting point is 00:29:08 And very much like the Stoics, I think that the more you think about it, the better you are able to handle it yourself and help others when they're going through it. I have an app for my phone. I think it's, what is it? Bhutanese? It's called Mycroke? Or Wecroke? Wecroke. Yeah, I've used Wecroke.

Starting point is 00:29:28 And five times a day, it just sends you a notification. It's like, just a reminder, we're all going to die. Gives you a quote. And then it gives you a quote that you can open the app. That one's been, yeah, I've kept that going. I also, I think we might have talked about this before, but on my Chrome new tab, I sort of calculated the average number of days I'm probably going to live.

Starting point is 00:29:51 So every time I open a new tab has a countdown. Is that something you did manually or is that something other people can do reasonably easily? Yeah, I use a tab thing called Momentum, which allows you to customize your new tab screen And it can do countdowns. And so I think the date was something like 2060, January 11th, I picked my birthday. And then it just counts down. And so that's also really interesting. And I find also a good interrupt to remind me when I'm starting a new tab, which is usually the beginning of distraction or something. Yeah, totally. That it just says Mementoum Ori and the countdown. Do you find that you begin to tune that out?

Starting point is 00:30:32 So I've used Momentum, I like it a lot, but do you end up at some point becoming immune to the reminder? Have you experienced that or not so much? Is there anything you do to prevent that? Yeah, I've definitely developed developed a selective blindness to it. I was actually just thinking today, if I just used every app on my home screen regularly, my life would probably be much better.

Starting point is 00:30:55 I've got Calm and FitBot and all these sorts of things. I put on smart mats, thoughtful mats. Smart mat. Put that on the home screen instead of Twitter. But I'll still scroll the four screens over to get to Twitter or Instagram or something. Yeah, it's hard to win that one, outgunned as we are. I actually deleted all apps from my phone.

Starting point is 00:31:16 Excuse me, that would not make any sense. That would make my phone very hard to use. Deleted all social apps from my phone about a year and a half ago and haven't installed, haven't reinstalled any of them. And it's been liberating in some ways and also frustrating in others to see how addictive these tools are and how I will find workarounds by using, I mean, the browser, right. And it And it provides a hurdle, right?

Starting point is 00:31:45 So it's like the candy isn't within reach. Like I have to open a door and walk through to another room, metaphorically speaking, to get the candy. But still, I end up, as you've seen on this trip, with the chocolate-covered almonds. It's amazing how much chocolate-covered almonds Tim has consumed. So horrifying. So horrifying. Well, it's a good reminder we're all human. Even like four-hour almonds Tim has consumed. So horrifying. So horrifying. Well, it's a good reminder we're all human. Even like for our body, Tim Ferriss.

Starting point is 00:32:10 Definitely. Even for us, especially for our body, Tim Ferriss. Uh-oh. Once he goes off the rails, it's very, very off the rails. Oh, man. So anything else that you'd like to add within the context of the last five years?

Starting point is 00:32:25 You know, one more thing on the parents is one thing I wish is that I had more recordings of my dad. Just remembering his voice or even some video, though people are more self-conscious about video. So I think it's great if there's people you love. Do something like this. Have a conversation with them. Record it. I think it's something you'll both probably appreciate. Well, you've been a big part of the impetus for me to set time aside and schedule time to do this with my parents.

Starting point is 00:32:59 We had it scheduled, and then there were some calendar and travel issues, of course, with COVID and everything else going on. But that is something that I'm planning on doing in the next few months. And I'm looking forward to it. I think at different points I've had various reservations, but as I think more and more about kids, I think it dawns on me more and more clearly how valuable or how treasured that could be at some point to have that.

Starting point is 00:33:24 Yeah. And just what our parents or loved ones might remember about our life is so different from sometimes what we remember. Yeah. And could be really enlightening sometimes. Yeah. Because memory is so fallible, right?

Starting point is 00:33:35 Yeah, super fallible. So it's interesting to see the different perspectives on it and triangulate maybe how we turned out the way we did or things that might've been very influential on us. So question for you then, any recommendations for my conversations with my parents? Are there any particular types of questions that you would ask or angles of inquiry or anything at all? No fly zones, anything that comes to mind. You know, this is where being offline is going to get us. What's the

Starting point is 00:34:05 project? It's like on NPR where they interview people. There's an app for it. StoryCorps. StoryCorps. Story and then C-O-R-P-S. Alright. And I think they even have an app with questions. And part of what they do is try to get an oral history

Starting point is 00:34:21 of Americans. People around the country. maybe around the world. I don't know anything about this. But people can record their own, and they have a really great set of questions that kind of walk people through their life history. So I would say those would be the experts, and check it out. Maybe some things that could be a good framework. I will. And for what it's worth, since we're talking about recording, we can just mention briefly what I have right here in front of us, which is the sophisticated, grand podcasting studio of Tim Ferriss Enterprises, which is very, very, very simple, it turns out.

Starting point is 00:34:55 There have only been a few minor changes since our recording five years ago, and the first recording being number 61 of the podcast. Now we have whatever it is, close to 600 episodes. So we've got the Zoom H6 recorder in front of me. And then we have two XLR cables, one going to a handheld mic format, another going to a handheld mic in my hand. One of the upgrades that I made is when I do in-person recording, I have two different colors. The default is going to be black cabling. I get colored cables. So for video, this would be horrible on the eyes, but practically for recording, it's great because it makes it very easy for me to see which levels I need to adjust. Oh, cool.

Starting point is 00:35:41 That's why the cables are different colors. So we have yellow and orange. And then I have rechargeable batteries, which are Panasonic rechargeable. BQCC55 is going to probably take you to the proper make and model.

Starting point is 00:36:00 And then we have an iPhone with a Shure MV88 microphone that attaches to the iphone through a lightning port and captures really good audio so we have that running as backup and then the handheld mics are also sure and i usually use SM58 mics. These are slightly better for voice. And if I could just see yours for a second, this is the KSM8. And they're very nice. Work really, really well. And that's it. And this all fits into, as Matt can tell you, well, there's a small bag, but it all fits into a Banya hat. I have a Russian sauna hat that is perfect padding and insulation for the recorder itself.

Starting point is 00:36:51 Then everything else fits easily, easily, easily into a backpack. You could probably fit most of it into a big jacket. And you can record anywhere. You've now recorded to Antarctica, which is amazing. It is kind of amazing. And so we've had 200 plus degrees Fahrenheit with Rick Rubin, the incredible music producer, although he does a lot more in his sauna because that was a condition for doing the interview.

Starting point is 00:37:16 That's super hot. It was so hot and hilariously so because we ended up having to take breaks and do ice baths and the mics got so hot that was the one thing we didn't budget for i was so worried about the recorder being damaged or going non-functional that i didn't pay attention to the simple fact that when you have the mic at body height in the sauna it's going to get ripping hot so the equivalent was fine on the floor but the mics got so hot we had to wrap them in towels and do it that way.

Starting point is 00:37:46 So we've done like plus 200 degrees and with windchill probably at... I think they were saying it was negative 35 last night, this morning. Yeah, negative 35, maybe even a little bit colder. Negative 35, maybe a little bit colder at Gould Bay with Sue because we were outside. We have a bit of shelter here, but there we had an open sided tent with wind ripping through and a table made of ice instead of this nice fold out table. Why didn't you close the door with a tent? It was a lounge that had been created by the staff and one was like up over the top. And I suppose we could have closed it, but we were all wrapped up and reasonably cozy. I took a picture of you. I'll have to share.

Starting point is 00:38:29 That's right. That's right. Yes. You have a good photo. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront. Did you know if you missed 10 of the best performing days after the 2008 crisis, you would have missed out on 50%, 5-0% of your returns. Don't miss out on the best days in the market. Stay invested in a long-term automated investment portfolio. Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as robo-advising, and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. Wealthfront can help you

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Starting point is 00:39:41 coaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to wealthfront.com slash Tim and open a Wealthfront investment account today, and you'll get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. That's wealthfront.com slash Tim. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term, and you can get started today at wealthfront.com slash Tim. Would you mind opening the non-pea bottle so I can have some of the water? I'm pleased that they have the color coding. And I'm going to open this deck.

Starting point is 00:40:15 I've come a long way from Casa Dragones. Cheers, by the way. Yeah, cheers. Let me do that with the booze. How much would you give me to drink a swig of that urine right now? What would you trade? I like you too much, cheers. Let me do that with the booze. How much would you give me to drink a swig of that urine right now? What would you trade? I like you too much, Tim. I wouldn't do that to you.

Starting point is 00:40:31 You know, I have actually, I have, I don't know how this came about, but I ended up, this is only for you, my fine listeners. No such thing as TMI. I remember at some point, I don't know what it was. Can't fill Tim without TMI. That was good. That was good. That was good. So let me take a break from the pee bottle.

Starting point is 00:40:49 I'm going to come back to drinking my own urine story. Matt is the master of what is known in Japanese as Oyaji Gyaku. Oyaji Gyaku. Oyaji Gyaku. Okay. So Oyaji. Oyaji is like pops.

Starting point is 00:41:04 It's like saying dad, but in a really informal way. And then is gag. And as it turns out, cross-culturally, dads love puns and wordplay. So, like, if a shitty pun

Starting point is 00:41:19 comes up, and often did in my host family when I was 15 in Japan, then the host brother would be like, and Matt is the master. So yeah, you can't spell Tim without TMI. That is actually very, very good. That's very, very good. I did take in that same apartment in San Francisco. I remember at one point just deciding, you know what? I think I should sample my own urine for what reason I can't recall.

Starting point is 00:41:50 And I did. And you've seen how much water I consume. So it was actually totally fine. It was, it was, it was totally fine. It wasn't oversaturated with B vitamins or anything that will affect the taste. I suspect not that I've had many samplings,

Starting point is 00:42:02 but I will say I don't make a regular practice of drinking my urine, nor do I recommend it. This is not medical advice. It's actually pretty stupid as a story to begin with. But you did it so others don't have to. I did it so others don't have to. Yeah. It wasn't the most delicious thing I've ever had. All right. So let me offer you, you want me to choose a card or do you want to choose a card? All right, go for it alright so let's see

Starting point is 00:42:27 and you can always refuse would you say your recordings in Antarctica have been intense? intense is that another pun? oh intense

Starting point is 00:42:38 oh my god that was so bad sorry that was good that was good that was good you can't bat had a thousand. Intense.

Starting point is 00:42:47 You know? True fact. As my friend Kelly Starrett likes to say. True fact. True fact, Tim Ferriss. Here's one. What is one fear you would like to conquer? You're going to answer the same one?

Starting point is 00:43:02 I can, or you could choose another one. Yeah. I think that'd be fun if we both if we both answer it let's do it because maybe we'll inspire a different way of thinking about it in each other great you know i have a hang-up around body issues and exercise and stuff and it kind of got bigger in like the past six months and as i'm 37 now oh not there old man young age and um yeah i think that's a fear i like to conquer because it's totally irrational what is the fear exactly i don't know how to articulate it but there's something where i don't know how to articulate it, because it's a fear.

Starting point is 00:43:45 It's not rational. It's not something I can put into words. Well, I mean, there are a lot of fears that are rational, right? So just because it's a fear doesn't automatically make it irrational. I think this is probably an irrational one. Yeah, all right. Yeah, it's something around... It's like an insecurity.

Starting point is 00:43:59 I'm not going to let you go. Yeah. So is it an insecurity around appearance? I think it's something, yeah, something about, I'm sorry, I don't know how to go deeper. We can, this is where I should do some heavy lifting or help do some heavy lifting. What would be an example of a time when it shows up for you the resistance i feel around sort of exercise that's been growing i would say where it it shows up like a fear in that i can think of so many excuses why including like i'm going gonna injure myself again or i'm gonna hurt my knee or my wrists are bad right now so i shouldn't be doing this or like things like that but which really just add up

Starting point is 00:44:52 to be a bunch of excuses what do you think that is protecting you from like if you did not have because it seems like that you're a smart. So there's probably some part of you, not to go too far into IFS Dick Schwartz type stuff, but your subconscious is trying to protect you from something, potentially. What is it protecting you from? What do you think it is? I don't know. I mean, it could be injury.

Starting point is 00:45:18 It could be performing below your expectations, perhaps. If you exercise, that you're not going to meet some standard you've set for yourself in your mind. I have no idea. So it sounds like it's a hesitancy that you can't fully explain. Therefore, it's kind of falling

Starting point is 00:45:35 into the category of fear for you. Okay. How about for you? What's a fear you would like to overcome? Man, how much time do we have? I don't, I think that's a bit of an overstatement, but I mean,

Starting point is 00:45:50 shit, if we're drinking our single malt and really going for it, I would say the fear that I am just hardwired and also just software coded through DNA to be depressed and unhappy.

Starting point is 00:46:07 And that is a baseline I cannot escape. The gravitational pull to out-of-the-box settings is so strong that no matter what I do, no matter how many morning routines I tweak, no matter how much I exercise, no matter how much I program meticulously different areas of my life, the regression to the mean is always going to be to a place of depression or, this is a strong word, but like self-loathing, something that is not quite self-loathing at a 10 out of 10 intensity, but like a discontent and disappointment with myself.

Starting point is 00:46:47 That's a big one. That locked in something about mine, which is like a fear of being bigger. Bigger. Yeah, my family's bigger. Bigger, meaning like obese. Yeah, like I have some pre-built settings, the proclivity towards that.

Starting point is 00:47:02 Yeah. Hmm. Do you believe that? Can you overcome that? Depends on the day. Depends on whether I've had a good stretch or a bad stretch or an average stretch. I mean, even if it is deluding myself,

Starting point is 00:47:20 I want to believe that it is something I can overcome. I don't see how the alternative plays out I want to believe that it is something I can overcome. I don't see how the alternative plays out is terrifying to me. If I truly, truly believe that 100% of the time, the consequences of that are staggeringly scary. So I don't want to believe that, but if I were a scientist just looking at the data set, I'd be like, yeah.

Starting point is 00:47:48 If we're rating days like negative two, negative one, zero, plus one, plus two, somewhat like Jim Collins does. If people want more on that, you can just listen to the first conversation I had with him. But I would say I probably average out negative one. Just on an emotional tone. The gestalt of the day being sort of positive energy, negative energy.

Starting point is 00:48:12 And have you tracked it? Not in that way. That'd be interesting to do. Not in that way. Some data around it. I should do it also because I do think, and my girlfriend has certainly pointed this out,

Starting point is 00:48:21 and I recognize it as true, that I have a negative selection bias. I think a that I have a negative selection bias. I think a lot of humans have negative selection bias because you get rewarded by overreacting to threats. What's a stat? You feel a dollar you lose seven times more than a dollar you gain or keep?

Starting point is 00:48:39 Yeah. They've done studies around this. Yeah, like how hard would you work to make $100 versus how hard would you work to avoid having like $100 stolen or taken from you, right? Yeah, so that is one of my macro fears. Tied to that would be a fear. I don't know if people can hear that because there's no birds. There's no insects.

Starting point is 00:49:00 The footsteps on the snow are like deafeningly loud the foot traffic is so loud which makes it even harder to sleep around here where was i going where was i uh macro fear that's related yeah that is related is that i will never have enough energy so and i think some of that ties back to undiagnosed lyme when i was a kid, which has been verified because I then later had confirmed Lyme. And I grew up on Long Island where it's very, very, very common. And when I was properly diagnosed after very severe symptoms, the second time, which was, I don't know, 2012 or 13 or 14, when they did the ELISA, I think it's the ELISA blot test and other testing they gave me my results and the first thing they said was well you realize that you've had Lyme disease before right wow because I was showing I guess the long-term antibodies like the serologic testing I might I might not be getting the details right but suffice to say I'd already had Lyme but it had gone undiagnosed which meant it was untreated for

Starting point is 00:50:05 a long, long time. So I don't know how much to attribute to that versus a family history of depression versus other things, but I've always struggled with energy levels. I was like the currency in which I am poorest. And it doesn't matter how much time you have attention or otherwise, like if you don't have just the battery to execute you are sol do you think people who listen to your podcast would guess that about you i don't think so because they're getting one percent of my time not one percent but it's like i don't spend all of my time recording conversations yeah right so they get to hear me when I'm having fun, usually. I enjoy the podcast.

Starting point is 00:50:50 It is very deeply nourishing to me. And when it starts to feel anything other than that, I change something. I decrease the frequency. I could do it three times, four times, five times a week, but it would start to feel like a burden or a chore, and I don't want that to be the frequency. I could do it three times, four times, five times a week, but it would start to feel like a burden or a chore, and I don't want that to be the case. So I don't think most people would guess that.

Starting point is 00:51:11 You did share with me, I don't know if you're willing to share here or want to share here, that you got a lot of comfort from a revelation. Oh, is this the existential piece? Yeah. Yeah, I'm willing to share. This is a weird one. So this kind of ties into another fear, which is, I don't know if it's a fear.

Starting point is 00:51:33 I mean, it's a belief, the consequences of which are really unpleasant. Although I've started to look at it in a slightly different way. And I'll back into it by saying, I think meaninglessness can be terrifying, but in a way it can also be liberating because it frees you to kind of do

Starting point is 00:51:50 whatever you choose to pursue. And over the last year, we've been talking about this on this trip. We agree on a lot of things. The one not trivial, very non-trivial thing that I think we have differing opinions on

Starting point is 00:52:08 is just like inherent human nature. Right? I have a, I don't want to call it dystopian, but I tend to think we are closer to chimps than not.

Starting point is 00:52:16 Right? Like, like 1% of our DNA. More Hobbesian. Exactly. Nasty, brutish, short. Nasty, brutish, short. Right.

Starting point is 00:52:23 Hobbesian is the right way to put it. And I'm a little more Pinker-esque. You know, better angels of our nature. Yeah, yeah. Nasty, brutish, short. Nasty, brutish, short, right. Hobbesian is the right way to put it. And I'm a little more Pinker-esque, you know, better angels over nature. Yeah, exactly. So, and as such, I have been involved in a bunch of things over the last handful of years,

Starting point is 00:52:38 including psychedelic therapeutics, especially on the non-profit research side. I haven't done any for-profit investments myself. You've been a huge supporter of that world as well, so thanks for that. Thank you. It's a big deal. Then also

Starting point is 00:52:55 different conservation work in the Amazon and North America and so on have just run into what I view as this kind of... I know one could argue against it, but almost for me, an irrefutable truth just based on overwhelming evidence that I've faced over and over again that humans cannot resist pissing in the pool. They can't help themselves. They're so competitive and driven by incentives which of course all animals are and

Starting point is 00:53:27 it has been for me i have i'll make it active right like i have depressed myself and upset myself so i'll make it transitive here right so that i have some agency to repeatedly run into what I view as unavoidable self-destructive tendencies which on smaller scales aren't necessarily self-destructive but at larger scales with billions and billions of people become just untenable

Starting point is 00:53:58 I was just like what's the point I found it very difficult to get up and muster any kind of enthusiasm or motivation to like knock out these email about various, just like bullshit items that might be very interesting, but I'm like, okay, I'm going to like invest in some like whatever the fuck app that does

Starting point is 00:54:18 something that really isn't making a dent. And like, what's the point of all this? Cause like ultimately we're all like, just careening towards this incineration that I don't see as particularly avoidable. And then I was reading this book, which does punch the four-hour workweek in the balls a little bit, which I found kind of funny, honestly. So it does make a reference to the four-hour workweek and not in a terribly kind way, which is fine. Because what do you expect if you title a book the four-hour workweek? But the book also has a four in the title, but it's called

Starting point is 00:54:48 4,000 Weeks. That refers to the average lifespan of humans. And there's actually a lot of great exploration in this book looking at the frailty and the fallacies of time management and productivity and a kind of to-do list obsession and optimization of different types. And one of the chapters I think is called something like cosmic insignificance therapy, which I think this morning was a great example of, where you actually find it liberating to realize how much it doesn't matter. So you end up finding it kind of inspiring and freeing instead of debilitating and crushing, which I find hard to do because I tilt towards the darkness. And so the realization was like, well, okay, look,

Starting point is 00:55:36 even if people are just hell-bent on self-destruction and we head that way. At the end of the day, our sun is going to red giant, white dwarf, kaplooey, and then the earth is gone. Anyway, all life on earth is gone at that point, or certainly as far as I know, all life on earth. So even if we kill our own species and all sorts of other species off on this planet, the life per se of Earth is finite regardless. And I was like, oh, actually, that brings some peace to me. Sunshine time. Yeah, I mean, God, this sounds so depressing. But this is kind of a lot of the shit that I think about in part because,

Starting point is 00:56:26 and this is supposed to be me asking you questions. We're going to get to another question, but it's like, I don't know if you've experienced it because you didn't grow up rich. I didn't grow up rich. And at least for me, in my group of friends and their families growing up, lower middle class, it was like, if only we had money, our problems would be solved. Like, here are these problems. If we just had money, it doesn't grow on trees. And like, oh, that rich person, wouldn't that be nice? Everything is smooth as

Starting point is 00:56:58 gravy over there, I am sure. And then you pursue, you pursue, you pursue, and you can kind of push your issues to the side in pursuit of becoming quote-unquote successful because the assumption underlying it is when I have X or Y or Z, whatever that amount is, then I'll be happy. Then I'll be happy. And then you run through one of those finish lines and you're like, well, wait a fucking second.

Starting point is 00:57:27 This is a false bill of lading. That didn't work at all. And which, by the way, when some people ask, what would you change or emphasize if you wrote the four-hour work week again, it's the filling the void chapter, which is a chapter that people kind of skip over because it's not this hyper void chapter which is a chapter that people kind of skip over because it's not this like hyper practical tactical nuts and bolts chapter but it's really important so

Starting point is 00:57:51 yeah that's my very very very long rambling answer to the existential realization which is like oh yeah this planet's got a finite lifespan anyway as far as like organic life goes. So that's something I always find interesting is sometimes relief from what seems like existential problems come from the most unusual places. Yeah. And so I was surprised that this came for you, that that was a comforting thought, but I do, I do believe in the cosmic insignificance. It's very humbling to think our time span,

Starting point is 00:58:27 even all of human recorded history, is just a speck of dust of the universe's time span. And one thing I really appreciate about you, Tim, is that you engage with work and thinkers that some people might assume are the opposite of you or advocate for different things but it's all part of your your growth and your journey and like firming up things so i like that you went and read this book and how cool that it provided this relief for you you know thanks man it's a solid book and uh the way that i parsed it online was I put it on, I guess, Twitter. And I said,

Starting point is 00:59:08 for people who have read this such and such book, you know, 4,000 weeks, how much would you recommend it to a friend from one to 10, no seven allowed, which is something I learned from a person named Kyle Maynard, because it forces people to like pick a barely passing or pretty strong recommendation at eight. And the vast majority of recommendations or the vast majority of answers, and there could be a selection bias, obviously, right? People read the book in the first place.

Starting point is 00:59:33 Yeah, exactly. Came back at like nine, eight, nine, 10, the vast majority, which was certainly enough to convince me to get it on Kindle and read a few chapters. And I ended up liking it a lot. I mean, just because I can't resist just a little jab. The author does use a lot of $10 words where a $0.10 word would work.

Starting point is 00:59:58 So I think I'm pretty well-educated, but I still had to look some words up. It's okay. He apparently punched a four-hour work week. You can punch back a little bit. He did punch the four-hour work week in the nuts, but that's okay because, you know, get in line. So how many years has it been since four-hour work week? It's published in April of 2007. So 14 years. It's a teenager. It's a teenager. It's going to college. It's starting high school. It's going to college in a few years. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:27 It's incredible. Let's try another card. Let's try another card. All right. So. You want me to read this one first? God. It's more.

Starting point is 01:00:37 No, no. That's a fierce one. Here, I'll let you choose. And let me just grab a few cards off the top. And again, for people interested I don't even know if these are made anymore because I recall them

Starting point is 01:00:48 being sold out or discontinued at some point Holste H-O-L-S-T-E-E reflection cards I got these on Amazon dealer's choice

Starting point is 01:00:56 dealer's choice and what's the light and dark side mean is one a tougher question yes the darker half of the card is intended to be

Starting point is 01:01:03 a more difficult question it's not always the case but that's the card is intended to be a more difficult question. It's not always the case, but that's what it's intended to be. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about your life, the world, or anything else, what would you want to know? I think you should answer that first, because I just finished a TED Talk. What would I want to know? I'd want to know what is before life and after life.

Starting point is 01:01:25 I had the same answer. Really? life. I had the same answer. Really? Yeah. I had the same answer. Yeah, it's one of those things I think is very difficult to truly know. Very difficult, yeah. It's something humanity has grappled with in a million different ways for probably as long as we've been conscious. And yeah, curious about that.

Starting point is 01:01:45 I need more, Matt. You got to do more than just whisper to me about generalities. Wait, more about what's interesting about the afterlife or the pre-life? Yeah, either both end. I would say what, this is obviously a big one,

Starting point is 01:02:01 but like what do you, if you had to speculate, what do you think happens? I mean, if you want to go with pre-birth, we could do that. That's definitely an unusual way to approach it. Well, it's one, I think why I thought of that is because I've done meditations before where they say, feel what it was like before you were born. That's what it'll be like after you're done. So, like meditations on death. And so, in theory, like after you're done. So like a meditation's on death. And so, yeah, in theory, there's something before

Starting point is 01:02:28 if there's something after, right? I'm going to plug two books here. Plug what? Annika Harris, Consciousness. Yep, this is after our conversations on this trip, like that's absolutely on my to-read list. Great book. And I think it kind of gets this question

Starting point is 01:02:44 of pre-life and after life as well, because where does the consciousness come from? When does it start? Where does it go? How is it suspended? Suspended? What is that? Oh, like under anesthesia. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:02:57 It's such an interesting, what turns it on and off? Yeah. What does it even really mean? And this book is a fantastic kind kind of and brief um so very dense uh densely packed or very valuable i'd say not longer than needs to be a book and then david eagleman who this is some yeah so good have we talked about that was it i maybe you recommended it to me it might have been i think i did one of your books i recommend thing ah yes books i've loved yeah and uh 40 tales of afterlives and each one starts basically at the moment of death and then it's uh it's kind of something that happens afterwards

Starting point is 01:03:37 and they're hilarious and it's a great bedtime read so i like to read short chapters like three to two to five pages. Yeah. And it's nice to break it up nightly. And some of them I've even read aloud to friends. When you're a Burning Man, I did that as a gift. I would read one of these short stories to people. Some of my favorites are The Scent of Species.

Starting point is 01:03:58 It's really great. And the opening one, Some, is actually pretty fun. Can you give a teaser? So I think it'd be helpful to give people an example, since each of these short chapters is a hypothetical manifestation of the afterlife. So what might one be? So the opener, some, and I'll tell a little without giving away the amazing ending, you relive life, but serially.

Starting point is 01:04:27 So all the things that you did at different points broken up in your life you do all at the same time so you shower for like 80 hours you sleep for 30 years you cut your nails for like you know you're trying to remember a word for like two days you're standing in line for you 14 days. And so it kind of goes through this almost laundry list of it. Yeah. And, um, yeah, beautiful ending.

Starting point is 01:04:49 It is a great book. It is an exceptional book. After the plugging these two books, what do you think? What happens? Or it doesn't happen. Unplug computer lights out. That's it.

Starting point is 01:05:02 I'm looking forward to finding out someday. Not too soon but um you said you had the same answer so wait which answer oh i was the crystal ball yeah well i just think it would help i do think and maybe i'll be open to a counter argument but i do think it would just help you decide how to spend your time better in this particular iteration if it's the one and only thank you getting a little booze from a flask classy we're classy uh and i mean it would answer so many questions right i think the interesting thing was would humans truly be different what do you mean by that?

Starting point is 01:05:46 How would they act differently if we had a definitive answer? One, a lot of people think they do have a definitive answer. That's kind of the basis of many religions and things. So, it's not unusual. And, you know, a lot of people, you could say that, how would Anthony DeMello put it? They're not truly living. Yeah. Right?

Starting point is 01:06:03 They need to wake up. They need to pay attention. Yeah. And that's, even though they might think there's this happening in the afterlife or... Well, if you knew for sure, though,

Starting point is 01:06:13 I mean, let's just say it's like, all right, hellfire and brimstone, that's one thing, right? Sins in the whole nine yards. Purgatory. Yeah, like the Judeo-Christian model. But then if you had

Starting point is 01:06:26 say karma and you're like reincarnated as a hamster or a porpoise or a demigod depending on your behavior then that that would that would certainly well you would think would affect some choices right if you knew what happened afterwards definitively it would also affect how you viewed things this is going to get dark folks sorry but like things like suicide right so the stoics didn't have a particularly negative view of suicide but then once you get into the judeo-christian lens it is most certainly negative right and that is one of many different things that would be clarified. I mean, if you were just simply zeroing out a character,

Starting point is 01:07:10 like Ready Player One, that's one thing. Yeah, insert coin. Yeah, right. But would that make people less responsible with the lives they have right now? Define responsible. Reckless, careless,

Starting point is 01:07:22 because they thought they could just insert another coin and play again. Well, if they knew they could just insert another coin and play again. Well, if they knew they could, then it wouldn't be reckless. Yeah. I think that's an interesting area of thought. And it also reminds me of something I think, which I hope expands a lot in the coming years, is ethical-assisted euthanasia. Yeah. People end of life with waiting periods and all these sorts of things.

Starting point is 01:07:44 I know Hawaii is a place where you can do it and a few different countries going back to seeing people pass away the past five years I understand why some people might choose to do that if they have a terminal illness or something yeah, interesting we had the same answer and not

Starting point is 01:08:01 altogether completely unsurprising oh boy, that's a good one can I tell you what I'd like it to be? and not altogether completely unsurprising. Oh boy, that's a good one. Can I tell you what I'd like it to be? What you would like your answer to be? Yeah, the afterlife. Oh, what you'd like the afterlife to be, okay.

Starting point is 01:08:16 I think it'd be kind of cool if our brains are like antennas to some deeper consciousness and we reconnected with it. Sort of went back to that non-dual nature of enlightenment. You mean like a drop of the ocean returning to the ocean type situation yeah i i find that comforting yeah i do too all right here's one i got one for you if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly would you change anything about the way you are living now why i'm going to modify that question if you knew that in one year you would die suddenly what would you change anything about the way you are living now? Why? I'm going to modify that

Starting point is 01:08:45 question. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, what would you change about the way you're living now? Why? Which is nicely related to our previous conversation. It is. What I would change? Well, what I did change after that tail end essay was spending more time with loved ones. If I knew I had one year, gosh, I've got so much left to do. You know, what's funny is- Let's assume it's perfect health for a year and then just lights out. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:09:17 I think I would, this is kind of a funny answer. I wouldn't have thought of this before, but I'd write more. You'd write more? I did not see that coming. Tell me more. It brings up for me, like, what's the legacy? How do I pass on the things I care about, like democratizing publishing and the web, to the generations that are going to carry the torch there? And how much of what motivates me towards that lifelong mission around open source,

Starting point is 01:09:45 I don't know if I've written about particularly well or articulated well in a way that might inspire others. WordPress is open source, has tens of thousands of contributors, so there are a good number of people involved, but I feel like for open source to truly win, we need millions of

Starting point is 01:10:02 contributors. We need most of the world working on it, because the alternative is proprietary, for humanity things so yeah i think i'd write and really try to write something that or write as much as possible things to bring more people contributing to open source tell me more what else if anything else i think that's really because that's my life mission it really is And so if my life was ending, I think how do I keep that mission going? I'm so envious of you. That is so clear.

Starting point is 01:10:33 I don't think most people could sit here, I can't, and say X is my life mission. That's pretty fucking amazing. I mean. Thank you. Well, I mean, it is. It just seems so,

Starting point is 01:10:47 I feel very lucky in that I discovered it. to have that defined. I want to say constraint, but not in a bad way, right? Like you've kind of defined the target and the bullseye

Starting point is 01:10:58 in such a way that makes, I would think, it makes decision making, like your decision fatigue must be less, if that's clear. Does really help, really helps clarify things. You know that and the memento mori?

Starting point is 01:11:13 Yeah. I do feel like I have... Memento mori being meditating on death and the finite nature of life. I've got probably 14,000 days, give or take a couple hundred, left to try to move this mission forward as much as possible. And that's to death, right? That's not necessarily firing on all cylinders. Yeah, I feel like I'm going to keep working until I croak.

Starting point is 01:11:35 Yeah? Yeah. And also, you know, sometimes it's really hard. And there's days and weeks and months where the job, WordPress, automatic, everything can be very, very challenging. And it also helps keep it going. But I would say that it probably, I think you do have that, actually. Me? Yeah.

Starting point is 01:11:55 Oh, pray tell. Please fill me in. Well, how do you spend your time? Oh, God. Doing things like this. Yeah. And why do you do it why do you share it why don't you keep all this amazing information for yourself because it's too i mean it sounds so self-aggrandizing i mean i just i think that's it's too humanizing and valuable to keep private if it's so easy to make public.

Starting point is 01:12:25 Like, it's nourishing to me, number one, and I know how much conversations like this, I mean, if you and I were sitting here

Starting point is 01:12:35 with no mics, bullshitting and drinking single malt scotch whiskey, we'd be having a similar conversation anyway. You know what I mean? We've had lots of these. We've had lots of these.

Starting point is 01:12:47 Nine days, yeah. And the reason I started the podcast is because I'd be having these conversations with friends. They would end and I'd be like, God, what a waste. Like it would be so, that conversation was so helpful to me. I have to imagine it would be helpful to other people.

Starting point is 01:13:04 I think that's drive to share, to learn and share, which I've seen the entire 10 plus years I've known you, it is a life mission. I can't imagine you ever stopping that. Yeah, I can't either. Like, you're going to be in an old person's home and be like, I figured out this new way to like move the wheelchair. Like, look what I can do. Like, this is like just something that,

Starting point is 01:13:26 so I think you do have that. And I think you should play with that to maybe, you know, find what words resonate for you and describing that around that learning and sharing. Cause I do think, do you think you'll do this the rest of your life? Some form of this, maybe not a podcast,

Starting point is 01:13:40 but like, Oh yeah. Yeah. Some form of this. I mean, I just, when people ask me like that's how long do you think you'll do the podcast i'm like i can't it's the first thing i've done

Starting point is 01:13:50 this consistently over an extended period of time and i can't think of a compelling reason for why i would stop right which is another why, even though I've had a bunch of conversations, I haven't seriously considered, I mean, you'll obviously support this, I think, doing anything that would put me in a walled garden. Because it's so kind of antithetical. If I were to sacrifice a large part of my reach or distribution, It just doesn't make sense, right? Like to have shackles on any form or fashion would like suck the soul out of what I'm doing. Which is not to say there couldn't be interesting collaborations with large platforms

Starting point is 01:14:36 or companies, but to make any sacrifice on the creative side or the editorial freedom side or anything like that. It just wouldn't make any sense. And you would do it even if you made no money. Yeah. You would pay to do it.

Starting point is 01:14:52 You do pay to do it. I do pay to do it. So this is something around that I think would be interesting for you to find out because I can't imagine ever growing,

Starting point is 01:15:00 stopping learning, and then not sharing it to whoever will listen. So you do that. all democratized publishing and the web and commerce, and I think that'll be fun. Yeah. One year. One year is real short.

Starting point is 01:15:15 It's a short period of time. You know? You think about the last year, interminably long and also unbelievably short at the same time. Yeah. interminably long and also unbelievably short at the same time yeah and i think for me i don't know if she'd be game for this but probably having kids with my girlfriend like just to at least i mean god it's depressing to think about but also incredible to think about like just being there for the, like for a few months and then adios amigo, off I go.

Starting point is 01:15:46 But to have that experience, I think that would be core to the next, to the remaining year. I remember, I don't know if he'd want his name mentioned, but a very famous scientist and I were chatting at one point and he mentioned having a kid pretty late in life. And his brother, the first thing his brother said to him was congratulations and welcome to the human race he was like you're just and uh you know we chatted about that quite a bit but it just seems so on some level i'm not saying it's required but like fundamental to a lot of obviously human existence right their programming pointed towards procreation yeah that's incredible how strong that drive is yeah and it's like you talk to people who like they they have the most incredibly sophisticated rationalizations and at the

Starting point is 01:16:36 end of the day it's like you're just doing what you're programmed to do and maybe there's a beauty in that maybe there's a real beauty in kind of just fulfilling that like yeah you're a cutter ant you carry fucking leaves around and you build shit and you're gigantic you know ant colony and like that's just what you do and i have to imagine like it feels good to them to do that or at least it would feel bad for them not to do that and it's interesting you bring that up because that's something that changed for me in the past five years. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:17:07 Wow. If we're willing to go there, let's go there. After my father passed, I really decided, I went down the path of like, okay, have a kid.

Starting point is 01:17:16 Yeah. And I think part of that was just thinking, oh, I wish he had known a grandchild or something. And part of that process was later deciding that that's not going to be how I leave an impact on the world. And so I decided to not have kids and made that a very explicit communication

Starting point is 01:17:38 and everything like that because WordPress and this other work I'm doing, I want to be the thing that I leave. And I don't feel like there's anything particularly good about my genetics that needs to be passed on or that I would be a world-unique parent. But I do think I'm one of the people in the world that does have a chance to shape the future of the web.

Starting point is 01:18:01 And so I just want to focus all of my energy into that. Where would you put, if you were a betting man, which of course you are, we're all betting people. We're all placing bets. Everything's probability, except for death and taxes, I guess. Maybe a few other things. Where would you put the likelihood that that changes? I think you had an answer in mind when you asked me that. No, this is not a leading question. I'm just curious.

Starting point is 01:18:31 Yeah. And as a guy, we do have some more optionality around these things. You know, never say never. But that is my working sort of software and firmware right now. Okay.

Starting point is 01:18:49 So let's say... I'll say 20% chance. 20% chance. 20% chance. Maybe less. Maybe less than... I'd say 8% chance. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 01:18:57 That's very precise. I like that. 8%. So next five years, child being born, 8%. Yeah. I fucking being born, 8%. Yeah. I fucking love that. 8%. That's going to be the headline of this podcast episode.

Starting point is 01:19:14 Oh, wow. You want to try another one? Do you want to? Yeah, let's see. Give it a go? Wow. This is actually a question you ask all the time, which is kind of funny. We won't do that one.

Starting point is 01:19:24 That's funny. What message would you put on a billboard for thousands of people to see every day? I did not get it from this deck, but yes, that is a question that I do ask. Don't drink your piss because I said it on a podcast. That's what I would put on my billboard. Okay, here we go. What are two things still on your bucket list? God, you know, part of me, we've had enough whiskey. I just want to mention all these ridiculous sexual fantasies, but we're not going to get there. We need just you and me and our few million of my best friends listening. Let's see.

Starting point is 01:20:02 Two on the bucket list. I'm not going to count the kid because that's, friends listening. Let's see. Two on the bucket list. I'm not going to count the kid because that's, we've already discussed it, so I'm going to put that out of bounds. I might need some time to think about that, which is actually disturbing to me that I need time to think about it.

Starting point is 01:20:17 Does anything immediately come to mind for you? Yeah, you know what once comes to mind? What's that? That could be a fun trip for us to do, actually, is the Aurora Borealis. So, actually, this comes full circle. You will like this. And I think I've told you this,

Starting point is 01:20:32 but, man, I'm sorry that it was, of course, catalyzed by the passing of your father, but you recommend the tail end to me. And I'm with you during this, I mean, not with you, but we're in contact during this entire process. I read the tail end. I go, holy fucking shit. And by the way, everybody just look up the tail end, Tim Urban and read it, do yourself a favor. And so I made a commitment to take my family on a trip

Starting point is 01:20:57 once a year. And we haven't done in the last two years, but the, I think it was the first trip. My mom had always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis. I took my whole family to Iceland and went to the middle of nowhere in the middle of winter. It's dark all the time. So it's the opposite of what we're experiencing right now. And we had the best luck ever. And we just saw the most incredible displays of the Aurora Borealis. And I have to say,

Starting point is 01:21:27 much like what we experienced this morning, you cannot currently capture it at all on video or camera. It just, it doesn't bear any resemblance to the feeling and the experience of doing it in person. So I would definitely do that again. I was actually looking for it this morning because while the totality is happening, you can actually see stars when the sun's totally covered by the moon. And there's a different word for the Southern Borealis, I think, or Southern Aurora. But yeah, there's a chance we could have seen it. I wonder what that's called, the Aurora Borealis, the Austral Borealis. I'm making up words now. We don't have the internet. We don't have the internet. We're hobbled. Does that be one thing on the bucket list that reminds you of anything on your

Starting point is 01:22:13 bucket list? There's so many things I would like to do. I would really like to, for instance, this isn't a discreet item on a bucket list list but get back into scuba diving like so yeah scuba diving is one of my great loves i haven't done it in so long and it is really truly if you get to the point where you're reasonably comfortable and you can do wall dives and really kind of hover using your buoyancy what's a wall dive? Or like a cliff dive. So where you, let's say you're swimming over coral that's, I'm just making this up, 30 feet below the surface. Colors are still really vibrant at that depth.

Starting point is 01:22:56 And then there's just a cliff. And you drop off of this cliff. And you just go down this wall. So you're looking at, let's just call it a coral reef, but it's vertical instead of horizontal. And you look down and it's just into the abyss. And so you swim along a wall and you can drop down,

Starting point is 01:23:15 go up and down, looking at everything there is to see. And I often use scuba diving, and it doesn't work for everyone, of course, but as a metaphor for psychedelic experiences because in the beginning like the first time you dive

Starting point is 01:23:34 the first one, two or three times you dive you're just getting used to the equipment you don't know necessarily reflexively how to grab your like octopus or if you lose your respirator how to deal with that you're constantly checking your like octopus or if you lose your respirator how to deal with that you're constantly checking your gauge you're screwing with your bcd i think it's bcd buoyancy control device yeah bcd where you're over inflating your vest and letting the air out

Starting point is 01:23:55 so you really don't have much control and you're discombobulated but you you might only notice a really large fish or a turtle or a shark or seeing your peripheral vision, a school of fish, but you're really not seeing very much. And then as you get more comfortable, you see more and more, you notice more and more. And then you get to a point where, let's just say on a wall dive, it doesn't have to be a wall dive, but where you can control your buoyancy. You're just less at risk of smashing stuff with your feet, obviously, because you're looking down and it might be hundreds or thousands of feet. And you can just hover and look at like a square meter, right?

Starting point is 01:24:38 Like three by three feet. And it is an entire universe of life and activity. And you could spend an hour just looking at that tiny patch. That wonder, this is something I thought about this morning. I was like, I think it's really hard to go wrong if you chase, chase might be too strong a word, but like pursue wonder and awe. You can probably overdo it and dull your senses and your appreciation of that. But I think there's a wonder deficiency

Starting point is 01:25:12 in most lives. Not that you should have it three times a week. What's the line about a universe and a grain of sand or something? Yeah. And so I think part of that is what is there to wonder that's all around us all the time yeah in your backyard on a tree and like yeah it's one of those things that we sometimes get reminded of yeah and i always it always feels like the most obvious trait thing but also the most profound and meaningful and the the scuba diving for me reinvigorates my powers of fixed attention, like my attention to detail.

Starting point is 01:25:51 So when I, and I haven't gone scuba diving in quite a long time, but when you're underwater and you're really noticing all the details, if you try to maintain that as you come out of the water, you still notice more. There's a transfer. I just love that floating. So for me, the buoyancy. I actually got certified with another one of your guests, Adam Ghazali.

Starting point is 01:26:13 Oh, really? And Adam, at point one, if you breathe in, you float up a little bit. Neuroscience, six-pack, PhD. You disgust me, Adam. And a new father. I know. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful fellow. I'm just jealous of his P-bar workouts.

Starting point is 01:26:27 And incredible, really engaged dad too. It's been so fun to see how much he's gotten out of that and given, obviously. But it's, anyway, not to interrupt. So you got certified with Adam. Yeah. When you breathe in and you float up a little bit and you breathe out and you go down a little bit,

Starting point is 01:26:42 when you can kind of control your buoyancy with like the air in your lungs that's so meditative yeah and i've actually like gone to that space sometimes while meditating or sometimes in dreams and i really really appreciate it but it also reminds me like i wish we had like elon musk of the ocean like some like crazy awesome billionaire who was like exploring the ocean as much as bezos and musk are going to space yeah you know who's i mean the ocean as much as Bezos and Musk are going to space. Yeah. You know, who's, I mean, the first name that comes to mind, controversial guy, but he's really good at getting shit done. It's James Cameron.

Starting point is 01:27:14 I was going to say, but that's, that's all we got. That's, that's what we need. We need two billionaires fighting and competing. And then that will, we'll finally map the oceans and understand things. Yeah. I wonder who else is out there. There's got to be somebody else out there. Well, we'll do some recon and put it in the show notes. Hopefully one of your listeners can, two of your listeners can start competing for conquering the ocean.

Starting point is 01:27:32 I know there are a few of you billionaires out there listening to this right now. So please take a look at our oceans. I would like to spend more time with, especially after doing work with the Amazon conservation team, which you've also contributed to, co-founded by Mark Plotkin, famous ethnobotanist, one of the protégés of Richard Evans Schultes out of Harvard. I would like to spend some more time, because I have spent some, but I would like to spend much more time with some of the indigenous groups, in this case in South America.

Starting point is 01:28:08 It wouldn't have to be in South America because I have access before those ways die out. And I think it's somewhat, and again, this is maybe where you and I differ, but I think it's kind of inevitable. Like I do think the march of so-called progress and the introduction of Western goods and consumerism and so on,

Starting point is 01:28:29 once you have sat phones and Wi-Fi and big screen TVs and so on, there's a tremendous amount of erosion that takes place. And I'm not implying or saying that I idolize the old ways. I mean, there's a lot of writing around the, you know, it's like the so-called noble savage

Starting point is 01:28:50 and like, oh, if we could all just revert to like living in communities of 50 with the bare essentials, like everything would be wonderful. And I don't agree with that. I don't think that's true, but there is a lot of medical knowledge and also knowledge of

Starting point is 01:29:06 how to treat the whole person instead of just suppress symptoms especially not not despite but especially including what we would consider placebo effect it's like harnessing the power of ritual and myth. The power of the mind. And narrative belief. Exactly. To basically co-opt the power of the patient to help them heal themselves is dramatically underexplored by Western scientists in those communities. Not to say that would be my job because I'm not a Western scientist. I'm not a scientist, but certainly on my bucket list would be spending time with some of those communities. Not to say that would be my job because I'm not a Western scientist, I'm not a scientist, but certainly on my bucket list would be spending time with some of those groups. Because I do think, and this gets into some pretty strange territory, but there are other ways of knowing. Tell me more. Well, you're going to give me a hard time. I'm going to turn it around. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to let you get away with that yeah yeah there are i do think there are other ways of knowing outside of things that are easy to

Starting point is 01:30:11 put into a cube of a laboratory and test with you know placebo controlled randomized I think it's easy to become dogmatic with scientism, with like a capital S, in the same way that it is easy to become dogmatic with religion without truly having even a basic literacy or understanding of what we're talking about when one discusses science, which is a scientific method, a structured way of testing a hypothesis. That's all it is. It's a journey, not an endpoint. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 01:30:52 So for instance, I mean, the scientific method itself is not good at generating hypotheses. It's good at testing hypotheses. And it's a framework for doing our best not to fool ourselves, in a sense. But there are then observable phenomena. I'm just fingering this pile of ginger chews here. I might have a ginger chew. This is going to be terrible for audio. So don't take this as an indication of podcasting professionalism,

Starting point is 01:31:19 but I am going to have a ginger chew because I love ginger. I'll have this after I ask my next question instead of while I'm talking. But there is a book, I think it is actually called Another Way of Knowing, that just discusses, it's a discussion, it's basically an anthropological exploration of a handful of tribes, I believe in Malaysia, so certainly not in South America in this instance,

Starting point is 01:31:47 and phenomena that were repeatedly observed that seem to be very odd. For instance, when this particular anthropologist would head towards this village to visit, and he would be going by boat and then trail and so on and so forth, that there would always be someone waiting at a trailhead to meet him as if they were expecting him, but they had no prior notification that he was on his way. So what's happening here, right? Is it repeated coincidence? Sure, it could be, right?

Starting point is 01:32:27 And like the self-avowed hyper-rationalists would be like, well, come on now, right? And that would be the default. But I think it's perhaps helpful to ask, like, what might other possibilities be, right? Like, let's generate a bunch of different hypotheses before we edit like what are a bunch of other i don't even want to say plausible they could be outrageous but like what are some other hypotheses theories for how this might happen

Starting point is 01:32:56 and in these tight-knit groups let's just call them tribes for simplicity you see a lot of these behaviors that mimic some phenomena you see in the natural world without a species so if you read say of wolves and men by barry lopez he talks about wolves being tracked like by scientists that head off in a specific direction traveling in a straight line and they intersect with a herd of caribou that started like 300 miles away and they perfectly intersect at a given point where they're known to hunt. And it's like, okay.

Starting point is 01:33:36 That's cool. What's happening? Like, is it coincidence? Maybe. Sure, you can't rule that out. It could be. And I think about, as I say this, I have some trepidation in saying it because there are people listening who'll be like, oh my God, that's so ridiculous. Or they might even say that provides perfect explanatory power. But as I was thinking about this morning, if you have, say, an eclipse, I was just thinking about

Starting point is 01:34:12 thousands of years before this morning, eclipses were still happening. Humanoids have been around for a long time, right? If the crossing of the Bering Strait supposedly was whatever it was, 20, 30, 40,000 years ago, I don't really know. You know, humanoids, even just in North and South American continents, have been around for a long time and prior to that, even longer. So they've been looking up and seeing these things. How would they have explained them thousands and thousands of years ago? Certainly not the way that we explain them today. Nonetheless, the eclipses were happening. It was kind of cool. We saw a little presentation from one of the people here on different cultures.

Starting point is 01:34:49 And, you know, I think in China, it was a dragon eating the sun. In Vietnam, it was a frog. There was like different sort of myths and like every culture had a version of it, which was pretty cool. And I'll give another example. But how's that connected?

Starting point is 01:35:05 No, I'm going to connect it. So what I mean is, I think you can observe and record phenomena, and even in the absence of perfect explanatory power, some theory that holds up to modern scrutiny, just the fact that someone can't explain how something works doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's what I'm trying to say. So for instance, while we were in lockdown during COVID,

Starting point is 01:35:29 there was this video that went kind of viral of a coyote and a badger going out on a hunt together. And the coyote would trail out in front, because it wasn't trailing, it was leading in front, and then stop and wag its tail and looked like a dog playing with another dog and then pull the badger along and that from a naturalist or field biological perspective at least according to some people shouldn't happen right like that that was always a myth and in some of the the native northern native american traditions they talked about the coyote and badger hunting together is talked about right but it was considered a myth and then boom now you have some video footage and it's like ah look at that okay so i do think that just because

Starting point is 01:36:16 cultures have superstitions and beliefs that are not founded on hard evidence and let's not fool ourselves we we still have a lot of that. Even the most technologically advanced among us have plenty of those. It's somehow a phenomenon can't exist. If you don't have perfect explanatory power. This is kind of ridiculous. If you study the history of scientific discovery,

Starting point is 01:36:39 you observe a lot of things far before you can explain them. Radio waves, germs. Yeah, radio waves, germs. There's so many invisible things happening all around us all the time yeah we look back like 20 years from whatever point in time or let's say 50 years just to make it a little easier 50 years before whatever point in time the discussion is taking place is like the dark ages right like oh my god i can't believe we didn't know this oh my god look how ridiculous that is in hindsight sort of neglecting

Starting point is 01:37:05 all the while the fact that of course if we were to be looking back at today 50 years from now as some doctors say like half of what we know is wrong we just don't know which half yeah that's why i think it's so important to make space for people to update their views i think it's so silly when we like get mad at someone something said said 30 years ago. It's like, yeah. You're waffling. No, when I get new information, I change my mind. What do you do? Yeah. And I'm sure there's things on your early podcast, maybe our last podcast, that I no longer agree with that one of us said. And that's beautiful. In programming, we talk about if you're not embarrassed by your old code, you're not learning. You should feel bad when you look at your old

Starting point is 01:37:45 code. If you think it's better than you can do now or great, that means you haven't grown as a developer. So I think it's really important to always be evolving in that way. But what you brought up does make me think about how much communication is happening all around us all the time that we don't understand. Whether that's bird calls or what we heard with the penguins, how they're able to connect with each other and identify each other. I just saw the documentary Fantastic Fungi. Yeah, yeah, great film.

Starting point is 01:38:12 Paul Stamets. Yeah, super fun. Yeah, Louis Schwartzberg. Yeah, and the mycelium networks. There's so much communication that's happening all around us. And that's another thing that I think is so interesting to explore.

Starting point is 01:38:24 How are we ever going to understand aliens if we can't understand dogs? Although I heard there's a startup around this that's trying to do machine learning around dog barks.

Starting point is 01:38:33 Oh God, machine learning. Is it machine learning or deep learning? Yeah. There are all these terms. Slap it on. When I was AI, you can raise more money.

Starting point is 01:38:41 Yeah, AI. Although, you know, hey, if someone can help me... I'll send my second bucket list and then we'll do it. Want to do another question? Better communicate with Molly. I'm into it.

Starting point is 01:38:49 So what else would be on my bucket list? You know, it's such a simple thing. I want to get another dog. Oh. Yeah, to accompany Molly and also to have some overlap so that I... I think if Molly passes away,

Starting point is 01:39:03 it'll be very hard for me to get another dog. Would you clone Molly? No. You want to share anything about cloning? I might know something about cloning. You can clone cats, dogs, and horses now in America. Well, let's get more specific.

Starting point is 01:39:20 I think the company is called Viagen. And yeah, you can pay and they take a skin sample from the living animal. And they make an embryo from it and embed it in a surrogate. Do you know anything about this? No comment. No comment. All right, well, I'll let the audience draw from that what they may. I would not clone

Starting point is 01:39:45 Molly. I think the uncanny valley, I don't think I would do that for myself. No, I wouldn't try to do like Molly 2.0. I think I'd feel very ethically conflicted about that. It's like emotionally conflicted too. So I don't think I would do that. But I would get a mini-me to play with Molly, who then carries on the torch. I would definitely do that. It was at the... I was party to this, but the person who wanted to do the cloning,

Starting point is 01:40:18 I was very, very surprised. You were surprised? I was incredibly surprised that this person wanted to do it why were you surprised religious backgrounds she's catholic are catholics against cloning you know i don't know for sure but it seems like it should be on that list i don't know um i guess if it's skin it's okay huh yeah and um i was surprised but it's been, I now have met this clone, the first of the clones. It's like a congressional hearing. I love your wording.

Starting point is 01:40:54 I've met said clone, Mr. Sender. A beautiful thing about it is that the previous dog who's passed had had some, was a rescue and had had like a difficult early life. And so even though i knew this dog for you know 15 years she would always be pretty skittish with me or any men in the room which is just so heartbreaking to think like what happened to her when she was younger and this new dog with the same genetic material the genetic twin is so excited to see me it's like a six sigma excitement event and when i when i return

Starting point is 01:41:26 uh when i walk through the door and it's uh kind of amazing so yeah but but completely different so i would say that it's not it's just like a twin a genetic twin coloring will be different personality is totally different i think really shows you nature versus nurture as well oh that's for sure which i think for dogs can be huge, although you know way more about dogs than I do. I've spent so much time training Molly. And another reason I would like to have another dog is that she'll help train the other dog.

Starting point is 01:41:53 Yeah, they'll pass on good and bad behavior, right? Yeah. She doesn't have too many bad behaviors. She has a few, but not too many. And for people who want to look at the communication side, you can google i think there's a radio lab episode on the the wood wide web as they call it which talks about inter i think it's inter i always mix up inter and intra but inter tree communication oh yeah and trees will

Starting point is 01:42:20 privilege ones that are they're closely related to their progeny yeah yeah and as they're going to die they'll basically like drop their progeny yeah yeah and as they're going to die they'll basically like drop their resources into the root system and distribute to direct descendants and pretty cool it's so wild and the reciprocal relationship with the fungal networks is just just incredible so you can look at that. Let's not forget also, it wasn't that long ago. I don't know the exact dates, but I think it's within the last hundred years that doctors or surgeons would operate on infants without anesthesia.

Starting point is 01:42:55 Wow. It's not that long ago. I might be getting it slightly off, but our assumptions about consciousness and communication and perception have been so consistently off that i think it's fair to assume that we're still pretty off a lot to learn yeah i think my second buck i mean honestly this trip has been a bucket list i know the emperor penguins hope we were going to hopefully see the totality over them but it was too cloudy so that's why we came to this union glacier camp seeing the totality and so, but it was too cloudy. So that's why we came to this Union Glacier camp, seeing the totality.

Starting point is 01:43:26 And so I'll put a travel thing as the second one, which is I'd love to go to Egypt with my sister. Why Egypt? She wants to go. And I think it'd be pretty incredible. Here's a bucket list for me. It's taking a bunch of my closest friends to Japan. After a huge snowcat in the background. Is it showing up on the levels?

Starting point is 01:43:47 It's showing up on the levels. So that, it would be the Tucker 5, which the staff used to refer to because it was the largest Tucker snowcat that had ever been custom built. And they would refer to it as the, on radio, they would refer to it as the Mother Tucker. But then that got, that was not PC apparently,

Starting point is 01:44:06 so it got vetoed at some point. Now it's the Tucker Five. How boring. I prefer the Mother Tucker. That might be part of this podcast episode title as well. Which is funny because you always make fun of me for not cursing. I do. I do.

Starting point is 01:44:21 Yeah, Matt does not curse. Why don't you curse? Don't give me that I have so many vices I need to get rid of one. Nonsense. You always use that. You know, we don't have the internet, so I can't remember, but I think the English language has more words than any other language. It has a lot of words.

Starting point is 01:44:37 And I just love finding that really great word to match things. Except for curse words. Except for curse words. Why not? And it's funny. Is that a religious thing? I actually, I had a,

Starting point is 01:44:50 one of the first WordPress blogs, actually, was a private blog myself and four friends had at a high school. And I was looking back

Starting point is 01:44:59 at an entry from like 99 or something and it had a curse word in it. From you? From me. Ooh, what curse word? I don't remember which one. Oh, it's such,

Starting point is 01:45:06 nor could I say it if I did. It's such horseshit. Horseshit. But I was so shocked because, I was hoping that would get you there. I think I'd forgotten when I stopped. But I think it was influenced by reading someone or something around,

Starting point is 01:45:19 just expressing of the English language, finding the right word for things. And other ways, I don't exclaim much. You don't have a very ejaculatory style to your speaking? What do you mean you don't exclaim much? What does that even mean? Gosh darn it. Ooh, those fighting words.

Starting point is 01:45:41 Yeah, I don't exclaim much. We have someone else on the trip who exclaims a lot not me like an exclamation would be like if I stub my toe or something

Starting point is 01:45:51 like I'm not gonna so what do you say when you stub your toe you just bite your you just grit like bite your tongue I probably just make a noise like a yelp

Starting point is 01:45:58 so if someone like cuts you off in traffic I guess I mean you may be so zen that you just don't get annoyed but if you get annoyed do you say anything

Starting point is 01:46:08 I like to tell myself that they are doing something urgent or have something in their life that like you know

Starting point is 01:46:18 they really need to get that spot when does when does Matt get upset what are some Matt triggers ah Matt triggers besides people spelling wordpress with lyric SP you know where I'm not zen at all is I get upset? What are some Matt triggers? Ah, Matt triggers. Besides people spelling WordPress with lowercase P.

Starting point is 01:46:27 You know where I'm not in at all is I get upset on behalf of others. Oh, yeah. I've seen this. You've seen it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so I'm more likely to be probably to a fault, like overly protective sometimes. A person themselves might not be mad,

Starting point is 01:46:41 but I'll get mad on their behalf. Injustice really bugs me. So what's your response then? So most people are like, God fucking damn it. Most people would curse to let some steam out. What do you do? Get even. Ha!

Starting point is 01:46:58 Oh, this soft-spoken weapon of incredible menace. You got to be careful with the Mullenweg or the Mullenberg, as one of the staff here referred to him as when we did our drone test earlier. It's better than mulletweg, which I used to get in school. You're welcome. Mulletweg or Adam Ghazali calls you mully legs. Mully legs, yeah. It's another good one.

Starting point is 01:47:22 Sometimes I get mullen web, which I actually kind of like. Oh, that's good. Get some web in there mull and web i like that okay we'll come back to the get even part another time uh let's see this is just the one that i pulled out say we do maybe one more because my bladder is about to explode but my fucking pee bottle is full so i got nowhere to put it well i guess i could try to pee pee into the scotch whiskey bottle that we've now... Sorry, Glenmorangie. I know, my God, that's like the worst yank pronunciation of that ever. But if I have to pee in your bottle, I apologize in advance.

Starting point is 01:47:57 Do intentions matter more or less than actions? Hmm. Yeah, what's the legal word for this? Means ray or something? Oh, i don't know yes i think they do intentions matter more oh all right tell me more matt mullenweb do intentions matter more what i like about intentions is the intentionality it's a choosing. It's the deliberateness of a decision to do something. And I think that's super important for us to do. Maybe that sounded a little abstract.

Starting point is 01:48:34 What you choose to do, I think, is more important than what necessarily happens along the way. What you have less control over. You have complete control over your choice. So I'm going to say intentions matter more than actions. But I'm defining actions in a certain way. How are you defining actions? Things that happen. What the fuck are we talking about?

Starting point is 01:48:56 Okay. Actions are things that happen. Yeah. So, for example, you intend to give me a present, but your action on the way is you stumble and step on my foot. Your intention to me matters more than the fact you stepped on my foot and broke a toe. So let's say there's someone who decides I want to give back and do the right thing, but they have no money, no resources, no network, no leverage. And then there's, so they have this pure intention, but they don't end up being effective in impact, let's just say. And I know that's kind of a broad statement.

Starting point is 01:49:34 And then there's some person who just cold-blooded capitalist killer, who takes no prisoners, racks up incredible wealth, and then says, I'm going to give to a bunch of charities because that's the right social move. I'm getting all these boards, create really good optics, have a conversation at these dinner parties, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it's not coming from virtuous intention per se, but has an outsized impact just because of the sheer

Starting point is 01:50:06 resources behind it. I'll take it. You'll take it. You'll take the second one. I think doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still the right thing, which I guess takes us more to actions than intention. What's your answer to that one? I think actions count more.

Starting point is 01:50:22 Yeah, so it's the right thing for the wrong reason would still be the right thing and that matters more yeah yeah for me which isn't to say i would like people to do the right thing for the wrong reason but you know i was chatting with uh i can't remember who it was i was chatting with but they were saying might have been when i got i got a tour of bethlehem from an arab Christian, which is definitely a minority. And I don't know if it was him, it might have been someone else who was saying, you know, Jews

Starting point is 01:50:51 and Muslims should really get along on some level because they care more about actions than they do what's in your heart, what you believe. Whereas Christians care about what you believe. You can do all these atrocious things, but then truly believe and repent and be saved. And I thought about how much

Starting point is 01:51:14 all of that has likely shaped cultures and empires and civilizations, right? Just that different lens on things. If it's like, we don't care what you believe. It's all about what you do. Like follow these rituals, do these things. Don't eat this thing on this date. A, B, C, D, E. Versus like the belief slash maybe intention is what matters. Even if you fuck up and make these terrible mistakes,

Starting point is 01:51:40 that's okay. Of course, I'm going to offend like pretty much everybody on the planet by what I just said. I think you missed a few. I am dramatically oversimplifying and sorry if I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. But I do think this question

Starting point is 01:51:56 though that I threw out from this deck of cards is an interesting one. Intention versus action. I'm glad that we disagreed on it too. I find the points where we disagree to be interesting things to mine. All right. Last question, because my bladder is about to explode.

Starting point is 01:52:11 And the neck of this scotch whiskey bottle is way too narrow for any attempt at reasonable accuracy. Tim is sharing again. It's not a claim to any like you know who are we kidding we're in Antarctica but somebody with us was like let's say

Starting point is 01:52:35 let's all take a naked shot together and we're like no no not the most flattering shot we could do right now what are you grateful for right now give you an easy answer and a harder answer Not the most flattering shot we could do right now. What are you grateful for right now? Hmm. I'll give you an easy answer and a harder answer. I mean, I'm so grateful for the time we spent together.

Starting point is 01:52:52 Yeah, me too. Me too. The bigger and hard answer, I would say, is I'm so astounded at the creation and rollout of the vaccines and like it gives me hope for maybe humanity solving other big problems if we can all kind of focus on the same thing at the same time and uh yeah so everyone who worked on covid i'm really grateful for i'm also really grateful for the time that we've been able to spend on this trip. It's been a while since we've done one of these. We've been disconnected, which has been twitchy for me.

Starting point is 01:53:33 I tried to download and scroll half the internet before we went offline. Through Wikipedia. Let me just read about it. U.S. Postal Service. Let me read this entry. I am grateful for this trip. It's been a great trip. I've had a lot of people ask me why I came to

Starting point is 01:53:50 Antarctica. Like, why am I interested in Antarctica? And I am interested in Antarctica, but the main reason is just to spend time with you. We've had so many great trips before. And now this one, adding it to the list. So super grateful for that. Super grateful for my girlfriend, honestly.

Starting point is 01:54:05 She's incredible, puts up with a lot of nonsense. I don't think I'm the hardest person to be with, but I certainly don't think I'm the easiest person to be with. And she's just been such a wonderful compliment. And I think we are so different, yet our values are so similar that it allows us to really stretch in ways that...

Starting point is 01:54:35 It's a good thing to look for in a partner, I would say. It's like where you are different in many ways, but then exactly the same on a few key values, goals, fighting style, communication. Yes. She is the cleanest fighter. I would say the cleanest fighter I've ever been with. Good influence on you too. I would say that. Yeah, I would say so. Hopefully she would say the same about me. I think so. And so I'm very, very grateful for that. And I'm grateful for having the bladder capacity of a camel. So, I don't even know what

Starting point is 01:55:10 time it is. God, what time is it? It's probably like 10 or 11 or God knows. It is now almost 11. Probably a good time for the camp. It is 11pm and it is bright as high noon as we speak. Also, thank you. We both shared a lot of personal stuff on this one. Thanks for that vulnerability. Yeah, thank you. We both shared a lot of personal stuff on this one.

Starting point is 01:55:25 Thanks for that vulnerability. Yeah, thank you too, man. Really great to do this. Let's not wait another five years. Alrighty. Love you, bud. To everybody who is listening, you can find links to

Starting point is 01:55:41 anything we've talked about, books and so on. I don't know what else. We'll find a bunch of random links and put them in the show notes for you to peruse at tim.blog. Thanks for that also. Recommendation from Mr. Mullenweb. tim.blog slash podcast. And until next time, be just ever so slightly kinder than you think necessary. And that includes to yourself.

Starting point is 01:56:05 And thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 01:56:26 Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests.

Starting point is 01:56:51 And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash Friday. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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The Tim Ferriss Show - #578: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim’s Best Penguin Impressions

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