00:00:00:05 – 00:00:07:21
FRED
All of that professionalization of the field. Do you think there’s been a distortion in what philosophy was supposed to be, as you so eloquently say, like the help human beings?

00:00:08:09 – 00:00:17:15
DANIELE
Yeah, 100%. I mean, that to me is the opposite of philosophy. That’s an early game for people who have too much time on their hands. So never got out of the library kind of thing. That’s not philosophy.

00:00:18:08 – 00:00:39:14
FRED
Welcome everyone, to my conversation with Daniele Bolelli. I originally got turned on to Daniele’s work by listening to him on Joe Rogan, and since I’ve become a big fan of his books, his podcast, he’s what you would call a true modern philosopher. And for those who don’t know him, outside of just his awesome work, his life story is both heartbreaking and super inspiring.

00:00:40:05 – 00:00:59:10
FRED
After moving to America from Italy barely a year after giving birth to their baby girl, his wife Elizabeth passed away from a brain tumor. If that wasn’t enough, he also lost a job he’d been angling for for years. He was on the hook with a new mortgage, and of course, he was now a solo dad and had a daughter to take care of.

00:01:00:11 – 00:01:20:01
FRED
The way he responded to all of this is nothing short of a triumph of the human spirit. In this interview, he talks about how all of this became a major turning point for him. Before all this happened, he says, he used to be super careful and safe. But this made him realize that no matter how safe you play it, bad things can still happen.

00:01:20:17 – 00:01:47:14
FRED
And so he began diving into things with less hesitation and more courage than ever. And since then, he’s launched and hosted two amazing podcasts, The Drunken Taoist and History on Fire, and wrote many fantastic books, including On the Warriors Path, Not Afraid, and 50 Things They Didn’t Tell You About Religion. And for those who follow him on social, you can see what an amazing father he is and how grown up and badass his daughter is. In this conversation.

00:01:47:19 – 00:02:09:01
FRED
We talk about family death, life lessons from the martial arts, and what it means to be a middle finger philosopher. He’s not only wise and extremely knowledgeable, but even more importantly, he’s super authentic. One of the most down to earth, humble individuals you’ll ever meet. This was legitimately one of my all time favorite conversations, and I hope you enjoy it, too. This is Daniele Bolelli.

00:02:09:21 – 00:02:31:22
FRED
Mr. Bolelli, welcome, sir.

00:02:32:13 – 00:02:34:10
DANIELE
Thank you so much for having me.

00:02:34:15 – 00:02:56:14
FRED
I’m so happy to have you here. So, I mean, I’ve been a fan. I’ve been reading your books and listening to your podcast, The Drunken Taoist History on Fire for years now. I see you as a kind of like a real-life philosopher. So, like, not one of those stuffy academic philosophers in tweed jackets who hide behind arguments full of complicated jargon that nobody understands,

00:02:56:17 – 00:03:17:05
FRED
but the real person who grapples thoughtfully with the same questions we all wrestle with, like how to live a good life, how to deal with fear and loss, the role of science, the role of religion, developing an authentic personal spirituality, and more than anything, somebody who’s not afraid to talk in simple and practical terms about these questions.

00:03:18:09 – 00:03:39:12
FRED
Your books, for those who haven’t read them, are fantastic. I think you’re an amazing writer. They deal with topics as diverse as martial arts philosophy, all the way through to religion, humour, history, but always an engaging, very straightforward language and with tons of humour and wit. Daniel Bolelli, it’s truly an honour. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

00:03:39:19 – 00:04:17:08
DANIELE
Thank you so much. And I think you raised a couple of really important points in what you were describing. One, the importance of communicating in a way that’s not for a niche, that’s not just for the people who are specialists in the field, but I guess they are the same point. You just articulate it in different ways. But basically, the notion that something like philosophy, it becomes like its own self-restricted niche where you only talk with other people or into philosophy and use the philosophy lingo. And it’s pointless because the whole idea is that it’s supposed to serve life, it’s supposed to make our lives better.

00:04:17:15 – 00:04:38:21
DANIELE
If it doesn’t, what are we doing? And so in that sense, in terms of language, if you cannot talk in a way that a person who has studied for 30 years will understand, but also a kid will understand, also your grandma will understand, then you’re moving probably too far away from what makes life real.

00:04:38:23 – 00:05:01:14
DANIELE
You know, you are becoming- Your language is getting a little too abstract. And when the language becomes too abstract, then probably you’re thinking about it becomes also too abstract. So to me, it’s like any issue needs to be something that maybe you tweak the vocabulary a little bit, but ultimately you can have the same discussion with anybody because you’re talking about life

00:05:01:14 – 00:05:15:19
DANIELE
And you can bring it back down to terms that anybody can relate to, regardless of whether they have studied some stuff or not. That’s completely secondary. And so to me, that’s a very important thing that you kind of zeroed in on. It’s something that I feel very strongly about.

00:05:16:13 – 00:05:40:21
FRED
Yeah and do you feel that philosophy has been a little bit maybe not perverted, but distorted by the professionalization of philosophy into a sort of like a modern career where you need like 1000 footnotes to publish an article? And if the average human being understands it, it’s not smart and complex, means intelligent and all of that professionalization of the field.

00:05:40:21 – 00:05:46:08
FRED
Do you think there’s been a distortion in what philosophy was supposed to be, as you so eloquently say, to help human beings?

00:05:46:20 – 00:06:03:20
DANIELE
Yeah, 100%. I mean, that to me is the opposite of philosophy. That’s an early game for people who have too much time on their hands. So and never got out of the library kind of thing. That’s not philosophy. No, go ahead. FRED
Sorry. Go ahead.

00:06:04:03 – 00:06:15:21
FRED
I’m just curious, how did you enter the examined life on such a scale is putting a lot of thought and self-evaluation into your life, a tendency that you always had as a child that was sort of natural to you?

00:06:16:10 – 00:06:39:04
DANIELE
Or was there something in your life? DANIELE
Yeah. Yeah. I grew up kind of like my dad wrote a ton of books. My mom was a writer. Discussion about big issues was something that was always like what we would always do, what would always show up. And the fact that I was a kid, I didn’t get treated any different in that regard.

00:06:39:05 – 00:06:56:03
DANIELE
Again, my dad may tweak the vocabulary a little bit because clearly I have less experience and might have not heard some stuff. But other than that, the idea was these are discussions about life, so I can have them with you the same way. And in that regard, it’s something that he felt very strongly about.

00:06:56:08 – 00:07:21:11
DANIELE
You know, like one of his books actually was in Italian, but translated the title is Descartes Can’t Dance, as in the philosopher. And the whole thesis was that academic philosophy and that kind of very professional philosophy was basically and what we need is a more vital philosophy that kind of make your muscle happy as much as your mind, as much as

00:07:22:05 – 00:07:44:06
DANIELE
And and so that’s something that, you know, handed to me on a golden platter. Like, that kind of mindset was just how I grew up. So it wasn’t something that I can claim credit for that I discovered somehow for myself. It’s something that was very much handed to me in a way that I absorb it, but I didn’t have to do much to have it.

00:07:44:07 – 00:07:57:18
FRED
It’s awesome how close to your dad was also a philosopher who was doing it clearly for his career and everything else, but also wanted to popularize and democratize the knowledge and everything. That’s amazing.

00:07:58:00 – 00:07:59:21
DANIELE
Yes. Yes. So in fact, it’s funny because.

00:07:59:21 – 00:08:01:01

00:08:01:20 – 00:08:24:08
DANIELE
Yeah, I’m reading. FRED
And he thought Philosophy? DANIELE
Yes, I’m reading- I’m doing that stuff. I’m picking up a lot of my father’s books and kind of rereading them now as I’m older and taking notes on them because I’m like, I want to kind of highlight what were the key things that showed up throughout all the books. And then I look at some of them and I’m like, while I may express myself differently, I may use different examples.

00:08:24:08 – 00:08:42:13
DANIELE
I have a slightly different sensitivity. So many topics. I’m like, oh, I see where I got that one. Oh, and I see where I got that one too. So there’s a ton of stuff where I’m like, oh okay, that was not exactly my original thought. I get it. FRED
That is so cool.

00:08:42:14 – 00:08:48:01
FRED
That is so cool. To have that continuity with your father that way. That’s unbelievable. Is your father still alive?

00:08:48:09 – 00:09:08:02
DANIELE
No, he just- that’s why I’m doing it because he died back in October. So right now I was like, you know what? It would be cool for people who don’t read Italian to kind of take some of those ideas or like his widow was talking about wanting to do a documentary about him and I was like, okay, well, what do we talk about?

00:09:08:02 – 00:09:28:18
DANIELE
Like, what exactly? What are the essential things in his vision of the world that we want to compare? So I was like, okay, let’s reread some of the books and let me take notes and jot down some of this stuff. And in the process of doing that, I’m just really kind of like, oh, my God, this is like no wonder. I think the way I do there’s so much stuff that I share

00:09:29:00 – 00:09:47:09
DANIELE
and then I’m different from in many ways. But you can still see the stimulus, the origin. You can still see while I may have departed and made it my own and adapted it to my personality, my experience, and my interest, many of the key things remain the same.

00:09:49:07 – 00:10:08:15
FRED
So I’m really curious because you have a lot to say about the cart, and the cart of course. I think, therefore I am kind of like, as you rightly point out, the separation between the mind and the body. Right? A lot of stuff that we talk about in terms of the professionalization of philosophy, making just the mindset not integrated into the body, maybe also a separation with nature.

00:10:08:21 – 00:10:25:12
FRED
And you write a lot about that about renewing with a more naturalistic thread in philosophy and trying to sort of reintegrate the mind and the body. I’m just curious. The cart can dance. I mean, nobody would associate the cart and dancing. Is he playing around with similar ideas?

00:10:25:20 – 00:10:32:23
DANIELE
Yes, that’s 100%. So when it came to that stuff, it’s like I didn’t adapt straight up from him.

00:10:33:17 – 00:11:02:16
FRED
Wow. That is really awesome. That’s cool. Moving to something that’s really, like, really unique to you in your personal journey and your personal story and your book, Not Afraid. You’re right about an experience that most people can’t even imagine in their worst nightmare. I mean, it’s like we talk about these things, but just reading that story as a father, as a husband, as a person who has bills to pay, and so forth.

00:11:03:08 – 00:11:24:03
FRED
So for people who don’t know, in 2011, barely a year after giving birth to your baby daughter, your wife and life partner Elizabeth, passed away from a brain tumour, leaving you to take care of your daughter alone, which, as a man and as a father, I know how totally useless and terrified we are as caregivers.

00:11:24:03 – 00:11:49:05
FRED
Initially, I can only imagine. A couple of months later, your teaching hours get slashed. You realize you probably won’t get tenure, which is something that you were expecting. And so here you are, single dad just lost the love of your life, financial prospects diminished. You have to fight with the bank just to keep your home. And as you write, “I was a Ninja who entered my house without being seen”.

00:11:49:11 – 00:12:05:06
FRED
But then, remarkably, you write this. So you write: “Before all of this happened, I used to be very careful. I strategize and play it safe. And then I realized that no matter how safe I played it, horrible things could happen anyway.

00:12:05:15 – 00:12:07:18
DANIELE
So, I began

00:12:07:18 – 00:12:40:16
FRED
diving into things with less hesitation than ever before.” Talk about resilience. This really floored me when I read this passage. How did this shifted mindset take shape, for people crumble and get paralyzed for a lot less? People lose their minds and feel unsafe over, like a mean tweet today, right? But somehow you go through this nightmare and you almost shift it into a call to action, to dive into life with more energy and zest.

00:12:41:03 – 00:12:45:01
FRED
Tell us a little bit, how did you make this happen? How did you live through this transition?

00:12:45:08 – 00:13:09:19
DANIELE
I think coldly enough. Sometimes major, terrible experiences are somehow easier to deal, at least on some level, than minor ones, because minor ones, you still have attachment to the way you want things to be. And they’re just this thing that just throws in your day or your week or your month or your year, but that hasn’t really shaken your vision of the world or your sense of safety or all those things.

00:13:09:19 – 00:13:28:05
DANIELE
You’re just mad because this thing is pissing off when something is just more Earth-shattering. You have nothing to remain attached to. You have nothing to hold on to or kind of like. So in some way, you’re like, okay, I’m still here. I’m not dead. But I have to deal with the fact that all this stuff just does.

00:13:28:05 – 00:13:50:14
DANIELE
whatever I thought was very solid just got blown to pieces in an old kind of way. While it’s horrifying and it’s terrible and it’s hard and it’s stressful, and all of those things are true. There’s an element of it where you also feel really oddly relaxed because you’re like, what else? And don’t get me wrong, it can always get worse, right?

00:13:50:14 – 00:14:24:12
DANIELE
So that’s always a bad question to ask. What else can happen? Because trust me, more can happen. But still, there’s the feeling of, like, what’s left to be afraid of. What’s left to be worried about is like all this terrible shit that in my worst nightmare, I would have a hard time compiling this all happening at once. Now what? And it’s a strange thing because it’s more real and not real in the sense that on one level, you are liberated and you actually tap into more energy than you think you

00:14:24:16 – 00:14:41:12
DANIELE
add because you’re liberated from fear. You’re liberated from all those things that you are like praying that things don’t end up in a certain way, but they just did. So you have nothing left to be stressed about. On the other end, there is the fact that it’s tragic and it is bringing its own level of stress and all of it.

00:14:41:12 – 00:15:16:15
DANIELE
So it’s like weird simultaneously, both things at once. So one end is getting a wreck.
On the other, you tap into this other energy that can actually help you enjoy small. One thing that freaked people out a lot early on is that I would laugh a lot in those days, even just in the first few days, weeks, months, because at the end of the day, it was like, yeah, terrible shit has happened, does happen, continues to happen. But that doesn’t mean I cannot enjoy right now.

00:15:16:23 – 00:15:30:20
DANIELE
You know what I mean? That was a funny joke that made me laugh. I’m going to enjoy that one. It doesn’t really change the bigger picture, but also doesn’t mean that every single second of every single day needs to be held.

00:15:30:20 – 00:15:52:23
FRED
So it’s almost like what I’m hearing is there’s a forced detachment from the things that you knew, like your structure, but maybe also a forced detachment from your fears, because a lot of our fears are theoretical and that’s what paralyzes us is all the fears that may happen. And now it’s like when the worst happened, you’re almost like, detached from your fear.

00:15:53:06 – 00:16:11:20
FRED
And the other thing I’m hearing is when all hell is breaking loose, you just maybe are forced to, like, hyper focus more on the present and the here and now and maybe just appreciate the little things because that’s what you need to keep going. And is that is that accurate like that? Is the department from your thirties.

00:16:12:04 – 00:16:34:21
DANIELE
Because there is not- in many ways, fear is born from hope because you have a hope that certain things turn out the way and you badly want them to turn out the way that then you are afraid that it may not. But if you are in a place that’s fairly hopeless, but you’re not getting tortured by ISIS on a daily basis,

00:16:34:21 – 00:16:55:09
DANIELE
it’s hopeless. On another level where it’s like, it’s semi-somewhat comfortable. Well, kind of not really, but there’s at least some breaking room there for you, but it also feels kind of hopeless. Well, then also fear gets out of the window because it’s like what’s there to be afraid of? It’s like there’s nothing you’re hoping for.

00:16:55:09 – 00:16:59:20
DANIELE
You’re not like holding on to hope. So you also don’t have much fear.

00:17:00:10 – 00:17:18:04
FRED
And also being needed. I read in your book being needed by your daughter and being there for her invested so much meaning and purpose in your life that it was just like a mission that you can sort of hold on to in the middle of all of this and just kind of get a lot of directionality and a lot of hope from that.

00:17:18:11 – 00:17:18:18

DANIELE
Yeah.

00:17:18:21 – 00:17:41:01
DANIELE
And in fact, it’s, oddly enough, when things get better, then you remember this stuff and your attachment grows again and actually fear comes back through the back door, right? Because suddenly now you have something to lose. Now you’re like whereas at the beginning it feels like, well, I mean, sure, it can always get worse, but after a while, you get a discount on tragedies.

00:17:41:01 – 00:17:55:15
DANIELE
If you pile up five in a row, the fifth one doesn’t feel as bad as the first right when you give it enough time now there’s stuff to lose that it’s like a brand new tragedy and that can mess it up again.

00:17:55:17 – 00:18:24:03
FRED
So I’m curious also what role your relationship with martial arts plays in this, because you’ve written a lot about martial arts philosophy. Your first book on the warrior’s path. Fantastic book, I believe that you wrote it in your early twenties. Unbelievable that you would write something so profound and insightful at that age. It looks at different ideas and warrior myths and extracts insights and a sort of taxonomy of different types of warriors and their philosophies.

00:18:24:19 – 00:18:48:06
FRED
People who don’t know fighting culture very well, like a lot of professionals and academics and people in media often associate martial arts with the meathead at the gym. Right. And assume that there’s nothing really particularly interesting there. It’s more like a relic of our barbaric past. But in your work, you investigate how martial arts is also about the inner journey.

00:18:48:18 – 00:19:20:17
FRED
May we even say perhaps the spiritual journey of facing your fears and insecurities and confronting the risks inherent in existence with courage and voluntarily losing your artificial sense of safety and comfort? There’s a lot of wisdom, it seems, that is also packed inside of the fighting arts and their philosophy. Tell us a little bit about what martial arts have given to you and how you feel they can contribute to living the good life, especially when you’re facing adversity.

00:19:21:10 – 00:19:39:19
DANIELE
I think a lot of martial arts, particularly those martial arts that are a little less just purely aesthetics, where you’re just doing cut or something, which you don’t get me wrong, there’s something cool about that too. But it’s where you’re actually sparing, where you’re actually whether it’s striking, sparing, grappling sparing a mix of the two, whatever that may be.

00:19:40:18 – 00:19:56:01
DANIELE
I mean, the name of the game is getting your ass kicked, because it happens a lot. There’s always somebody better than you. For a long time, everybody is better than you. And then eventually you start getting better. But even when you got good, there’s always people who are going to be better than you. The greatest fighter

00:19:56:01 – 00:20:13:05
DANIELE
in the world on the next night may get their ass kicked, you know what I mean? So it’s like in some way you have to come to terms with the fact that you work really hard to get competent to gain a greater degree of control over the surroundings. But at the end of the day, you never will have a full degree of control

00:20:13:14 – 00:20:33:16
DANIELE
You are always going to end up there. The potential to end up in a really bad spot. Happens all the time. And so in some way, you have to sort of make peace with it. Make peace with being in uncomfortable situation physically, being in an uncomfortable situation mentally. It’s not fun to be kind of physically dominated by somebody else.

00:20:34:06 – 00:20:50:16
DANIELE
So to be able to, the logical thing would be, okay, I’m out. This sucks. This is not working well. I want to do this, and I definitely don’t want to do this with this guy. It was better than me. And the odds are high that we’re going to end up in the same place again.

00:20:51:01 – 00:21:14:19
DANIELE
So to have the fact that you keep stepping up despite the fact that your odds are poor and could win in a really thin- that’s powerful because everybody can step up when they think they’ll win. But to be able to step up in front of circumstances that seem largely hopeless, well, that takes more guts. That’s a tough thing.

00:21:15:02 – 00:21:42:04
DANIELE
So I think there’s something to be said regarding, dealing with failure, dealing with adversity, dealing with being in an uncomfortable situation. I think it’s very important because guess what? Life is going to do that time and time and time again to you. So that’s a good way to start dealing with it in a more ritualized space. Now, of course, based on there, it would be easy to assume that’s the opposite of the stereotype. Then it’s not that they are all a bunch of methods.

00:21:42:04 – 00:22:00:07
DANIELE
Everybody in martial arts is going to be peaceful and they’re light and they’re sweet. Yeah. Not that either because there are a lot of people who learn how to do that well on the mat when it comes to that one activity, but they absolutely cannot bring it outside of the mat to the rest of their lives.

00:22:01:00 – 00:22:23:03
DANIELE
Somehow they’re just this separation between that activity where they do learn how to do that and they are good at it and everything else. So you always hear these things. The people want to push the martial arts venue in a more positive direction. They spin it as no, it’s not a mental activity. It’s a tool for self-perfection. It can help shape your character.

00:22:23:04 – 00:22:34:13
DANIELE
It can do this and that, sometimes it does. Some people are able to do that. Other people just learn to become effective at fighting. That’s it.

00:22:35:14 – 00:22:51:01
FRED
It doesn’t translate automatically, is what you’re saying. Do you think that if more- Do you think, it’s an open question- I think if anybody is qualified to answer it, you would be. Do you think that a lot of people just fight, they want to learn how to become a much better fighter?

00:22:51:05 – 00:23:15:07
FRED
For some people, it’s a career. For some people, it’s a really deep hobby. Right? They become black belts and so forth. But a lot of them don’t really engage with the philosophy. They don’t necessarily learn how the lessons they’re learning on the mat can translate into their lives. Do you think that if more people studied martial arts philosophy, the ideas of Bruce Lee, the ideas of yourself and many others who write, Hickson Gracie just came out with a book as well.

00:23:15:20 – 00:23:27:19
FRED
Do you think that engagement with the philosophy of martial arts would help that translation of the lessons from the mat to life, which is where it can have a huge impact for you?

00:23:28:05 – 00:23:47:05
DANIELE
It could definitely help. I think it really depends on who is the person trying to do this, who are the people who are trying to stimulate the process because, in theory, it could go either way, right? It’s like you get sometimes martial arts teachers who tried to be life teachers and you’re like, you know what?

00:23:47:05 – 00:24:05:05
DANIELE
It was a lot better when you just stuck to martial arts because you’re not that good. The idea is not right. It’s good. It’s sweet. It’s a good concept. It’s just that that person can pull it off. How do you say it sounds so undemocratic to say? Well, for you it’s better if you don’t do it.

00:24:05:05 – 00:24:16:10
DANIELE
But for him, it’s great when he does it. It’s like anything else. It’s a skill, right? It’s a skill to be able to do that in a way that actually leads to positive results.

00:24:17:17 – 00:24:27:19
FRED
Is it also about, like, life experience? So you could be an unbelievable martial arts professor, but if you haven’t gone through certain experiences, you haven’t gone through the experiences, you haven’t gone through the learning?

00:24:28:04 – 00:24:57:17
DANIELE
Sure, yeah, DANIELE
There’s a matter of sensitivity. There’s a matter of 10,000 factors. That’s why in general, like teaching somebody to become a better person. It’s not that it can be done, but it’s hard because it’s not a clear-cut, ten-step process. There are so many factors at play that really require tremendous sensitivity, both on the person trying to help guide you along on the person on the receiving end and some luck throwing in the process.

00:24:58:03 – 00:25:07:08
DANIELE
It’s kind of like raising kids, right? Some of it is what you do. Some of it is who they are at the core, aside from you. And some of it is locked.

00:25:07:08 – 00:25:40:08
FRED
Mm hmm. Interesting. So you write also a lot about Bruce Lee and his philosophy. And Bruce Lee is the guy who famously broke with Chinese tradition, broke with Confucianism, and its rigid laws, and renewed his practice of martial arts with the spirit of the Dao, which you are very inspired by, which is much more open inquisitive. It’s an innovative philosophy that invites you to tweak and experiment and question everything, including even challenge your masters and teachers.

00:25:40:21 – 00:25:57:05
FRED
Right? Lee often said no way is the way, right? So no matter what your teacher says, you’ve got to question it, you’ve got to attack it. You have to constantly tweak and innovate. In a sense, that’s why a lot of people consider him the godfather of mixed martial arts. In a sense, it’s a classic clash between tradition and innovation.

00:25:57:16 – 00:26:28:06
FRED
So I’m also personally attracted to this philosophy of innovation and rip it all apart and challenge it from all directions and see what survives. But just to play Devil’s advocate for a bit, do you think that this is a good approach and philosophy once you’ve reached a basic level of mastery? In other words, is the more traditional rule-oriented approach necessary as a phase in your development for, let’s say, the beginner or those who haven’t yet reached mastery in a given field,

00:26:28:17 – 00:26:34:14
FRED
or should the spirit of the Dao be there from the beginning? In your view, how do you see that learning journey unfolding?

00:26:35:00 – 00:27:00:09
DANIELE
I think you do need some structure. Some structure is important. Now. How much? I’m not saying only after you have been proficient for ten years, then you can start innovating. Until then, it’s structure and nothing but structure. I think it’s healthy to start looking around. It’s healthy to question it’s healthy to do this and that. But it’s also healthy to have developed within some structure, which eventually you’re going to transcend.

00:27:00:09 – 00:27:41:14
DANIELE
Eventually, you’re going to move beyond. But it’s like Daoism, right? It’s in any you need both to some degree. The exact percentage may vary. Maybe is 80% more innovative, 20 structure, but maybe in another phase of your life is more like 50-50 maybe. So the exact balance is to be figured out. And I think the emphasis on personalizing things should be strongly there. But how much hourly, I think that is. And I think that’s a little more case by case. But yes, the short answer, rather is yes, you definitely need some structure at some point and earlier, probably more than later.

00:27:42:10 – 00:27:48:01
DANIELE
That does not mean that shouldn’t
be any personalization early, but less.

00:27:49:19 – 00:27:59:11
FRED
Right. So as you achieve more mastery, you can maybe start playing with the rules a little bit more. And you got to be honest about that, right. When you can learn versus when you can innovate.

00:27:59:18 – 00:28:09:17
DANIELE
Yeah you should probably understand the rules in order to break them , understand why they are there, understand why they are rules, understand why they don’t always work, understand when it’s wise to break them.

00:28:10:21 – 00:28:26:03
FRED
So it’s not an invitation to open. You can’t just step into a field and start innovating from day one and start doing anything and saying, “Hey, this is abstract art. This is me expressing myself.” Time out, dude. There is a reason for all of these rules and recipes.

00:28:26:16 – 00:28:46:05
DANIELE
Exactly. I think there’s a great line by Bob Dylan line that says “In order to live outside the law, you must be honest”, which I thought, it was brilliant. Right? Because it’s kind of like this concept of like, in order to break the rules, you need to have developed a certain internal compass.

00:28:46:17 – 00:29:09:05
DANIELE
If you don’t have the compass, never develop it, you probably shouldn’t start breaking the rules. But if you do, then it’s great. Then you can and should be able to move beyond the rules. Because the rules are approximations, they are not reality. They are too clumsy, they are too rigid, but they are, therefore it’s kind of like if you learn how to cook. Right. You probably want to start with a recipe.

00:29:09:08 – 00:29:12:05
DANIELE
It’s a good idea to start with the recipe, right?

00:29:12:12 – 00:29:16:01
FRED
Oh yeah. For your guests. It’s a very good idea for your guests. If you start.

00:29:16:01 – 00:29:37:16
DANIELE
Yeah right. You’re going to not poison your guests. It’s going to prevent you from screwing up too badly. Now, eventually, you’re going to have to personalize it. You realize that there are a couple of things about the recipe that you really don’t like and if you actually change them sometimes dramatically, it can improve quite a bit the way you enjoy your meal, the way your friends enjoy the meals.

00:29:37:16 – 00:29:41:21
DANIELE
So then you move beyond that. You don’t even pay attention to the rest of it.

00:29:41:21 – 00:29:42:22
FRED
You’ve integrated it.

00:29:43:17 – 00:29:44:02
DANIELE
Right.

00:29:44:20 – 00:30:03:21
FRED
You’ve integrated it, you’ve integrated the learning of it and now you can start to transcend
it and add your own elements. I’m thinking like Picasso when he decided to go more towards abstract art, he was an unbelievable artist. He could do anything he wants and it’s so much more meaningful when you can do anything you want and then you choose to do this

00:30:04:12 – 00:30:04:14
DANIELE
exactly

00:30:05:03 – 00:30:36:22
FRED
that’s when you start to play with art so that’s interesting. You write a lot about religion. Your book Create Your Own Religion is really, really great. I mean, it’s a very profound book in a lot of ways. And it’s clear that you love killing sacred cows when it comes to religion. Right. You wrote a funny little book called The 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know About Religion, where you expose all the different organized religions, dirty little secrets that are really dirty in some cases.

00:30:37:05 – 00:31:00:22
FRED
And look, we know from many organized religions
that they exploit the fear of death. They create doctrines like eternal damnation, and no one goes to the Father except through me. And you need to kill all blasphemers or nonbelievers to control people’s minds and so forth. At the same time, you note that there’s a big hole in science, right?

00:31:00:23 – 00:31:24:18
FRED
A lot of people look for science to fill the gap. And you’re right, science is simply too dry to fill the void of the big questions left unanswered, like, is there meaning in life? What happens after death? Where do we come from and so forth? And you write this. You say most secular movements are doomed to failure because they do nothing to lessen the fear of the unknown.

00:31:25:20 – 00:31:49:05
FRED
So in your opinion, is that what explains the resiliency and popularity of organized religion even until today, when we have access to all this information and even fundamentalism? And if science and secularism, if science and secularism can’t fill that void, what’s our best bet? Like, what are we left with? What should we use as tools to grapple with that void?

00:31:49:16 – 00:32:10:23
DANIELE
: I think it’s a problem that definitely has to do with religion and science, but also to do with other factors. When people look back to the past at the values of the past, and kind of, be more on the loss of the previous values. When the stuff that you don’t like that’s more recent is there for a reason, it’s because the values of the past stuck for a lot of people.

00:32:10:23 – 00:32:35:00
DANIELE
They did not work and they felt they need to break away from you, then what they created is not necessarily that much better than what they departed from. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. But typically what you end up with is usually two bad answers that both are partially correct. Where there’s a need for, people have a need for spirituality, people have a need for powerful rituals, people have a need for things that

00:32:35:00 – 00:32:59:05
DANIELE
make them connect with the unknown. There’s nothing wrong with those names. It becomes a problem when, then, it becomes attached to a bunch of dogmas that are squashy and believers and all that vice versa. Science is an excellent tool, a fantastic tool. It gives us so much. But if you propose it as the one and only tool, there are a lot of things that science can deliver.

00:32:59:12 – 00:33:18:21
DANIELE
And so you are stuck with either. We got the scientific method. It’s a cool thing, but it leaves you completely, doesn’t really scratch that itch that is inside most people, or in order to scratch that itch, you have to go back to kind of the old fascist and the way they did things. And it’s like, can we not do either?

00:33:18:21 – 00:33:50:01
DANIELE
Can we just figure out what are those things that are delivered? Like, what is that people really crave in organizers? There’s nothing wrong with those needs. Those are human needs. What is that people crave in science? Those are all needs. And if people crave them, there’s a good reason. So the question then becomes, is how can we satisfy those needs without all the baggage that’s often tied to them? Like I was having today a discussion regarding patriotism.

00:33:50:11 – 00:34:12:13
DANIELE
You know, It’s like I personally don’t get it, because to me, I understand face-to-face community and I understand issues on a human level. The nation to me is too much in between. It’s like it’s too big to be a face-to-face community and it’s too small to be all-inclusive. But again, who cares if somebody else may make it be something that helps them be a better person?

00:34:12:13 – 00:34:39:09
DANIELE
Good for you. So I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying for me, it doesn’t work. But the question is, there are things that something like patriotism will deliver. So what are those things? And if I think that patriotism may not be the best way to go about it, how can I substitute this? How can I deliver the same satisfaction that people derive from patriotism without what I think are the dark side of that,

00:34:39:09 – 00:35:07:03
DANIELE
the patriotism turning into a kind of foreigner-hated nationalism and all the we vs. them mentality and all that stuff? Is there a way to get the good without the bad? Is there a way where we can take the best from? And again, the best, maybe get rid of a lot. But there’s something there that’s real. And usually, even if you see

00:35:07:03 – 00:35:23:14
Daniele, are we just uncomfortable with the idea of cherry-picking? I have this discussion with my friends all the time. It’s like we look in ancient religious texts, there’s so many unbelievable ideas that are unaccounted for by modern science. And I’m like, these ideas are unbelievable in terms of what they do for human beings.

00:35:23:14 – 00:35:40:07
FRED
And they’re like, yeah, but you’re cherry picking because three sentences down, they also say you have to kill all non-believers. And I say, “Hell yeah, I’m a cherry-picker. I ruthlessly cherry-pick if I see a guy.” Whereas even science, and you write a lot about scientism and the new atheists and so forth, they also want us to adopt an all or nothing.

00:35:40:07 – 00:35:59:23
FRED
No, no, no, there’s one line that’s wrong in the religious text. We got to discard the whole thing and just dive into the scientific mindset, whatever you can prove and touch and feel. But why wouldn’t we be comfortable if we’re going to be real rational seekers and we want to find the
good wherever it is and whatever clothing it has?

00:36:01:00 – 00:36:06:08
FRED
Why are we so uncomfortable with the idea? Yes, we are cherry-picking, 100% cherry pickers.

00:36:06:17 – 00:36:27:19
DANIELE
Because I think if then it puts the responsibility on you for the outcome. But if you didn’t put together all the elements, great, the outcome may suck and then it’s not. The outcome may suck because somebody else came up with those ideas and you hopped on board. The outcome may suck because you put it together in a way that didn’t work.

00:36:27:19 – 00:36:28:06

00:36:28:15 – 00:36:51:20
DANIELE
Yeah. So it’s a lot easier to hop on a bandwagon that’s already existing because it takes the responsibility away from you . It takes hard work away from you because you don’t have to figure out you don’t have to read 10,000 things and figure out what’s good, what’s bad, what’s working, what’s not. You can kind of buy a prepackaged ideology that tells you what’s good and what’s bad and you just follow it

00:36:51:20 – 00:37:17:05
DANIELE
that’s easy. That doesn’t take that much work. Right. So I think that’s a lot at the roots why people are uncomfortable with it because then they feel like, “Wait- but there is no greater external authority to decide what’s good or bad. I’m just making it up as I go.” And I’m like, “Yes, you are.” Everybody else’s, too. Even the greater authority that you’re delegating power to the exact same thing.

00:37:17:17 – 00:37:21:13
DANIELE
So might as well do it for yourself.

00:37:21:17 – 00:37:51:12
FRED
Right. It’s derived that it’s that need for certainty that we have and to think like, okay, well, these thinkers or this thought movement is the one I’m going to be a follower of and just get rid of all these crazy questions and this uncertainty. And you’ve written a lot about science. So initially when I started getting familiar with your work, Create Your Own Religion. You are very vocal and humorous about poking holes in organized religion, really ruthlessly,

00:37:51:16 – 00:38:24:23
FRED
but at the same. So typically, people who do that are going to be more 100% I’m on the science boat, science alone. And you’ve written about a phenomenon called scientism, which is a form of, in your words, an arrogant secular fundamentalism that seeks to squash any alternative way of looking at things. And that’s why I think there’s so much nuance in your work, because you also call out the fundamentalism and the excessive certainties on the other side of the equation and say, “No, no, no, we’ve got to be a lot more careful here.

00:38:25:03 – 00:38:45:15
FRED
We’ve got to be a lot more case by case. We have to grapple with the complexities and the nuances here”. And you look at that through the prism of what the Dow called the cosmic mystery at the root of existence. Right. So you don’t pretend to have all the answers. There’s an honesty of “There’s so much mystery out there”.

00:38:45:23 – 00:38:57:18
FRED
And so do you think that people who latch onto the science, like science has all the answers? Do you think that they lose touch with that sense of mystery and that humility on this quest?

00:38:57:23 – 00:39:24:18
DANIELE
I mean, I’ve seen, I’ve experienced so many things that cannot be explained, at least by our current understanding of science, like where we are at today. I don’t think anything is supernatural per se in the sense that everything is natural. If it happens, it’s part of nature. It’s just a part of nature we haven’t understood. And to me, even if somebody says “I have no idea if there are spirits or not floating around, but if there are, they are part of nature, right?

00:39:24:18 – 00:39:46:17
DANIELE
That’s part of what.” But the question to me is like, there’s so much out there that just in my own life without even going beyond that, that I’ve seen where it’s like the current answers don’t explain it all that I’m like, it’s obvious that science is an incredible tool and it delivers a lot of answers and it does help, but it’s limited.

00:39:46:17 – 00:40:10:09
DANIELE
There’s stuff that, just because it’s not replicable in a lab, but doesn’t mean that it’s not real on some level. And sometimes I feel that, in order to fight the more superstitious, backward approach, that sometimes some organized religions have pushed, science pushed this other super strict line that is like, “Unless it’s replicable in a lab in this way, then it’s not real.”

00:40:10:09 – 00:40:37:08
DANIELE
To me, it’s like, forget even strange things. If you keep it basic, science doesn’t explain well falling in love. You know what I mean? It may explain why people decide to hook up with one another for sex or to form a unity in a very pragmatic way. But that experience of falling in love is not something that you can reduce to purely, some weird mechanical reaction,

00:40:37:08 – 00:40:58:10
DANIELE
you know what I mean? So to me, it’s like, it’s desire to sometimes overexplain everything, to me, betrays a certain insecurity because then you reach a point where it’s like, admit that you don’t know it. That’s fine. Admit that. No, from year to year we can explain it to a T. We have all the elements past that point.

00:40:58:11 – 00:41:23:02
DANIELE
The evidence is getting seen. So whatever we’re going to conclude from there is a lot about us, even more than about the phenomenon we’re observing. I don’t have a problem with that. And I think that’s part of why sometimes it’s so much easier to fit in a camp or another because it’s like, “Oh, you are the organized religion guy, this one religion, then everybody else who’s

00:41:23:02 – 00:41:52:22
DANIELE
in that thing is behind you, or you are the science guy who says all spirituality is bullshit anyway.” And then you have all those guys. To me, I find- I’m kind of allergic to belonging to anything there because I always feel that it’s based on somewhat of a dogmatic thing because there are always exceptions. But strict membership in that kind of mindset requires you to start discounting a lot of the exceptions to make it a rule that people can gather around.

00:41:53:14 – 00:42:11:06
DANIELE
And I have a very hard time with that because in my experience, while the rules are very useful, there are always, not just there are always exceptions, but there are a ton of exceptions. So over worshipping rules sometimes starts missing the point.

00:42:12:22 – 00:42:40:21
FRED
And I think a common theme that you hear with a lot of naturalistic philosophers is the connection with human intuition. And a lot of these ideologies tell us not to trust our intuitions because this is the answer. This is the prism through which you must explain everything. Either it’s evolutionary biology or there’s no such thing as free will, because everything is a consequence of physical and chemical laws or everything is an expression of the will of God,

00:42:40:21 – 00:43:00:15
FRED
and that’s it. And all the answers are contained in this book, and we dissociate with our intuition. And what I’m hearing from you is that to be a true seeker that’s in tune with nature, you have to also trust your intuition. When you feel that there might be something there, you can’t fully explain it. But you know what? All these prepackaged answers don’t necessarily explain it either.

00:43:00:20 – 00:43:13:10
FRED
And we know already from our history that a lot of our intuitions ended up with a lot of them being validated by science. So maybe some of the intuitions that we can’t prove today will be validated by science in 300 years. Does that mean that we shouldn’t listen to them?

00:43:13:21 – 00:43:42:18
DANIELE
Right, exactly. It’s like I have a timeless “I don’t believe anything, and I don’t disbelieve anything ”. There’s the stuff I experience, and then there’s everything else. And even the stuff I experience, I may be able to only explain it up to a point. It’s like, let’s say if I experience something that cannot be currently explained by the laws of physics as we understand them today, does that mean that I’m warranted and then running around going, “Oh, that means that it was this other”, I’m like, I’m making it up.

00:43:42:18 – 00:44:12:15
DANIELE
I don’t know. I can just tell you that this happened. I can tell you that it’s not answered by this particular model. Beyond that, what do I know? I don’t know why it happened that way I’m not sure that it’s going to happen that way another time. I’ll give you an example. One time I basically pretty much lost a finger where it got crushed under a tree in a way that the bone was poking out into waves, and the skin was mostly gone. It’s hysterical

00:44:12:16 – 00:44:34:11
DANIELE
right? And then it’s swelled out so big that it couldn’t tell anything anymore. And that was so far from any close hospital or anything. And I was in the middle of nowhere, and I was like, you know what? Great. I’ll just deal with it. And that’s how it is. And then a few days go by and the swelling starts going down, and I touch and I’m like, “This kind of feels like it’s in one piece”.

00:44:34:19 – 00:44:59:11
DANIELE
And I’m like, “Did I just see it like somebody else is like, no, your finger was broken in three pieces.” That was bad. I’m like, “Yeah, right. That’s what you saw as well.” And then it’s like weeks go by, the finger is completely in one piece, the skin regrows. You can’t even tell it ever happened. And now am I going to try to have my finger crash another three to experiment if that’s replicable or not? It’s like, I’m not going to do that.

00:44:59:11 – 00:45:16:07
DANIELE
The odds are not good. However, did I just see something that objectively makes zero sense? What do I do with it? Does that mean should I start running with theories about God and the spirits and this and that? No, I don’t know.

00:45:16:23 – 00:45:34:18
FRED
So what you’re saying is that when you go through an experience that doesn’t fit with your pre-existing models of reality, instead of saying, “Oh, the explanation is in the model”, you say, “I’m uncertain. So my models must be provisional. They’re not absolute. And so, hey, maybe we need to revise this thing.”

00:45:34:18 – 00:46:00:19
DANIELE
Yup, 100%. And it doesn’t mean that you should trade one model for the next, because the other one sometimes maybe just as made up. So it’s kind of like, I think, becoming comfortable with the fact that there’s way more than we don’t know that we do know and just kind of keep your knowledge of anything real humble. Because at the end of the day, just what works? Like, who cares what the theory is?

00:46:00:20 – 00:46:19:12
DANIELE
Who cares about kind of the abstract principle is, like, does it work today or doesn’t it? I don’t even care that it worked last week. I mean, I do like it, that’s nice. That makes me slightly more confident to use that. That’s something that never worked before. But at the end of the day, does it work today or not? That’s the only thing that counts.

00:46:20:06 – 00:46:24:10
DANIELE
Does it make my life better? The life of people around me, better or not?

00:46:25:17 – 00:46:43:23
FRED
Hmm. That’s great. That will naturally lead you to consider solutions and answers and explanations from multiple viewpoints. And it’s like politically too. Sometimes you hear Conservatives make an argument, it’s like, “Wow, that really makes a lot of sense”. And then Liberals will make another argument. You’re like, “Wow, that makes a lot of sense”. Do I need to pick a team? Do I absolutely

00:46:43:23 – 00:46:52:04
FRED
need to take a team and say “The other guys are wrong and the other guys are evil? No, you guys both sound like you’re seeing some version of reality and not seeing other stuff.

00:46:52:10 – 00:47:10:23
DANIELE
Yeah, I think there’s a story that I particularly love. I forget where I heard it, so I kind of forgot the details. But the basic principle is somebody goes to this guy. So Person A goes to this guy and sets out a thesis, blah, blah. I forgot what the specific example is. Like “So and so and such thing.

00:47:10:23 – 00:47:29:03
DANIELE
This is the truth.” And the guy goes like, “You’re right”. Person B goes back and it’s like, “No, that’s complete crap. This is the truth. And this is why.” And they allow some good evidence and he’s like, “You’re right.” Guy number three shows up and it’s like they can’t both be right. They are arguing mutually opposite things.

00:47:29:03 – 00:48:01:02
DANIELE
“How can you say that?” That is like, “You’re right.” The point there being almost anything. Take any religion, any philosophy, any political position. Take even the most awful ones. Okay? Not just the good ones, even terrible stuff. There’s usually at least a grain of truth. There is something that level makes sense, something that maybe the answer sucks, but at least they put the finger on a problem that nobody else was answering satisfactory.

00:48:01:02 – 00:48:24:03
DANIELE
Even if it’s only that that’s real, that’s legit. That should not be discounted doesn’t mean you should embrace everything that follows from that. But there’s a partial truth that almost every philosophy has. The problem is that they take that partial truth, they turn it, they stretch it way beyond where it’s warranted, turning it into an absolute, and it no longer works at all.

00:48:24:03 – 00:48:43:08
DANIELE
It’s terrible. But that doesn’t mean that the little seed wasn’t good there. Again, maybe it was just the question. None of the answers. Maybe it was a partial answer. Maybe it’s an answer that works in some cases and not in others. So to me, it’s rather than making arguments in the abstract about this model or the other good and bad,

00:48:43:08 – 00:49:01:16
DANIELE
because the reality is almost every model is going to have at least a percentage of good. Now, the percentage may change one model, maybe 80% good and maybe 1% good So I’m not saying they are on the same playing field, but there’s something there. It’s like, why throw away the 1%? Maybe the 1% is actually important.

00:49:01:20 – 00:49:19:15
DANIELE
So even if it’s tiny with the economy of the crafty model, let’s take that 1%, and let’s figure out how to go back to that kind of combining things in a way that works. What do I care if the answer is a socialist answer or a capitalist answer? You know what answer

00:49:19:15 – 00:49:28:02
DANIELE
I like? The one that works. The one that at the end of the day makes people happy and everybody is put on the table and life is working out. Okay.

00:49:28:10 – 00:49:47:22
FRED
That’s amazing. But that requires a certain comfort level with uncertainty because you don’t pick a team. And so kind of a radical inclusiveness when it comes to considering answers and solutions from multiple frameworks, even if that creates a little bit of ongoing uncertainty for you. You can’t say Team Blue, you can’t see this religion, you can’t say this ideology.

00:49:48:12 – 00:49:56:18
FRED
But that’s kind of like a price that you have to pay for that radical inclusivity and including all of the different perspectives that you’re considering and all the different traditions. Not to me-

00:49:56:20 – 00:50:24:12
DANIELE
Yes. And this is not a centrist thing where it’s like “Oh, it’s always in the middle”. The answer is not. Sometimes you may have one side that’s 90%. Right. And one that’s 1% right. But the question still is the 90 is not 100. And the 1 is not zero. So let’s figure out still what you can save from values and try it out. And, you know, like try it as OK, we’ll try this model,

00:50:24:12 – 00:50:45:03
DANIELE
take 80% from this and 20 from that. Our shape still doesn’t work. Let’s tweak it a little. How about we make it 70-30? Okay. That’s working a little better, but we’re still not there. How about it? And you’re constantly re-tweaking it until you come up with something that works and that it works for now, maybe the next year, things are going to be a little different

00:50:45:03 – 00:51:15:17
DANIELE
and that 70-30 no longer works and you have to tweak it again. And maybe it goes to 99 one or maybe it goes to 50-50. The range is complex, right? It’s all over the place. It’s not 50-50 at all. It can be very radically different. But there’s rarely hundreds, rarely anything. Whether we’re talking about martial arts, religion, politics, I don’t find all the good answers belonging to one school of thought or one school of martial arts or one religious idea.

00:51:15:17 – 00:51:29:12
DANIELE
I don’t I find some good answer. In some places, I find answers that are on average a lot better than others, but they are not all there. So it’s like, let’s take it from multiple sources.

00:51:30:02 – 00:51:47:13
FRED
I love it. You can tell how much love you have and passion you have for ideas that you’re willing to do this and constantly consider all the different traditions. And it’s amazing to see you work through that. And it’s a lifelong quest. It sounds like my last question for you.

00:51:47:21 – 00:52:07:20
DANIELE
Because it’s constantly changing. Right. So you require new answers all the time. I mean, even think about, like how you raise a kid, you may have your philosophy, but one day you need to tweak it a little because that day, maybe you have been very hands-off letting them be this and that. But you realize, okay, now something has changed.

00:52:07:20 – 00:52:24:22
DANIELE
They need a little more structure. Okay. So let’s take it. There’s nothing wrong with adding a little more structure. Let’s test it. Oh, they are responding well. Guess what? That was the right answer. Okay. But maybe in six months they no longer need that structure. They are past it. And so you don’t need to hold on to it forever.

00:52:24:22 – 00:52:27:11
DANIELE
Now you can let it go. It’s all its purpose. That’s good.

00:52:28:07 – 00:52:53:11
FRED
Right? And if you have the love of learning, it’s almost like a natural process because it’s like you’re doing stuff at the highest level that you’ve figured out today. But who’s to say that in the next two months you might not learn a huge piece of the puzzle that you didn’t know? So why you’re not allowed to make changes just because you were ignorant at one point in your development path you’ve got to be married to that level of myopia and ignorance for the rest of your life.

00:52:53:16 – 00:53:26:17
FRED
It’s like if you have a love of learning and knowledge, I feel the true scientists are like that. They’ve got this radical humility and everything is provisional and everything is always up for revision. And most of them, the true scientists are really radically open at the level of their hypothesis, at the very least. Right? Because like you say, “Who knows?” Maybe there are spirits flying around and one day we develop the equipment where we can actually see them and then we’ll just call them natural phenomenon at that point, right? Today they’re like the stories that are invented by human beings,

00:53:27:01 – 00:53:27:10
FRED
Right?

00:53:27:10 – 00:53:29:21
DANIELE
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:53:29:21 – 00:53:57:23
FRED
That’s great. My last question for you is this. So you love the middle finger. You love it. It’s everywhere. It’s on your book cover for Not Afraid. It’s on your website. And I thought there’s a lot it’s obviously playful and somewhat tongue in cheek. But I find there’s a lot in the middle finger. There’s personal autonomy. There’s a little bit of defiance. There’s anti-authoritarianism.

00:53:58:08 – 00:54:22:17
There’s courage and strength. But I find that many people that I speak to and many people out there care a lot about what other people think or are afraid. They’re afraid of the backlash, if they would be fully honest with their opinions or their beliefs. They’re afraid they might lose a job. They’re afraid they might lose their friends.

00:54:22:17 – 00:55:01:10
FRED
They’re afraid that their image might be affected. My question to you: somebody might also call you a middle finger philosopher because they’re like, “No, all of your certainty is there. Sorry. It’s all provisional. Everybody says they’ve got the full answers. You don’t. Sorry, tough luck. Deal with it.” There’s a lot of that in your philosophy. How do you know when to bust out the middle finger in integrity and when you can be more contrite, even if it means sacrificing something you care about for the benefit of someone else and being more than humble?

00:55:01:23 – 00:55:09:06
FRED
Where do you cross that? How do you know when the moment comes? This is a moment for no, no, no, no, no- personal autonomy time.

00:55:09:10 – 00:55:43:22
DANIELE
In 99.9% of cases, the whole middle finger idea is not personal. It’s not towards a specific person. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part it’s not. For the most part is either, yes, a rejection of something that’s binding you down ideologically, or it’s that element of defiance that you mentioned, which is sometimes- life can be brutal, life can be harsh. Life can really grind you horrendously, so the middle finger moment of having this: You know what?

00:55:43:23 – 00:56:06:22
DANIELE
Yes. And there’s nothing I can do about it. And yes, I got my ass kicked horrendously, and I’m still standing here. So middle finger to all the forces that are trying to squash you because it’s like, you don’t really have a great argument to make in the sense they are not going to stop those forces. You’re not going to defeat those forces.

00:56:06:22 – 00:56:35:23
DANIELE
It’s not that kind of victorious- It’s more like, yes, but I’m still here. And so there’s a certain pride that comes with that degree of defiant moment of like, you just got smacked down, but you still come up and say “Screw you”. And it feels perhaps in a juvenile kind of way, but it feels really good. Like, okay, that didn’t get taken away from me.

00:56:35:23 – 00:57:07:01
DANIELE
That feels good. That makes me, that means the game is not over. Kind of. So I intended more that way then. I’m a big fan of being polite. I’m a big fan of being, trying to be as gentle as possible with other people, including people who have radically different viewpoints. So I don’t have the kind of middle finger in the sense of like, screw you to anybody who doesn’t get it. Now, who cares if they get it or not?

00:57:07:01 – 00:57:29:12
DANIELE
As long as you’re polite, of course, as long as it’s reciprocated. It’s kind of like it’s very respect-based thing. I’m not going to disrespect you because you have different ideas or you do some stuff that I consider dumb or whatever that may be. We shouldn’t extend the same respect toward me. Well, then all bets are off. Screw you. But otherwise,

00:57:29:12 – 00:57:30:08
FRED
Then, it’s a different middle finger.

00:57:30:08 – 00:57:51:05
DANIELE
Yeah, exactly. Then it’s personal. Right? But until that point is not personal. Look, here’s somebody who’s struggling with the fact that being human is damn hard. That it’s hard to come to terms with all the forces that make up the universe, to come to terms with all the things that are, all insecurity, smaller fear, all of these, all of that.

00:57:51:05 – 00:58:11:03
DANIELE
So unless you’re doing something absolutely atrocious, who the hell am I to judge you and your choices? I may disagree. I may think they don’t work. I may think they are not really helping. But as long as you’re not doing something awful, hey, that’s fine. That’s part of I’m sure I do plenty of dumb shit myself all the time.

00:58:11:03 – 00:58:37:02
DANIELE
So again, there’s no point for me to sit back and point the finger. Say “You are the bad one”. Again, with the exception- if somebody’s crossing a line and they are being absolutely awful or they are personally disrupted, that’s a whole different story. But otherwise, it’s more of the cosmic level dealing with the fact that life is tough and having a certain defiance that allow you to get up in the morning.

00:58:38:18 – 00:59:03:16
FRED
Right. Defiance and dignity almost. I’m hearing like, you know what? All of this stuff may be super oppressive and difficult, but I’m almost hearing, like, a really strong resonance with one of Victor Frankl’s great lines about no matter what you take away from a human being, you could never take away their power to decide what their attitude is going to be and what your response is going to be.

00:59:04:19 – 00:59:10:22
FRED
Given any circumstance, no matter how atrocious or horrible, you always have that power. You always have that strength.

00:59:10:22 – 00:59:38:01
DANIELE
I think that’s, like, 99% correct. And I love that because that’s a beautiful attitude to have because you don’t control external events. But you can always control that. I think there may be a place where, if you pile up enough pressure, eventually you break and there is no figuring out how to respond. So I think that’s also true. But I think that applies to a much, much smaller subset of reality than most people will.

00:59:38:01 – 00:59:43:01
DANIELE
I mean, the guy went through the Holocaust and still managed to add that. So that’s pretty-

00:59:43:02 – 00:59:44:04
FRED
What’s your excuse?

00:59:44:04 – 00:59:44:20
DANIELE
I’m sure you.

00:59:44:20 – 00:59:45:20
FRED
It’s like, what’s your excuse? You went trhough the Holocaust.

00:59:47:17 – 00:59:48:08
DANIELE
Yes, I’m sure you.

00:59:48:08 – 00:59:50:11
FRED
He went through the Holocaust and he didn’t catastrophize.

00:59:50:15 – 01:00:15:16
DANIELE
Yeah, I’m sure you can go through Holocaust times three, like make a particularly bad Holocaust even worse than his experience and maybe he’ll break. But the idea is not that you’re never going to break. The idea is to make that less and less likely. So that day-to-day events are less likely to get you there or even tragedy or even bad things that you can have that space again.
It’s not an ego

01:00:15:16 – 01:00:34:22
DANIELE
“Look at me, nothing can break me.” It’s like, “Well, let’s try”. I think it’s good to be realistic about it, the fact that even that up to a point. But I think there is a lot to do in terms of extending that point so that life maybe will not find your breaking point.

01:00:34:22 – 01:00:59:05
FRED
But Daniele, I think in a similar way as frankly, I think in your case, your life is a testament. It’s a victory of the human spirit. It’s super inspiring to see everything you went through and what you created out of it. It’s truly inspiring. I think your message is important. I think, your way in which you handle nuance is refreshing.

01:00:59:05 – 01:01:24:18
FRED
I think it’s needed today not sort of like developing these us versus them super big rigid ideologies. Your reconnection with the natural world which is something that philosophy desperately needs a lot. Your message is important. I think your message is inspiring. Your life is inspiring. I thank you so much for making yourself available for this interview.

01:01:24:18 – 01:01:35:09
FRED
We’ll get a ton of value out of it. Any parting words or stray thoughts or inspirations that you want to share?

01:01:35:09 – 01:01:58:12
DANIELE
No. Thank you so much. This was a lot of fun. I’m very glad. I think we were flowing from one thing to another. A very enjoyable conversation. Thank you so much.