TrueLife - Dr. David Salomon - Gluttony

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

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Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearist through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the True Life podcast. We are here once again with the incredible Dr. David Solomon. We're talking about his masterpiece. I think it's a masterpiece. and I was just speaking with him and telling him the more that I read, the more I enjoy it.

The book is called Seven Deadly Sin. It's available on Amazon. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to get into gluttony today. And without any further ado, let me just bring in the good doctor and ask him. Maybe he can start off with a quote about glutton. Well, I mean, the quote that I use as the epigraph of the chapter comes from a Hindu text. when eating do not gobble noisely or stuff and cram your gaping mouth, express yourself with modesty for acting otherwise as impolite excess.

That is a, it's interesting because in today's world, people that consume so much media, which I'm sure we'll get into later, we tend to think of gluttony, the way it's portrayed as someone that's obese or that has a problem with that. However, I think it's, when I read this chapter, I realized that it's a lot more than that. What do you think is a good place to start on this? I think the best place is the idea that really gluttony isn't just about overeating. It is more, I think, in a modern context as a sin at least, more in line with almost an idolization of appetite. And that can present itself in overeating, but it can also present itself in things like,

eating disorders where there's a body dysmorphia and and and you know not eating enough. So it really is kind of any situation in which appetite is put at the forefront of one's self. Yeah. It really struck me in the beginning when you started this chapter, you gave two comparing and contrasting ideas, one about an academic conference and then one about you sitting down with a student and talking. Would you mind sharing those stories? Sure. Yeah. The first is a conference that I was at as academics. We go to conferences and I decided I was going to buy the full buffet breakfast at the hotel, which is, if I remember correctly, was $16. And I sat down with my yogurt and my fruit and probably a bagel because I'm a good Jewish New Yorker.

and my New York Times crossword. And a man walked up and I heard him say to the server, I don't like anything in my eggs. And okay. And I looked up and he was about six foot tall, but he probably weighed in excess of 400 pounds. He ended up going through the buffet line, loaded up, I think two or three plates,

brought them back and sat down. and he ended up sitting almost directly opposite me on the other side of the dining room, so he was in my line of vision. And as he sat there, the first thing he did was pulled out a wadded up tissue from his pocket and spilled out this array of pills onto the table that he was going to take. I don't know if there were vitamins. I don't know if it was diabetes medication. I don't know what it was for.

but I sat there just wondering about this man and it really brought me to think about whether or not the condition of what we would usually refer to as gluttony, is that a conscious choice or are there issues that come into play? So is someone who is characterized as gluttonous always intentionally overeating? Or are there, and could there be psychological issues at play, pathological factors at play, and the like. Not too long after that, I was on campus, and I was eating in the dining hall. I was going to have lunch in the dining hall, which I try to do on occasion to eat with the students.

And one of my students, who is one of the happiest people I've ever met, walked by and said hello to me and I watched as she went up to the salad bar and I was curious as what she was going to come back with because she was a very very thin young woman and sure enough she walked past me and and nodded and on her plate I think she had a couple of cucumber pieces an olive and maybe a celery stick or something and it turned out in fact that not that long after that she did confide in me that she had had an eating disorder and was was dealing with it had pretty much struggled with it our whole life and that student who i'm still in touch with today is has become very successful and is doing fine but but it's still uh you know an eating disorder is

the equivalent of an addiction uh you don't really uh get past it you learn how to live with it and and i think that's true as well for someone who overeats. I know I'm guilty of that at times. I've struggled with my weight since I was 10 years old. And overeating is one of the things that has always sort of really derailed any kind of diet that I'm looking at. I can remember years ago I had gone on one of those low-carb diets because carbs are my thing. If I could eat only bread, I'd survive on bread and it would be fine. You know, the supposed punishment if we're going to put you on bread and water, hey, bring it on.

I'm happy. That's not a punishment for me. But I went on this low-carb diet, and it was going well. It was incredibly difficult initially. And I remember my wife went to work, and man, I wanted a cookie. And so I remember I got into the car and I drove out to a convenience store outside. of our apartment complex was and I bought a 25 cent package of Drake's cookies and I sat in the car eating them like a heroin addict shooting up. I mean, it was just, it was heaven. And so,

you know, a lot of what I deal with in this chapter is about our sort of uncomfortable relationship with food. Yeah, it's interesting. That's the first time I saw it in that light. I was speaking with my wife this morning. And I had never thought to equate that with addiction or with maybe somebody that has anorexia or bulimia. It's, I myself have been a victim of the images or the definitions that people want me to think about. And that would be the gluttonous approach as far as it being heavy and stuff like that. Yeah.

And, you know, then there's always this guy, George, at the holiday party, it's putting away cakes. And why is it always Uncle George putting away the cakes, you know? I know my cousin used to drive me crazy because he's always been thin. and in very good shape and he eats anything he wants. It always drove me nuts because I can't do that. And so there is something about individual metabolism and individual biology, which has to be a factor here.

But by and large, you know, if someone is going to look at that gentleman who I was in the dining hall with, who was, you know, the 600-pound man eating three plates of food, they're going to probably look down their nose at him. say, oh, he's overeating, you know, as if it's his choice when it may not necessarily be entirely into his control. Yeah, and that brings up an interesting point. If indeed it is some sort of personality effect, you know, I don't know how to ascribe fault to that, but you can see it move not only in food or eating, but throughout all kinds of behaviors, you know, if it's It's, I believe maybe you defined it too as excess, you know, in today's world.

However, there's an interesting definition that was given to it in the Middle Ages about the king of the belly or something like that. Could you share that part with us? Yeah, well, this idea that you're ruled by your stomach. And it's a dangerous thing. You know, it's interesting because over our history as a species, our days have changed. our time, our clock has changed. And what I mean by that is, you know, I remember growing up, I mean, and you probably too, George, you know, thinking there was breakfast, there was lunch, and there was dinner.

But sometimes we call that supper. And actually, there are two different things. Because supper is a late night meal. And it used to be before the age of electricity, really, before the 20th century. century that folks would usually go to sleep and would actually wake up around midnight or 1 a.m. And have a little snack. And that was supper. Now, part of the reason for that waking up was the nourishment. Part of it was also a defense mechanism to wake up to make sure everything was safe. Different world, right? And so, you know, today now we do breakfast, lunch, dinner,

Some people still do supper. Some people call dinner supper. Some people call lunch dinner, for that matter. But I think that our eating habits are much more all over the board today. And, you know, that's been really exacerbated by the incredible availability of things like fast food and processed food, which has not done us anything. favors. It has not done us any favors, but you can see exactly what's going on with it. I mean, you know, in the chapter, I talk about what happened after World War II with the baby boom generation. And the fact that my parents who, I suppose they would be considered, they would have been

considered baby boomers, probably early ones, my father was in the service right at the end of World War II. and they got married in 61. And for them, processed food, which was all the rage at the time, was a reflection of affluence, of success. And so, you know, one of the fundamental examples of that is breastfeeding. When formula was introduced in the 1960s, it was introduced with the idea that, you know, well, I can afford to feed my child formula. I don't have to breastfeed like my grandmother did in those primitive days. And it was the same thing with something like buying bread, right?

I mean, people didn't make bread anymore. That's the way my grandmother did it, you know, because they didn't know any other way. Now I can buy a loaf of processed white bread. And it's just, it's easy. And what we found out eventually, of course, is that that processed food, is not necessarily nutrient rich for us. You know, I have a friend who's a nutritionist, and we always talked about this because nutritionists themselves debate about this,

right, about whether or not you should eat food that is considered, you know, a whole food versus a food which has been processed and then had the nutrients reintroduced, right? You know, you see these white breads on the shelf and it's enriched. It's like, well, why did it have to be in? enriched was because they took everything out of it to begin with to make it white because it looks pure and it's a lot of its optics yeah it's it's it's interesting to think about the etymology of words and how if you just look back a few generations ago and listen to the words people use you can get an idea of how they live like when i think of breakfast it's like break fast yeah yeah and then

there was the old quote of it's the best thing since sliced bread You know, like that's probably when they went from making their own bread to, hey, look, it's already sliced. I can make stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating to think about the moving forward into affluence and different countries. You wrote in your book and you just spoke briefly about sometimes being a little heavier set can denote affluence. And I think that that's the case in some third world countries. You give an example of going to different places.

and maybe seeing different cultures. Can you give an example of that? Yeah, I mean, my favorite is, and I think I actually, yeah, I do still have the picture hanging up here on my wall. It was the first time we visited the United Kingdom, and we were walking down a little small street in Wales, and I was so struck by the sign that I took a picture of it. It was for a buffet restaurant,

and instead of the sign saying, as it would in the U.S., all you can eat, which implies just eat until you explode. it says, eat as much as you like. And it's a very subtle difference there, right? I mean, the one is encouraging you to overeat. The other is eat as much as you'd like, right? It's, you know, and so buffets are one of the, you know, I mean, if anything is destroyed diets,

it's the buffet in the combination with the fast food restaurants, which just seemed to just completely dot the landscape. I mean, it's just crazy that you can't really drive in most areas more than a couple of miles without passing one or more of the fast food restaurants. Yeah, it's amazing how advertisement has just tapped right into some of these sins, just mainlined it right into the veins. It has. And kids are indoctrinated early. I remember there was a study done by psychologists maybe a decade ago. and they gave kids carrots, carrot sticks to eat. And they wanted to see whether packaging made a difference. And so to one set of kids, they gave carrot sticks just on a plate.

And they were kind of blah about that, not really, very interested. And to another, they gave carrot sticks in a McDonald's French fry box. And they scarfed them down. And, I mean, you know, you can ask any, any, little kid, you know, about corporate logos. And they recognize those golden arches, don't they? Um, because it, as you say, I mean, it's kind of, we're just indoctrinated. It's part of our blood in the U.S. to, to know those corporate logos, specifically when it comes to things related to food and fast food. Yeah, that's a great point.

One day we should do something strictly on symbology and how powerful symbols, are like oh yeah yeah it's like McDonald's is the new mystery school with all their symbols and yeah it's crazy to think about and and and that whole the the the the logo business right i mean it is a business right it is so much so that you know in recent times now people even talk about branding themselves right what's your brand right and and and you have a brand and what goes along with that usually is some sort of a of a symbol logo right that symbolizes you yeah that can be interesting We're going to talk more about that. I really like that idea.

I remember on a side note going to Mexico for the first time. I used to live down there for a while. And some of the younger kids, like they were pretty heavy. And you could see the beaming, you know, in their mom's eyes. You could see like, hey, my kid is bigger, you know. And that was just also that sign of influence. Well, we were told as kids, clean your plate. Yep, yep.

You know, I mean, you know, the politically incorrect clean your plate, they're kids starving in Africa. Yeah, that's so true. I heard it all the time. You know, and I mean, it was always a sign of affluence that you could, you had that much food to eat and you don't want to waste it. And I think what happened was as American plates literally got larger, and American refrigerators got larger,

we really bought into the idea that we still need to clean the plate, which is, you know, one of the tricks, of course, for a lot of diets is to put your food on smaller plates. right, smaller portions. But if you go out to a restaurant and they bring you one of these 15-inch plates and it's filled with food, you feel the, you know, I hear my mother in the back saying, you know, clean your plate, right? No dessert.

If you don't clean your plate. And it's just that has stuck with us. I mean, you know, I, in many ways, I mean, the issues that I have with my weight, I can, I can, pretty much point directly to my upbringing in the 60s and 70s with parents who wanted to present that they had done well as being really a lot of the cause eating processed foods. I mean, I can remember as a kid in elementary school, I used to go across the streets of the deli. And sometimes my lunch, and I'm not proud of this today, was a whole dill pickle and a package of Twinkies. you know

breakfast of Jewish champions I guess and now I mean Twinkies I don't know if there's anything more sort of horrible I actually bought a package not that long ago

and just because I wanted to I used to love them oh it was awful it's greasy and just you feel like you can brush your teeth afterwards it's just really just horrible

But, you know, and so in one way, you know, if you look at the market today, people are trying to get back to eating so-called whole foods, not the chain, but the concept of whole foods. But it's difficult. It's hard to do. And in most cases, in some strange irony, it's more expensive than it is to eat processed food, which is why someplace like McDonald's and Taco Bell are doing. doing so well because it's cheap. And so they're catering to an audience that can't spend a lot of money on food and can bring, you know, their family to a McDonald's and feed the whole family for, you know, whatever it is. I mean, even there, the prices have gotten ridiculous.

But it's still, it's still a bargain. And they're encouraging you to do it. I mean, I'm a vegetarian. and when Burger King brought out their Impossible Whopper, I mean, I remember eating a Wopper when I was a little kid. I've been a vegetarian since 98. But I have eaten the Impossible Burger, and it's good. And they came out with the Impossible Whopper, and I thought, oh, great.

And so, I mean, on occasion, I will get an Impossible Whopper, and I really enjoy it. But I went in there a couple of months ago, and they were doing two for $6. Now, one usually costs about $6. So it was basically buy one and get one free. Now, what am I going to do with the other one? You know, and so it's almost like they're, and I don't want this to come out wrong, but it's almost like they're forcing us to do this because, you know, it's not going to keep,

I'm not going to put it in the refrigerator. I'm not going to throw it out. And I had nobody else to give it to. So it's in many ways, it's very frustrating the way. that the food industry has, if not contributed, certainly really facilitated this problem. And I don't see that changing. Yeah, that's a huge issue. I often wonder how large corporations can talk to us about sustainability when their business model is built on excess consumption.

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And I mean, you know, someplace like a cheesecake factory, which at one point had something on the menu. I forget what the calorie count. It was something outrageous. And people complained and said, you know, how can you serve this? It's terrible. It's so high in calories and fat. And their response was, well, we also have salads.

And so, you know, again, it's they're putting the responsibility in the hands of the consumer. which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just when they're enticing you with something which is high in calories and low in fat, and it's half the price of the salad, which isn't nearly as attractive, what are people going to eat? I mean, come on. You know, again, it's the kid with the, you know, you're going to have the carrots on the plate, or would you rather have them in the McDonald's container?

I'll take them in the McDonald's container. Makes it feel like I'm eating French fries. Yeah, there's a fascinating book by Cass Sunst's, called Nudge. And in there, they talk about the strategies in which they get people. They should probably just call it shove because it's kind of in your face, you know. However, they talk about a similar project where they went to some schools and they put all the healthy choices. They put the carrots and the fruit up front and then they hid the candy in the back. And just, just out of presentation, children and people were able to make better decisions. Sure. Yeah.

I mean, and I think that that is a real, a reality. I mean, even if you go into a grocery store, I mean, part of it is what one writer called the tyranny of choice, right? Oh, yeah. You go down the cereal aisle and the corporations that sell the cereal buy the shelf space. So the healthier choices are usually at the bottom or all the way at the top. They're not at eye level. What's at eye level is the high sugared stuff. And unless you are a discerning.

consumer and understand the way that that works, you're not going to know. So, I mean, I know when we walk into a grocery store in most cases, I know the stuff that's eye level is not what we're really going to be buying. It's the stuff that's either on the top show or on the bomb show. Yeah, it's amazing how. Then you go to the checkout, all the candies right there for the kids to see. And so much so that do you remember when they started doing some grocery stores still do it, I think, where they did intentionally, they had some checkout lines that didn't have

any candy. because parents were complaining and they didn't want the candy there and they didn't want all the other impulse item things that the kids would cry about and so there were some uh some you know check out lines where they would you know have a sign up and say it was you know candy free or whatever the case may be but yeah i mean that's one of the easiest things it's the impulse right and that's why they call them impulse items um it they're impulsive buys they're not things that you necessarily plan to buy um but you're still standing there waiting and oh look a candy bar um you know and then you start thinking well what

time is it and you know when am i going to eat next and and you start doing that that kind of weird math in your head to justify whether or not you should you should buy it and that's it's it takes a lot of self-control which most of us don't have myself yeah i agree do you think that impulsivity is tied to gluttony? And if so, how? It certainly can be. And I think it's a, it's that question of self-control, right? Because again, we're going back to the very concept of all of these sins of being sins of excess, right? Can you control yourself? Can you control your, your feelings of desire, or are you going to be guilty of lust? Can you control your, your feelings of hunger and

appetite or are you going to go over the line and become a glut? And so a lot of it does deal with, you know, our psychology, which is such a mystery still today, right, as to why people do what they do. And, you know, I can speak from experience because I will often eat something and I don't even know why I'm eating it. It's, it's either, you know, some people call it, a board eating, right? There's bored eating, there's stress eating. We've got all this, all this different vernacular for it now, right? But it all comes down to sort of shifting the responsibility and saying, well, it's not really me, I'm stress eating, or it's not really me, I'm bored eating because I don't know anything to do. And so, so many of these issues, I think,

come back to us really regaining responsibility for our own actions. every venue. And we too often and too easily want to shift the blame onto someone or something else and say, well, it's not me. It's, you know, my overactive thyroid, which, I mean, it's a real thing. I don't mean to belittle people who have that condition, but people who have an overactive thyroid will tend to overeat. But it's easy, becomes an easy crutch to kind of pass it off and say, well, it's not my fault. I got to do this. You know, it reminds me of, of, of, of, you know, when women are pregnant and they say, well, the baby needs a pop tart, right? You know, and it's, you know, it's funny, but, and they have cravings, right?

But, you know, my favorite is, you know, I had a good friend years ago who when she was pregnant. She used to say, oh, the baby needs a pop tart. And she'd have to go down and get a pop tart because that's what she was craving, obviously. Yeah. You know, if this may be, I don't think it's a bridge to you. far, but let's say that the sins, and particularly gluttony, they're there to teach us something. And if we can overcome them, what lessons do you think they're there to teach us? Well, I mean, if we can learn from it and learn control, which, you know, of course,

we're going back again to the very eastern idea, right? I mean, the shanty, shanty, shanty, shanty, control, right? If you can have that control, that self-control over your physical self, over your emotional self, history has shown through various figures that we become better human beings and more able to fulfill our potential in that case. And so, you know, if you take a look at the stories of the Buddha, for example, and dealing with these issues, it really is about learning how to control self. And that's a hard thing to do, especially today when, as we've already mentioned, you know, we're bombarded with everything, images, data. and it's often really hard to do that. I mean, this morning I was doing about 10 things at once,

and I got to say I was just feeling jittery, and I was like, I got to slow down, or I'm just going to burst. It was like the pressure cooker, you know? And so I closed the door to my office and put something on the internet and something that I enjoy watching and just sat here,

about 10, 15 minutes and just did some breathing to try to regain that control because I felt like I was losing it. And we use that phrase, right? I'm going to lose it, right? What are you going to lose? You're losing control. Yeah. And so a lot of it is about figuring out how to gain that control.

And I do believe, again, I'm very much a subscriber to Jungian thought that that will assist you on that road to individuation. and a more clear and really conscious understanding of who you are. Yeah, that's, I'm glad to hear you bring up young. Like one thing, the book is called Seven Deadly Sins, everybody. Do yourself a huge favor and check it out. One thing that I really like, not only about this book, but some of the articles and maybe speeches that you give in that you can see at your blog,

which is linked down below, is that you, have a very unique ability for interdisciplinary explanations. And I see this pattern you're weaving, not only through the past, not only through symbolic poets of France, but through your personal experiences. And I think it goes even a level deeper. Like when I read this chapter, I saw you specifically gluttony, you were talking about,

like you have a really good knowledge of it. And when you gave your personal experiences about the young woman you sat down with, You gave an example of her eating disorder. And to me, that was an example of someone who's really knowledgeable about it, someone that's going through it, and the interconnectedness, the interplay of relationships that can help both people understand what it is. That is something that you, like,

I don't know if you give yourself enough credit for that, but that's something that is, I don't see that too often. And it really is interdicentipatery, but I don't even if there's another way, like it's connected. It's being open and not, viewing yourself as existing in a kind of a disciplinary silo, right? Too often people will say, well, I'm a psychologist. And that's the kind of the pigeonhole they've put themselves into. And so they don't really pay attention to things that are going on outside their own discipline when they don't realize that, especially today, really we are living in very interdisciplinary,

transdisciplinary times. And the only way that we're really going to solve a lot of these problems that we have globally is by approaching this from the perspective of many different disciplines to come at the same problem. I was telling students this past summer, my student researchers who were working over the summer, in all kinds of different disciplines. And I was describing the think tank model, which I've always been a big fan. of. And I said, you know, essentially think about putting COVID-19. We were right in the middle of the pandemic at that point. COVID-19 on the table, metaphorically, in the middle of the room. And now we're

all going to approach it from our own discipline. Now, there are issues related to COVID that are medical and biological, to be sure. But there are issues that are social and sociological, economic, philosophical, artistic even. You know, there's a lot going on there. And oftentimes when we can look at an old problem through a new lens, we see it in a completely different way. And what an incredible gift that could be if we could do that. You know, I mean, I'm amazed by people who, my wife had LASIC surgery several years ago.

one of my students is actually getting it next week. She's excited, a little bit nervous. But she's always had poor eyesight. And I'm like, wow, I mean, what is this going to be? You're going to see the world in a whole new way. And, you know, what an amazing gift that could be. And I think that people who are willing to shift disciplines and look at things through the lens of different disciplines,

I know this guy who lives in Alaska, he won't mind me talking about him. He's a little loopy. He's got six PhDs in completely different areas. Now, when I tell students that, they look at me like I'm insane. And sometimes I think he's insane. Six PhDs. I mean, one was certainly enough for me. But he is able to look at the world from very different perspectives and blend those together.

And, you know, what an amazing ability that is. Yeah, I think that I would put your work in there. Like being able to see the same problem from different times, you know, and different authors. And not only that, but different languages, you know, interpretation means the same as, I forgot. If you interpret something, you also give it meaning to. I can't think of the word, but yeah, it's fascinating how gluttony can also not just be food, eating disorders, but in today's modern world, we kind of have a problem with technology. What do you think about that? We are gluttons for information, right?

We are gluttons for information. And I think in this chapter I mentioned, and some listeners will remember a movie from the 1980s called Short Circuit, which had a robot in it who, wanted more information, more data, more information, more input, he says, more input. And because that's the way he learns. And we are in a unique kind of position at the moment because we have access to more information than human beings ever have had before. And the way that we process that information, the way that we, absorb that information and the way that we use it is probably worse than human beings have ever done before. I mean, someone who I know is near and dear to your heart and mine as well.

I mean, if you compare a modern thinker with Thomas Aquinas, I mean, and what Thomas Aquinas was able to accomplish the 12th century, given what he knew about the world, and think about if Thomas Aquinas lived today, and the action, and the action is, access to information that he would have today and what that would mean for him. But human beings, we don't do that. I mean, it's, you know, one of my favorite essays is an essay by Vannevar Bush. It's called As We May Think. I think I've mentioned it before, 1945.

And he basically predicts the Internet. And his whole thing was, you know, in the future we're going to have these machines, basically personal computers, that will allow us to store information and essentially store memory. We're not going to have to memorize dates and menial kinds of facts because they're going to be accessible, easily accessible. I mean, it's Uncle Google, isn't it? You can ask Uncle Google anything and he'll give you an answer. But Bush's whole idea in that essay, it's so brilliant is, and when we can do that, It will free our minds to do higher level thinking and fulfill our potential as human beings.

And instead, what are people doing? They're binge watching squid games. They're not doing it. We've gotten lulled into this weird data hum, right? The data is all around us all the time. And maybe it's an inability to process it or an inability to sort it and figure out what is, good data versus bad data. And I mean, there may be a parallel here to information and disinformation, right,

and being what we call, you know, media literate. In higher ed now, we use the phrase information literacy, right, that we want students to be able to know how to process information properly and be literate about getting their information. And they're not, they're not. You know, yesterday morning, last night, excuse me, last night, that I was teaching and I almost made a comment an offhand remark about the Oscars the night before and the Will Smith, Chris Rock, just debacle. And the fact that social media is just lit up with

all of this. And yes, it was it was it was odd. It was there I say interesting. It was whatever. But there are a hell of a lot more problems in the world right now. And so there's a good example of, you know, Vannever Bush saying, you know, the internet can handle a lot of this nonsense for us. Use your brain for something bigger. Now, I didn't mention it to my class last night because I assumed maybe incorrectly that most of them had no idea what I was talking about. I'm sure they had, nobody had watched the Oscars, actually. If they'd heard about the incident, they'd probably just seen it online. And even if then, I don't know.

I'll ask them tomorrow night. I'll be curious to hear what they say. Yeah, it brings up, I've been reading this philosopher name. He's a Korean philosopher, and the last name is Chun. And he's got a book called Saving Beauty. And in this book, he talks about the pornographic nature of sameness. And he talks about how today's world of art, specifically, I think Jeff Coons, who did the balloon dog. And if you look at the artwork today,

in the most successful artwork, we see these smooth surfaces without any gaps. And a lot of times it's something silvery or a mirror like, and you can see yourself in that artwork. And what an obscene way to see an image of yourself in something beautiful. But you deny yourself to see yourself as beautiful when you see this image of it. Well, what was that, that, that, um, was it at a World's Fair? Decades and decades ago, where they had an exhibit and it was a mirror and there was a sign about see the most dangerous animal on the planet

and you walked up to it and you looked in the mirror and saw you. And so, you know, I think you're right. I mean, yeah, the Coons Balloons. It's kind of interesting that you do see a reflection when you look at those. And I think that the similarity and the repetitious, oftentimes, you know, if we want to go to the art world, is really kind of interesting. I just finished watching the Andy Warhol documentary that's on Netflix.

It's very well done. But, you know, Warhol is one of those figures, right? I mean, people looked at things like the early pop art that he was doing with the Campbell's Soup cans and things like that. And it was about repetition. It was about the sort of commercializing of our, of our, of our, of our world. And what does sort of make us

stand back and take note is when we see something that, you know, is not like anything else, right? And I think that that's probably the most interesting thing. You know, I mean, if you go to see the Mona Lisa,

people are always underwhelmed, right? Because first of all, it's small. They don't think it's going to be that small. It's behind glass so you see you see all kinds of weird glare and reflection and you can't even get close to it anymore you have to stand about six feet back behind the stanchions but if you're in that room watching the mona lisa or watching looking at the mona lisa i would say turn around and look at what else is around you right um one of the the the curiosities about the up-and-coming generation is if you walk through a museum with

these kids. All they're doing is taking pictures on their phones. They're not having the experience. They're not having the experience. It's all about just recording it. But in recording it, they're not actually having the experience. They're almost having what the philosopher Jean Baudreuxer called a simulacrum, right? It's a simulation of reality. They didn't really experience that. They just have pictures. And that just is, I remember when I, I remember when I, I was a kid, you know, living in New York, my father was a huge devotee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were members. We used to go down almost every Sunday we would go down there. And he particularly loved the Impressionist painters, which I grew to, of course, appreciate as well. But I remember

when the King Tut exhibit came, and it must have been in the 1970s. And you had to get tickets, and it was timed. And we walked through. And I remember Stan in front of the iconic mask, the Kingtuck mask in the room there, and still remember it being in the case there. And standing there, just wanting to look at it and study it, this is, of course, way before cell phones, and they wouldn't let you take photos. And the docents were just moving you along. You got a certain amount of time, and then you had to move along, because they got to get people in there to see it. There was no way to record it. The only recording I have of that is with my brain.

I have no pictures of that. And so our curious relationship to memory has always interested me. And what we think about memory, how we use memory. I talk about this a good deal in the first book I wrote, which is a very academic book on a medieval glossed Bible. But I talk a lot about reading in that book and about the connection between reading and memory and going back to what St. Augustine has to say about it in Book 10 in the Confession. which is absolutely brilliant and spot on before any psychologist ever came along.

He had it almost exactly right. If you want to read about memory, book 10 of San Augustine's Confessions, it's genius. I definitely want to read about that. On a side note, I've been talking with Dr. Paul Valerie, who is one of the leading psychiatrists of our time. He wrote a book about the development of unconscious. the development of memory and the unconscious child in the 70s, I think. And he recently wrote a new book called The Embodied Mind. And his new theory is that our memories are stored in every single cell of our body.

But I want to bring it back to the point where the way, when you said that kids go into museums and they're using their phone and they're no longer having the experience, it's like they're constantly searching to find the experience. So they use media to take pictures of media. And that's almost gluttonous, like a person that's consuming so much to get full, but because maybe there's no nutrients, they just have to keep eating to get the feeling of it. It's the same thing of consuming art to get that experience, but you never can with that particular medium.

It's weird how those tie together. Yeah, I mean, and I mean, psychologists show that it all comes down to that dopamine hit that you get, right? That the pleasure center of your brain. And, you know, studies have shown over and over again that, especially kids with social media, that's what they're getting. When they get likes on their Instagram page, it gives them that dopamine hit. And that's what they're waiting for. And when they don't get it, that's how we end up with an epidemic of depressed children, right,

who are growing up in this kind of a media environment and don't really know how to handle it and don't know how to interpret what's happening in a real proper way. But I think you're right. There's something about all of the media, the technology that gets in between us and the experience, whatever the experience might be. I mean, what's all the rage now? The Oculus virtual reality glasses, right? Which I can't do because the motion makes me nauseous. But I've got a good friend who absolutely loved.

it and will text me and say, you know, oh, I climbed Mount Everest last night. You know, he does all this incredible stuff to have. And he, and he, it's interesting because I almost just said he's experiencing it, but he's not. It's a simulation. Again, it's, it's, it's Boudreard's idea of a simulation, right? And if you're not familiar with that idea, right? I mean, his, his sort of landmark illustration example of a simulation is Disney World, right, which is a completely artificial environment so much so that, you know, they empty the garbage cans from below the ground, underground because they don't want people to see the garbage trucks, because that would, that would break the simulation. Shopping malls, which are a dying breed, were another example

of a simulation, right? And the inside of a shopping mall was meant to evoke a sense of the old neighborhood, right, with benches and trees and little carts in the middle. It's a simulation of an old neighborhood. And so, you know, Baudreard is, I think, a real genius, although I can say probably, I don't know, understood 10% of what I've read of his is. He's very complicated, but I do think that he's right, that we increasingly, and technology has made that much worse. We've separated ourselves, ourselves, and ourselves. And ourselves, from the experience, the experience of living. And look at how we use the language, right?

So I've got students who went to go see the Van Gogh experience over the holiday break, where you can walk into and be sort of inside a Van Gogh painting. And that's what they call it, the Van Gogh experience. And they had interesting takes on it. Now, these are students who are museum study students. So they have a little bit of a different critical eye. Some of them really enjoyed it and really liked it. But I think if I were to take a poll, most of them did not.

They would rather, they said, go to MoMA and stand in front of Starry Night and look at the painting, rather than, quote, unquote, being inside the painting and whatever that means. So, you know, I think they're becoming a little bit more discerning when it comes to this. but as with anything, it's going to take generations. You know, I always think my grandfather died in 1970, and I always think, my God, what would he think if he were around today? Look at how different the world is today, 50 years later. And I don't know how he would, what he would think, how he would cope.

even my own father who died five years ago. You know, what would he think? I mean, I remember when the front page of the New York Times had the mobile hospitals for COVID during COVID set up in Central Park. And I remember getting the paper that morning and just shaking my head and I just said, I said my father would never believe it. You know, now, and I'm not necessarily, again, as we talked about last time, I'm not a Luddite. I'm not saying, oh, you know, progress is bad. But we also often have to ask progress at what cost. And what is progress?

Right. What does that really look like? Is a self-driving car progress? is, you know, a meal at a fast food place for $5 that is completely unhealthy for you, but it's cheap, is that progress. And I think we've got an uncomfortable relationship with that word. Yeah, that is. That's so true.

It's like the inverse of progress. We're slowly getting everything that's meaningful. stripped away from us in the name of progress. It's, and it's something that, you know, I'm hopeful that that's one reason I really enjoy this book. You give such a great idea of what definitions were in the past of how people saw things

and from different, not only different times, but different places on the planet. Yeah. And that for me has been a really good experience to, you know, see the trailhead. Hey, if you want to know more, go read this book.

If you want read book 10, you know, and I think that that's really important to do. And again, I'd probably banging this drum people, but the book is called Seven Deadly Sins. It's awesome. Check it out. You'll really enjoy it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, one of the things I mentioned is Ben Franklin, right, who in a book in 1786, it's actually called The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams.

he wrote in general mankind since the improvement of cookery eat about twice as much as nature requires. And that's 1786. So even realizing it then, of course, Franklin, not known for being someone who was averse to a good meal and at least one glass of wine, I imagine. That, you know, it's kind of interesting that that comes from him. But then if you look at this the way that this has morphed specifically in America after World War II with things like TV dinners, right, which really encourage you to just sit and lethargically eat in front of a television, which, you know, dietitians and nutritionists will tell you is the worst thing that you could do because you're not really paying attention. you're not doing anywhere near the kind of thing that mindful eating resembles because you're just paying attention to what's on the screen while you shovel food into your mouth. But I remember, I mean, I grew up on TV dinners.

I remember, you know, sitting in front of the TV, watching, you know, the Flintstones, 5 and 5.30 every day on Channel 5 in New York, with my brother and my sister. and my mother would make us Swanson's TV dinners. It was easy. And again, I think for a generation, it reflected a degree of affluence. And, you know, were they the most healthy things in the world? Probably not.

Were they as unhealthy as some of the dinners that you see now that are being sold? Probably not. But again, sizes change and the content has changed. and just our lifestyle has changed. I mean, if you, and George, you've spent time outside of the U.S. I mean, in most countries outside the U.S., particularly European countries, most of the households still have small refrigerators, and they food shop almost every day for fresh food.

It's in America where refrigerators now are the size of cars, and, you know, we've all got stuff in our refrigerator that we bought, months ago. But preservatives will keep it quote unquote fresh, right? And it's just it's just a different lifestyle. And am I saying that it's a that one is better than the other? Not necessarily. I'm not making that judgment. I'm asking us to reflect on a little bit and think about what that means and what's it doing to us? I mean, personally, yeah, it's a heck of a lot easier

if I go home at the end of the day and throw a microwave dinner into the microwave for four minutes and stand there and wait for it to beep down to a second and open the door so I can eat it, right? And nobody puts it in the second time. So, you know, microwave companies, don't even put that in the instructions.

Nobody does that. But it would be a heck of a lot better if I went home and made my dinner with fresh ingredients, but that's time-consuming. And we are always under a time crunch. It probably is going to end up being more expensive. And in most cases, it would probably require that I, almost on a daily basis, do some little bit of shopping.

Now, in a lot of villages in European countries, you have a neighborhood grocer where you can just stop, and pick up fresh fruit and vegetables every day as much as you need and and that's it. Here we tend to go grocery shopping once a week. And so we buy what we need for the week, supposedly. And that ends up being a lot of food that can that can last. That's got preservatives, right? And, you know, I get it.

It's, it's an economic thing for a lot of people. And I'm not as high and mighty to think that, you know, everybody should be able to do that. I know a lot of people can't afford to do that. But what does that say about our culture when it's cheaper to eat junk food than it is to eat good food? It says something about us as a culture and what we value. Yeah. And think about what when you're, we've started making bread here just strictly for economic reasons. And, you know, what happens when you make bread?

bread is, hey, my daughter, Sky, come over here. Like, can you hand that to me? Oh, what do you need that for? Oh, I got to add this in here. Oh, well, it doesn't look like it's going to taste very good way until we do this, you know? And there's a whole conversation that happens. And when you're making something with somebody, you're sharing something with somebody. Let's bring bread together. You're experiencing it.

You're sharing an experience, right? Which you would not have if you just went down to the local supermarket and bought a prepackaged loaf of bread. Yeah. So again, it's about the importance of the experience. Yeah. You sum up the chapter nicely with a throwback to the always insightful D.H. Lawrence and Paul Valerle. Do you remember how you summed up this chapter?

I'm trying to remember myself. Let me look to remind myself here. Ah, yes, yes, yes. Well, I'm coming back to them because of technology. Right? So really it's interesting that in our in our gluttonous ways of dealing with data now now we got these companies that offer digital detoxes, right? We can go on this kind of a retreat and unplug your phone. One company says that you can unplug and decompress. It's a it reduces anxiety, stress, depression, tech dependency, fatigue, and information overload. But in many ways, we're kind of back with a lot of the ideas of somebody like Paul Fowleri or D.H. Lawrence in the first half of the 20th century who were really trying to get us to become better acquainted with who we are as human beings.

And if I'm constantly on my phone doing whatever, I'm just throwing up a barrier. You know, I find it interesting when I walk around on campus and the kid, you know, see kids on their phones. And when you see somebody on their phone, and I don't mean on their phone as in making a call, because hardly anybody does that anymore, but they're on their phone on social media or texting or whatever the case may be. Having that phone up in front of you and doing that is almost the universal symbol of go away. Right. You may as well have a sign on you who says, I don't want to talk to anybody. Leave me alone. It's become an easy way to do that.

And God, that's dangerous for us as human beings and for what it means to our humanity. You know, I often joke about colleagues I've had over the years who always, and there's a great Seinfeld episode that does this, who are always looked like they are busy, busy, busy. They're always not walking. If they're walking between buildings, they're on their cell phone. And I always used to joke about those people were always on their way but never arrived. It just looks like they're always always in a rush. And there's that great Seinfeld episode where George talks about, you know, how he can, he just looks busy. And when you look busy, people think you are busy.

But I want to get back to the experience of living. And it's hard because our culture really isn't very forgiving when it comes to that. I mean, I'm as bad as anybody about disconnecting. Students will often say, you know, I respond to email almost instantly. And it's true because I don't like to have a lot of it piled up in my inbox. And I'm always worried that I'm going to forget to respond to something if I let it go by. But it gives the perception that I'm a workaholic and, you know, we can get my wife on and she can give you the opposing view. I don't think I am. I don't want to be. But it's difficult not to be in this day and age

because we never get to disconnect. I mean, think about our parents who didn't have cell phones. When they weren't at work, they weren't at work. Now it's easy to be at work 24-7. Work goes with you. Yeah. Yeah, it's sometimes I think that it's almost these constant distractions or this idea of looking busy so that you don't see the experience is not what it used to be. Sure. Oh, I think there's something to that. I think there's also something about looking and being busy because it will prevent you from really looking at truths about yourself and about the world, which oftentimes can be

really uncomfortable. I mean, it goes back to that, the Jungian journey, right, of going into the cave. You have to confront the shadow self. If you don't do that, you can't get past it. You can't figure out how to reconcile that, then you're never going to grow. But in an effort to avoid that, we throw up these barriers and just say, well, I'm too busy to do that. I'm too busy to meditate. I'm too busy to go take a walk on the beach with my spouse.

I'm too busy to, you know, do whatever the case may be. And we are, you know, I mean, it's almost like that'll be our epitaph on our tombstones, right? You know, David Solomon, he was too busy. And that would be a sad epitaph, wouldn't it? Yeah, George Monty, I rather enjoyed the interpretation of my fellow prisoners' shadows. That is fantastic. Doctor, I really enjoy our conversations. And I feel like they're getting better.

and I really thought this chapter was my favorite so far. Maybe that's because I'm getting to know you better and understand the work better. Is there anything else you would like to leave our audience with before we go today? No, I mean, I think you have my blog site and my website up. And if anyone's interested and would like a signed book, just send me an email and we'll figure out how to make that happen. The next chapter, next week we're going to talk about greed. That's going to be a good one. Yeah

Fantastic And I would recommend everybody Go check out the recent blog post That was a speech you gave a week or two weeks ago It's really I think it kind of ties nicely to the book And in some of the material we're talking about So ladies and gentlemen

That's what we have for today Thank you so much for spending time with us We enjoy all of it And we'll talk to you again next week Aloha Thank you.